Yum & Yuk

Basically my thought process these days is: "marathon, marathon, marathon, marathon...." I just want to do it! At first I wanted to do it because I was worried about something happening between now and then, or because of fear, but now I'm just excited - I love racing, I love being surrounded by people all working towards a goal, I love running (WHAT???), and I love the feeling of having achieved a really freakin' hard goal. 10 days to go till I achieve the goal of a lifetime!

Training: made it to Bikram last night - as always, it was a challenge to my body and brain, both. This morning: bootcamp.

Image: source.

Street Harassment: The Uncomfortable Walk Home: "This epidemic has serious consequences: University of Connecticut researchers found that “the experience of street harassment is directly related to greater preoccupation with physical appearance and body shame, and is indirectly related to heightened fears of rape.” In a country where one in three women is sexually assaulted in her lifetime, such fears are not unfounded. Unfortunately, the average street corner catcaller is oblivious to this reality. Recently, a young man on a bicycle followed me up my own street. When I asked him to leave me alone, he was surprised and seemed even embarrassed, as if it had never occurred to him that a woman wouldn’t enjoy being chased at night. Though many catcallers don’t have nefarious intentions, they don’t put themselves in our shoes. Too often, it’s a long, uncomfortable walk home."

The HIV ban, the lack of options for gay immigrants, the overwhelming bureaucracy...."Eighteen years. It took Andrew Sullivan [of the Daily Beast] eighteen years to legally immigrate to the United States . . . Sullivan explains living in the U.S. with such uncertainty: How do you live somewhere for a majority of your existence and still not know if you could remain for another year, another month, as each visa was sent for adjudication and each trip abroad became full of foreboding. And as the time went by, as the stakes grew, as I put down deeper and deeper roots of work, of friends and of family, the fear actually intensified. It isn’t a huge leap to imagine his plight without an immigration lawyer, without the means to pay the lawyer and the exorbitant fees. Just an average person, trying to make a living for themselves and their family in the most prosperous place in the world. The system is broken and Sullivan’s story is an understatement of that fact."