Uh-oh, and speedwork

There I was, merrily going through my work email box and deleting as much as I could, when I came across a message from my friend J.

J is a pilot who flies sightseeing tours up here in Seward in the summer and then scurries back to Colorado in the winter 'cause he can't handle the brutal cold, hee, hee.

Seriously, though, he's also a writer. At the end of last summer, we (I?) stupidly made a bet that if we weren't finished with our novels by Christmas, we would have to make a $25 donation to the Republican party.

Now some of you very well might be Republican and that's cool--I was happy when Lisa Murkowski won out over Joe Miller. In fact, I was even quite cozy with her during her write-in campaign. Here's a pic of me and Lisa over at some dude's house during a Seward rally (I accidentally swiped the guy's socks--sorry!).

Lisa is a great lady, and I wouldn't have much qualm over donating money to her account, even though I'm a very liberal Democrat. Sometimes you just gotta cross party lines.

But, the thing is, we also agreed that we would have to contribute to, gulp, Sarah Palin's fund.

This is a "fake" Palin pic, but I love it. So there!

Anyway, readers in the Lower 48 might think that Sarah is cool. Watch her reality show and she's out huntin' and shootin' and acting all Alaskan.

Most of the people in Alaska believe that Sarah turned her back on us and is using the great name of Alaska to make a name for herself (and why isn't her daughter in, like, college or something?).

So the idea of donating any of my hard-earned money to Palin's fund is a like suffering through a marathon when you've never run a mile in your life.

It's that agonizing.

I have four days to drink a lot of tea, chow on the chocolate and write like mad.

My editor will be very happy when I'm finished. My book is already months (gulp!) overdue.

I probably won't be running much, sigh, sigh.

Of course I'll run, hee, hee. But I'll have to be very time conscious, which means speedwork, and most likely intervals, my very, very, very least favorite type of run.

And to keep my inspired, I hung a picture of Joyce Carol Oates over my desk for inspiration (oh, that prolific lady with the very large glasses and the long, long sentences that go on forever).

If you don't hear from me again it's because I'm over at my good buddy Sarah's house, sitting on the deck and kinda, sorta glimpsing something that kinda, sorta looks like Russia.