Peg's comment on my graph post prompted a long conversation today with Erika, complete with defensiveness, tears, and my fair share of introspection.
Peg says " I'll take you as you am" (sic, I love this girl) and she means it. So the question I grappled with is why the hell I'm so obsessed? The obvious answer and the one I fear the most is that society demands us to fit into a Barbie-doll mold and there's something wrong (with us, of course) if we don't. But I've always told myself I don't give a shit about society's opinion of my belly! So today I had to ask myself for real--are you really that shallow that you're watching every little thing you eat and when you eat it and working out ad nauseum to fit some standard of society??
God, I hope not.
As we probed further (hee hee, she said "probe") I defended myself with what I believe are the two reasons I really do care so much:
A. My father died at age 46 of cardiac arrest, exacerbated by high blood pressure. My grandmother, mother and sister have struggled--really really struggled--most of their lives with the same issues. My mom has tried every diet and exercise plan out there just to maintain a weight healthy enough to see her grandchildren, but the fact is we are fighting an uphill battle. We weren't blessed with freight train metabolisms. My point is that I watch very carefully what I eat and I work out because if I don't I will start talking myself out of workouts ("my eyebrows need waxing") and into brownies ("I need to celebrate, I made it to Wednesday!"). And if I stop being diligent, really diligent, I don't have genes on my side and I will slip and I am afraid of that.
2. I have goals. I have goals for myself and for my family, some of which include 4-6 triathlons per summer (including an Ironman before I turn 40), fun runs and bike rides for charity well past retirement, and going rock climbing and hiking and swimming with my kids. I watch what I eat and I work out so I can meet my goals.
Those, I tell myself, are my real reasons. Should this translate into watching every pound and graphing my eating habits? Probably not. So I will change "shallow and obsessed" to "self-aware and diligent", and I will spare blog readers the self-deprecating whining from now on and stick to glorifying myself after killer workouts and awe-inspiring races.
Done.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Friday, March 28, 2008
A Man and His Apartment.
My lobster has been offered a very unique and privileged opportunity with the internship of her choice for next year, and therefore we are relocating (again) to even out our commutes. After a slew of phone calls and searches on Craigslist, we went on five showings yesterday afternoon. Our first was far and away the most interesting, hands down because of Paul. Paul is in love with his properties. He has more pride in his properties than any landlord we've met. Paul dares us to find anything better than his.
(For the record, I'm not ripping on Paul. I'm in awe of Paul. He's...eccentric.)
"Are you ready to see a great apartment?" he asks as we walk up the front stoop.
Our hopes are high. He lists tons of great features in his ad and boasted quite a bit on the phone, so I'm ready to see his great apartment.
We walk in the door.
Everything is blue.
The carpet is blue, not just in the front room, but in the living room, the hallway, and both bedrooms.
The kitchen countertops are blue.
The toilets are blue.
The bathroom sinks are blue.
But we continue with the showing, and Paul continues with the showing off.
Early on, I make the mistake of asking how old the building is.
Paul: "How....?" (looks at me quizzically)
Me: "I mean, how young is the building?"
Paul: "That's right. None of my buildings have the look of any wear and tear at all. Nothing about them suggests that they're old. This building was built in 1990, which makes it 14 years young."
Erika noticed very few pictures on the wall. We pride ourselves in our artwork and well-framed photographs, and asked if we're allowed to put them up.
"I'd like you to only use 15 nail holes in the walls. The reason I ask is because of ____ (gives first and last name of previous tenant, apparently the scourge of the earth) who left the bedroom wall with 280 nail holes. What's worse, she pounded the nails all the way in before she left. I had to pry them out."
(Fifteen? Uh oh.)
Paul: "I want to show you this furnace. It's a Lennox Pulse 22. That's top of the line, it's 98% efficient. I paid $2600 for this furnace. Landlords are only required to pay for the bare minimum, but I went ahead and bought the best to save my tenants money. I'm the only landlord that'll do that. Go ahead and ask them when you see other places, ask them what kind of furnace they have. Ask why it's not a Pulse 22. They'll tell you, 'it's too expensive'. Tell them, well Paul bought one for me."
Me: "I bet they'll like that."
Paul: "No they won't."
Me: "I know, Paul. I was being facetious."
