Ladies & Gents:
This morning, Annie woke me up at 5:30am. I was shocked when I saw the time on my phone. She has been, since I adopted her almost two months ago, waking me up at 4am.
"Good girl Annie!" I said as she jumped over to my side of the bed to lick my face. "Just stay on this internal clock when we get back east next week and we'll be all set."
And that is my very cute dog story way of saying that Colorado isn't working out. When I head to Pennsylvania to speak at Franklin & Marshall on Sept. 21, I'm not going back.
A lot of different things lead to this decision that I'm not ready to share yet, but the big one is that I miss my people. I didn't realize how strong that tie would be, or what a priority they would be in my choice of where to live, until I left. The heart, as they say, grew much fonder.
So on Saturday I'll go out and run 18 miles because now I'll be running the New York City Marathon, load the Jeep back up, settle Annie into the passenger seat, and head east. I'm not really looking forward to three days in the car (after a summer of 13,000 miles in the car), but it'll be worth it. I am finally, after six months of ping ponging around the country, going home.
(To split time between my split parents, for now. If you know of a dog-friendly rental in the Lambertville area that's not already on Zillow or Craigslist, lemme know. I had a short term furnished rental here, but I'm looking for unfurnished there. I never thought I'd say this, but I miss my stuff).
Anyway, let's get on with the show, shall we?
But before we do, I want to change lanes and talk a bit being a writer on twitter. Yesterday I shared this piece I wrote in 2013 about Miss America. I like it. I won an award for it. It's about a lot of different issues wrapped up with the pageant, including how cash strapped Atlantic City subsidizes it. A lot of people, including one of my best friends, disagreed with my stance, which was fine – I knew they would. But one thing they couldn't say was that any of the facts behind the piece were wrong, even if they wouldn't draw the same conclusion.
Yesterday, someone who didn't like it called me uneducated.
Well.
Let me offer you a suggestion if you're going to call a writer uneducated in a public forum: do a quick google search and make sure the person did not write the book on the topic. You may look silly otherwise.
And now, really, on with the show.
Recent Bylines
"Funny Running" for The New York Times. Also, for this week's piece, I'm looking to interview someone who technically qualified for the Boston Marathon last year, but didn't make it in because of the rolling admissions. Reply to this email if you want to chat!
What I'm Reading
I loved loved LOVED Jason Fagone's The Woman Who Smashed Codes, which is out Sept. 26 (and I am trying to write something about because it was so good). After I finished that, I started Tessa Dare's The Duchess Deal. And if you think it's odd that I would go from long, detailed biography of a woman who took down Nazi spy rings to a romance novel, well, you don't really know me at all :-)
What I'm Watching
I've had a hard time settling into a show, so I started Arrested Development again until Bojack Horseman started up on Friday. As always, it is so good and honest and raw. It's painful to watch sometimes because of it. I also watched the 2015 live action Cinderella. Do I need to grow out my hair again? Perhaps. And Outlander is back! I'm saving the first episode for dinnertime.
Until next time,
Jen A. Miller
jenamiller.com
runningalovestory.com
twitter.com/byjenamiller
instagram.com/jenamillerrunner
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