Greg McElhatton

As the pollen explosion began to hit the DC area about two weeks ago, my allergies—like every year—went berserk. Normally I take 60mg of Allegra in the morning and am all right, but during this time of year by early evening it starts wearing off. There’s only so much one little pill can do.

So, as a stop-gap measure, my original plan was to up my dosage to the recommended twice-a-day level. (My feeling has always been that if I can get away with half a dose that I should do so. My physician thankfully not only agrees with me but still gives me the twice-a-day prescription for whenever things do get bad so that I don’t run out mid-month with no refill in sight.) But then I decided to try a little experiment. So in the evening, about an hour before bed, I’m now taking a Benadryl.

The result has been nothing short of astounding. On the whole I fall asleep a little faster (except for last Friday night), and I do still wake up at least once or twice (drink some water and pass back out) but when I wake up in the morning—I actually wake up. For those who haven’t seen me in the morning, trust me when I say that it is not a pretty sight, to put it mildly. I am tired, I am groggy, I am slightly incoherent. I had to buy an alarm clock with an adjustable snooze alarm because 9 minutes would be too long and I would fall completely back asleep. (It’s currently set at 6 minutes.)

Now? When the alarm goes off I’m out of bed within 15 minutes instead of in the 45-to-75 minute range. This has been especially good for starting to go to the gym in the mornings again. I can get such an earlier start that it means I have time for a longer, more fulfilling workout; hitting half an hour on the rowing machine now means I still have time for a second half hour of something else. Or this morning, knowing I couldn’t hit my evening spinning class, I actually hit my first 6:30am class ever. Hopefully this will let me shed those five pounds of “winter weight” a little faster than normal. Maybe even finally help shrink and tighten my tummy a bit, that would be nice.

Once allergy insanity is over I do plan on some experiments to figure out what the key element is in the Benadryl solution. Do I need the allergy relief in the evenings more than I thought I did, and should go onto two-a-day for Allegra from now on? Or is it that I’m just needing that extra little nudge into sleepland and should perhaps look into something like valerian root or melatonin for my evenings? (I’m really curious to see what the end result will be.)

Either way, the end result has been just, well, great and exciting. I’ve really missed being able to wake up quickly in the mornings.

All sorts of things going on in Gregland as of late. Most of them? Pretty good. Let’s see.

I hit the big 35 yesterday, which went rather pleasantly. Work was super-busy and my 3-miler in the morning was less than thrilling, but hey, no big deal. Julie made cannoli pies and brought them in, and trust me when I say that they were as delicious as they sound.

(The crusts in the photos below are slightly different colors because, well, they were! One was graham cracker, one was chocolate.)

After work, despite a six-car pile-up on the GW Parkway, I made my way downtown to meet Charlie. He’d scheduled me a massage at BodyCo, which felt fantastic, and then we went to Kotobuki over in the Palisades neighborhood for a delicious dinner. Add in some lovely gifts from my family, Charlie, and Julie (some books, Patapon and Crazy Taxi for the PSP, BSG Season 3 DVDs, the new k.d. lang CD, a beautiful new shirt, some new shoes) and I must say it was a wonderful birthday indeed.

Today was apparently “Greg Registers For Things” day. I put in my application for the NYC Marathon, so we’ll see if I get in this year or not (there’s a lottery system; I tried last year but came up empty). I also put in my registration to exhibit some of my photographs at Artomatic, which is a non-juried art exhibition here in the DC area. I went last year and while some parts were more interesting than others (I challenge anyone to truthfully say they liked all of it) there were some very, very good pieces there. So on April 12th I get to select my space at the exhbition (I got a nice and early slot, hurrah) and it runs May 9th through June 15th. Expect me to be talking about this more as it gets closer.

Oh! And I got a very interesting freelance offer yesterday, which I can’t talk about other than to say that I accepted it and it’s something that is really a logical extension to an existing activity of mine. But once that goes live, I’ll talk a bit more about that.

This Saturday will be the half marathon, and while I must admit I’m actually a little nervous about it (I have a bad feeling I will not be beating last year’s time, which would make me a little sad) we shall see. I’m keeping my fingers crossed. In some ways I’m looking more forward to cheering Charlie on as he runs the full marathon. That alone will make the day worth it.

Add in having just gotten my workout schedule for essentially mid-April through the end of October in front of me (thanks to a rigorous running spreadsheet courtesy Fred) and it feels like I’ve got a lot of great stuff mapped out in front of me. And I, for one, am all for that. I’ve got an adorable little patch of wheatgrass sitting on my desk, there are some balloons floating across the office, and the world is full of life and possibilities.

