It takes my pain away.

This public service announcement has been brought to you by Aleve - all day strong, all day long.

My moment of silliness aside, I am a big believer in Aleve as a pain reliever. For some reason, I just don't feel like my body responds well to ibuprofen (Advil), but acetaminophen (Tylenol) and naproxen (Aleve) do a body good, in my book.

The Big Sur Marathon Relay was this past Sunday and my shin has been angry with me since. The first few days, though, I didn't really notice much since it was my hip flexor that really had me concerned. But since that's been appropriately stretched out, healed and whatnot, my shin now thinks it can be the boss of me.

I have lovely new Asics running shoes which I don't get to break in this week . . . until my shin feels better. :( I'm grumpy about this, because of course, I tried on and bought these shoes when it was just my hip flexor bugging me . . . so I haven't run in them at all.

My plan is to be cycling this week, maybe take a spin class or something. I also want to be climbing again -- it's been way too long. But until my shin feels better, no running for me.

Lame.

Now where's my Aleve?

All this glitz and glamour . . .

Being part of a political campaign - even on a smaller scale like city council - is pretty interesting . . . There are always doors to knock on, phone numbers to call, volunteers to recruit and flyers to pass out. There is also a lot of schmoozing to be doing.

I've been invited to attend the Santa Clara County Democratic Party's 20th Annual Jefferson-Jackson Dinner! It will be held at a fancy hotel in San Jose and I'll be wearing formal attire.

I'm really, really excited. I was invited as a thank you for all of my work with the campaign, which makes me feel pretty honored -- I'm the only volunteer going, I think.

Laura and I have plans to do some serious shopping this weekend -- sadly my beautiful black Jessica McClintock dress doesn't fit. :( Then again, the last time I wore it was high school . . .

Cross your fingers that I find something lovely that isn't too expensive. ;o)

Buzz, buzz, buzz

I'm a buzzing, busy bee lately . . . The SJ City Council campaign is really starting to go well and I'm enjoying the learning process. For some reason, I have always worked well with men between the ages of 55 and 80 -- they think I'm Gidget or something.

Greeting people coming in, I flashed a big smile and gave a friendly, 'Hello!' to a gentleman and his wife that passed me. The man made eye contact and said, "Thank you! Smiles are contagious and you did a good job."

Totally made my night.

Our candidate did really well -- he started off a bit nervous with his introduction, I think, but in the actual Q&A segment, he rocked it. His name recognition is picking up in District 9 and I hope to see him win in June.

Let's go, Jim! :oD

"I need coffee . . . STAT!"

There are some perks to working for a hospital - one is the rate at which you increase your medical lingo. I have gone from using vague, prosaic words to describe medical maladies to actually know what things like "hypertrophic cardiomyopathy," or "hematoma," or "Moyamoya syndrome" are.

My current favorite jargon choice is "stat." I mean, really . . . does it get any simpler?

After a lazy day yesterday, I don't think I was quite ready to settle in for the night when I went to bed around midnight. I try to be in bed, preferably asleep by 11:00-11:30. That allows me a comfortable amount of sleep so I'm not super tired the next day. Only last night, I guess my body and brain thought, "Hmmm, well, she hasn't done much at all today, so we need to make sure she's productive . . . now." It seemed to take hours to fall asleep. I was still having issues long after 1:00, I'd wager.

Drinking Red Bull on the way in to work this morning and all I can do is wish I could take coffee intravenously (oh yeah, that's a hospital word, baby). ;o) I really wouldn't even mind if it stopped my heart at this point . . . Something tells me that would wake me up for sure.

A lazy close to the weekend

I vegged for most of today. I laid in bed reading my new favorite blog, I lounged on the couch watching Gilmore Girls, I ran a couple of errands . . . but only after I half-heartedly attempted a shower and threw on some loungey, slouchy clothes.

