Nobody Knows Anything

Welcome to Diane Patterson's eclectic blog about what strikes her fancy

Apropos of nothing

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  • I hardly ever write by hand these days, and yet I still pore over catalogues from the Fountain Pen Hospital as though I were going to get something from them any time soon.
  • I have discovered, much to my shock, that for NaNo I’ve been doing 700-1000 words per hour. Given my typing ability, I would expect I could do five to six times that. However, having to think of what I’m going to write slows me down a lot. Also: getting snacks from the kitchen. Big time sink there.
  • If you mix together orange and cinnamon essential oils in your diffuser, it makes your office smell like Christmas. And that, friends, is a happy smell.
  • I wonder where the best place to buy Torani syrups is. The supermarket I go to has a small selection, and I really want vanilla, to make homemade cream sodas. I have found the motherlode of Torani! BevMo formerly (Beverages & More) has a)the gigantic bottles of Torani in b)every possible flavor for c)less than Lunardi’s and other supermarkets charges for the small bottle.

    Today I also discovered that Williams-Sonoma has an extremely good-looking seltzer water bottle that would make my need to buy endless plastic bottles of carbonated water obsolete. I’m putting that on my Xmas list.

  • I’m going to outline. I am. I am going to do a thorough, tested, bounce-the-quarter-off-the-hospital-corners outline. Because seriously. I can type a hundred words a minute when I get going, if I know where I’m going. And if I work on the outline for last year’s book to tighten it up, I think it will be ready to go. This year’s book? Maybe, maybe not. But I am having fun with it, even if half the scenes are more the characters being clever than being, you know, on point.
  • Great writing soundtrack: Pirates of the Caribbean Also perfect: The Killing Fields, Mishima If anyone has any suggestions for other great soundtracks to pick up, let me know.
  • Great new exercise music album: Confessions from a Dance Floor I know, I know, but… what can I say? I like Madonna. And every song is 150bpm; good for dancing, good for elliptical machines. However, the lyrics to “I Love New York” are so stupid I cannot believe someone did not take her aside and say, “Um, fix this.”
  • And if anyone has any other 150bpm music they’d like to recommend, let me know. My iPod Shuffle makes going to the gym possible.
  • The iTunes Music Store: E. Vil.
  • Why am I spending precious writing time looking up books on afternoon tea? Seriously?
  • The average caloric intake of those little Fun Size candies we give out on Halloween? About 100 calories each. One little bite worth of candy, 100 calories. That’s freaking amazing. It’s a wonder that I wasn’t 500 pounds as a 9-year-old, because believe you me, I ate all the candy in my Halloween bag every year.
  • We’ve been portioning out the candy from the kids’ Halloween bags at one piece per day, two if we’re having “Dessert Night.” And they still have full bags. Good God they got a lot of candy trick-or-treating. I think at the New Year we’re just going to have to draw the line and pitch the bags. “You’ll get some more next year. Who’s up for Cold Stone?”
  • There’s 8 pounds between dress sizes? Really? I don’t mean to sound sarcastic — I just have no idea how the fashion industry determines these things. The European system, measuring in non-changing centimeters, seems a lot more reasonable to me. No fudging for them!
  • According to this month’s Vanity Fair, Kate Moss is 5’7″ and weighs 100 pounds. That’s not thin, that’s criminal. How on Earth did she get her body to support a baby?
  • Shopping with the kids in the mall? I’m sure people all over the mall were calling Child Protective Services on me.

    • Sleepyhead

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    I got up this morning before the alarm clock, with only a little help from a shout down the hall — “Daddy, I’m scared!” “Okay, then come down here.” “No…” — and I got on the road as soon as it was twilight. I ran for two hours, by myself, sans iPod Shuffle, which is some kind of record for me. No conversation, no music. I can’t do running as meditation though: my brain goes a mile a minute, even as my body is going considerably slower.

    The only problem I had with the run was this odd pain I get in my right hip. I describe it as being in the ball-and-socket of the joint, but to be honest, I don’t know what it is. It’s not the IT band problem I’ve had. And it always hits about the same time in a long run, 2/3 in. A little stretching seems to have taken care of it, but it’s a problem I’d like to solve before I hurt something.

    I came back to the house and started preparing for the family brunch we were hosting. I made coffeecake muffins (two words: tas. tee.) and Darin made the French scrambled eggs and Mitch cooked the bacon. I also made drinking chocolate à la Café Angelina, of which a person could only drink about 2 or 3 ounces before we needed to get out the syringe of adrenaline. (Even the kids didn’t want seconds.) We gave Scott and Christy their (slightly belated) wedding gifts, and Scott and Christy gave the kids some gifts they had for them.

    The guests left, the kids vegged on the couch watching “Batman: The Animated Series”, and I did the first load of dishes.

    And then I fell unconscious for two hours. As I always do after a longish run, or a hard run like the Rodeo Beach run Rob and I did a couple of weeks ago.

    What is the deal? Isn’t exercise supposed to give me energy? If I schedule two hours for a morning run, I’d better schedule two in the afternoon for a nap, because around two p.m. all my systems shut down. “Warning! Warning! We are Code Fade-to-Black!” I like that I have managed to work up to doing a two hour run (which was about 10 miles), and if I can figure out what the deal is with my hip, I’d even like to try to go further. But I can’t just pass out for an entire afternoon every time.

    I’m hoping this is a phase, that eventually my body will adjust to the slightly more intense level of workout I’ve been putting it through of late (changing my thyroid medications was, I think, a big help).

    Fall back

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    For some reason, I can never sleep the night before a longish run. I don’t fall asleep for the longest time, and when I do have very bizarre dreams that wake me up a couple of times during the night. Dreams not even usually about running.

    And I always wake up 15 minutes before the alarm goes off.

    Which is a bummer when I’ve forgotten to reset the clock and get up at the old 5:45.

    If I go back to bed, I’ll just sleep right through my run, so I guess I’ll surf for a while!