Weekend adventures

ONE
Dinner with Matthew on Friday night. We had drinks at the bar in the Sofitel and then ate a lovely meal at RL, the country-clubby restaurant attached to the Ralph Lauren store on Michigan Avenue. And since it was Matthew's birthday, I even let him have a bite of my salmon. Afterwards, we popped into Filene's Basement so Matthew could show me a suit he'd been admiring. Never one to pass up discount underwear, I nabbed myself some fancy-schmancy new 2(x)ist briefs while we were there that made my butt look so butt-like when I got home and tried them on that I went out the next day and bought five more pair.

TWO
First day of marathon training. Matthew and I met up at the ungodly hour of 7:30 on Saturday to join all the AIDS Marathon runners for our first run of the season—on an ungodly (ungodlyly?) cold morning. We were timed on this first run and put into our official training teams, the members of which will reportedly become Best Friends For Life after we complete the marathon together. The people on my team seem friendly, which is a good sign. Matthew, who ended up on my team as well (yay!), brought his camera, so you-all can get an exclusive first peek at my new BFFs:
(Teams are named after famous marathoners of yore, and apparently this Tegla person ran the Yore Marathon a few times.)

THREE
Errands! After we finished running, I joined four of my new BFFs at IHOP to counteract the benefits of all that cardio, and then I hit the stores in and around Boystown for some retail therapy. I came home with a portable tire pump (with a built-in pressure gauge!) for my bike, two huge containers of Muscle Milk (which may or may not have been a good deal, but I'm afraid to comparison shop after the fact), a hand mixer so I can whip up purées and protein shakes at the press of a button, and a new tattoo!*

*Actually, this is a blatant lie engineered to give my mom (Hi, Mom!) a heart attack. But she and a few other interested parties will probably be troubled to know that I did indeed visit a tattoo parlor on Saturday with intent to get the tattoo I blather on and on endlessly about in the post below. Except the tattoo guy talked me out of it. It seems my idea (upside-down from the image below, so the tiger's tail peeks up from my waistband and the tiger is hidden in my fabulous new underpants) would require the poor tiger to have an extremely long tail and a freakishly short body. Or else he would have to be tattooed over the crease in my skin where my leg bends, and I wouldn't be able to sit for a week while it healed. And I like to sit.

FOUR
Um ... stuff. The rest of my weekend wasn't terribly noteworthy. But if you insist on knowing, it consisted of: Dinner with my other friend Matthew on Saturday night. Laundry, cleaning, working out, playing with my digital camera* and chorus rehearsal on Sunday. And that's about it. Aren't you glad you read this paragraph?

*I saw this cool picture in an old running magazine of a runner lacing up his shoes. He looked all lean and fit, like an official runner (especially because he was wearing shorty-short running shorts and tying his shoes), and I thought I could re-create it starring me using the timer on my camera. Why? I don't know. I just wanted to try it. And it turned out pretty OK, except my bookcase crept into the frame and the camera angle ended up making my shorty-short running shorts look exceptionally micro-tiny. I apologize in advance if this somehow scandalizes you. And since I'm in no danger of being featured in a running magazine lacing up my shoes in my shorty-short running shorts any time soon, I'm gonna post the picture here: