Salmon? Really?

Okay, folks. Get excited . . . because you have what I'm figuring is probably the longest blog in blog history coming up sometime in the next couple days! That's right. It's the Irish Cream Prequel! But hold your horses . . . it's not quite ready yet. In the meantime, here is an update that will prove that Irish Cream is probably at least a little messed up in the head (I swear, at least part of this has something to do with running)!

So 2 nights ago, my dream (most of which I've forgotten) went a little something like this. My BP girls (friends from college) and I were all visiting my friend, Laura, at her new house. While we were there, we somehow got roped into this Project Runway-esque type of a competition . . . only the rules were a little different. First of all, we had to use old clothes from a nearby Salvation Army as our fabric, and make an entire new wardrobe out of them. Second of all, the losers would be put to death. That's right, friends . . . they would be killed (this is another one of those "feel good" dreams, I guess). Now, in the middle of the contest (Laura and I were partners), Laura yelled something about the bathroom in her house--apparently we had to run back to her house to check on these dudes who were renovating her bathroom. So we got back to her house and everything had been fixed up, and we were totally pumped! That is, until we realized that we were losing precious time . . . and were probably going to die. We rushed back to the place where the competition was being held, just in time to see a couple of groups finish up their projects. We had hardly started and we were FREAKED! "Oh my gosh, we're both going to die!" We were throwing old Salvation Army clothing everywhere. AND THEN I WOKE UP.

Second dream--this time, compliments of last night! So I was going to my friend's party in the BK (Brooklyn), and on the way, I realized I was FAMISHED. I think I had just run earlier that afternoon (see--I told you this relates to running) . . . and I decided I'd make a stop at the golden arches on my way to the party (I don't know why--I don't even eat fast food). So anyway, I get to the McDonalds, and it's PACKED. People are pushing and shoving, and there is no semblence of order in place (kind of like the start of the L.A. Marathon--oooooh snap!). So anyway, I am trying to push my way up to the counter to order something, and suddenly I realize that I've wasted almost 45 minutes trying to get this crap food. This makes me livid because (obviously) I'm going to be late to my party! So I manage to get up near the front of the crowd, and I scream at the McD's workers, "I'm freaking hungry! I've been waiting for 45 minutes to order--what gives?!" The lady tells me to wait my turn, and that I should check back in 5 minutes. So I chill for the next 5, and then push my way back up to the counter, just in time to see this weird girl open up a mass of aluminum foil and toss it up on the counter. Inside, there is a big fillet of salmon, and she announces, "I'd like this grilled, please." I'm all WTF?!, but I am also seriously excited about the fact that I'm so close to getting to order. So I grab the next available cashier's attention and ask her if it's okay for me to order. She says, "Sure, but if you want anything hot, you're going to have to wait--we've got this huge piece of salmon cooking right now." I shoot salmon girl a nasty look, and ask the lady how long it's gonna be. "About 5 more minutes," she announces. So I wait my five minutes, and AGAIN head up to the counter, determined to get my food. "I'll have a number 2 with a diet coke," I announce. "I'm sorry, miss, but we're done with hot food for the night. You can have something cold if you'd like, but we're done serving hot food." I am beyond livid by this point. "But the other lady said if I waited 5 minutes, I could have hot food! UGH. What kind of cold items are available?" I ask. The lady names off a few salads. AND THE ALARM GOES OFF.

How weird are those on scale of 1 to 10? Ha. I can't wait to go to sleep tonight!

What has Irish Cream been eating?

Okay, I know I already posted once today, but I almost forgot to tell y'all about other crazy dreams I've been having as of late! First of all, I had one of those terrifying "jolt you awake and sit straight up in bed" nightmares the other night. I don't remember anything about the dream up until big sis, bro-in-law and I decided to go out onto some random and large body of water on a boat. Now, this is bizarre for a number of reasons. For those of you who don't know . . . Irish Cream don't do boats! There was an experience on a Greek tour boat a while back that made me realize I never want to step foot on a boat ever again (unless like some kind of ebola virus starts taking over the country and the only way to avoid having my flesh eaten is to take a boat to somewhere else . . . THEN, I'll consider it). At any rate, we were indeed on a boat. And let me tell you, we weren't on that boat for long before this HUGE tidal wave came crashing towards us. I woke up right before the thing swallowed us alive. I was sweating; I was petrified; I didn't want to go back to sleep, I was so scared!