"Look at all this overhead lighting. In the kitchen alone there's five overhead lighting fixtures. Well, one of them is in the closet, but it totals five."
(I should point out that they were among the ugliest lighting fixtures I've ever seen.)
"All of the sink fixtures are Koehler and the countertops are updated."
(Yeah Paul, but they're blue.)
"The bathroom floors are Armstrong in-laid vinyl. That means they crush little pieces of vinyl directly into the concrete. That way you won't ruin the floors with high heels or something like that."
(Two points: A. Do we look like the kind of girls who wear high heels? and 2. When is the last time any of you walked with high heels on your bathroom floor and the stiletto poked a hole right through it?)
"See these windows? Look at all the glass on these windows. Most landlords will put in window frames but skimp on the glass. You know why? Because glass is expensive. These windows have more glass than required."
(It's true. Those windows did have glass.)
Erika is terribly allergic to cats, and we noticed the tenant had two of them. I asked if there was a chance the carpets would be cleaned after she left.
"Oh, there's no chance of it. It's deliberate. I make all my tenants clean the carpets upon their move-out. By a professional. And show me proof they've done it. If they don't then I do it. And charge 'em for it."
(Paul--the long arm of the Carpet-Cleaning Law.)
I had to call Paul this morning and let him know that we were "going with a different property". He received my voice mail and called me back 25 minutes later to ask me why. I think he was genuinely flabbergasted as to how on earth we could choose anyplace else. I mean, the furnace! The glass! Just look at the in-laid vinyl! I was honest--I told him it was all the blue. He said he does that for variety and that the place across the hall has neutral colors.
Damn. So close.
(For the record, I'm not ripping on Paul. I'm in awe of Paul. He's...eccentric.)
"Are you ready to see a great apartment?" he asks as we walk up the front stoop.
Our hopes are high. He lists tons of great features in his ad and boasted quite a bit on the phone, so I'm ready to see his great apartment.
We walk in the door.
Everything is blue.
The carpet is blue, not just in the front room, but in the living room, the hallway, and both bedrooms.
The kitchen countertops are blue.
The toilets are blue.
The bathroom sinks are blue.
But we continue with the showing, and Paul continues with the showing off.
Early on, I make the mistake of asking how old the building is.
Paul: "How....?" (looks at me quizzically)
Me: "I mean, how young is the building?"
Paul: "That's right. None of my buildings have the look of any wear and tear at all. Nothing about them suggests that they're old. This building was built in 1990, which makes it 14 years young."
Erika noticed very few pictures on the wall. We pride ourselves in our artwork and well-framed photographs, and asked if we're allowed to put them up.
"I'd like you to only use 15 nail holes in the walls. The reason I ask is because of ____ (gives first and last name of previous tenant, apparently the scourge of the earth) who left the bedroom wall with 280 nail holes. What's worse, she pounded the nails all the way in before she left. I had to pry them out."
(Fifteen? Uh oh.)
Paul: "I want to show you this furnace. It's a Lennox Pulse 22. That's top of the line, it's 98% efficient. I paid $2600 for this furnace. Landlords are only required to pay for the bare minimum, but I went ahead and bought the best to save my tenants money. I'm the only landlord that'll do that. Go ahead and ask them when you see other places, ask them what kind of furnace they have. Ask why it's not a Pulse 22. They'll tell you, 'it's too expensive'. Tell them, well Paul bought one for me."
Me: "I bet they'll like that."
Paul: "No they won't."
Me: "I know, Paul. I was being facetious."
"Look at all this overhead lighting. In the kitchen alone there's five overhead lighting fixtures. Well, one of them is in the closet, but it totals five."
(I should point out that they were among the ugliest lighting fixtures I've ever seen.)
"All of the sink fixtures are Koehler and the countertops are updated."
(Yeah Paul, but they're blue.)
"The bathroom floors are Armstrong in-laid vinyl. That means they crush little pieces of vinyl directly into the concrete. That way you won't ruin the floors with high heels or something like that."
(Two points: A. Do we look like the kind of girls who wear high heels? and 2. When is the last time any of you walked with high heels on your bathroom floor and the stiletto poked a hole right through it?)
"See these windows? Look at all the glass on these windows. Most landlords will put in window frames but skimp on the glass. You know why? Because glass is expensive. These windows have more glass than required."
