I am not above selling my love for a mixed CD

Several years ago I somehow lucked into a close group of friends who are lovely, intelligent, hilarious, and up for anything remotely fun. We were always throwing themed parties and hootenannies (No seriously. Our hoots are legendary. You would weep if you heard us sing You're in Love by Wilson Phillips. Weep, I say!), and having grand adventures. Some of them have gotten married and had kids and moved away but they're the types of friends that you keep forever. We will totally be having hootenannies in heaven.

Well, this weekend Wendy came into town and we got the gang together (minus Gina and Amanda, (we miss you), who will be having their own Northern Contingency Get Together next weekend.) and we laughed and ate and had a nunchuck demonstration. It was a pretty spectacular night.

So I was already on a high after everyone left and Katie reminded me that I didn't have my bib for the race yet. So I went down to check the mail and found my bib in there...and bonus!, a package. I LOVE getting packages in the mail. It's like Christmas in my mail box.

The package was from my friend Valerie. I imagined it was a bag of brownies as a thank you for recommending the book Rebecca. I recommended it long ago and she bought a used copy online and when it came she was ashamed of the rather cheap cover (cheap, as in Woman-of-Easy-Virtue cheap) and had put off reading it until now and she loved it. Of course she loves it. It's a GREAT book. But it wasn't brownies. It was better! It was a mixed CD. And it came with a note that explained that while other people merely told me about their favorite songs when I asked for them a few weeks back, she was sending me a CD of them. Now they were actually favorite songs of her husband James. He had a birthday party, wherein they crafted a block of cheddar into a boombox, and the CD was a party favor. But regardless, it was a CD of music that I have enjoyed all weekend long.

There something so wonderful about getting mixed CDs. I think it's fascinating to hear what people deem worthy enough to put on one. Whenever I make a mixed CD for someone I usually put songs that I'm listening to right now as well as songs that are old favorites. There is almost always a Neil Diamond song on there because people never expect him but when they hear him that love him.

Now, I'm telling you all of this because I really care about your happiness. Let's say there's a contest going on - a contest called Make Rachel Love You More Than She Already Does - and you really wanted to win it. I'm not saying there is a contest, that would be ridiculous because I already love you all so much. But if there were a contest what would really put you ahead is if you made a mixed CD of your favorite songs and sent it to (redacted). It would be tough to beat Valerie, so it really wouldn't hurt your chances if you slipped a few brownies in there.

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In other news, the race was great. Tons of people and B-list stars. This is what happens when you go to charity events in LA. You always get B-list stars at charity events, but in LA you get a lot of them. Katie kept saying, "Who's that? He looks really familiar?" I was no help as I was a wee little bean sprout in a field of corn. All I could see were people's shoulder blades. This really is unfortunate when you're trying to catch a glimpse of That Guy Who Was In That Show. Because we got there insanely early we were able to make it up to the front of the pack. Which would have been great except that the front of the pack was for the runners so when Miley Cyrus counted us down and the confetti cannons went off we were forced to actually jog for a bit and then shoved our way to the side so we didn't get in the way of people who not only owned shorty jogging shorts but actually wore them without shame. We hustled around the USC campus and made our way to the Coliseum. If you ever get a chance to run onto the field of a major sporting area, I would highly recommend it. It is kind of exciting. If you throw in taiko drums as you run into the tunnel and someone standing at the finish line ready to put a medal around your neck than you have pretty great experience. Michael Bolton was slightly painful to watch because 1.) He's nothing without his awesome 90s mane and 2.) I can only remember 1 song that he sings so every time he started up a new one I would realize that I had completely forgotten that the song had even existed and then I would feel really sad for him. And he sang Nessun Dorma. Weird!'

I just checked my ranking on the race. I came in 6882nd out of 27738. I am clearly on my way to 5K greatness.