Dear Troy.

I did something I've never done before last night: I IM'd a complete stranger. Blah, Blah Blahg is a blog I only recently started browsing. I like it. Take a look. But I was instantly impressed with a new blog she linked to in one of her posts, Dear Troy's blog Empty Spaces.


It's image heavy, with short text notes of quotes or thoughts. The images killed me. I haven't seen a lot like this browsing. I wanted to learn about Troy and you know what? Seems like some other people do to because while there's not much in the way of a profile, he says in a post something like, If you want to know more about me, IM me, and he left his chat address.


I simply could not resist and added him to my contact list. I needed to know where he finds these pictures. When he came on last night, I threw all common sense about crazy interweb stalkers out the window and said Hi. Turns out he finds most of the images, like the rest of us, but some are also by friends, etc.


He also posts MP3s, which is how I just listened to Great Lake Swimmers for the first time. I clicked on it because of the name not even realizing it would play for me, and now I HAVE to get this music. So anyway, I'm a huge fan of Troy, and will make Empty Spaces, which is so not empty, a regular stop.

Sorta speaking of swimming, do you want know what I also did last night? Swam a set with paddles.

For those of you (Ruth) who don't know what that means, imagine thin flat plastic rectangular boards you attach to each hand using rubber tubing. They have some holes for relief, but they provide an additional resistance against the water so when you pull through, you get an enhanced version of each stroke. It's more difficult but it also propels you further, "distance per stroke".

Normally when I do a new exercise or mix up the routine in any way, it takes about 24 hours to suffer the results. It hasn't been 12 and I can feel this one already, which is a little scary. I think I can even feel it in my abs?!