My urban jungle

I told you about my efforts with 'the running' a few weeks back. Well, it continues. I've been incredibly self-motivated (well, spending half your mortgage payment on running gear helps with the motivation) and have stuck to my MapMyRun training plan.

Two weeks ago, Joleen sent me an email at work asking if I fancied going to Inverness to do a 5K with her and some of her friends from work on October 5th. "Yeah, I'd be up for that." Jo sent me the link and I looked over all the info. But when it came to it, I just couldn't sign myself up. Inverness? I'm not going all that way just to pick up a chicken. So I (foolishly) signed myself up for the 10K and immediately felt nauseous.

Having only 5 weeks to train - and having only started running 3 weeks ago - I'm not feeling optimistic. I don't even know if I can run for an hour yet, never mind trying to complete 10K in that time. Needless to say, the training plan has been ramped up a bit. 3.5K on alternate weeknights with a longer run on the Sunday.

It's a bit of an urban jungle where I live. Last week, I ran round the corner and had to hurdle 2 televisions. On another occasion - but on the same street - I was attacked by a West Highland terrier. I was just running along the street, as usual, and there were two women standing chatting. I noticed that one of the women had a Westie on a lead and another standing beside her without a lead. As I got closer, I could see the unleashed Westie barking at me (I couldn't hear because I had the 'pod on - Great DJ by the Ting Tings). Then it started running towards me. When it reached me, it started head-butting my legs like it was trying to trip me up. It was totally surreal.

There was one great moment though, as I was running downhill with 'All these things that I've done' propelling me to greatness, a big fat guy came out of a shop. He was wearing a grey hoodie and - get this - emblazoned across the front of it was my surname! How cool is that? Totally uncool is the fact that I started grinning like an idiot and 'the commentator' started speaking inside my head. 'The crowds have come out to cheer her on. They're wearing her name on their clothing. It's a great atmosphere, with all this support she can't fail.' I'm such a saddo.

Three Sundays ago was my first attempt at 5K. I managed it in 29 minutes, which wasn't bad at all. Although, finishing by running up Easter Road was not a particularly good idea.

On the Wednesday, I went out on my 3.5K and was gutted to have to stop at 3K. It wasn't much more to run but I just couldn't do it. I got into the flat and felt really dizzy then I remembered that I'd donated a pint of blood to the NHS that day and perhaps running wasn't very sensible. On Friday, it was a miserable night (made more so by the delay on the magazine and the comments from the Chief Exec that my writing was 'pish') so I stayed in and happily made my way through a bottle of Campo Viejo Reserva. That meant I had to make up for it on the Saturday. I headed out at 10am and finished the route in a decent time (despite being stopped by a woman looking for Albion Place and Lochend Road). However, when I got into the flat - I immediately felt awful. I managed to get my trainers and socks off, and splash my face with cold water before throwing up. I got really bad stomach cramps and continued to vomit before curling myself into a ball on the bathroom floor racked by cold sweats. I drank plenty of water, popped some paracetamol and lay down on the bed. I woke up half an hour later and felt great. How very bizarre.

For the last two Sundays I've managed 6.5K and then 7.5K. Tomorrow it's 8.5K. My 5K route that I do now feels like a walk in the park. Last Saturday, I walked out my front door just before 9am and was ready to set off. I noticed a couple crossing the road and as I got closer I recognised the woman as someone I used to work with. She was getting a kiss from the guy and was clearly wearing Friday night's dress and hair. When I knew her, she was married and this wasn't her husband. I thought: "Ah, please don't turn around and see me cause you'll be embarrassed." Then I remembered that I was the one wearing Lycra. "Ah!" I bolted and managed to set my quickest time yet - 26 minutes.

You may remember me ...

... I used to write a blog.

This is the longest I have gone between blog entries, which means that I have broken one of my New Year's resolutions. Not the first, I might add - that one died on January 2nd when I ate something consisting of more than 100 calories . Still, six months is pretty good going and I'm back on the wagon.