(It's true. Those windows did have glass.)
Erika is terribly allergic to cats, and we noticed the tenant had two of them. I asked if there was a chance the carpets would be cleaned after she left.
"Oh, there's no chance of it. It's deliberate. I make all my tenants clean the carpets upon their move-out. By a professional. And show me proof they've done it. If they don't then I do it. And charge 'em for it."
(Paul--the long arm of the Carpet-Cleaning Law.)
I had to call Paul this morning and let him know that we were "going with a different property". He received my voice mail and called me back 25 minutes later to ask me why. I think he was genuinely flabbergasted as to how on earth we could choose anyplace else. I mean, the furnace! The glass! Just look at the in-laid vinyl! I was honest--I told him it was all the blue. He said he does that for variety and that the place across the hall has neutral colors.
Damn. So close.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
The Power of the Graph.
As most of the last posts have insinuated (or yelled outright), the last few months have been frustrating on the body-sculpting front. Peg says I shouldn't look for flaws and she's absolutely right. My self-esteem is not the flaming abyss it sounds like, either. I'm just sayin'. Some background:
A-ha! I had found the answers I suspected all along but could never fully grasp until I could look at it in graph form. I had two problems going on here. Everyone knows the most efficient nutrition plan for anyone who wants to lose weight is to eat fewer calories more often. If Jillian says it on The Biggest Loser, it must be right. I needed to move my daily calories around from my three-massive-meals-and-two-tiny-snacks to three moderate meals and three slightly moderate snacks. The second problem was the amount of calories I shoved in each day, which varied widely from not enough (1600) to way way way too many (2900). I've learned along the way that for a person my size and activity level to reach my goal weight I should be consuming about 2000 calories per day (calculate your calorie count here). I need to watch my portion sizes and spread the calories out throughout the day so I don't feel the need to gorge myself on a plate of spaghetti that could drown a small child (860 calories per plate, thank you very much). Hence, the purple line on the graph. The purple line is much closer to what I need to stick and what I will aim toward. It's amazing how weeks of screaming at the scale and pouting and whining did very little for me, but a simple graph can do so much. I deserve a beer.
I put on ten pounds after my wedding, ten pounds I'd rather not carry around in next summer's races. So I made some modifications, as any normal person would if they wanted a change (hear that, federal gov't?). Numero uno is my workout schedule, which previously had an "off-season" of about six months. I've now been base training about five times a week since November. But exercise is only half the battle, and nutrition (a triathlete's fancy way of saying "what ya shove in your face hole") is my weakness. So I've eaten gluten-free for about four months now, I eat out about three times a year, I never eat fast food, and I have 2-3 beers a week and very few desserts. Voila. All the magic ingredients. Except nothing was changing. I was doing all the right things I could think of, and damned if I was going to turn my life into a miserable pile of veggies and no beer. What was missing?
Yesterday it dawned on me what I needed.
A graph.
My lobster is far and away the creative one in our duo; for lack of a better explanation, I think like a man. I fix things (problems and toilets) like a man. I needed a graph.
So last night I wrote down 3-4 common variations of all of my meals, calculated accurate amounts, checked labels for calorie counts, and used the internets for the missing info. I plotted it all on a graph that showed both the time of day I was eating and the range of calories I was shoving into my face hole at each of those times. I colored the ranges in yellow. Here it is:
A-ha! I had found the answers I suspected all along but could never fully grasp until I could look at it in graph form. I had two problems going on here. Everyone knows the most efficient nutrition plan for anyone who wants to lose weight is to eat fewer calories more often. If Jillian says it on The Biggest Loser, it must be right. I needed to move my daily calories around from my three-massive-meals-and-two-tiny-snacks to three moderate meals and three slightly moderate snacks. The second problem was the amount of calories I shoved in each day, which varied widely from not enough (1600) to way way way too many (2900). I've learned along the way that for a person my size and activity level to reach my goal weight I should be consuming about 2000 calories per day (calculate your calorie count here). I need to watch my portion sizes and spread the calories out throughout the day so I don't feel the need to gorge myself on a plate of spaghetti that could drown a small child (860 calories per plate, thank you very much). Hence, the purple line on the graph. The purple line is much closer to what I need to stick and what I will aim toward. It's amazing how weeks of screaming at the scale and pouting and whining did very little for me, but a simple graph can do so much. I deserve a beer.P.S. If you've made it this far, congratulations on forcing your way through the most boringest blog post in the world to everyone but me. This one's more for my own accountability than reader interest, so please come back in the future. I'm not always this way.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Small and White, Clean and Bright
Last night my lobster and I sat down to watch a movie. Finally, after 15 years of owning it on VHS and knowing most of the words to all of the songs but never actually seeing it, I convinced her to devote the next three hours to The Sound of Music. I had seen it annually from ages 5-17 of course, but with my Music virgin at my side, it brought out a whole new side. (I should mention that I had two very potent beers and she had a zinger of a Malibu and Coke for the film.) Some highlights:
Near the beginning Maria is coaxing herself into bravery with "I Have Confidence". As her list of things about which she feels confident grows, she begins to swing her guitar case wildly about. We both decide that if we could effortlessly run at a full sprint down the sidewalk whilst swinging about large stringed instruments we'd have a hell of a lot of confidence, too.
