A Great Pair

I told everyone I’m not the “Dear Diary” type but apparently I am. After submitting my last blog entry for “Burberry and Ali Berry” I realized that I missed sharing with others my adventures with the spirit of Ali. I had planned on just journaling about my days rather than posting online, but my hordes of loyal readers (all 2 of them - shout out to my mom and Laura!) have requested I continue. I don’t fool myself into thinking people want to hear me blah, blah, blah about my daily activities but I do feel that I have something to say today. I’m on the plane, heading to NYC for the marathon, with Ali on my mind.

I haven’t met up with Chris yet so I still have Ali’s signature turquoise ring with me. I plan on wearing it during the race. I’ll look super fancy out on the race course with my bling ring but I don’t care what people will think. It will be my reminder that I have Ali cheering me on to finish what will probably be the hardest race I’ve ever done.

Harder than my first marathon where I got a stress fracture at mile 16 and harder than the Chicago marathon where I raced with strep throat. I haven’t trained in the past 4 weeks as I have been busy with Ali’s funeral, the trip to England and then recovering from swine flu. But that’s not my concern. Actually, just typing it up right now I realize it should be an additional concern. Holy crap. Well, before I listed all that, my health wasn't my concern. I just remember trying to run long miles after my nephew Colin drowned and it was a challenge to push through the mental barriers you face in long runs with the accident on my mind.

This marathon will be my first long run since Ali’s accident and I plan to soak up her energy through her ring and pray to God for strength when I hit the wall during the marathon. I also plan to flash my ring at the other runners to distract and pass ‘em. Take that Ed Norton! By the way, he's running in the NYC marathon and I totally plan on jogging up to him around mile 20 and telling him, "I am Jack's raging bile duct" and then running off. For those that don't get that, you really need to go out and rent "Fight Club" and watch it 50 times. Love it.

Anyway, so I debated blogging or privately journaling. I was actually in the Dallas airport waiting to catch my connecting flight to NYC, reading people’s feedback to the blog on Facebook when I looked over and saw a woman with a dog in a Burberry dog carrier. With a Burberry trench coat draped over it. Seriously? !? Maybe I’m being overly dramatic and reading into things too much but whatever, I took it as a sign. Sure I'll bloggity blog about it. You betcha.

Writing this on the plane to NYC and will be staying with my dear friends Alejandro (friends since high school) and his wife Diane in their apartment in the upper east side. I was thinking about how Ali and Chris were just here with Ellen and others for Zoe’s wedding. She had gotten some cool shoes to wear for the wedding (very 20’s, cute black heels) that she had showed me while putting our England “to pack” list together. She was proud of the great price at which she got these designer heels but commented, “I need another pair of black strappy heels like a need a hole in the head.” She’s right. She had a ton of black strappy heels. I realize I have about 4 or 5 pairs of varying styles so it would seem I’m not one to talk, but she had me beat.

There's a lot more to my friendship with Ali than clothes and shopping. Since middle school, we've gone through all sorts of things together and there was a great deal of depth in what we shared and how we leaned on each other. But with all the heavy "life stuff" we had going on, it was nice to have a distraction such as the black strappy shoe conundrum. So I think the solution is simple and one that she would agree upon, "A woman with one pair of black strappy heels is a lonely sole."

And a terrible pun about shoes is SO Ali to boot. Ahhh, stop me now..."I told the doctor I had flat feet. He said 'what you need is a pair of pumps'." Groan. Okay, that's all I can muster. So with that I will sign off.

I think tomorrow I’ll hit up an NYC store and find some new black strappy heels for myself!