I was originally going to start this post by saying that there is no actual Hurricane Greg of note, because my name is trapped on the Pacific Ocean list of names for hurricanes, and as we all know hurricanes in the Pacific Ocean usually don’t hit anything. (Not to be confused with typhoons, of course, smashing into parts of Asia.) But I was wrong! Hurricane Greg in 1999 actually hit the Baja Penninsula in Mexico. So yay for Hurricane Greg!

Anyway, Hurricane Greg seems to finally be slowing down. Several weeks of super-busy stuff at work has kept me plowing through all sorts of graphics and storyboards and other such exciting things (ironicaly, some of the photos were of hurricanes), plus already-determined-in-advance commitments plugged in there as well, but things are a little more sedate right now. I knew things were getting better when earlier in the week I went home and the top of my list was “go through the stack of mail from the past two weeks” and “vacuum.” (The latter of which really couldn’t be achieved until the former had gotten rid of all the piles of mail scattered around my living room.)

I actually hate being overly busy; it gets me tired and a little stressed out the longer that it happens. And once it’s over, I usually end up veering sharply in the other direction so that people ask me if I want to do things and my answer is, “No.” I’m too busy recharging my batteries.

Meanwhile, I have two races coming up and they’re 8 and 16 days away. I’m honestly not convinced that I’m 100% prepared for either of them. I’ve got enough mileage under my belt that a half-marathon and a 10-miler shouldn’t kill me, but I don’t think at the same time that I will do as well as I could. We’ll see what happens. I’m absolutely running the half-marathon no matter what, but I can play it by ear on the latter. (And of course, Charlie is running his very first marathon as I run my half-marathon! He is quite well prepared and I expect him to rock it out, and probably beat my personal record to boot.)

Other than that, things are going normal as per usual. Charlie and I hit our one year mark next month, which is a little hard to believe that it’s already been that long. It honestly feels like it was just a couple of months ago that we met. We were talking about going away for the weekend, but prior commitments mean that it almost certainly won’t happen, unfortunately. Oh well. We actually have (through sheer luck) tickets to see Tamerlano performed by the DC Opera on the actual day, so that’ll do for a celebration.

I’m still trying to decide if I will renew my Shakespeare Theatre subscription for next season, or just pick-and-choose plays. The selection (and pricing) isn’t quite as top-notch as this season’s, although three of the seven are must-sees for me. (King Lear, Ion, and Twelfth Night.) The nice things about a subscription, though, include the ease in swapping out to a different night as necessary, the fact that it gets me out to see things I wouldn’t otherwise, and better seats. We’ll see, I have a week and a half to decide and I keep flip-flopping back and forth.

Now all I need is the temperature to go up just a wee bit and stay there and I will be one happy camper. Hurrah for the return of spring!

(And hopefully more regular updates from now on.)

This will sound strange to many people, I’m sure, but amidst runs to the grocery store and other errands (oh, the excitement) I ended up doing something that I’d never done before—I met one of my neighbors.

I’m not entirely sure why I haven’t ever met any of my neighbors before. At Peachtree (1996-2001), I honestly didn’t even see the three neighbors on my floor for a couple of months, and then I just felt silly introducing myself at that point. I know, I should’ve said something, but… well, there we go. Then at Archstone (2001-2005), I only had one neighbor on my floor because the ground floor was built into a hill and so two of the four areas were equipment storage. There I’d occasionally smile and nod at the person who lived across the way, but neither of us ever talked to the other person. So there you go.

Now that I’m in Woodbury Park (2005+), I had once or twice held the door for the older woman on my floor, but she never seemed really ready to talk. (And she’s since moved out, and while I think there might be someone else there now, I have yet to see any real evidence of him or her, just that flyers on the doorstep vanish.) The people on either side I also hadn’t ever seen for months, and I am never even entirely sure at any given moment if there’s anyone in apartment on my left.

However! The apartment on my right which went vacant about two months ago now has a new inhabitant. He had the door propped open while I was heading out, so I said hello and gave him my name (and vice versa). That was painless.

But… I dunno… for some reason I’ve never felt like really introducing myself. Like doing so would be saying, “You’re going to be living there forever, time to know the locals.” Is this just me when it comes to a rented apartment?

(That said, I do quite love my neighborhood. If I could afford to buy in it, I would!)

