Intermingled

It's become my Sunday ritual. A row of washing machines. A library book. A Diet Coke. Two hours to myself, perched on a bench inside the laundromat or, on a particularly nice day, on the child-sized chair outside.

Today, though, as I added to the satisfyingly crisp stack of folded clothes, I smiled as I shook out a shirt. A few sizes too big for me, a mysterious stain on the front. Not mine. His. For the first time in a long time, in a looooooooooong time, I should say, I'm letting my life intermingle with someone else's. I'm not worried about being out on a limb, about getting hurt. I'm confident in him, in his innate kindness, in his affection. I'm confident in myself, that I won't hold back, that I will put my whole, real self into this relationship.

For years, I've dated men who I knew weren't right for me. That way, when it went wrong (and it would always go wrong), I never felt that I was missing out on anything. I could tamper any broken heart with the knowledge that I could never spend my life with that person, I could never expect that person to truly know and appreciate me.

I don't know where this one is going. Hopefully it's the beginning of a long road. Even if it isn't, I'm happy that I'm not selling myself short. I'm not standing on the sidelines of my own relationship, waiting for the inevitable derailment. I'm in this one for real, dirty laundry and all.

[postsecret]

Comment spam

While I've been sitting around not posting, I have been getting a ridiculous number of spam comments on old posts. Although it's annoying, I'm enabling word verification on commenting from now on. Sorry for the extra hassle.

This brought me to tears

"It's a living book, this life; it folds out in a million settings, cast with a billion beautiful characters, and it is almost over for you. It doesn't matter how old you are; it is coming to a close quickly, and soon the credits will roll and all your friends will fold out of your funeral and drive back to their homes in cold and still and silence. And they will make a fire and pour some wine and think about how you once were . . . and feel a kind of sickness at the idea you never again will be.

So soon you will be in that part of the book where you are holding the bulk of the pages in your left hand, and only a thin wisp of the story in your right. You will know by the page count, not by the narrative, that the Author is wrapping things up. You begin to mourn its ending, and want to pace yourself slowly toward its closure, knowing the last lines will speak of something beautiful, of the end of something long and earned, and you hope the thing closes out like last breaths, like whispers about how much and who the characters have come to love, and how authentic the sentiments feel when they have earned a hundred pages of qualification.

And so my prayer is that your story will have involved some leaving and some coming home, some summer and some winter, some roses blooming out like children in a play. My hope is your story will be about changing, about getting something beautiful born inside of you, about learning to love a woman or a man, about learning to love a child, about moving yourself around water, around mountains, around friends, about learning to love others more than we love ourselves, about learning oneness as a way of understanding God. We get one story, you and I, and one story alone. God has established the elements, the setting and the climax and the resolution. It would be a crime not to venture out, wouldn't it?"

- Donald Miller, Through Painted Deserts: Light, God, and Beauty on the Open Road

Pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese frosting

I made these for my coworkers to celebrate the beginning of autumn, my favorite season. The recipe is from Real Simple.

Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

makes 24 delicious 'cakes

Cake Ingredients

1 box of yellow cake mix

1/2 teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice

1 15-ounce can of pumpkin puree

-OR-

replace pumpkin pie spice and pumpkin puree with 15 ounces of pumpkin pie mix

24 pieces of candy corn

Frosting Ingredients

2 8-ounce bars of cream cheese, room temp

2 cups confectioners sugar

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350. Line 2 muffin tins with paper liners. I like to give the inside of the liners a quick spritz of Pam just to make sure they come off of the cupcakes easily.

2. Prepare the yellow cake mix as directed, adding the pumpkin pie spice and replacing the water in the recipe with the pumpkin puree.

3. Divide into 24 cupcakes and bake for about 18-20 minutes.

4. While the cupcakes are cooking, mix the cream cheese and confectioners sugar with an electric beater until it's creamy.

5. Once the cupcakes are cool, frost them with the awesome cream cheese icing and garnish with a candy corn.

The Verdict

These were just as easy to make as cupcakes from a box, but they were sooo much more delicious. I liked them because they weren't overly sweet. They look impressive, too, and with the fall-ish decoration, you should be able to make them through Thanksgiving.

Enjoy!

Ultramarathon Man

This weekend I headed out to Great Falls, Virginia to watch a friend of my run a trail half-marathon that was part of the North Face Endurance Challenge. Racers could participate in 10K, half-marathon, 50K, or 50 mile runs - all on trails. Pretty intense stuff.

My friend did a fantastic job at his first marathon. I did a fantastic job sitting on my butt and getting sunburned for two hours. We were lingering around after the race was over, watching some of the impressive 50K runners crossing the finish line, when I heard the announcer tell us that Dean Karnazes was in the house, so to speak.

Non-runner folk might not be familiar with the name, but let me tell you, he is an amazing human being. I think he might actually be super-human, come to think of it. His nickname is the "Ultramarathon Man." He has run 135 continuous miles across Death Valley. He has run a marathon at the South Pole in -40 degree temperatures. He most recently ran 50 marathons in 50 states on 50 consecutive days. The 50th marathon was the New York City marathon; he finished it in 3 hours. He also authored two books. He is a legend in the running world. The man is a freak of nature, and I think he's awesome.

