Spring fever.

March has been good to me thus far, and it just seems to be getting better. I don't get what Caesar was whining about, you know?

Like many places, we had a sudden burst of Spring weather a week or two ago. In New York City, this means that a population accustomed to surliness and the wearing of black is now dressing in bright colors and wandering the streets on balmy evenings acting like everyone just got out of jail.

I ran my fourth half marathon yesterday, and managed to barely hit a new PR (although I was a mere 4 SECONDS away from my goal--I laughed out loud when I saw my time). With how spastic my training, eating, and sleeping habits have been lately, I'll take it. I felt good and I got to see my friend Zach who was running his first (and totally killed it), so it was fun. Also, one nice thing about this city is that you can wear a space blanket cape on the subway and even if people didn't know there was a race, you definitely aren't the weirdest thing they've seen that day, so it's fine.

This is happening. Also happening this week? Company coming to visit, seeing The Black Keys at Madison Square Garden, Hunger Games coming out, and the long-awaited return of Mad Men. And I still have my space blanket cape, so I'm pretty much set for awesomeness.

Emergency preparedness.

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Things I'm doing to get ready for Irene:

- Having a Provo-style girls' night tonight (California Pizza Kitchen and going to the movies).

- Hopefully fitting in a long run tomorrow morning before the rain starts in earnest.

- Went to the grocery store this morning to stock up on essentials like string cheese and Lucky Charms (don't worry, Mom, I also have crackers, fruit, Luna bars, bread, peanut butter, canned black bean soup, and plenty of water). I also bought a pint of ice cream instead of a big carton so that, should the power go out and I have to eat everything in the freezer, I won't get sick. Foresight!

- Charging up my laptop and phone and putting the batteries in the head lamp I bought for Peru.

- Reviewing highlights from The Day After Tomorrow for good measure.

Melissa and I are planning to spend the weekend watching movies and eating in our pajamas. Our neighborhood is relatively high elevation and outside of even the most extreme flood-watch zones. We have guy friends down the street who have volunteered to come defend us from the zombie apocalypse, should it come to that. If we can somehow get work canceled on Monday I'd say we're all set.

California, here I come.

The "feels like" is the operative number there.

Even though it's clear today, it was stormy all weekend and there were airport shenanigans all over the place, so my hobby for the day is obsessively refreshing the flight status updates out of Newark Airport. So far, so good. Fingers crossed!