Over the weekend, the virus I’ve been “entertaining” finally kicked in. Honestly, it’s really nothing more than a cold and it’s not some foreign disease but rather something more common contracted from a sixteen-month-old child.

Aside from a slightly heavier-than-normal head and aforementioned child screaming into my ear just for fun, the weekend has been the September ideal you might always dream about. The house is clean, the laundry is finished, football has been watched, the dog was walked and pizza was eaten.

And the point of all this? Well, I think I am accepting that Fall is here. We will not utter the words “Summer is over” because that is entirely unnecessary. Rather, we will just say we like football and changing leaves and the Indian Summer-ish days that are upon us.

Mostly, I am loving it. Even when I’m seeing things through a cold-medicine haze, when you consider that the team won, there’s word that my sister’s husband is coming home from Iraq by Christmas, and there are beautiful things all around, it’s not hazy at all. In fact, it’s actually quite clear how good everything seems to be.

I went out for another 4:00 a.m. run this morning. As strange as it feels to type that, I have to say I really don’t mind the early morning running. I’m the sort of person that will get up early and as long as I don’t have to talk to anyone for a good hour or two, I’m fine. Some may even say cheerful, but they shouldn’t. Because that would violate the no talking rule. And yes, you should know that rule.

I was thinking about this today, when I was running and breathing in the cooler Fall-like air. (No, I am still not prepared to be in full-on Fall. Yes, I know that’s ridiculous. I don’t care.) I listened to my feet hitting the pavement and thought about how I really do love that early morning time. It feels so private, like it belongs only to me. I have a few friends that run early, but with people. I do like running buddies but something about that time on my own just makes it better. No traffic, no beating sun, no exhaustion from the day yet. Just me and my half-asleep brain which, if you haven’t noticed, is when it’s at it’s best. The brain is just better before it’s awake and in full Analysis of Life and All It Contains mode. Like what you’d imagine a “normal” brain to be.

So back to my propensity for quiet in the morning- I love it. I guess I just need the time to stare down the barrel of a full day. When I was a teenager, still living at home, I used to wake up early to read the paper. Often, my mother would wake up and begin talking to me. This is normal for her in the morning. So there she’d be, having an entire conversation with me about the dentist and hockey practice and the dog and there I’d be, staring at her hard enough to generate enough will to cease her voice with my mind. It would usually take a good ten minutes for her to look at me and say “okay, we’ll talk about this later.” I’d nod and go back to my Cheerios.

I’m lucky that this was just my mother, who has been willing to let me be me my entire life. What am I supposed to do when someone doesn’t get this? I think it’s reasonable, but then again, it’s my rule. And I don’t have many rules. Be kind, be willing to learn, work hard and, for gosh sake, DO NOT EXPECT SERIOUS CONVERSATION FIRST THING IN THE MORNING.

I need to find a nicer way of saying that.

“You look like you’re feeling sick.”

“That’s because I am.”

“Yikes, I hope you didn’t catch any exotic foreign disease.”

“Ugh, don’t even say that. I probably have the Ebonic Plague.”

“What?”

“You know, the Plague?”

“No. You either have Bubonic Plague or Ebola virus. You do not have Ebonic Plague.”

“Oh wow, I’m an idiot. See, it’s already affecting my brain.”

We stayed at this little darling hotel on the quiet end of town. We walked through the rainy streets with bags and no umbrellas to get there and if the warm colors and adobe spiral staircase weren’t welcoming enough, the staff was. They knew our names from the moment we walked in the door and offered us everything from directions to umbrellas to comfort us. The manager, whom I nicknamed Pavarotti because he was singing when we walked in, helped me reacquaint myself with Spanish. It turns out I can find more than the beer and the bathrooms when I’m in Mexico*.

It was an interesting place to see the fusion of different cultures. It always amazes me how if you take the time to talk with people and make the effort, you’ll get an amazing response. You go from feeling slightly lost and very out of practice to knowing that yes, even with the barriers of language and culture differences, you can make friends anywhere.

Like the young lady at a small bakery we stopped in for dessert one day. Though it was simply apple pie, there was something oddly magical about her teaching us to call it tartleta de manzana as we ate it and read magazines while Springsteen tunes floated out from the back room. It was a fantastic contrast that settled me. One step up, two steps back, indeed.

The sky also happened to stay in a constant state of bright blue, of which the thought only causes me great discomfort today. It is fifty-four degrees (F) in Colorado right now and I didn’t see blue sky all day. Call it nature but I think it’s Colorado’s karmic way of getting back at me for pining after others.

