New Season, New Blog

Hello, world! Welcome to Dropshots, my new blog on basically anything I care enough to write about. I have to admit, reading the blogs of my friends over at "I'm Really Not Jewish and Other Thoughts" and "An Honest Bro Makes his Own Friends" has inspired me to take the plunge and share my own thoughts with all of you. Right now, "all of you" probably just means Maggie (hey DW!), but perhaps my readership will grow and I'll be able to make more money than Steinberg on AdSense, or get more hits than he does. That's not a challenge, by the way, at least for now, but we'll see where this goes.

In deciding what my pivotal First Post would address, I had my first bout with writer's block in quite some time. These days, I don't write nearly as many papers as I did in college. A year ago, I could have given you a 10- or 15-pager on interesting topics like Japanese religion and the body or the Masculine Mystique in no time. Not anymore, though. Instead, I spend my days crunching numbers in a very nice cubicle, and I typically have between 15 and 20 excel pivot tables open at any given time. More on that later.

Fortunately for you, I was able to come up with a topic as I was running along the Charles this afternoon. It was my first real outdoor run of the spring, since I can't really count my lame attempt at jogging last weekend with DW as a "run." I was in rather poor form due to a certain event on Saturday evening, hosted by two sophisticated gentlemen I know. Needless to say, I didn't make the best running partner, and today I decided I needed to venture out on my own since the weather was too nice to pass up. For me, it is officially spring when I can consistently run outside by the river, and I'm hoping that we have reached that point this year! I was definitely optimistic about my jaunt this afternoon: I was well rested, the sun was shining, and it was *just* warm enough to wear shorts. Things started out well enough, although a few oblivious dog-walkers made my trek on the footbridge over Storrow Drive more difficult than it needed to be. Once I had cleared that hurdle, I was on my way, listening to "Skipping Stones" on my iPod. This was so much better than running on the treadmill after a day in the office, watching the Cash Cab and reading an old issue of Us Weekly. After I spent a couple more songs enjoying the sun, I felt myself fall into the same mentality I had last fall while running the route out to the BU Bridge. First of all, I'll admit that I'm a competitive person. Jogging isn't inherently competitive, but that doesn't mean that I can't make it a rule to myself that I won't let another girl pass me. Men in short shorts, middle-aged women on bikes in bright purple spandex, even roller bladers--they can all pass me and I don't mind, but if a girl passes me I have to admit that I'm not ok with that. I have found that there are usually faster runners at 6:30am than there are on Sunday afternoons, so I was safe for today.

Beyond that, there is so much more to "running on the Charles" than simply getting your recommended 30-60 minutes of exercise in for the day. No, dear reader, this is a complicated setting to navigate, akin to First Floor Berry or FoCo. First of all, let's be honest--it's all about face time. Everyone running out there is checking everyone else out. Shamelessly. At least you're both running in opposite directions so if you do make that awkward eye contact, you can quickly put some distance between yourself and the fit twenty-something guy in the Ivy League t-shirt. In the big scheme of things, though, this doesn't really bother me. If you don't want to be seen when you run, it probably isn't wise to pick one of the most popular running routes in Boston. Besides, it makes things more interesting. What does bother me, though, are the people who take it to the next level. I'm talking about the girls who wear nothing but sports bras and tiny shorts in weather like we had today, and the guys who decided that they were just too sexy for their shirts (I promise you, they were not). I was in a long sleeve t-shirt and probably would have been better off in cropped pants. To each his own, I suppose, but it's just not my style.