OMG you guys my half-marathon starts in like nine hours!!!

I really don’t think I’m going to be able to sleep tonight.

Today was such a great day! I slept in until like noon (seriously) then planned to go meet Tiffany to lay out by her pool. But I didn’t have a swimsuit, so of course first I had to go to the mall, which I told Tiff would take me like an hour, but that was a gigantic lie. I decided to stop by Lucy to get Spandex shorts, and, as I was walking there, I passed a girl who looked a lot like Jordin Sparks. But I thought to myself, “No, that girl’s too heavy to be Jordin Sparks.” I saw not-Jordin walk into Marciano, and, by the time I had purchased my Lucy shorts, I thought maybe it was Jordin Sparks after all. So I went to Marciano, and she wasn’t in there, so I knew she had to be in a dressing room. I couldn’t just stand there staring at the dressing rooms, waiting — by the way, I have no idea why it was so important for me to know if this was Jordin Sparks — so I started grabbing dresses from the racks. Finally a sales girl was like, “Can I put those in a room for you?” I knew this was a brilliant way for me to get closer to maybe-Jordin, so I said sure. When I went back to try them on, definitely-Jordin was walking out of her dressing room. It was definitely Jordin Sparks! But then I couldn’t just be like, “Oh, mystery solved, I’m outtie.” So I ended up trying on the dresses, and then the salesgirl brought me these REALLY cute shoes to try on with them, and I loved it all, and I don’t even want to tell you guys how much I ended up spending at Marciano, where I wouldn’t have even been if I hadn’t been stalking Jordin Sparks around Fashion Square. Sigh.

Next I went to MAC — pre-teen girl I passed on the way: “Let’s go to the Em-Ay-See store!” — to buy my favorite black eyeliner, because I’m pretty sure Kate’s sister is currently in possession of my old one. That of course took forever, because everything at MAC always takes forever. I wanted to be like, “Listen, you poor, poor girls who have to wear fake eyelashes to work: I don’t want to steal this eyeliner, I really don’t, but it also shouldn’t take me 20 minutes to be permitted to pay for it.” Lastly, I went to Everything But Water, where I got a super-cute swimsuit that I’m in love with.

Finally, I made it to Tiff’s, and it was 3:30 by this point, but we sat out at the pool until like 4:45, when her Mom came to usher us inside before we turned into prunes. In Seattle, it would have been dark by 4:45. In Scottsdale, I was in a sunny swimming pool.

Around 7:30, I headed up to my mom’s for my carbo-loading dinner. My sister arrived last night with her boyfriend and two other friends from school, and my mom did a fantastic job of cooking us all a carbo-tastic dinner, with plenty of vegan options for me. It was absolutely delicious. Good job, Mom!

Then I made everybody pose in the Team Pasulka T-shirts I had made. Can you even believe how great these turned out? I am so proud of myself for coming up with the idea, and so proud of my uber-designer friend Anna for doing the logos.

My sister’s boyfriend does this hilarious imitation of Blue Steel from Zoolander, so we all took a Blue Steel photograph. I can’t stop laughing at this shit.

Oh, and my mother refuses to have her face on my blog, but she did give permission for this photo to be used:

Lastly, I would like to add that I am, in actuality, not the gigantic swamp monster I appear to be when standing next to my mother and/or sister. They are extremely tiny people. I got my dad’s genetics, meaning I am a normal-sized person. Seriously, when it comes to physical size, my mom and sister are just one evolutionary step past the teacup chihuahua. And when it comes to making annoying chirping sounds when you don’t do what she wants, my mother is pretty much the evolutionary equivalent. (Tee hee, I love you Mom!!!)

Okay I really don’t think I’m going to be able to sleep now, but I’m going to try.

My race starts at 8:30 am Arizona time! My sister and her friends are running with all the fast people, and I’m going to be running it with Tiffy and her mom, who will be wearing matching pink jogging suits.

SEND US GOOD LUCK VIBES!!!!

My Lord, Scottsdale is SO much less stressful this time around. I actually feel RELAXED here. Over the holidays there was just so much pressure to do things and see people and blah blah blah but this time I have been absolutely loving this trip so far. In fact, I’m thinking I’m gonna extend it a week or so and just soak up the sunshine. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed bright, sunny days until I walked outside this morning. I am terrified to do the half-marathon in this heat, but LORD it was gorgeous today. Shiny and warm and perfect. It’s worked wonders for my anxiety levels.