I'd love to say that my non-blogging was due to an active, exciting and thoroughly full life. Alas, it's mostly down to the biggest dose of inertia ever. I also went slightly crazy for a few weeks due to a particularly annoying and persistent cold/flu virus. It hung around for about 4 weeks, but never made me ill enough to take a day off work.

A strange response (I actually said the words "so many people would love to catch my germs" aloud during a meeting at work, and now - understandably - people think I'm weird. God damn my self-love) got me to thinking that I could sell my virus on E-bay. People have sold individual baked beans to the highest bidder so I felt sure I was onto a winner. I attempted to secure buy-in to this notion from a few of my colleagues, but failed miserably.

My ideas for web-based money making refused to die and I came up with something else as I was building a wardrobe with a friend. "I bet there's an appetite on the internet for watching women engaged in manual labour," I stated. "Eh? What on earth are you on about?" followed her natural response. "I once saw this programme about the sex industry and how there was an appetite out there for the most bizarre things. Some guys paid to access a site with videos of women bursting balloons. There was even a group of men who got off watching women fall over or have minor accidents whilst going about their daily business. So I'm thinking we could set up a web-cam and let people pay to watch us build this wardrobe." She looked at me like I was insane. "Don't you see, this is brilliant," I continued. "We could make money from doing all the stuff that we have to do anyway. Who cares if some weirdo gets off watching us? As long as I don't have to take my clothes off, touch myself or touch anyone else then I'm game. We could call the site - 'Build it and they will cum'." "Of all the things you've ever come out with," she stated calmly, "this is the strangest. I really worry about you sometimes." I still think it's brilliant.

I got the keys for my new flat and set about moving my belongings with all the gusto of a nineteenth century Iowa farm boy. My introduction to the neighbours had none of the grace I had envisaged, as I lugged box after box up the stairs wheezing, sighing and shaking whenever I stopped. Adding to my embarrassment was the fact that my (gentle) perspiration meant I was sporting a demi-wave to rival that of a young Frank Sinatra.

The flat is lovely and instantly felt like home. I was lying in front of the fireplace reading my book as I waited for a delivery. I had one of those moments where you feel so blissfully content you hope you remember it forever. My favourite task so far has been buying art and taking it off to be framed. Julie, my designer friend, produced a big poster of one of her designs for the living-room wall. It looks just fab.

Julie actually convinced me to get out of bed at 5:30am last Tuesday to attend a business networking event. It was out in Corstorphine and I got lost. I stopped in the car park of the Maybury hotel, getting a few suspicious looks from the drivers of the other few cars also in there. I had the uncomfortable notion that I had inadvertently stumbled upon some early morning dogging session. Luckily, Jules responded to my message and gave me directions to my desired destination.

Writeink is coming along slowly but nicely. The business cards are being printed and I've had my first lots of 'official' money, which will come in very handy in paying for September's Asia trip.

(Herpes) Simplex in the city

Upsettingly, the coldsore continued to plague me all last week. On Monday it grew bigger. On Tuesday it grew scabbier. On Wednesday it turned greener and on Thursday I laughed and it got stuck to my top lip and was yanked off. Then it started to bleed. My discomfort was made worse due to the fact that I was in a meeting when this happened. Still it was better than the scab falling into somebody else's tea or - even worse - my own, which had been my primary concern all week.

By the time I landed at Newark on Saturday afternoon, my shameful pox was a rapidly dimming memory. This was partly due to my excitement at being in NYC again and partly due to the amazing powers of Tiger Balm. My Grandma always kept a little jar of Tiger Balm handy. It was administered to my chest when I was suffering with the Cold as a child. It was melted into a bowl of boiling water when my nose was blocked. It was applied to burns and scrapes and scratches, and, by my own hand, it was rubbed liberally around my eyes and nose when I wanted to skip school. Unfortunately, as anyone who has ever come within three feet of the stuff will know, it smells about as medicinal as anything can so my efforts to avoid school never actually succeeded.

Anyway because I'm nostalgic and because the stuff really works, I've always kept a little jar handy too. So, when a colleague at work recommended I use Tiger Balm on my coldsore I saw no reason not to give it a go. I swear this is true, during the course of a seven hour flight my coldsore shrunk to at least a quarter of its original size. Oh miracle balm!