Mexico, and likely any place if you’ll let it sink in, is filled with detail. And just a couple steps away from the mainstream, you’ll see this more and more. Little things people do and say that show an effort to be unique. An effort not only to stand out but to do it in a way no one else does. We should each be so lucky to have these efforts noticed. We should be so lucky to always try to make the effort at all.

I must admit, was not enough time. But when is it ever? I took an entire week off running (not to mention every other endeavor) and I have to say, for the first time in a while, I really miss it. I miss the open road and the air being stolen from my lungs. I miss the sweat and the way it clears my mind. Oddly, though I so badly believed I needed to be taken away, I missed my feet being on the ground. And if we know anything at all, we know it won’t be long before I’m floating again anyway.

* See Me: 101, #70.

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Last week’s guessing game answer: C. I made it up. And if the above didn’t make it obvious enough I will just explain by saying I think it would be nearly impossible for me to be friends with someone that so decidedly hated warm weather. There’s just a certain basic level of understanding that must occur between friends.

Having been out of my house for four days and preparing to be gone for five more, the fridge and cupboards are pretty unappealing. When my sister came by around dinner time last night, though I’d warned her I had nothing resembling a meal, she was shocked. I had a hard time convincing her we could create any sort of dinner from eggs, canned soup and rum.

If there was nothing left last night there was really going to be nothing today. I decided to stop by Starbucks, breakfast place of champions. While I waited for my order at 5:30 a.m., I started thinking about everything I’d need to catch up on today in order to leave tonight.

As is true with most of us hyperactive types, I started making a list. Part of this list was people I needed to catch up with. I know the thought of scheduling catch up phone calls or conversations with friends seems silly, but sometimes if I miss one call, it leads to weeks or even months of having no idea of a) where the time went and b) what they’ve been doing all that time.

Sadly, my efforts were really ineffective today. I am 0 for 3 on finding my friends. This is a little bit of a mystery to me, but I believe I am at least intuitive enough to guess where they might be.

Of the following four statements, three are actually very likely to be true. Which do you think is too impossible?

A) One friend has quit her job, filed for divorce and is now playing thirty-seven-year-old groupie and hanging with a very large concert tour because she and the main man have finally realized their true love for one another.

B) One friend has started yet a THIRD master’s program in which he has decided last-minute to travel abroad and has absent-mindedly forgotten to tell about thirty of his closest friends, just like last time.

C) One friend has grown tired of any sort of hot weather and has decided to build a home near the Arctic. They are meeting with the builder this week and, therefore, are out of cell phone range.

D) One friend is holed-up in bed with a leg in a cast and since she is normally such a spaz she is very frustrated and angry about the whole mess and can’t bring herself to answer the phone.

Come on, give it a go. I’ll reveal the untrue statement when I get back.

Today I returned from a whirlwind road trip from Colorado to Iowa, via Omaha, Nebraska. All I can say after roughly 2,800 miles on the road, 13.1 of those miles spent running and yet another reminder of how blessed I am to have wonderful friends is I’m exhausted and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

It was the change in scenery, the miles put on the car, surviving a half-marathon I was entirely unsure about and being around running friends (with whom, you know, no subject is off limits) that put me right where I needed to be. I wasn’t sure about this trip, for many reasons. One, of course, being the running but also being so unsure of the steps I’ve been taking in other parts of my life. It turns out packing a lot into the last bit of Summer is just the thing to remind yourself that those steps, both running and otherwise, are inevitable.

And there’s nothing like being with people who accept you, your choices, and your bad jokes just the way they are to reassure you that by taking advantage of every minute, you are doing just the right thing. Because when I think about that inevitable “end” we all will reach one day, it will not matter that I ran slower than I should, or that I passed up a chance for promotion because it didn’t feel right or that I put off getting the carpets cleaned. Yes, all of those things might bother me, but it really doesn’t matter.

So after an all-too-fast weekend and keeping myself up late tonight to do homework that I just didn’t seem to get to before now, I can at least be assured of a few things: we really do only race one person, weekends and life go far too fast, and you shouldn’t wear a skirt in a cornfield.

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P.S. I am so sorry to my Minnesota and Iowa blogging friends. There was just no time for an extended visit. I totally think this should be in my life plans soon, though. Believe me, I need no excuse to meet strangers from the Internet. Heh.