here’s the skibby

So, I’m starting this training on July 16th. Until then, I’m just getting back into running and making sure that I can actually do it. Today, I went for just another 25 minutes. It’s so doggon hot outside which makes it harder since I’m an ice runner. If I could only wake up earlier… and not hit snooze at least 20 times. Anyway.

I’m headed to be determined to make it all the way to NYC. If you take a boltbus it’s not too expensive and it’s a lot of fun and I really want to do it.

So I will.

big lights inspired me

uno

Yo. I just went for my first run.

……. it sucked, but it’s a progress 🙂

Put your iPod on Shuffle and see what the soundtrack of your life would be.
Opening Credits: Made For You – Onerepublic
Waking Up:  Identity Crisis – Thrice
Falling in Love:  Brothersport – Animal Collective
Fight Song:  My Stupid Mouth – John Mayer
Breaking Up:  In The End – David Crowder
Life’s Ok:  Yellow Belly – Thrice
Getting Back Together: The Hat – Ingrid Michaelson
Wedding: A Melody, The Memory – Mae
Birth of Child: Never Now – Love to All
Final Battle: Assailants – Lydia
Death Scene: Returning The Smile You Have – Emery
Funeral Song: Disconnect The Dots – Of Montreal
End Credits: Until December – You Can’t Win, Charlie Brown

fitness motivator

hey ya’ll. the ya’ll part was just a joke.

I’m training for a ten miler. So this blog will temporarily be a place to updatetalklaughcry about my runs until then. I’m serious about this. Nervous, scared, happy but most importantly excited. I mean nervous.

hurried past me

The summer between 7th and 8th grade is when I realized how much I hate summers. It’s hot outside for one. Sweating is the usual, so say goodbye to your straight hair and dry pits. You have to wear less clothes, otherwise you’re looked at like a freak. Unless you look like me in summer clothes, then you’re still looked at like a freak. Two, all of your friends are divided up and you don’t see them for a few months. You spend a lot of alone time, and people get together and you’re not invited and it is quiet but not the good kind. Ya know?

I’ve just always hated summers and this summer isn’t proving anything different.

you’ll panic less

Around eight pm I went for a run. I drove onto campus. I listened to music. I watched the sunset. I changed my route to run in the sunset. It was pink and fluffy and beautiful. God is beautiful.

full of unfailing

Lynchburg. Reminds me of Dover. Simple, but so complex.

But it is here that I have found that I can do anything. Nothing is holding me back. If I want to study history I can. If I want to become a runner I can. If I want a tattoo I can do it. If I want to get rid of my car and provide on prayer to get from place to place, I will.
If I decide to change my hair, I can. If I want to go graduate school I can. If I want to make a group of friends, I will. If I want to tear down walls of doubtfearanxiety I will and I can and I did.

I love this place.

can’t deny that

I don’t need to buy a brick. 
Instead I get to help develop it, one dusty book at a time.

things I want to know

My to-read-list.

• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire – JK Rowling
• Odd Thomas  – Dean Koontz reading!
• 1984 by George Orwell
  The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
  Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
  The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
  An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
  Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt
  Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
  Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
  Archidamian War by Donald Kagan
  The Art of Fiction by Henry James
  The Art of War by Sun Tzu
  As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
  Atonement by Ian McEwan
  Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy
  The Awakening by Kate Chopin
  Babe by Dick King-Smith
  Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women by Susan Faludi
  Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
  Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
  The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
  Beloved by Toni Morrison
  Beowulf: A New Verse Translation by Seamus Heaney
  The Bhagava Gita
  The Bielski Brothers: The True Story of Three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Built a Village in the Forest, and Saved 1,200 Jews by Peter Duffy
  Bitch in Praise of Difficult Women by Elizabeth Wurtzel
  A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays by Mary McCarthy
  Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
  Brick Lane by Monica Ali
  Bridgadoon by Alan Jay Lerner
  Candide by Voltaire
  The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
  Carrie by Stephen King
  Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
  The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
  Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White
  The Children’s Hour by Lillian Hellman
  Christine by Stephen King
  A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
  A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
  The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse
  The Collected Short Stories by Eudora Welty
  The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty by Eudora Welty
  A Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare
  Complete Novels by Dawn Powell
  The Complete Poems by Anne Sexton
  Complete Stories by Dorothy Parker
  A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
  The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas père
  Cousin Bette by Honor’e de Balzac
  Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
  The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber
  The Crucible by Arthur Miller
  Cujo by Stephen King
  The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
  Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende
  David and Lisa by Dr Theodore Issac Rubin M.D
  David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
  The Da Vinci -Code by Dan Brown
  Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
  Demons by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
  Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
  Deenie by Judy Blume
  The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson
  The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band by Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, Mick Mars and Nikki Sixx
  The Divine Comedy by Dante
  The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells
  Don Quijote by Cervantes
  Driving Miss Daisy by Alfred Uhrv
  Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
  Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales & Poems by Edgar Allan Poe
  Eleanor Roosevelt by Blanche Wiesen Cook
  The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
  Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn
  Eloise by Kay Thompson
  Emily the Strange by Roger Reger
  Emma by Jane Austen
  Empire Falls by Richard Russo
  Encyclopedia Brown: Boy Detective by Donald J. Sobol
  Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
  Ethics by Spinoza
  Europe through the Back Door, 2003 by Rick Steves
  Eva Luna by Isabel Allende
  Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
  Extravagance by Gary Krist
  Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
  Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore
  The Fall of the Athenian Empire by Donald Kagan
  Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World by Greg Critser
  Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
  The Fellowship of the Ring: Book 1 of The Lord of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien
  Fiddler on the Roof by Joseph Stein
  The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
  Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce
  Fletch by Gregory McDonald
  Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
  The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem
  The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
  Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
  Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger
  Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers
  Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut
  Gender Trouble by Judith Butler
  George W. Bushism: The Slate Book of the Accidental Wit and Wisdom of our 43rd President by Jacob Weisberg
  Gidget by Fredrick Kohner
  Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen
  The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels
  The Godfather: Book 1 by Mario Puzo
  The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
  Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Alvin Granowsky
  Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell reading
  The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford
  The Gospel According to Judy Bloom
  The Graduate by Charles Webb
  The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
  The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
  The Group by Mary McCarthy
  Hamlet by William Shakespeare
  Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling
  Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling
  A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
  Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (TBR)
  Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry (TBR)
  Henry IV, part I by William Shakespeare
  Henry IV, part II by William Shakespeare
  Henry V by William Shakespeare
  High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
  The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
  Holidays on Ice: Stories by David Sedaris
  The Holy Barbarians by Lawrence Lipton
  House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III (Lpr)
  The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
  How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer
  How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss
  How the Light Gets in by M. J. Hyland
  Howl by Allen Gingsburg
  The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
  The Iliad by Homer
  I’m with the Band by Pamela des Barres
  In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
  Inferno by Dante
  Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee
  Iron Weed by William J. Kennedy
  It Takes a Village by Hillary Clinton
  Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
  The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
  Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
  The Jumping Frog by Mark Twain
  The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
  Just a Couple of Days by Tony Vigorito
  The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar by Robert Alexander
  Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain
  The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
  Lady Chatterleys’ Lover by D. H. Lawrence
  The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2000 by Gore Vidal
  Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
  The Legend of Bagger Vance by Steven Pressfield
  Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis
  Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
  Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Franken
  Life of Pi by Yann Martel
  Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens
  The Little Locksmith by Katharine Butler Hathaway
  The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen
  Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
  Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton
  Lord of the Flies by William Golding
  The Lottery: And Other Stories by Shirley Jackson
  The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
  The Love Story by Erich Segal
  Macbeth by William Shakespeare – read
  Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
  The Manticore by Robertson Davies
  Marathon Man by William Goldman
  The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
  Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone de Beauvoir
  Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman by William Tecumseh Sherman
  Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
  The Meaning of Consuelo by Judith Ortiz Cofer
  Mencken’s Chrestomathy by H. R. Mencken
  The Merry Wives of Windsro by William Shakespeare
  The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
  Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
  The Miracle Worker by William Gibson
  Moby Dick by Herman Melville
  The Mojo Collection: The Ultimate Music Companion by Jim Irvin
  Moliere: A Biography by Hobart Chatfield Taylor
  A Monetary History of the United States by Milton Friedman
  Monsieur Proust by Celeste Albaret
  A Month Of Sundays: Searching For The Spirit And My Sister by Julie Mars
  A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
  Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
  Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall
  My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and It’s Aftermath by Seymour M. Hersh
  My Life as Author and Editor by H. R. Mencken
  My Life in Orange: Growing Up with the Guru by Tim Guest
  Myra Waldo’s Travel and Motoring Guide to Europe, 1978 by Myra Waldo
  My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult
  The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
  The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
  The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
  The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin
  Nervous System: Or, Losing My Mind in Literature by Jan Lars Jensen
  New Poems of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson
  The New Way Things Work by David Macaulay
  Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
  Night by Elie Wiesel
  Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen – read
  The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism by William E. Cain, Laurie A. Finke, Barbara E. Johnson, John P. McGowan
  Novels 1930-1942: Dance Night/Come Back to Sorrento, Turn, Magic Wheel/Angels on Toast/A Time to be Born by Dawn Powell
  Notes of a Dirty Old Man by Charles Bukowski
  Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
  Old School by Tobias Wolff
  On the Road by Jack Kerouac
  One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
  One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
  The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life by Amy Tan
  Oracle Night by Paul Auster
  Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
  Othello by Shakespeare
  Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
  The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan
  Out of Africa by Isac Dineson
  The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
  A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
  The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition by Donald Kagan
  The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
  Peyton Place by Grace Metalious
  The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
  Pigs at the Trough by Arianna Huffington
  Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
  Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain
  The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby
  The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker
  The Portable Nietzche by Fredrich Nietzche
  The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O’Neill by Ron Suskind
  Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
  Property by Valerie Martin
  Pushkin: A Biography by T. J. Binyon
  Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
  Quattrocento by James Mckean
  A Quiet Storm by Rachel Howzell Hall
  Rapunzel by Grimm Brothers
  The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe
  The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
  Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi
  Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier – read
  Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin
  The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
  Rescuing Patty Hearst: Memories From a Decade Gone Mad by Virginia Holman
  The Return of the King: The Lord of the Rings Book 3 by J. R. R. Tolkien (TBR) – read
  R Is for Ricochet by Sue Grafton
  Rita Hayworth by Stephen King
  Robert’s Rules of Order by Henry Robert
  Roman Holiday by Edith Wharton
  Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
  A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
  A Room with a View by E. M. Forster
  Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin
  The Rough Guide to Europe, 2003 Edition
  Sacred Time by Ursula Hegi
  Sanctuary by William Faulkner
  Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford
  Say Goodbye to Daisy Miller by Henry James
  The Scarecrow of Oz by Frank L. Baum
  The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
  Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand
  The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
  The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
  Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette by Judith Thurman
  Selected Hotels of Europe
  Selected Letters of Dawn Powell: 1913-1965 by Dawn Powell
  Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen – read
  A Separate Peace by John Knowles
  Several Biographies of Winston Churchill
  Sexus by Henry Miller
  The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
  Shane by Jack Shaefer
  The Shining by Stephen King
  Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
  S Is for Silence by Sue Grafton
  Slaughter-house Five by Kurt Vonnegut
  Small Island by Andrea Levy
  Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway
  Snow White and Rose Red by Grimm Brothers
  Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World by Barrington Moore
  The Song of Names by Norman Lebrecht
  Song of the Simple Truth: The Complete Poems of Julia de Burgos by Julia de Burgos
  The Song Reader by Lisa Tucker
  Songbook by Nick Hornby
  The Sonnets by William Shakespeare
  Sonnets from the Portuegese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
  Sophie’s Choice by William Styron
  The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
  Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov
  Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
  The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
  A Streetcar Named Desiree by Tennessee Williams
  Stuart Little by E. B. White
  Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
  Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust
  Swimming with Giants: My Encounters with Whales, Dolphins and Seals by Anne Collett
  Sybil by Flora Rheta Schreiber
  A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
  Tender Is The Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  Term of Endearment by Larry McMurtry
  Time and Again by Jack Finney
  The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
  To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway
  To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
  The Tragedy of Richard III by William Shakespeare
  A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
  The Trial by Franz Kafka
  The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson
  Truth & Beauty: A Friendship by Ann Patchett
  Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
  Ulysses by James Joyce
  The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath 1950-1962 by Sylvia Plath
  Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
  Unless by Carol Shields
  Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann
  The Vanishing Newspaper by Philip Meyers
  Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
  Velvet Underground’s The Velvet Underground and Nico (Thirty Three and a Third series) by Joe Harvard
  The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
  Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
  Walden by Henry David Thoreau
  Walt Disney’s Bambi by Felix Salten
  War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
  We Owe You Nothing – Punk Planet: The Collected Interviews edited by Daniel Sinker
  What Colour is Your Parachute? 2005 by Richard Nelson Bolles
  What Happened to Baby Jane by Henry Farrell
  When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka
  Who Moved My Cheese? Spencer Johnson
  Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee
  Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire – started and not finished
  The Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum
  Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
  The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
  The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
  A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

Stuff Christians Like – John Acuff