Talking to Kris earlier today, I was sharing recent ailments (stomach issues, my shoulder still not being back to 100%, that sort of thing) and then ended it with, “Boy, getting older sure is fun.” And I was mostly joking… but I really would be happier if I was slightly more resilient like I was in my youth. All these little creaking joints and such are getting old. (I think I’d be ok with it all, right now, if the right shoulder was completely better. But alas, not the case. Still a bit sore, but nothing as bad as this time last week where turning my head hurt.)

And of course, it’s now a month until this year’s birthday and just like last year I haven’t the slightest idea what to do. (Quick summary: current apartment is too small to really host more than a couple of people comfortably, dinners beyond a very small handful of people usually result in not being able to really talk to anyone (which stinks), casual hang-out at a bar can work well but you need to pick a location carefully that can situation everyone but isn’t too crowded and/or crazy.)

Meanwhile, Mister I-Don’t-Do-Anything-For-My-Own-Birthday is all excited about the thought of doing something for my birthday. (Isn’t that the way things always go?) So I need to start thinking and planning. I might just do the bar thing again but with a slightly smaller crowd. It seemed to work well enough, but slightly less people could be a good thing, right? (I think the numbers topped out a little over 40 last year in terms of invitations. The hazards of having a lot of friends.) So it would stink to have to cut it back, but it would also be a lot more manageable.

Of course, looking at last year’s invitation, I also promised that because it’s the big 35 this year that things would be “more exciting.” Hmmmmmm. (How does that line go? “I lied. I do that sometimes.”)

Donations towards a new, non-tight shoulder muscle are happily accepted, by the way.

It doesn’t matter how much I enjoy travelling to oher places and seeing new things or old friends, there is a lot to be said for sleeping in my own bed.

Between February 6th and 18th, I was actually at home for a whopping three evenings. What does this mean? Well, first, a mountain of laundry that which I will continue to chip away at (and hopefully finish up tonight). Second, it means that I’ve gone from two and a half weeks of banked reviews for Read About Comics to none at all, although I have one-and-a-half written in a notebook and in need of transcription and completion tonight. (At least the Wine-Book Wednesdays are already queued up through next week.) Third, there were a whopping 1200+ e-mails in my work account, with all but four being spam. (Yikes!)

And fourth and finally, my shoulders and neck are killing me. I’m hoping a soak in the tub tonight will loosen them up. But they’re painful enough that as soon as I finish one last task, I’m going home. Ugh. There’s a lot to be said for a good mattress and pillow that work well with your own body, and that’s something I’ve been truly missing.

Now if there was just a way for me to bring my own bed with me on trips, I think I would be set.

And for no reason whatsoever other than I think it’s really awesome (and let’s face it, Dolly Parton and Star Trek do go hand-in-hand):

Yeah, I know. Time flies and such similar phrases. But I can honestly say that I feel like I haven’t come up for air all year, and I don’t have much to show for it. Sure, earlier in January was when we saw Tamburlaine, and my friend Rob had hosted the videogame bonanza a few weekends ago, which was a lot of fun.

But since then? It’s funny because it’s hard to articulate what I’ve done but every day has just felt really busy. Some time was spent getting the reviews up and running again, and a bunch of time was spent working on different projects for the day job. (Plus one Sunday working at Big Planet, which was enjoyable but busy busy busy in terms of selling things all day long.)

This afternoon my plan was to go running, but after errands were finally finished, I had about enough energy left to… well, not run. (Stomach problems finally sealed the day on not going running after all. Bah.) So instead it was more sorting through things, some writing, more errands, getting ready for a business trip that I leave for shortly, plus knowing as soon as I get back from that trip I’ll be turning back around and heading out on another trip two days later.

On the bright side, at least one thing is in order—reviews are now “banked” all the way through February 18th, when I get back. So that’s a nice feeling to have all of that taken care of in advance, and looking at the display in WordPress actually let me give off a little sigh of relief. But while my boss very kindly gave us all Monday off as a “mental health day” (I think she knows how much we all need it!), I’m going to probably end up going in for at least part of the day so I can box up all the materials for the pilot test that I have to go run elsewhere in the country, and get that sent off. I don’t want to leave it until Tuesday because I suspect it’s going to be a busy day as is.

(Really, I wanted to get that trip to the office taken care of today… but it’s now 9:40pm and I’m just now coming up for air. Yeesh.)

Once all of this is over, hopefully a social life will start getting rebuilt. I had dinner with Butch on Thursday night and the last time I actually saw him was in November. And sadly I think that’s not even the worst “how long has it been since you’ve seen…?” but I shudder to think what the longest time gap is. Clearly, I need to win that lottery soon so I can finally get that life of leisure.

