I won’t be doing it barefoot, dressed as a chicken, or in a wheelchair

Well, here it is. A confession blog of sorts. One that I have put off sending until now for reasons I will explain in a minute. I, Lisa Wolk, will run the Philadelphia Marathon on November 23 this year. That’s right. The person who, in high school, used to fake being sick every time we had to run the mile will attempt to run 26.2 of them.

I’ve been training for 3 months now and wanted to make sure that I wasn’t going to cry, break down, and/or die in my pursuit of finishing the race before I told you all. This past weekend I ran 13 miles and only felt like stabbing my eyeballs out to end my pain once or twice, so I think I’ll probably be able to manage a race twice as long. And while I already sent in my registration fee, I’d be more apt to forfeit the monetary cost rather than forfeit my dignity and admit to everyone that “Oh hey, remember when I told you I was going to run that marathon? Yeah, I’m giving up.”

So now it is your job to keep me from being a wimp. If I ever decide to opt out of the race, I give you permission to find me, threaten to take your love away, and box my ears. (Not too hard, though, I’m weak.)

I’m really excited about running, though. I feel like Running A Marathon is on everyone’s Things To Do In Life List and I know I will feel great when I check that one off. Even Jon Gezotis said it was an incredible feeling having finished one, and this is the guy who ran up to us spectators at mile 23, grabbed the Gatorade out of my hand, and blurted, “I’m fuckin’ done” in exhaustion. As for the venue, I know Philadelphia isn’t the most beautiful city in the world, but a) I fear Boston would be a little too challenging for a beginner like myself b) as a Bostoner, I couldn’t live with myself if I made New York my first marathon and c) Chicago registration was filled by the time I got my act together.

So if you’re in the Philly area around Sunday November 23, come on out with your orange slices, Gu gel, and signs saying “Lisa is the most awesome runner ever.” I will be forever indebted to you and will try my hardest not to get sweat on you as I excitedly wave in your direction.

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Within Holland Park there's a lovely Japanese garden complete with a waterfall, koi, and plenty of rocks arranged in a feng shui pattern, I'm sure. (Crap, feng shui is Chinese, not Japanese. I'm never going to hear the end of that one.) In order to take this picture, I disobediently Kept On The Grass.

At least one of you (okay, so technically ONLY one) has complained that I'm not sending pictures with ME in them. This is because ever since Camera and I became best friends, I am reluctant to hand him over to others to take my photo. Knowing my obsessive-compulsive behavior about "my things," I'm sure you can understand this. Here's one that Eric took after we ate lunch at the rooftop Members Only Lounge at the Tate Modern (just one of the perks of hanging out with him). Warning - hips may appear larger than they actually are.

And here is one from a Houston rodeo in 2003.

Here's a Globe Theatre actor/musician making a face that appears to imply something inappropriate about playing his skin flute.

The one where Lisa attempts to take a shower

Here's a wonderful story for you where you will not only get to picture me naked in a tub, but, well, you'll get to laugh too (those things should NOT be caused by one another).

On our drive up to Scotland from London, we stayed in a little town called Durham. We didn't make plans to stay there, it was just the closest place around at the time our eyes started to get droopy. I awoke early Saturday morning and went for a lovely run in and around town (Saturday mornings before 7 am is truly like living in another world...everything is so serenely beautiful and eerily quiet). When I got back to the hotel and went to take a shower, I tried to be very quiet so as not to wake Tamara and Alex from their slumber. So there I am in the bathroom, yes naked, waiting to get in the shower when I am faced with this plumbing set-up:

You'll have to excuse my Microsoft Paint skills, but this is the best I could do. The top circle is the shower head. The middle bar is a bar with a knob on either end. The red and blue circles are other knobs. The thing that looks like Barbra Streisand's nose is the tub faucet.