I went to the Expo for the Rock N Roll marathon today. It was in the Phoenix Convention Center, which is across from the arena where the Phoenix Suns play, and there was a game today at the same time I went to the Expo. So I could not for the life of me understand how it was reasonable for them to charge $30 for parking to pick up my fucking marathon bib, but then I saw all the people on the streets in Suns gear and put it together. Dude, I totally thought it was football season. I didn’t understand that there was overlap. I’m such a chick. Anyway, I eventually found street parking like a mile south and walked through some pretty shady neighborhoods in the dark to get my stupid marathon bib. But the Expo was HUGE and really exciting. I finally started to get pumped for this race. There were so many cool freebies and lots of running gear, and just a ton of people — women especially — who were serious about running. It was also inspirational to see how many women were there with booths; there were at least 10 of them who ran their own companies selling women’s running gear. I mean, personally, I cannot think of a deeper level of hell than attempting to build a vaguely differentiated women’s fitness gear company, but, still. Good for them. Even if it is a totally profit-proof business model.

As I was buying an over-priced running top (which was actually very awesome because it has a huge zip pocket in the front — why don’t more companies make running gear with large zip pockets?), I overheard two of the sales girls chatting. One was like, “Are you running many marathons this year?” and the other was like, “Oh, yeah, about 7 or 8. I only did one last year because I was focusing on doing triathlons. But this year my goal is to qualify for the women’s Olympic time trials,” and then the first girl was like, “Oh, how fast do you have to run for that?” and the (crazy) girl is like “About 2:45.” In my head I’m thinking, “Is that figure in days?” So then the first girl says, “What are you running now?” and crazy girl says “Well last year I did it in 3:10, but I wasn’t really trying.”

ZOMG.

I’m going to run a half marathon in about three hours, I think. I wanted to slap crazy sales girl, and it looked like the other sales girl did, too, but we both just smiled politely. In my head I was like “Slap slap slap!”

After that I went to see my friend Tiffany, who’s also running the race on Sunday. She flew in from NYC for it. Tiff and I have been really good friends since we were about 5 years old, so I’m super excited to do this race with her (and her super-fit mom!). I stopped by her house, where Tiffany’s little maltipoo and her mom’s puppy terrier were running around the house making out with each other. I’m not kidding. They suck face. Like insert their tongues into one another’s mouth and go at it. I’ve never seen dogs do that.

Since we’re running the PF Chang’s Rock N Roll Marathon, we thought we’d have dinner at PF Chang’s, which is right down the street from us anyway. Tragically, the rest of the city thought that, too, and there was an hour wait. But the girl said we could sit on the patio and order drinks and appetizers while we waited, and we were like, “Done and done.” We knew we’d never leave that patio. Since it was packed, we ended up sharing a little corner area with an older couple from Philadelphia, here for the Eagles/Cardinals game on Sunday. (There are a lot of big events going on in Phoenix right now.) They were super cool and we ended up chatting with them the whole night. They have a teenage daughter who recently got bit by the theater bug, and Tiffany’s an actress in Manhattan, so they had a ton of questions for her. Since I knew Tiff wasn’t going to brag, I was like, “Tiffany was on Law & Order: SVU. She played an underage hooker.” (This is true. Tiffy co-starred in the episode that Hayden Panettiere was in. Sometimes when I am flipping through the channels late at night I will accidentally come upon a half-naked Tiffany grinding up on Chris Meloni’s lap. I always scream.) Anyway, they were very interested in all of this and we talked a great deal about Tiffany’s on-screen hooker exploits.

The couple paid their bill and left just as we were finishing up. Because we were all on the patio, they walked through the restaurant, then out the front door, and then back around past the patio to their car. All of a sudden we hear a guy screaming “Hey! It’s that girl from Law & Order! The prostitute!” and pointing to Tiffany and screaming “Whore!” in the middle of downtown Scottsdale. Everyone was staring. “I can’t believe it’s that hooker! Right there, sweetie!” OMG. I think we both turned bright red. Perhaps the gentleman had been a little drunker than I’d initially assumed. But he was laughing jovially about it; he hadn’t meant any harm. Regardless, Tiffany being called a whore by a middle-aged man on the Scottsdale Waterfront was the highlight of my day, and, possibly, of my entire trip. I don’t know what could top that.