On the bright side, at least I’ve never been a football fan, so that means I didn’t have to worry about missing the Superbowl. (I’m ambivalent about it, but glad that it wasn’t a priority because it certainly wouldn’t have happened at this end today.)

Ok! A tiny bit of cleaning, maybe a tiny bit of television, but I think the real order of business right now? Just go to bed, and deal with everything else that needs to be taken care of tomorrow.

One of the things I’ve really been trying to do this year is back into a rhythm of creating things. My reviews for Read About Comics the past couple of years have been infrequent at best, and it’s something with which I need to either get back up and going, or throw in the towel and call it a day. And after completing my 365pictures project in November, I’ve taken almost no photos since then.

But on the bright side, in mid-January I finally sat down and put my nose to the grindstone. I had some legitimate reasons a few years ago for the writing to have stopped, but now they’re just excuses. So my new attack was to write something, then throw out most later if you have to, but do it. And it’s worked pretty well. I’m a few weeks back into writing reviews regularly, and even better is that I’m trying to stay ahead of the game, keeping reviews “banked” one or two weeks ahead of schedule. So that way I have a little bit more breathing room if something does come up, and I don’t lose my momentum.

But looking at photography online the last day or two, I think I also really need to get back into the habit of taking the camera out again. I want to be able to take pictures that are as beautiful as this song by Patty Griffin. (Ignore strange fan visuals, just listen to the song.) It’s funny, there’s something about this song that just makes me think, “I need to craft photos that look like this sounds.” Does that make sense?

My big excuse there has been wanting a new camera, and while it’s tempting to use the (still theoretical) bribe from the government economic stimulus check to buy the SLR I’ve been looking at, it’s not terribly responsible. One thing I have been doing lately is keeping all the money from eBayed books and DVDs off to one side, with the idea being that it will be my vacation money to spend next month. So I think once that’s over, I’ll use the allure of a new camera to stay strong on getting rid of all the books that I really don’t want, and put the money there towards a camera.

(And hey, I just got paid to use one of my photos in a brochure in the UK. It’s not for a big company, and it’s not a huge payment, but it’s money! That was a nice surprise. And something else to focus on as incentive.)

Maybe in six months I can even start adding fiction-writing back onto the table, but for now, one step at a time.

I’ve joked with friends before that I have a very well-realized fantasy life, one involving having somehow hit the lottery for so much money that I will never have to work again. (This is impressive, as I almost never actually play the lottery.)

But after browsing through the Criterion DVD section of Barnes & Noble yesterday (while contemplating taking advantage of their buy-2-get-1-free sale on all DVDs in the store), I decided that if somehow this fantasy life ever does happen, one of the things I will do is buy every single Criterion DVD I can get my hands on, then start working my way through the entire collection.

Sure, eventually it might get boring, but I’m willing to take that chance.

If there’s one thing that somehow takes me by surprise every year around this time, it’s my lack of willpower to exercise once it gets dark out. My plan for this evening was to run a quick 4-miler on the lit portion of the W&OD Trail (or if I was feeling really ambitious, finally go run with Pacers in Old Town Alexandria again) as soon as I got off from work. And until about an hour ago, I was firmly on board with this decision.

But as it’s started to get dim outside, my energy level has been dropping rapidly. With it, my excitement level abot going running. And this is hardly the first time this has happened this month. There’s just something about gearing up to go running after dark that saps my motivation, big time. If it was dark but warm, that’s somehow doable. But dark and cold? Forget it. So plans to knock out 4-to-6 miles tonight are rapidly falling by the wayside. (I would’ve run this morning but schedule-wise, it just wasn’t in the cards for a variety of reasons.) It doesn’t help that my gym has an indoor track instead of a treadmill; as much as I am not a fan of a treadmill, an eighth-of-a-mile track means anything more than five miles or so runs the risk of me getting dizzy and throwing up all over the place. (Not that this has happened yet. And I have knocked out six miles on it just last week. But that doesn’t mean I will like it.)

I’m not going to say it’s some sort of seasonal mood disorder, but I can’t help but note that come spring this little motivation problem will be mostly gone. Of course, by that point three months of eating with minimal exercise may have also taken their toll. *sigh* We’ll see if I can rev up a bit of energy in the next hour or so to get myself moving or not.

(Maybe I’ll just hang pictures of fat that’s been liposuctioned off of people all over my office with a note, “Do you want this all over your belly?” written underneath it. Fear as a motivator is a strong one.)

If I don’t go running tonight, though, I will make myself get up early tomorrow to hit the gym then. Honest.