So does proper use of the apostrophe.

From the Kingsport Times-News website, November 8, 2010.

It’s not officially the holiday season for a few more weeks, but it’s never too early to appreciate Sketchy Santas, which I blogged about a couple of times last year. Above is one of my favorite pics from the site. No, this Santa isn’t sketchy. Quite the opposite, in fact; he deserves major props for going through with this pic with such aplomb. While I kinda dig the Christina Ricci look-alike with the braids — you can tell she put them all up to it and is giving the photographer an “I dare you to not take our pic” look — I mostly just want to kick the other kids, especially the one in the Slipknot shirt. Damn emos.

It’s unlikely that anyone involved with “Little House on the Prairie” could give as entertaining, candid and ballsy behind-the-scenes glimpse of life on the prairie — and beyond — as Alison Arngrim, aka Nellie Oleson. From growing up with wildly eccentric parents to playing one of entertainment’s most notorious bitches and from traumatic childhood abuse to losing one of her closest friends to AIDS, Argrim found that the only way to survive was with a tough skin and wicked sense of humor. Therefore, her portrait of Hollywood is both unflinching and surprisingly affectionate. No, life on “Little House” wasn’t as squeaky-clean as you might imagine, but Arngrim holds fond memories of her seven seasons on the show. Her insight into production will be fascinating to anyone who watched the program with any regularity, especially when she dishes about the strong personalities of her fellow cast-mates and their off-screen antics while managing to be both honest and respectful.

Still, it’s in her chapters about life before and after “Little House” that you really get a sense of what makes Arngrim tick. This is a woman who has been through a lot — and done even more — in her 40-something years. Actress, comedian, activist, stand-up comic…Arngrim wears many hats, and each of them gets its time in the spotlight in this book. Fortunately for us she now wears the hat of an author, as her style is easy-to-read and completely relatable. There are many lessons to be learned in this book, and for me the biggest is that if you want to get through life with your humor, self-respect and sanity intact, you’ve gotta get in touch with your inner bitch.

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For my first pair of FiveFingers, I went with the Bikila style, which is specially designed for running.

As mentioned in the previous post, I’ve recently switched to minimalist running and have discovered a new love for this sport, which I’m rather new at to begin with. Running in Vibram FiveFingers feels like running barefoot in that the sensations in your feet are heightened and each change in the surface more pronounced, yet you don’t have to worry about stepping on anything harmful since there’s a layer of rubber between you and the pavement.

However, I also learned the hard way that there can be too much of a good thing. Although I researched minimalist running for a while and took several weeks to get my legs accustomed to the change in stride this style of exercise requires, I neglected to think about my feet. It turns out the muscles and bones in your feet also have to adjust, strengthening themselves for a change in movement and an impact that they’re not used to since we spend so much of our time in highly cushioned shoes.

I found this out when, a few weeks into running in FiveFingers, I decided to increase my distance from 3.5 miles to 5+ miles within the course of a week. The first two runs at this distance were fine, then halfway through the third run I felt a pain in my left foot. Thankfully (and as I mentioned), minimalist running makes you very aware of every feeling in your feet, so I slowed to a walk. However, there was definite pain, and I had to limp more than 2 miles back to the car. Like any good self-diagnosing geek, I hit the Internet, perusing minimalist-running websites and deducting that I had the dreaded top-of-foot pain, which stems from stress on muscles and/or tendons.

For the next week and a half I hobbled around on a swollen, sore foot, which seemed to be healing at a much slower rate than expected. Then yesterday, 11 days after my injury, I ran into a friend and fellow runner at lunch, and she offhandedly mentioned stress fractures. As soon as I got back to work I researched this type of injury, and…bingo. Swollen foot. Pain when flexing muscles. Painful to the touch. It would appear that running at too long a distance than my feet were prepared for caused a hairline fracture in my foot…a fracture that could take 6 weeks or more to heal and thus denying me the joy of running in the most beautiful and comfortable season we have here in the North Carolina mountains.

The lesson to be learned? Take it easy. As many minimalist-running experts will say, start with short distances, and increase your distance no more than 10% each week. Don’t push yourself; you have a lifetime to enjoy your sport, so be sure you’re able to enjoy it with no holdbacks and sans pain. As for me, I’m hoping to be back to running sometime in November, yet even then I’ll have to start at only a mile or two and slowly build up my resistance once again. I’m not happy about that, but it’s a lesson learned, and in the end, it could have been much worse.

If you’re thinking about minimalist running, here are a couple of good resources. First, the Go Barefooting Blog has an informative entry about transitioning. Second, Terra Plana is a company that makes minimalist footwear for both work and play (I’m jonesing for a pair of these), and they’ve created a video showing some exercises that help strengthen your entire body for minimalist running. Finally, the Barefoot Runners Society is a good community of minimalist runners who are a wealth of information. I think it’s still an invitation-only community, so check out the site, and if you’d like an invitation, let me know and I’ll send you one.

‘Til then, happy — and cautious — running!

“Born to Run” is an entertaining and informative read that provided a needed dose of inspiration for this beginning runner. Having just finished a couch-to-5K program in late July and thus setting out on regular runs on my own, I was finding my enjoyment of the sport waning, due in part to some joint pain I was experiencing. At a friend’s suggestion, I picked up “Born to Run,” and I’m glad I found it when I did.

This non-fiction book follows the adventures of a number of people from the US who become obsessed with Mexico’s Tarahumara tribe, a group that takes distance running to an extreme and reaps tremendous mental and physical benefits as a result. Most of the people investigating this tribe do so out of genuine interest, while a few seek to turn a profit. Author Christopher McDougall weaves these narratives together so that the book reads as an adventure novel, with many of the characters being so vividly (and often humorously) described that they could be yanked from any number of fictional tomes.

There’s a bit of chat about the biomechanics of running, with McDougall making a strong case for running in minimalist footwear. I’m not going to say this is gospel, but having transitioned to a forefoot strike in my own running and started running in Vibram fivefingers a couple of weeks ago, I’m finding outings more enjoyable, and the aforementioned joint pain has subsided. Is this style of running for everyone? Maybe not, but it works for me.

Still, this more technical talk makes up only a small portion of the book. Even if you overlook that, “Born to Run” is a worthy read for any runner, as its central idea is that running should be fun, not a chore, and McDougall does a very good job of conveying this message in a thoroughly entertaining, easy-to-read manner.

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Taken by Jeff in Peabody, Massachusetts.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Whereas “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” (the first book in this series) started with a slow boil before really kicking into gear about halfway through, “The Girl Who Played with Fire” wastes little time getting to the action. Make no mistake: this book is markedly different from “Dragon Tattoo.” Yes, it contains many of the same characters. But whereas the first novel was an at-times heavy crime thriller that focused more on the investigation with a bit of action thrown in, this is a lighter summer read that’s heavy on the adrenaline.

My two biggest gripes with “The Girl Who Played with Fire” are 1) some of the detail is obnoxious (do we really need to know the model of each piece of Ikea furniture a character furnishes their apartment with?), and 2) we never feel certain protagonists are in true danger like we do in the first book. Still, this was an exciting, fun read that I didn’t want to end (unlike my most recent read: Justin Cronin’s “The Passage,” about which I still hold a bit of resentment), and it makes for a good lead-in to the final book in the trilogy.

A word of caution: DO NOT read the book jacket, as it gives away a big plot point that is better left as a surprise.

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