So I just got it in my head to check the times for the Jingle Bell 5K I did in December. The results are here, and I actually didn’t do all that bad, at least compared to everyone else.

Overall: 1625 out of 4197
Females Overall: 738 out of 2396
Females 25-29: 145 out of 421

So, ya know, in general I was in the top 35-40th percentile, and my average mile time was 10:29. NOT TOO SHABBY!

I am not expecting my results to be this good for the half-marathon, but at least it gives me some hope that I am perhaps not the most embarrassing runner on earth.

Jiggity jig?

Was that the Three Little Pigs?

Or the market-bound pigs?

At any rate, Leo and I are back in Scottsdale, hanging out in our spare room at my father’s house, just as if we’d never left. Well, actually, it’s quite clear that we left, because Dad vacuumed and made the bed and wiped off the bathroom counters and all those things I never do when I’m actually living here.

Dude: it is hot in Arizona. I was wearing a teeny tiny tank top tonight and I was just fine. They are predicting a high of 77 on Sunday! That’s race day! And the race starts at 8:30, which means I will probably be doing the final few miles of it — the hardest part! — sometime around 11 am. So it’ll be in the 70s probably by the time I’m halfway through. Unbelievable. Oh, and did I mention it’s a dry heat?

I do have to say something, though. I had enough miles to upgrade to first class on the flight here, and I had never flown first class before, and I would just like to say that it’s like flying on a completely different airplane. I mean, ridiculous. The stewardesses were sooo nice, everything is free — including alcohol! — and they serve you drinks in real glasses and yummy dinners on real plates with real silverware. They actually asked me “Will you be dining with us tonight?” and I think I looked like a moron because I just kind of stared at her, like, waiting for the price list. But it was free! I was still wary of airplane food. Then I heard the lady next to me say yes, and she didn’t look like the type of lady who would be eating typical airplane crap, so I said yes, too, and the dinner was actually quite good! And your seats are huge with tons of legroom and they lay back really far. And these drunk dudes were just having fun with the stewardess and kept telling her to go in back and mix them all these different drinks based on ingredients they named. And she’d make these concoctions that they asked for, and they’d sample them, and then, if they liked them, they’d name the new drink and tell her to add it to the menu. And then she’d offer to make one for the rest of first class. Once she was done serving the new drink to everybody, they’d start the process all over again with new ingredients. This went on the entire flight. I was just watching in awe, like, “This shit would never happen in coach.” Oh, and best of all, no one yelled at me for letting Leo sit on my lap and poke his head out of his little bag. They always yell at me about that in coach! I never want to fly coach again! I need to meet my billionaire husband ON THIS TRIP. Do you hear me, God????

One of the absolute cutest things my dog does is pick up some large piece of food that he knows he shouldn’t have — an egg roll, perhaps, or a large biscuit, something that he can just barely fit into his mouth — and then run up to me, whimpering urgently and whipping his head back and forth, as if to say, “Mom! I don’t know how this got into my mouth, but now I can’t get it out!” So ridiculous.

My indoor beach volleyball team had its playoffs tonight, and we actually played pretty well, although we got eliminated in the third round.

I finally remembered to take pictures of the courts because I wanted to show you guys how cool it is — it’s an old aircraft hangar that they’ve converted into indoor beach volleyball courts. Cool, right?

Did you notice how no one else has ridiculous homemade team T-shirts except for us? Yeah, believe it or not, that’s not a league requirement — it’s something we did voluntarily and with our own money. It’s also quite hilarious because we made them with super-cheap iron-on letters from JoAnn Fabrics and puffy paint, and most of the iron-ons have fallen off by now, so the Crazy Ballers T-shirts say, like, “RA Y ALLES!” I think that might mean something in French …

We don’t win all our games — or even most of them, really — but every week I am absolutely certain that nobody has more fun than we do.

Oh, and I told Andrew I was going to post this picture I took of his sexy-ass stomach, and I always follow through on my threats. Don’t get too excited, ladies, he has a girlfriend!