In this case, what would you think? Which knobs would you turn? Well, if you're anything like me, you turned the red knob first. And boom. Out came scalding hot water from the tub faucet. Okay, okay. Not a terrible start. I turned the blue knob a bit to minimize the chance of burning my skin while I continued my Shower Lesson In The Nude. And so now there is a gushing of tepid water pouring from the tub faucet. But how do I get the water to come from the shower head? Oh, I know. I'll turn one of the higher-up knobs. Yes. Good idea. So I turn the knob on the left. The stream of water from the tub remains the same, but now there is also a freezing cold spray coming from the shower head. Well, that certainly wasn't right. So I turned that one off. Then I turned the right higher-up knob. Same exact thing. So then I did a combination of the two higher-up knobs but with always the same result. How in the hell? This went on for 8 minutes. Alex later told me he could hear me audibly say "What?!" from the bedroom. I would have said way more than that, but again, I was trying to be quietly polite.

After those very chilly 8 minutes (for, by now, the sweat had cooled on my body and the cold floor tiles weren't helping matters), I gave up. But I couldn't NOT clean myself because I had just run for 70 minutes and was stinky. So I only had one option left. I would have to take a bath. I put the plug in the drain and waited for the warm water to fill the tub (since that was the only faucet I knew how to draw forth warm water). But I was so cold while I was waiting!!! So I got in the tub when there was maybe an inch of water covering the bottom. And there I am sitting in tortoise pose splashing the water over my back, face, and hair EXACTLY the way Will Ferrell did in Elf when he was forced to shower in the elfin bathroom. Even as I was doing it, I realized what a ridiculous, sad sight it must have been.

But here's the kicker. When the tub finally filled, I went to turn off the faucets and as I did, scorching water started spraying out of the showerhead onto me. It took everything I had not to scream Janet Leigh style. I quickly undid whatever the hell it was I had just done. Thinking, thinking, thinking....ah, yes. Okay. Bottom knobs are for the tub. Top knobs are for the shower. There is only so much hot water so that if the bottom hot water knob is on, the upper hot knob will still create cold water. Turn OFF the tub hot water and voila - boiling water from the shower head. If you're confused then I have proved my point. Shower systems in the United Kingdom are absurd. One handle would suffice; turn it to the left for hot, turn to the right for cold. Easy. Simple. Why physically and mentally scar your tourists with inane systems?

Albert Poo Holes

Don’t ask me why, but this morning on my run I started thinking about my family’s IBM Tandy 2000 computer. This was the computer you bought in 1987 if you didn’t want to buy an Apple IIe and get dysentery playing The Oregon Trail…rather, get dysentery in the game The Oregon Trail (I don’t know anyone who has gotten dysentery just by playing the game, but I suppose anything is possible). Anyway, apparently even in the 80’s we weren’t Mac people, so the Tandy 2000 it was.

And now, every summer when I go out to Otis, my parents beg and plead with me to let them throw this monstrosity of a computer away. And every time they ask, they are met with the same response: “What are you, crazy? You can’t get rid of that computer! It was bad enough when you sold our house in Kingston! Now you want to get rid of one of the last relics of the house I spent my childhood in?! Shya right! Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be outside watering the roses with my SuperSoaker.”

But really, what are my reasons for keeping anything in that house? There are none! There is no excuse for a 26-year-old woman to harbor 4 Cabbage Patch Kids, a toddler-sized stuffed Elmo, Andrew Keegan, Celebrities’ Brains On Drugs, and New Kids on the Block posters, a Mickey Mouse comforter, a Glo-worm, and 37 troll dolls. I am at that house for a total of about 25 days a year and I can’t remember the last time I played with the Bar Mitzvah troll. So what’s stopping me from getting a huge trash bag and finally cleansing myself of All Things 80’s?

But back to the computer. This morning I wondered what the reason was exactly as to why I prohibited my parents from trashing it. Sure, there are a lot of fun memories attached to it – there’s that one contestant on Family Feud who gives the middle finger when he answers a question wrong, a very robotic-looking Vanna White who claps with her arms perpendicular to the ground and straight as a board, the ever-elusive Carmen Sandiego who somehow always manages to hide the Statue of Liberty in Lisbon or Reykjavík, and of course, all the outrageous team names my dad used to come up with like Bungeeshmungees and Billybonkers.

