I am an athlete. A very, very serious athlete.

On Friday Michael and I went to see the Jayhawks play at the Commodore.  They're one of our favourite bands and they've recently released a new album: Mockingbird Time.  We went to the Vancouver Fork Festival this summer just to see them.  Friday's performance was tight, solid and I got up front for their performance of Blue.  Opening for them was Abigail Washburn who developed a great rapport with the audience, had a great sense of humour and almost unreal stories to tell about her musical past.
I was hungover on Saturday but we still got out to do some mile repeats that afternoon in anticipation of the half marathon we were slated to run this morning.  I am proud of my 7:06 hungover mile.  The second mile was not a 7:06.
Neat tip for future: don't get drunk the Friday night of the weekend that you have to race.  You're not 22 anymore and the recovery time is longer that you think it will be.  Also, the half marathon is longer than you think it will be.
Last night I had continuous dreams that I was going to be late for the race, but that it wasn't a race but a scavenger hunt that I was supposed to show up for.  It was totally stressful and bizarre and I woke up every couple of hours all night and then suggested to Michael that we could just sleep in instead of getting up at 6.45am for and 8.30am race downtown. 
He said "I was waiting for you to say that".
We both have slight injuries and neither of us knew what to expect race-wise.  Michael held back a little and ended up within a second of last year's time in the 1:33 range.  I knocked off almost two minutes off last year's time and wound up with 1:41 and change.  I had kind of hoped to break the 1:40 barrier again but given that I was still mildly drunk from Friday and that I haven't been paying attention to my diet or doing any speed work or... well, basically just being the world's laziest runner, I'm pretty happy with my time.
Finally - because I know that the spillover for celebrity news from TMZ and Perez Hilton will ultimately land here - I do feel like I should say something about Whitney Houston.
I grew up listening to Whitney Houston and to Michael Jackson and Cindy Lauper.  They were my mother's records and, after dinner, she would often play them and my brother and I would dance around our living room.  I think I might have even bought my own Whitney Houston tapes.  I loved her music and I thought she was beautiful.  And she was beautiful.
It wasn't until I started watching some old clips of her on the news today that I remembered just how amazingly talented she was.  She was so vibrant and passionate and dedicated when she sang.  She paved the way for Mariah Carey and Christina Aguilera. 
She fell off our collective radar some time ago but was apparently staging a comeback.  And for some bizarre reason I decided to tune into the Grammys tonight and bore witness to the whinging and sycophantic tributes to her.
It sure did look good on camera: all those wealthy heads bowed in prayer.  Repentant and remorseful, and yet all moving forward as another of them succumbed to a slow decline and ultimate demise due to substance abuse.
And then, looking across the water at East Vancouver and not being a multi-millionaire and having to get up more days than not to simply pay the bills and to be able to shell out my money to go see live music and to buy and support the lifestyles of the artists that I love?  I thought if Whitney wasn't able to pull herself out of that tailspin given her family and her friends and her networks and her vast resources, what chance do the rest of us have?