I love New York. Within 10 minutes of walking slowly down the streets and staring up at every building I could, I was fighting the urge to be absorbed into its thronging masses and leave everything else behind. To be honest, this feeling pops up in almost every city I've ever visited, but it's always stronger in the Big Apple. I know I could live there; maybe not forever, but soon and for six months at least.

On Sunday something highly cool happened. First of all, I went to High Mass at St Patrick's (not so cool) where his eminence - el Cardinale - stopped to shake my hand and ask where I was from. I told him, we had a little chat and then he blessed me (This was highly cool - for my gran). Anyway, after Mass I hoofed it up to Times Square because I wanted to buy discount tickets for a show. I really wanted to see Wicked and was disappointed not to see it listed on the tickets board. On asking one of the representatives, they laughed and said they never got Wicked tickets. I decided to walk to the Gershwin where Wicked is playing to see if I could get tickets for the Sunday matinee. There was a queue of people so I got in line. I then overheard the man in front of me explaining to someone that this was the line for the 'lottery'. I asked him what he meant by the 'lottery' and he told me that every show is completely sold out for months and the best hope anyone had of getting a ticket was to enter this lottery. I went up to the desk, wrote my name on a slip of paper and handed it over. The names of the lucky 12 would be called at 1pm. As it was a quarter to, I decided to hang around.

On the hour, the guy spun the barrel and pulled out 12 tickets. There were about 200 people waiting in the hope that they'd hear their name. My name was the eleventh to be called out (Ok, that was the highly cool bit). There was a lot of cheering and congratulating. I showed my ID and collected two front row tickets at a cost of $25 each. Even the cheapest seats are usually $60 so this was a pretty good deal. To top all this, my mum stood in the cancellation line and got the last cancellation ticket - also with a fantastic seat. As I was waiting in the foyer, people kept coming up and saying "congratulations" to me and asking me how I felt. A few people who witnessed this then asked if I was in the show. I felt pretty good and was excited about seeing the show, but felt my response would have been more adequate had I managed to lay my hands on some 'completely-over-the-top-happy pills'.

One of the things I love most about being in America is that I can ham it up and be 'super-happy' and 'super-nice' and no one thinks I'm weird. I sometimes do this here, but people often think I'm taking the piss - which, admittedly, I often am.

The show was a big fat glorious pantomime and I loved every minute of it. It's the story of the Wicked Witch and Glinda the Good before Dorothy showed up in Oz. There weren't too many references or jokes about the film which was good, and when there were they were subtle and clever. Example:
Nessarose: (At party) "What's in this punch?"
Bok: "Apples and lemons and pears."
Nessarose: "Oh my!"

A perfect day was finished off with dinner in a revolving restaurant. I had one frozen raspberry and strawberry margarita and a blueberry and raspberry bellini before dinner, so it was a very, very good meal.

My other highlight was a trip to Serendipity for a Frrrrozen Hot Chocolate. Apparently, they are Oprah's fave and if you saw one you'd understand about the whole yo-yo weight thing. I swear all my efforts at the gym have been completely overwritten by just one these babies. It was so worth it though.

I got a fair amount of shopping in, and with an exchange rate that's just shy of $2 for £1 who wouldn't? I got a gorgeous pair of Cole Haan black thong sandals with $200 off and fabulous bag which I'm totally in love with. On a less pleasing note, I got railroaded by a beauty counter assistant in Bloomingdales who sat me in her chair and told me she knew I used face moisturiser on my delicate eye area (totally true, but who has time to switch moisturisers half way through?). She sold me (I know, I know) some clinical eye gel which she repeatedly assured me would combat the signs of aging. I had made no inquiry as to its anti-aging qualities. Then, while I was still in her chair, she tilted her head to the right and said: "and how are you doing with the rest of your skin care?"

I'm sat there with a smaller but still noticeable coldsore, a number of spots visible to someone in extreme close proximity and some dry patches I attribute to running myself slightly ragged before I left for NY. Still, I didn't want to be sold any more stuff so I mumbled "fine, thanks."

