Q: How much does it cost to see an optometrist and a retinal specialist when you have no health insurance?

A: I don’t know. I’ll get back to you after they bill me.

“I desired liberty; for liberty I gasped; for liberty I uttered a prayer; it seemed scattered on the wind then faintly blowing. I abandoned it, and framed an humbler supplication; for change, stimulus; that petition, too, seemed swept off into vague space. “Then,” I cried, half desperate, “grant me at least, a new servitude!”

                                                                        - Jane Eyre

Ah Jane Eyre, could I love her more? I think not. And a new servitude I have been granted – crunching numbers at the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority. Do I LOVE accounting? Do I want to MARRY it? Would I do it for free even if no one paid me for it? No, no and absolutely not. But am I okay with doing accounting in an office full of nice people, at a leisurely pace, with good pay and benefits, in the service of a public agency that houses low-income families in Minneapolis? Answer: YES! It might technically be too early to say this, but I think I really like this job.

Another perk of working in the North Loop? I get to ride the #14 bus into work every day. In case you don’t know, the #14 goes straight on through downtown to points north such as North Memorial Hospital and other such locations that might be colorfully referred to as “ghetto.” The great thing about riding a bus that goes to the ghetto is taking in 10 minutes a day of good old fashioned craziness. The kind of craziness that you just can’t find on the #472 to Eagan. A small sampling:

1. Man sitting next to me, obviously high or drunk, clutching an un-lit cigarette. He kept sliding over in his seat, apparently unable to summon the strength even to hold himself upright. At several points his head was almost resting on my shoulder. Sweet.
2. Surly electric wheelchair-bound woman who came cruising up the aisle at top speed, screaming “EXCUSE ME!” and nearly taking out everyone’s’ toes in her wake.
3. Surly electric wheelchair lady’s friend came strolling on behind with a small pet carrier containing one (1) small cat and one (1) yapping chihuahua. Are pets allowed on the bus?! Maybe only if they’re tiny and cute.

More to come, I’m sure.

In other news, I’m training for the MS150 and actually starting to get a little scared for it. I mean, I can do it, right?! I went on a 36-mile bike ride on Sunday with some teammates and it was damn fun and damn tiring. Now in the next 23 days I just need to somehow prepare myself to ride 75 miles, sleep in a tent, and wake up refreshed early the next day to ride 75 more. What did I get myself into?!

I also was thinking the other day about how I used to be mortified to wear a bike helmet. In fact, Julie and I would do anything in our power to NOT wear our bike helmets, including, but not limited to, wearing them down the street, and then ripping them off and carrying them the second we were around the corner and out of sight of the house. As if a bike helmet under the arm is so much less embarrassing than one sitting on your head where it’s supposed to be.

And from those humble cycling beginnings I have somehow reached a point in my life where I will voluntarily don:

-          A pair of spandex bike shorts with a padded crotch

-          fingerless biking gloves

-          a pink helmet, and

-          (my favorite new accessory) a sparkly fanny pack

I will cruise around town all day on my magenta bike with this get-up and not even think twice about it. It’s as if over night something switched on and I became a spandex biker. Well, only half spandex … so far.

Maturity, you’ve done me good.

Spring Fever

Have I mentioned that I have spring fever?! It’s some wicked combination of the trees finally budding, coming home to 80-degree weather after a chilly week in Boston, getting La Caliente tuned up, and running my first 10k of the summer (PR, BTW).

That’s not even to mention the fact that it seems lately, everything’s turning up Lisa.

Allow me to backtrack a week. I GOT A JOB!!! That’s right, a real job. Like a job job. The kind that’s fulltime with benefits and respect and responsibilities and 11 paid holidays a year! Woo! Possibly by the influence of some mysterious cosmic force (or the hard work of all my personal resume gurus), all the stars aligned and I found a job online that looked like a perfect fit for me, applied for it, interviewed for it, and I actually got it. As of May 11^th, I will be the new Financial Analyst at the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority. That’s right, I’ll be working with finance in a do-gooding organization, so the next time work gets ridiculously busy and I ask myself this question: “WHY AM I PUTTING MYSELF THROUGH THIS HELL ALL WEEK?!” (and who knows, the question might come up) I will for once have an inspiring answer: To provide affordable housing to low-income residents of Minneapolis. Yesssss.

Flash forward to our Boston trip. I’ll hit the highlights.

-          Julie kicked ass in the marathon (3:26:42 … The top 9% of female finishers – yea!)

-          Had a small reunion with WorldTeach friends in the area

-          Soaked in some history

-          Saw the Twins lose badly in Fenway Park

-          Weather was cold and rainy

-          Ate a cannoli from Mike’s Pastries

-          Roller Kingdom Kegger with Mikki-Jean!

The last deserves a quick explanation.

Question: What’s better than roller skating? Better than dancing to vintage tunes? Than dressing up in short-shorts and tube socks and sweat bands and a glittery blue fanny pack? Than drinking PBR out of a keg?

Answer: Doing all these things at once.

Enter the Roller Kingdom Kegger, which I attended with my awesome little friend Mikki-Jean. It was a gathering of a group of her college buddies and 600 of their closest friends in a roller rink near Boston to drink PBR, skate, dance, and make merry. It’s hard to put into words exactly how freaking awesome this event was, but suffice it to say that I’m surprisingly good at dancing while rollerblading in a big circle, I discovered that I kind of love wearing a glittery blue fanny pack (watch for it in a Minneapolis bar near you!), and I had a huge grin plastered on my face all night …. until MJ fell and broke her wrist around 12:45 a.m. This obviously sucked, to put it mildly. We got to spend the night in Massachusetts General Hospital still in our crazy outfits, waiting to see various medical professionals in various parts of the ER. But MJ survived and she’s on the mend, and promises to be back to the roller skating in no time. With wrist guards.

Oh Summer 2009. You've only just begun and already I love you. I can't remember the last time I've fallen so hard.