Me? Stylish? Not Really...But I'll Pretend!

Erin at See Mom Run Far has "tagged" me with the Stylish Blogger Award! I am nowhere near as stylish as Erin, whose races and runs are becoming increasingly fast and effortless and who has an awesome story...but I am grateful for the compliment. Thank you, Erin!

The rules governing this award state that I must tell you seven random things about myself. So here goes:

1. Before I became the mild-mannered librarian super-hero that you see before you, I was a financial journalist for 8 years. Being mild-mannered is *not* an asset in financial journalism. I was terrible at it. But it was interesting and educational. I covered commodities and Nasdaq stocks for The Wall Street Journal before becoming a Money & Investing section news editor for another year. The stories I wrote bore scintillating headlines such as these: "Freeze May Cut Orange Juice Prices/ But Make Fresh Fruit More Expensive" and "Some Specialty Hedge Funds Weathered Ills." I interviewed Bernard Madoff, Martha Stewart and Edward James Olmos, traveled to Las Vegas with a bunch of oil traders and appeared on CNBC a couple of times in more make-up than I'll ever wear again (I hope). I'm glad not to be living that life any more.

2. After leaving the Journal, I joined the Peace Corps and spent a year in Far East Russia teaching English. My time there was cut short when the Russians refused to renew my group's visas for the second year. I still speak some broken Russian (I loved learning the language), which comes in handy occasionally at my library.

3. I love dogs, and greyhounds in particular. They aren't endurance dogs at all. They like to sprint. When we can afford to buy our own house, I hope to get a dog at last.

4. I met my husband, Dan, at the wedding of two good friends of mine. I had imbibed a lot of red wine at the reception and, encouraged by the groom, who is also an old friend of Dan's, approached Dan on the dance floor with the line: "Are you a runner?" Turns out, the answer is yes, and we've been together ever since. Dan ran cross-country in high school. His PR for the 5K back then was in the 18-minutes-something range...or did he go sub-18? I'll have to ask him....

5. Do you like to read? I do too! I have set myself a challenge of reading 30 books this year (that's tough for me with my job, two little kids at home and a large running goal). If you want to follow my progress and share your favorite books with me, friend me on GoodReads. My favorite novels of all time are probably Jazz by Toni Morrison and The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. I also like a lot of narrative non-fiction.

6. If I had more time, I'd become a tech nerd. My favorite course in library school was learning XHTML. I got to build a Web site as part of my practicum, and it's still in use. It looks clunky, but I'm proud of it as it was all hand-coded (no DreamWeaver or other software was allowed). Check it out here. I wrote all the content--I'd also be a space science nerd if I had more time. In fact, one of the great things about early morning runs is contrasting the constellations you see then with the ones you see in the early evening. My favorite constellation is Orion. Orion will be going away for the summer soon....

7. I don't really trust famous people to be my heroes. Sometimes you're asked which celebrities you admire. All of the ones I can think of are dead. The jury is still out for all of us who are still alive, including those counted among the famous. I prefer to name heroes who are people I know personally, like my friend Gina at work...and some of you running bloggers out there. The true saints, I believe, are anonymous to most of us.

If you've read this far, my hat's off to you! I'm now supposed to name seven new recipients of the Stylish Blogger Award. I'm going to troll my favorites and see who hasn't gotten it yet, so stay tuned for another post on this. And, Erin, thanks again--this was fun.