Then, later that same night, I had this crazy dream where I had decided to go back to Notre Dame for some kind of graduate program. I was super excited to pretend like I was in college again . . . and had even been placed back in my old dorm (which is odd, considering grad students don't live in the dorms, but whatev). So I arrived back at campus, only to realize they had completely torn down and rebuilt a good portion of the campus. There were convenience stores and crappy restaurants all over the place, where the gorgeous quads used to be. Then, I took a look around me at the actual buildings; they had been replaced with these disgusting adobe buildings that were all painted really bizarrely bright colors. It honestly looked like something someone on acid would dream up--it was hideous. I was just sobbing and sobbing over what had been done to my school . . . I was horrified. I finally decided I should check in and find my room, but when I went to do so, there were all of these weird staircases I had to go up to get into the dorm. I finally found where I was supposed to go, and then I was told I didn't have the right identification and that I wouldn't be admitted for the semester. That's about all I can remember, but it was seriously weird.

Other than that, I keep having dreams about racing. Last night, I had one where I was running a half-marathon . . . don't remember much from it, but no wonder my legs were so tired when I attempted my long run this morning! They'd been running in my dreams all night long! Okay, this is starting to remind me of a bad pickup line I've heard, so I'm going to stop there with what is a bad joke anyway!

In closing, I can definitively say I must have the weirdest dreams of any human being alive (today). I think those sleep lab researcher people would seriously have a blast watching my brain while I'm sleeping. Oh, and I came up with a theory this morning . . . I think the people who have the weirdest dreams are the most creative. So yeah. Don't exactly have any research to back that up; I just kind of thought it made sense. So there you go.

Happy Sick Day!

Confession time. As the title of this post suggests, I finally gave in and called out sick from work today. Am I actually sick? Technically, no. But when the alarm clock went off at 6 a.m., I awoke to a pounding headache. It seriously felt like somebody had bludgeoned the back of my head with a blunt object while I was sleeping. This coupled with the fact that I've been feeling a bit run down and tired since el maraton meant no early-morning 3-miler for Irish Cream. I told Wilson to go ahead and run without me, popped some painkillers and tried to go back to sleep for a while, hoping I could sleep the pain away. I woke up over an hour later and realized my head still kind of hurt.

Immediately, the thought popped into my head. "Should I call out from work?" Hmm. Whenever this question enters my mind, I go through the SAME EXACT ROUTINE. I argue with myself about the pros and cons of calling out . . . I start to write the email to my supervisor, then stop and delete it. I start to get dressed, then decide that even picking out clothes is "just too difficult" and go back to writing my email. Then I stress about the work that's going to pile up, and again try to dress myself. This awful cycle goes on until I realize that it's gotten so late that I'll be ridiculously late to work even if I go. Thus, I always do end up calling out. Why do I force myself to go through this routine every time I feel like crap? I don't know. I should really just write that email right off the bat and go back to sleep. Yet, I always seem to struggle with the thought of missing work (this despite the fact that I actually REALLY hate my job). Bogus.

So once I finally decided that work was out of the question, I decided it was time to pass out on the futon for a little sleepy time. I had a seriously crazy dream during this nap of mine. In my dream, all of the BP girls and I were running in this bizarre obstacle course marathon. I have no idea where it was supposed to be, but I distinctly remember that a decent amount of it took place in a mall. This aspect kind of pissed me off because they kept having us go up and down these escalators. Now, generally, I'd be all in favor of anything that MOVED MY ASS during a marathon. However, there were all of these people just chilling on the rides down/up and, damn it, I wanted to get past them! I also remember that there were a lot of distractions during the race. Like, at one point, we stopped to pose with some famous chick who was also running. I can't remember who it was now, but we were seriously excited to have our picture taken with her (that is, until the photographer proceeded to cut all of us out of the photo and just take a bunch of pics of the celeb--RUDE). For some reason, I also think we must have been lost or something, because we just kept on passing the mile-16 marker. Bizarre. And then at some point, I lost the girls because I had to stop to babysit for this rich couple's three kids (who all had seriously strange names--I'm almost positive one of their names was Timber). Yeah, I don't know. I finally woke up and was kind of pissed when I realized that I never actually finished the race. I tried to go back to sleep, hoping I could jump back into my dream and finish, but to no avail. Sadness. Yeah, so that was random! I'm not sure what the dream means, but it certainly was crazy.

Well, I still have an "easy" 3-mile run to finish up this afternoon. I was supposed to do strength training today as well, but I always get freaked out about going to the gym when I've called out sick . . . like I'm afraid I'll see someone from work at the gym and they'll be all like, "wtf are you doing?" I guess I'll just have to do some legs work after my 40 min. tempo run tomorrow. Should be a blast.

On a not really related note, could daylight savings please die? I am getting seriously pissed about the fact that it's pitch black every time I try to wake up early and run OUTSIDE. ALL I WANT IS TO RUN OUTSIDE! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, can it start to be light outside at 6 a.m.? I live in Brooklyn! It's not safe for a girl to run in the dark!! And also, some actual warmth from the sun would be nice. Am I the only person who really hates looking outside, being tricked into thinking it's warm out, and then stepping foot outside and realizing it's still ASS COLD?

Okay, enough ranting for now. I've got the rest of a sick day to enjoy :)
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