If I went back and played these games today, none of them would be very fun. After all, when it comes down to it, I’d just be playing a crappy 80’s computer game from a floppy disk. (My dad actually asked me why I couldn’t just transfer the games to my current computer and I had to remind him that the games were stored on a flimsy disk the size of a cd case that has been obsolete since before our deaf dog Annie decided to take a stroll across our very trafficky street.)

And so maybe it IS time. Maybe that first weekend I go back to Otis this July will be the start of a new era for me, one without my treasured, outdated computer. Oh I know I will still shed a tear for every game of Gertrude’s Puzzles I played, for every dot matrix banner/card/sign I made using Print Shop, and for every game of Card Sharks I lost because at the age of 8 I didn’t know how many women out of 100 said they would never cheat on their husbands. But it will be okay. Because I will always have the memories of playing those games. And I suppose that’s all that matters. Well, that and the high scores, but since I could never do better than team Bungeeshmungees, I suppose that’s okay too.

Plus, now maybe there will be extra room for yet even more beds in that house. Because 8 isn’t enough. Seriously. I’m not lying. 8 beds. 1 house. For just my mom and dad. Talk about pack rats.

Indy Jones and the Temple of Suck

I love new music. I love London. I love free things. Therefore, when I won tickets to go see the Indy Music Awards last Friday in Camden, I was beyond psyched. Because wahey! Fun, British independent music! And awards! And live performances! And maybe this time, unlike the NME Music Awards show, they would actually give out music awards instead of just having one stadium-sized mosh pit! All I had to do was show up at 6:30, tell them I’m on the media guest list, and enjoy the show at 7:00. Simple, right? Exciting, right? A night to remember just waiting to happen, right? If you guessed No to all of those questions, you would be right.

I am anal-retentive. I have to be on time to everything, if not 15 minutes early. My apartment must be cleaned every Saturday morning (it’s allowed to get messy during the week due to a condition called Lisa Is Lazy). Pens must be lined up parallel to my Post-It notes on my desk. The outline of my head’s shadow must not have stray hairs sticking out at odd angles. (These are all things that will make my life quite lonely in the long run…I am completely aware of this fact.) And so, because my strange little mind works this way, any time things are not organized well, a part of me shrivels and dies inside. Normally I can tolerate small instances of disorganization; someone is late because their bus wasn’t on time, that report they just printed is out of sequence, Jamiroquai is spelled wrong on a playlist, there is toothpaste on the corner of your mouth, etc. But what I realized Friday night around 9:30 is that I have a breaking point. My mind can only deal with so much Fucking Disorganization before it says, “Lisa, you don’t have to put up with this. It is driving you crazy, you are not enjoying yourself, and these people should be beaten with whips made of cacti.”

Allow me to explain.

There were about 7 entrance doors to the Forum, the Indy Music Awards venue. One had a sign that said VIP, one said Media, and one said Guest VIP; the other 4 were apparently just there for decoration. As people started arriving, there was no direction as to where to line up. Yes there were metal gates, but they weren’t arranged in an obvious way implying, “Hey you in the skinny jeans. Line up over here.” 6:45 rolls around and the only reason a line forms is because each individual person has gone up to the 8 Large Security Men (I’m pretty sure that’s the name of their company) and asked where they’re supposed to go. I don’t line up because I (wrongly) assume that the large line over there is for the masses and, because I’m on the all-too-important media guest list, I will skip the queue and waltz right in through that magical door on the left. I try to play it cool and walk past the gate in hopes of overhearing what other VIP-looking people are asking the security men. I find out that even though VIP allegedly stands for Very Important Person, I still have to line up over there behind those 300 people. (Keep in mind that because I arrived at 6:15, I could have been 2nd in line had there only been signs telling me this is where I needed to go in the goddamn first place.) I’m in line. It’s 7:00. The show is supposed to be starting right now but they haven’t even started letting people in to the building. The guy behind me asks me where I’m coming from and I say, “Well, I just came from work downtown at Blackfriars but I live in Notting Hill.” When I ask him where he came from and he says Bath, I realize my answer should have been London. Turns out he’s in one of the bands up for an award; their name is CuteLooney. I tell him it’s a great band name (actually, it’s only about a 4 out of 10), ask him how he came up with it, and then I meet his parents who abruptly cut join us in line. As we’re standing there wondering why the hell we’re still outside at this point and not inside clapping for Promoter of the Year, it becomes apparent that the VIP line (the one we’re patiently standing in) is about 50 people longer than the general audience line. I don’t know if they sold any non-VIP tickets to this shindig. But fine. I can deal with this crap.

