11 miles today. That's my house to 96th street and back according to this website. Next Saturday I have to run to 108 street and back for the 13 miles. I just hope to God that the scale on that website is correct or I am going to be really pissed off.

The Hudson River Parkway is teeming with runners and cyclists. Crazy traffic. I am also hoping that this familiarity with other runners will make the crowd on marathon day less annoying. I have heard that it is a huge pain in the neck. Almost as much as the fact that whatever tissue had previously been hanging out on my breast bone seems to have disappeared now on some indefinite vacation. I am not waiting for any postcards either. Bastards. On the plus side though, I don't have to deal with the obstruction and the constant drag down when I am running. I've watched the other girls run towards me and it looks like that stuff hurts. I am aerodynamic. Like Holland.

Melville
Foley

"You can't go and eat on your own in this town," my tennis teacher told me, "you don't understand these guys here. They are aggressive."

Bored of couples and kids at my hotel, I drove outside of the safety of the walled in spa resort and headed into town.

Holy crap. I like to think that me and the octogenarians have a big mutual love going on but this is due in large part to both parties realizing that flirting is only ever that. In Palm Springs, however, aged golfers and soap stars fear neither death nor rejection and are the most forceful bunch of opportunitistic touch ups I have ever encountered. And I've been to Leeds. Greta Garbo would have hated it.

I was so shaken up I have driven up to Santa Barbara and Paso Robles. Staggering around Los Olivos and Solvang has certainly helped. I am currently obsessing about the Roussanne from these guys. And I mean obsessing. The highliner is also fantastic (blah blah blah Sidewaystastic), as is Foley's Clone 115 and Sanford's rose.

Tomorrow will see me asking a Perrin brother to marry me. Or a Haas.

Since I have been upping the miles on my running to get me up to speed for Das Marathon (way way too early I know but I do nothing at which I don't peak too soon) I have been having strange cravings. Or not so strange as it happens.

I found myself being drawn into supermarkets and delis in search of leafy green vegetables. In particular broccoli rabe and kale. And no sooner do I buy them but I am rushing home, steaming them and cramming them into my mouth. Weird, I had thought. Until my sister sent me a book on nutrition and apparently women runners are suseptible to calcium and iron depletion. One huge natural source of iron and calcium is of course kale. Another one is amaranth leaves but I can't find these anywhere but I am aching for them. I have found Callaloo in cans in the supermarket but there is always too much other junk in there as well, like sugar. Ah well.

My main fear is that my knees will pack in before September. They are angry at me and whilst I listen to my palette, I am ignoring my knees. I fear it will end badly and I will be spending my near future running over other peoples' toes in an electric wheelchair or dancing with the stars like our Hev'.

Oh and I am also getting pissed on a thimble full these days. Quite disconcerting.

I just did something I have been meaning to do for nearly six years now: that time period being the length of my residency in New York. I just subscribed to Private Eye. Sometimes it takes me a cretinously long period of time to shift my arse.

For example: a memo to the bloke who in 1990 offered me $45,000 in cash to spend the night with him: oh go on then, subject, of course, to inflation.

Anyway youse, go and check out the lookalikes, always a favourite of mine and guaranteed to be the least taxing on the brain.


Oh and Dumb Britain and this and this and this and this.

Two for me. Because, today, I want to cry and I am out of ice cream. And jesus is Daniel Craig not hot and postured in a crummy actor sort of way. Life is disappointing when your apartment is drafty.

The Remote

I often think about you
when I am lying alone in
my room with my mouth
open and the remote
lost somewhere in the bed

The Sweetest Little Song

You go your way
I'll go your way too

It's not that I want the truth, it's just that I don't want it thrust upon me

During dinner with someone who does indeed know better, or should I actually just say "more", than anyone else I have ever met (which, incidentally, doesn't mean that he is less pleased about this fact than I am for just knowing him), I was told whilst being hugged that I was indeed, his dear, fucked. And also, just to rub it in, quite by my own choosing and probably as a result of millions of years of gene reproduction and an ambiguous upbringing.

Yay. The heart is a lonely hunter, apparently. And stupid.