She tilted her head to the left, looked at me sadly and said very sweetly: "Really? You sure honey?"

I resisted and left with my eye gel and credit card intact. My self-esteem did not fare quite so well. However, one wolf-whistle, compliment and harassment for my room number later and I felt a good deal better.

And when I woke up this morning, my coldsore was gone.Unfortunately,the slight rash I discovered around my delicate eye area leads me to suspect that I may be allergic to the eye gel.

Coldsore, warm heart

I was on the bus, on my way to collect the car I'd abandoned in favour of wine the night before. Slightly hungover, and with a whopping great coldsore on the right-hand side of my bottom lip, I'd quickly pulled my hair back and put on my specs. Neither looking nor feeling my best, the plan was to get the car as quickly as possible with as few people seeing me as possible.

As the bus neared my stop, I stood up to press the button and leave my seat. Just then, I noticed that the guy in front was moving his hand back - also to press the button I presumed. However, he ended up pressing my left breast instead.

This was something of a shock for us both.

He apologised immediately and I was mortified but said it was quite alright (how awfully British of me).

Now off the bus and walking along the road, I heard someone saying "excuse me, miss". I turned round and saw that it was my public transport groper. He informed me that he hadn't known the bus was going this way and could I tell him the best bus to get to Morningside. I told him that he was almost there and basically just had to follow the road for 10 minuntes. He asked if I was going his way and I said I wasn't. Then he asked if I was from Edinburgh. Not wanting to get into anything resembling a conversation, I said 'yes'. He asked me to guess where he was from. I told him that I'd guess somewhere in West Africa but didn't know exactly where. He pressed me (not quite like before, thankfully) for a country so I hedged my bets and picked the most populous one - Nigeria. And what do you know, I was right. He told me his name was Eugene and he was studying Engineering. He asked me a bit about myself and then, as I said goodbye and went to cross the road, he said:

"So when can I see you again?"
"Perhaps, you'll bump into me in the street or grope me on another bus journey," I replied, then feared he'd think it was an invitation.
"Oh no," said he, "the chances are too slim. Can I have your number?"
"Oh no," said I, "the number can never be given. Things are in God's hands now."
"I like that," he said. "It has been a wonderful pleasure to meet you miss and now I will let you go on your way."
"Likewise," I replied.

As I crossed the road I couldn't help but smile. I'm not saying I particularly like being felt-up by strangers (although there was that one time ... when I was feeling really low ...) and having to make small-talk with them is worse still, but I really wasn't looking my best and it cheered me up that some poor soul didn't seem to mind. And besides, at least he wasn't a stark raving loon like the person my friend Jen had the pleasure of meeting recently. She emailed me with the details of her encounter, which I will share with you now.

Hey Lisa.

As soon as this happened I immediately thought of you - not because you are a Scouse reprobate, but because I really wished you were there to share in the moment. Given your enjoyment of Liverpool's eccentricities, I knew you'd have appreciated it.

I was walking across town last week, having been sent to another building to get my photie took for my security pass (yes, I have started work, it's not just a strange hobby). It was a nice sunny day, and I was just strolling along minding my own business when I stopped at a pedestrian crossing.

A local gentleman struck up conversation with me, which went a little like this:

Scouse Gent: 'Don't touch that button!'
Me: 'OK...er, why not?'
Scouse Gent: 'Have you ever thought about all the people who have probably picked their nose and then pressed that button?'
Me: Well, no, not really...'
Scouse Gent: 'Yeah, picked their nose and then pressed that button! Picked their nose!'(By now - praise the Lord - the green man has deigned to make an appearance and I am defying everything I learned en route to my First Aid badge in the Brownies to get across the road)
Scouse Gent: 'And then you go home and tuck into a nice cream cake. After your fingers have been on that button!'
Me: (now running) 'Hahahahahahaha!'
Scouse Gent: 'A nice cream cake! Cream cake! CREAM CAKE!!'

Lisa, I swear, he kept shouting cream cake at me until he was a small speck in the distance.What the hell is going on in this city?!?!

Quite.