Obviously, when I heard he was at the race, I immediately ditched my friends and hunted him down. I found him hanging out at the North Face table, chatting with some other runners and signing their race numbers. I waited patiently until I had him to myself and said hi. He was incredibly nice, even though I was all goofy and giggly and didn't have very much to say. I didn't want to bother him too much so I just snapped a quick picture with him and ran off.

This is weird, but I also took a picture of his legs when he was presenting some of the race awards. What? They were totally freaky-looking. I had to do it. Enjoy.

My favorite PostSecret this week: A Swinger of Birches

This one is fantastic. I relate to it because I really am sometimes torn between being a "grown-up" and being a kid still recently released into the wide world on her own. Even though I own a couch and feed my dog and pay my cable bill and eat healthy breakfasts, I often still don't feel like an adult.

This PostSecret also reminds me one of my favorite Robert Frost poems, "Birches." It's longish, but the second stanza is

So was I once myself a swinger of birches.

And so I dream of going back to be.

It's when I'm weary of considerations,

And life is too much like a pathless wood

Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs

Broken across it, and one eye is weeping

From a twig's having lashed across it open.

I'd like to get away from earth awhile

And then come back to it and begin over.

May no fate wilfully misunderstand me

And half grant what I wish and snatch me away

Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:

I don't know where it's likely to go better.

I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree~

And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk

Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,

But dipped its top and set me down again.

That would be good both going and coming back.

One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

Life is good. Let me tell ya about it.

Life is good. Let me tell ya about it. from Sarah on Vimeo.

As promised, visit here for my 24 Hours of Booty page.

The post in which I say "suck it"

The fantastic Restaurant Refugee created a cool fall questionnaire. After not posting for a week, you'd think I could come up with something better. However, the federal budget process is sapping my creativity, so suck it and read this meme.

1. It’s not fall in DC until I bust out my long yellow scarf, brown suede boots, and hike down to Starbucks for a pumpkin spice latte.
2. Kelly Preston’s character in the movie For Love of the Game expresses her need to escape NYC because “Summer’s almost over, and I feel like I missed it.” What do you need to do in the waning days of summer for it to feel complete? I want to have a picnic on the National Mall complete with illicit wine now that the weather is a bit cooler and the tourists have waned. It sounds so lovely, I think I'll do that next weekend. Who's up for it?
3. The person I know is wrong for me but about whom I frequently think after a break-up is tall, brilliant, engaged and living closer to me now than he has in nine years. Also, he thinks I'm an idiot.
4. The US Tennis Open, one of four Grand Slam events in that sport, is currently in the quarterfinal round. If you could only attend one major sporting event what would it be? Definitely the University of South Carolina vs. Clemson game that's played on Thanksgiving each year. I've never been able to go because Thanksgiving time = family time.
5. Assuming that you write an anonymous or partially anonymous blog, by what non-physically identifying characteristics might you be identified in a bar? I would probably be the girl sitting at a table with a bunch of friends, listening and laughing but really trying to check the football scores on the TV over the bar.
6. Most blogs cover some sort of niche – personal, political, dating, culinary, etc. What topic, if any, would you like to address on your blog but doesn’t fit into your niche? I don't blog a lot about politics or policy, even though I'm incredibly passionate about it. I tend to shy away from it on my blog because it can be so divisive, and I want this to be a happy place for all.
7. If you could manipulate the time space continuum and give as many as three pieces of advice to a younger version of yourself, what advice would you give and to what age of you? I would tell my 15-year-old self to be nicer to my mother and to slam the door a little less. I would tell my 20-year-old self not to be an idiot (see #3). I would tell my 24-year-old self to cut up the credit card.
8. Who among your friends do you really wish had a blog because their stories, or perspective on something ought to be shared? My best friend should have a blog, because she is a fantastic storyteller. She could talk about picking up her dry cleaning and turn it into an awesome story.
9. If you were to take an e-cation (vacation from the trappings of our electronic world,) and assuming that employment obligations would allow it, how long of a break could you take? What would you miss the most, the least? I think I could only enjoy it for a week or so. I would miss Twitter the most. I would miss the guilt associated with a bunch of unread blog posts in my Google Reader the least.
10. On September 11th of this year, I will be attending a couple of parties and am somewhat conflicted by the fact that this ignoble anniversary shall pass with it being just another day in the eyes of many (and in some ways my own eyes as well.) Thoughts? Obviously, as the years pass, the stigma that used to surround the date 9-11 will continue to lessen. I think that each person acknowledges the day in their own way according to the way that day affected their lives. In my opinion, there's nothing wrong with doing the usual or even celebrating on 9-11 - life must go on.
11. How high are your walls? Who was the last person to scale them? What tools should would-be climbers have on their belt? It's been a long while since I've really let down my guard and completely trusted a man. I should say that this is my fault - recently, I have continually chosen to date men who are not the kind of people I can trust. I've dated men who I knew I couldn't rely on, who I knew would let me down. I think the longer I go without letting anyone in, the higher the walls get, the more I get used to completely relying on myself alone. I'm determined that the next person I date is going to be worthy of my trust and I won't make him climb the walls, I'll just open the door.
12. The sexiest thing a man can say to you (or has said to you) is ______? Like so many women, I struggle with body image issues. Any time a man compliments my body, it always makes me feel sexier. Actually, I shouldn't say any time. The recovering crackhead who sits on my corner 24/7 can feel free to keep his compliments to himself.