I'm still sick. Sense of smell is still MIA. But did this keep me from doing a triathlon today? Hell no!

I actually wanted to bail in the worst way. My case of pneumonia-bronchitis-pleuritis just won't go away (although I did start taking random antibiotics, which may cure me or may create a multidrug resistant super bug). But once I realized that neither my race fee ($60) nor my wetsuit rental ($25) was refundable, I got cheap and decided I wanted to race, goddamnit! Besides, even if I just did really crappy I had a great excuse-- "I've got the black lung! Cough Cough."

It's funny-- besides not being able to breathe through my nose on the swim, and not being able to breathe at all on the run, the race wasn't that bad. It wasn't until the drive home that I began to feel that maybe, maybe, a triathlon isn't what my immune system needed. First I got a croupy cough, and then a fever... and the only prescription was more cowbell! Unfortunately, I had no cowbell. I stopped and got an Americano instead.

Now that I'm home, I'm dreaming of all the training I want to do, and the cool goodies I want to buy before CaliMan Half: a new wheelset, aerobars, and a wetsuit... But not yet. First I have to overcome my tuberculosis.

Lung for sale, cheap

I'm sick. (cough cough) It's mostly a minor annoyance, except for the fact that I missed the Sallie Mae 10K today. I've been looking forward to it for a while, but from what I've heard it's hard to run 6.2 miles when you only have one lung. Oh, sidenote: if you know anyone who needs a lung transplant, I have one in fair condition. I coughed it up last night. I think the other one might be coming out really soon...

The worst part isn't the coughing, but the fact that I can't taste or smell anything. It's profound! Yesterday, I went to the Kensington farmer's market and bought some soap from this handmade soap lady. I explained to her, "I'm extremely congested and can't smell anything, but can you help me pick out a soap for my Mom? She likes lavender and other florals." So what did the lady do? She handed me a soap to smell. WTF! I politely sniffed it, but of course I couldn't smell a damn thing. I told her, "I'm afraid I can't smell this. It's too bad, you have lovely soaps. What is it supposed to smell like?" Then she kept presenting me with more soaps to smell, and finally I just pretended to be able to smell one so she'd stop. I have no idea what the soap I bought is supposed to smell like, but it's yellow. There are some things that are yellow that smell good, I suppose. Hope you like it, Mom.

This morning I broke down and bought some cough syrup to try and quiet my earsplitting cough phenomenon. Grape flavor, but who cares, right? I can't smell or taste anything... or so I thought! All I have to say is, it's so unfair that the only thing I've been able to taste for the past four days has been that damn grape cough syrup. Why, God, why?

Self-delusion, SF style

The other night I got off Metro at Downtown Bethesda, alone. The combination of my solitude and the quality of the night's darkness allowed me to indulge in a little fantasy: I forced myself to believe that I was really in San Francisco, exiting BART at Montgomery Street. It wasn't that hard to do, really-- BART was modeled after Metro (or vice versa; I can't remember) so the stations and trains are eerily similar. As I emerged from underground the tall buildings of downtown Bethesda became downtown SF's skyscrapers. It's funny how a place can mean so much to you.

--

My favorite time of day to be out in SF was at night. You could go out in anything; sure, there would be club hoppers dressed up, but I could hop on the cable car in my sweats, post-swim, and feel right at home. Everyone out on the streets was happy (except the drivers looking for parking spots, of course). The city was bite sized, compact, and highly digestible for a pedestrian like me. From my rooftop I could see across the bay to Berkeley and Richmond, and somewhere in between (El Cerrito?) there was a flashing green light. The night I saw it I felt like Jay Gatsby. That's the thing: there was always something new to discover, so that each day you could convince yourself that you had experienced something special.

I really want to go back and visit SF (can you tell?) but more than that, I want to fall in love with this place. All the stars are aligned: I'll be a pedestrian again in the fall, living in Downtown Bethesda, and I'll be able to Metro anywhere in DC. I'll go out at night and find little tea shops and fabric stores and spend my weekends in Dupont at Kramerbooks and Afterwords. Maybe then I can stop writing pathetic odes to a city I no longer inhabit.

Daylight Sucking Time

Twice a year, we screw with our clocks and run a very good risk of showing up an hour early or late for something important. Bill Gates has taken it upon himself to automatically adjust the time on my computer (thanks, dude!) which is a godsend for me, really. No other clocks under my possession change automatically, so I end up changing clocks here and there for a few days after the time changes. It's all very haphazard, which is what you should expect from me by this point, right?

The last clock to change, each and every season, is the clock on my car stereo. My long term memory must be about five months and 29 days long or something, because each time Daylight Savings rolls around I have to reinvent the wheel and figure out how to change the damn thing. I'm sitting here trying to remember what I did the last time, but all I can remember is the "aha!" moment when I figured it out. I distinctly remember thinking, "Woah, maybe I should write this down, so I don't forget again." I also remember thinking, "Nah, I'll remember it, it's so easy!" Ahem.

"Hey Alli," you suggest, "why not check the manual?" Ah yes, good call... except my car stereo is after-market and I bought the car used, so there's no manual. Another confounding factor is the fact that I've only actually had to change it about half of the time-- various boys who have meandered into and out of my life have taken it upon themselves to figure it out, usually during long car trips (since it really does take upwards of half an hour to crack the code).

I suppose I can just add an hour to the time in my car until September, but I don't really want to make my life any more ghetto than it already is. Instead, I'm sending out an SOS! If you are one of those who has fixed my clock in the past (and remembers how!), or if you just have an idea, please let me know. There's not much to screw up-- I've already mangled all of my presets.