I am getting my thyroid checked soon, I think. The weekends hit me so much harder than I think they should. Saturday was busy with some canvassing, a trip into the city (San Francisco -- when you live in the bay area, regardless of your actual address, "the city" is ALWAYS San Francisco), and then some help with the campaign. It doesn't sound like it should have been as exhausting as it felt. :o/

Spending a lot of time with this campaign means I talk to a lot of guys pretty regularly and I usually end up working with the campaign manager (also a guy). It's all completely fine and there's nothing wrong, but it really makes me miss Alex. We haven't seen each other in a while and the communication has been faltering a bit lately. I'm hoping he and I can reconnect when he's here this coming weekend for my race (running 5 miles as part of a marathon relay) -- this long-distance thing seems to get harder. :o(

I cooked a lot tonight -- red lentil dal, cauliflower with mustard lemon butter sauce, and Brussels sprouts (I cook them in a pan with a drizzle of olive oil, minced garlic and red chili pepper flakes - YUM!). Yum, yum, yum. I love cooking. It is surprisingly therapeutic to me. :o) Cooking such healthy food is a joy, too. Really, I take such pleasure in it.

So with all of the busyness, the tireness and the "eh"-ness of life lately, I'm finding a surprising comfort in cooking something that nourishes me to take on life with more strength and vigor.

I'm alive! I swear!

It's hard to believe it's been so long since I've posted anything . . . I guess I just haven't been inspired to blog lately?

I won't lie, I have been itching to start writing a wellness blog on Wordpress for some time now, but that's kind of a pet project anyway. I can explain more later -- and I promise, I'm not cheating on Blogger.

These last few weeks have been interesting. Not too much happening, but still busy, busy, busy . . . Wow. Last week, I went to a fundraiser for the campaign I'm helping with, which was actually a lot of fun. It turned into a big networking project because I was meeting so many people and swapping many a business card. Awesome. :)

After the fundraiser, one of the other volunteers from the campaign was playing a gig with his band in Los Gatos, so a bunch of us trekked over and hung out at a neat bar called Mountain Charley's which is upstairs above some other shops and had a really neat feel to it. The band was awesome and of course, it was nice to kick back, have a few drinks and get my boogie on with some cool people.

Friday night, Annie came into town and we hit a pub in Sunnyvale. What were we thinking? Sunnyvale is cool, but not as cool as downtown San Jose. Not by a longshot (apologies to any Sunnyvale readers who think their downtown is a big freakin' deal -- I don't share that opinion but maybe someday I will). We danced with a Samuel L. Jackson look-alike who told us we smelled good (seriously) and had a drink or so.

Saturday, Annie and I looked at an apartment (for her, I'm not moving for a LONG time) and went to the beach in Santa Cruz where we learned how to build a bonfire without the assistance of lighter fluid. Annie gets the credit for the building, I get the credit for the moral support and wood-scrounging. We burned old letters from ex-boyfriends. It seemed kind of poetic . . . sort of.

Well, it did until I woke up the next morning and logged into Facebook to find out that the ex whose letters I read and skimmed one last time before tossing into a fire is now engaged. That's right. My fine, how-do-you-do yesterday morning was seeing "Jake R____ is engaged to Leanne H_____." Oh . . . holy . . . crap.

My heart may have actually stopped. It was like a bomb that kept exploding. Needless to say, we opted not to stay indoors and chose to grab coffee and take a long drive. A few friends called to check in on me -- most likely to verify that I hadn't thrown myself off my balcony, which was very much appreciated.

I guess, more than anything, I'm just stunned . . . My ex that I had at one point planned on marrying, the one that I split with less than a year ago, has asked someone else to marry him. It's not that I never expected him to move on (I was genuinely happy for him when he had started dating someone), I just never would have expected the first girlfriend after me would be the one he'd end up proposing to. Shocked, stunned, and yes, even a little upset, but this will wear off, I'm sure.

So that's where we're at . . . And the weather is really reflective of what's going on, I'd say. Rainy, stormy, and "grey" -- if that's a weather pattern.

Anyway, I did manage to put in a guest post over at Meghan's blog, so there was SOME blog productivity happening . . . ;o)

Hope everyone else is faring better -- hopefully I'll have something more articulate next time.

Happy Monday! (If there is such a thing . . .)