"AS I LIVE AND BREATHE"

Last night, I was a little pissy about the week of clanking pipes, no water, bailing water, the total mess that was left in my apartment after all the repairs, how behind I felt (since the clanking certainly lessened my ability to focus) and I just got hit with the weight of the week and just felt ungood.

A bit later, I got into the car, drove out into the well-below-zero weather late at night because I realized I hadn't seen Lake Michigan this winter. I don't live terribly far from the lake, so I was there in minutes. I didn't want to hang around and see anything (what was there to see, afterall?) so after clomping up a snowdrift to get a good view of the iced-over water, I ran back to the car (brrrr) and took off.

Now, the lakefront parks in Chicago are wonderful and lovely, but in the winter, at night, they are hard to navigate. Is that an exit road or a bike trail? Is that a snowed-over parking lot or a frozen pond? You have to consider these things. And, while I thought that is precisely what I was doing, I still managed to find myself driving along the running trails in northern Lincoln Park, following sharp turns and dodging trees. I've run these trails many times in warm weather, but this is, without a doubt, the first time I have driven on them. Once, I realized my error I couldn't just turn around when there was surely a road crossing just up ahead... up here... no, it's just a little bit more... finally.

Finally, I found an actual driving road crossing the paths and got myself street legal minutes before driving by a cop, as he headed into the park himself. Heh, he probably heard there was a crazy woman joy riding around the running trails and had to see for himself.