I like to count things when I'm running. It helps to silence the Kerrigan-esque scream of every cell in my body: "huhwhyyyyyyy."

Sometimes I count porch cats, who follow me sagely with their eyes as I jog past. I typically imagine them thinking, "Ah, the illusion of control. We're all gonna die someday, sweetheart."

Sometimes I count election signs. I usually lose track of the number of Obama signs.

Haven't seen a McCain sign yet.

My room has a big old-timey heating register. A metal shelf has been built encasing it, either to protect people from idly resting things on the white-hot coils or to create a functional surface out of an oversized bothersome structure or both. I hung a mirror above mine and used the shelf surface for makeup and jewelry, creating a sort of vanity table. It works.

When my mom was helping me move in, she was worked up over my choice to set THINGS PRECIOUS THINGS on top of the shelf and immediately pulled a tape measure out of her purse (cause you never know) and started making quick measurements and pensively biting her nails. I chalked it up to faulty circuitry from popping out three kids in three years and ignored it. But today in the mail, I got a package from her enclosing a beautiful quilted runner for the shelf in my three favorite colors. My mom has handmade me so many things over the years, from gluegunned hairbows to abstract Halloween costumes to my high school graduation quilt. As it turns out, motherhood doesn't expire.

Thanks, Mom. 'Cause when I said at 8 that I had to be The Blob from that '50s B-movie for Halloween, you could have said, "Are you sure you don't want to be a cat?"

Lauren attacks a post-race victory omelet while finding absolutely zero humor in her runner's number. Really nothing to laugh at there at all.

We ran a 5k for universal feline suffrage or whatever today. Participants could bring their pets. Let me just say, some aging black labs kicked my ass.

Upon leaving the diner, we realized that we'd parked in a handicapped spot. While wearing athletic clothes and runner's numbers. Because why just park illegally when you can be a dick about it too.

Brenda waves a branch felled by Ike at her going away party.

I got a letter from her today from Spain.

Those months in Dijon, I thirsted for reminders of my comfortable, distant life back home. My mom sent me simple postcards about weekend trips, yardwork, and could I believe the weird thing my dad said to her? My eyes would well up. I'd get short of breath when I checked my e-mail on campus. Tonight I'll get wine-drunk on the terrace of a centuries-old rowhouse watching fireworks over the lake, but right now tell me that you sat through six hours of a Law & Order marathon. Tell me you singed off your eyebrows fixing the grill. Tell me you think your new haircut's too short.

Sorry, Brenda. I forgot. I forgot how faraway it can feel, being far away. Keep an eye on your mailbox.

I listened to My Aim is True and Armed Forces a lot in high school (usually through my walkman-to-tape-deck converter speeding down my street cause fuck was I ever late for school), but other Elvis Costello albums that are worth a damn I didn't discover until college. The first gift Nick ever gave me (we probably weren't dating yet) was a 45 of "I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down". I think it followed a discussion of why Mr. Costello, as given to parenthetical titles as he is, would choose "(I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea" but not "I Can't Stand Up (For Falling Down)". Then we took a preemptive puff from our inhalers and rolled for damage. Ha.

The bonus disc on the Rhino rerelease of Get Happy! has "Girls Talk" on it, but it wasn't until this past summer that I discovered this song and played it and played it and talked about it and put it on compilations for people and decided it would be in the opening scene of my screenplay that will never be written. I'm sort of....excitable. You don't want to see me at Kroger went they have bing cherries on sale.

While digging for studying-conducive tunes the other day, I came across that 45 I've had for a couple years now and discovered that the freaking B-side is, has always been, "Girls Talk". I don't know why but I felt warm, full, in good hands. Sometimes it takes me a few laps to catch up with Nick and vice versa but in the meantime we do okay.

Here we are, doing okay.

PBR from the future.

B and his friend Crys celebrated B's new tattoo and payday (freaking payday!) by getting me very drunk before 9 pm. They showed me another comfortable dive bar in Athens besides Tony's. Who wants to drink someplace where your shoes don't stick to the floor?

I guess a couple weeks ago they replaced the splintering, hardly-doing-its-one-job-of-being-a-horizontal-plane bar with this acrylic, illuminated number. So now I know what it's like to get bombed on a spaceship.

It's a Wonderful Election Year.