I make my way inside. It’s 7:30. I find a seat (obviously there were no assigned seats with organization skills such as these). I wait. I read the program. I make comments to myself about all the “fashion statements” being made. I gather up my legs every 13 seconds for people to walk in and out of my row. It’s 8:00. I have read the program 3 times. It’s 8:15. Some BBC personality guy I don’t recognize comes on stage and introduces some whiny dude with a guitar who sings 4 songs. 4 songs!! Each of which makes me want to rip my ears off my head with a plastic beach shovel. But fine. I am suffering because there is still the hope that tonight I will hear some good music and be introduced to some great new bands. After this guy stops singing the lyrics, “You look like my father and my father’s an alcoholic.”

Okay great. 8:45 and the show is finally starting. The first winner is announced and we wait 5 minutes while everyone looks around the auditorium wondering where Winner Dawn is and why hasn’t she come down to the stage yet to claim her hideous glass award? Then the announcer has the brilliant idea of getting everyone to chant her name to make her appear. Dawn! Dawn! Dawn! Un-fucking-believable. She comes out from behind the stage curtain with a face that seems to say, “Oh hello. Were you calling my name? I didn’t hear you. What’s this, an award? Where am I? Why am I wearing this hideous, sparkly dress?” She accepts her trophy by mumbling into the microphone which muddles her words even more and the people around me continue to chug their beers. 5 more awards are given, each acceptance speech as painful to listen to as the last (one was merely a loud, prolonged “whoo”). Dawn plays 2 songs which match her outfit in beauty. It is 9:30. The announcer comes back to the stage, says they’re taking a 10 minute break and the show will continue with more awards and performances later. And THAT, my friends, is my breaking point.

I stand up, feel a twinge of regret that I won’t be around to find out if CuteLooney wins Best Folk/Blues group, and walk out of the place. On the subway ride home I realize I am okay with what I’ve done. But only because I’m not okay with what the organizers of that event have done. I am a responsible adult. (Stop laughing.) I take certain things seriously. (I mean it, quit giggling.) And in return I expect others to be professional, especially when it comes to THEIR JOBS. Even if that night had been filled with A-list celebrities instead of 200 bands I had never heard of, I still would have been disgusted by the way things were handled.

And so, to wrap up, this is a very long-winded way of telling you that I will no longer tolerate unprofessional people. I am better than that and shouldn’t have to deal with the stress and frustration it causes me. (Tim Curry, if you are reading this, I DO NOT mean you. You could keep me waiting for days and I will still worship the ground you walk on. Call me!)

*music - Rally round tha family, with pockets full of shells Bulls on parade

Hit it, Rockapella

Call it residual paranoia from being mugged in Chicago, but if I’m walking by myself at night, I am constantly looking around to see who’s walking nearby. Tonight on my way home from the Tube, I noticed a man walking about twenty feet or so behind me. He was walking faster than I was so he quickly caught up to me. As he passed by I realized I had nothing to fear from this man because, this man you see, well he was eating a banana. And I am willing to bet a large amount of money that no one has ever been mugged by a person eating a banana.

Danny Wallace. You probably don’t know that name right now, but I’m guessing you soon will. Or at least you soon should. Because Danny Wallace is a funny, funny man. When I find a person whose humor I think is original, witty, and intelligent, I have to find everything they’ve written and read it within a span of about two weeks. It happened with David Sedaris and Augusten Burroughs and now it’s happening with Mr. Wallace, a British BBC radio/tv personality, author, etc. I first read his column in a weekly London magazine, The Shortlist. In fact, he is the author behind the amusing story about the Subway sub I plagiarized on my blog; but when I did that, I had no idea the extent to which his humor extends. (He is also at the top of the list as to why I think British humor is better than American humor, but that’s another story.) This summer, a movie starring Jim Carrey is being released called Yes Man. Danny Wallace wrote the book the movie is based on (I’m telling you this so I can yet again say ‘I knew about this way back when’). Basically he decides that he says No too much in life, and to become a better person he says Yes to everything for a year. Hilarity ensues. In addition to making me laugh out loud in public places, his book really does make you stop and think about the choices you make in life. How merely saying Yes to something as small as a homeless man asking you if you have any spare change can be life altering.

"When you think about it, probably some of the best things that have ever happened to you in life, happened because you said Yes to something. Otherwise, things just sort of stay the same."

I highly recommend this book (as well as his other two books which I have not read yet but am willing to bet are just as side-splittingly funny) and I’m sure they will soon be on the front display table at Borders just in time for the movie’s release. Also, I might just have to start posting his weekly Shortlist column so that you can also read his opinion about eating McDonalds more than once a week, people who arrive on time to parties, and drinking beer at 10 in the morning. You’ll thank me for this.

On a completely unrelated note (as usual), I would like to thank my sister for sending me the link to a YouTube list of Sesame Street’s 50 “Greatest Hits.” It was great to see clips of Captain Vegetable, the Teeny Little Super Guy, Richard Pryor saying the alphabet, and Smokey Robinson singing “U Really Got a Hold on Me” to a letter U. It was NOT, however, great to see (a first time for me due to the fact that it aired in 1982 and I was only 1) the clip of everyone explaining to Big Bird that Mr. Hooper had died and wasn’t coming back. I may or may not have cried. (To be fair, I was technically only “tearing up” until I heard Bob’s voice quiver and Maria’s eyes well with tears. Then it might have turned into actual crying.)

*music – A fine word like ‘waffle’ would turn out just awful, Oh W’s grand as can be

I’m in crush with you

Someone sneezed at work and it sounded exactly like a coyote howl. It was a severe ‘achoooo’ with the sound in the shape of a bell curve. I’m surrounded by a bunch of animals. Animals in French cuffs.

Last night, for the first time since I arrived in London, I saw someone fall down the escalator in the Underground. I am surprised it took this long for me to witness it (and even more surprised that it didn’t happen to me) since those escalators are incredibly dizzying. He didn’t fall all the way down the escalator, though. Now THAT would have been something. (I am a bad person.)

How many apricots is TOO many apricots?

London’s Crazy Headlines:
- Sword gang convicted of killing teenager (fyi – it was a Samurai sword)
- Cat poo cuppa for £50
- Girl finds father rotting in chapel
- Woman leaps to death after tick bite
- Jail over 16 imaginary children
- Baby No. 2 from 19-yr-old sperm

One of the little ways London is more polite than your average American city is that if a London city bus isn’t operating, its sign will say ‘Sorry – Not In Service.’ Now, when was the last time an American public transportation system apologized for not running?

I got a free pass to go see the new Colin Farrell movie In Bruges last night. Afterwards, because I’m a delinquent, I snuck into Drillbit Taylor. (I didn’t choose this one; it was the only movie starting at that time.)
#1 In Bruges was kinda lame.
#2 Ralph Fiennes is probably one of the greatest actors of our time (even though his name is pronunciatingly deceitful).
#3 I feel like I could have been Seth Rogan.

Let me explain. Seth Rogan is one of the great minds behind Knocked Up, Superbad, Freaks and Geeks, and Drillbit Taylor. I’m pretty sure every movie or tv show he has written has referenced a Bar Mitzvah, and his hilarious writing always centers around the nerdy kid in high school; so basically, he writes about HIS adolescent experience. But this could have been ME, I tell you!!! I’m funny! I had a Bat Mitzvah! I’m a nerd! I got wasted at a bar and knocked up some random girl! No wait…that’s not right. Okay, everything but that last part is true. But I think I know the reason why I wouldn’t be as successful as Seth Rogan. If I made films based on my youth, the following scenes would be the reasons behind the movies flopping:

Scene #1: Amy and Lisa make two boxes of Kraft macaroni and cheese and proceed to inhale them without the slightest thought of chewing, all the while instructing Amy’s Apple IIe to say things such as ‘Lisa is awesome’ and ‘boobies.’
Scene #2: Lisa joins her high school marching band unknowingly destroying any chance of a successful social life. She is shunned by the cool girls who once used to talk to her in elementary school. On the bright side, she can now play You Can Call Me Al by heart on the trumpet and she has scored a fabulous pair of black Drillmaster sneakers.
Scene #3: Lisa and friends return to Eisner Camp to smoke weed out of a hookah acquired on their recent trip to Israel. Since they aren’t technically campers and are merely hiding out in a random building at camp, they are obviously caught by security who proceeds to kick them out at 2 o’clock in the morning. 6 stoned people sleep in her father’s Oldsmobile sedan in the parking lot of a Great Barrington pharmacy. Camp sends a letter home to our parents tattling on us. The letter is intercepted by Lisa who feels guilty and shows her mother, but insists that she not tell Dad.
Scene #4: Cut to fun, out of control party at a ‘cool kid’s’ house, complete with sex, drugs, and booze. Then cut to Lisa sitting at home at her desk trying to complete the matrices due in AP Calculus the next day.

*music – Look he’s crawling up my wall, black and hairy very small Now he’s up above my head, hanging by a little thread Boris the spidaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

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T to G: “Those aren’t sausages. Those are abominations.”

Here’s a British media recommendation for you – The Catherine Tate Show. I assume that it is similar to the Tracy Ullman Show (I say assume because I’ve never actually seen TTUS). I watched two episodes of this hilarious comedy and immediately fell in love. Catherine Tate is the genius behind it and stars in each skit, which range from 15 seconds to 3 minutes or so, as a different, recurring character. I think my favorite character is Margaret who is startled by the smallest things and screams bloody murder (like when her husband bites into a piece of toast or when her cell phone rings, not to mention the screaming fit she throws when she pours milk on her Rice Krispies). So if your Netflix queue is running short, put this on your list. I promise you won’t be disappointed!

There is a SEVERE lack of iced coffee in London. Starbucks is the only place I can find that offers a plain iced coffee. But at $6, there ain’t no way I’m buying one of them.

I am normally a good multi-tasker. I can listen to my friends sob their problems to me on the phone while I set a new Minesweeper record. I can cook up a mean stir fry with one hand while disinfecting my kitchen with bleach with the other. But I can think of two cases where I am physically not able to do two things at once. One is singing/talking while playing the violin (and trust me, I tried really hard at accomplishing this) and the other I realized today as I was (gasp) washing my hands in the work bathroom. Hearing someone else do it made me realize I cannot pee and blow my nose at the same time. I just can’t do it. Don’t want to, either.

Sometimes when I admit these things to you, I have to think about who is on this distribution list. Will I be forever alienating myself from someone who I want to keep as a friend (or family member, for that matter)? Will everyone feel awkward when they see me again in Boston? But you know, I can’t worry about these things. If I did, I’d have nothing to write about. Plus, I know you all have your own strange, and perhaps just as unhygienic, habits of your own. Feel free to respond to me with them and I’ll add them to tomorrow’s email!

*music – one husband one wife, whaddya got, two people sentenced for life