About halfway through, we stopped for a pee break. I had the terribly morose "Edelweiss" in my head, and decided to replace it with a more upbeat tune. I began to sing out loud:
I am sixteen
Going on seventeen...
And that's it. That's all I knew, even after just watching it. Honestly, does anyone ever know any more of the words to that song than those six? Go ahead...try it now.
Erika: Rolf ends up being a Nazi, doesn't he.
Jenn: Yeah. How did you know?
Erika: Earlier. He did the "hail Hitler" thing.
As we're listening to the Captain sing about Edelweiss ("Small and white, Clean and bright"), Erika asks what edelweiss is. I tell her it's a flower, but it prompts us to think of what else it could be.
A well-kept, intelligent child?
That little pill he takes every morning to control his blood pressure?
(A background choir sings "How Do you Solve a Problem Like Maria?" as she is walking down the aisle on her wedding day)
Erika: My God, what an awful song for the processional. Way to take a swing at her on the happiest day of her life.
(Max announces the winner of the festival--"The Von Trapp family singers!" [applause] "The Family Von Trapp! [applause] Spotlight on the empty corridor. Long pause. Soldier runs through the hallway, appears at the entrance and shouts "They're gone!" Nazi man stands up in horror.)
Erika: A little slow on the uptake, isn't he.
This movie is a classic. It has its moments of hilarity and absurdity, but in the end I think we can all agree...
It would make a great drinking game.
Near the beginning Maria is coaxing herself into bravery with "I Have Confidence". As her list of things about which she feels confident grows, she begins to swing her guitar case wildly about. We both decide that if we could effortlessly run at a full sprint down the sidewalk whilst swinging about large stringed instruments we'd have a hell of a lot of confidence, too.
About halfway through, we stopped for a pee break. I had the terribly morose "Edelweiss" in my head, and decided to replace it with a more upbeat tune. I began to sing out loud:
I am sixteen
Going on seventeen...
And that's it. That's all I knew, even after just watching it. Honestly, does anyone ever know any more of the words to that song than those six? Go ahead...try it now.
Erika: Rolf ends up being a Nazi, doesn't he.
Jenn: Yeah. How did you know?
Erika: Earlier. He did the "hail Hitler" thing.
As we're listening to the Captain sing about Edelweiss ("Small and white, Clean and bright"), Erika asks what edelweiss is. I tell her it's a flower, but it prompts us to think of what else it could be.
A well-kept, intelligent child?
That little pill he takes every morning to control his blood pressure?
(A background choir sings "How Do you Solve a Problem Like Maria?" as she is walking down the aisle on her wedding day)
Erika: My God, what an awful song for the processional. Way to take a swing at her on the happiest day of her life.
(Max announces the winner of the festival--"The Von Trapp family singers!" [applause] "The Family Von Trapp! [applause] Spotlight on the empty corridor. Long pause. Soldier runs through the hallway, appears at the entrance and shouts "They're gone!" Nazi man stands up in horror.)
Erika: A little slow on the uptake, isn't he.
This movie is a classic. It has its moments of hilarity and absurdity, but in the end I think we can all agree...
It would make a great drinking game.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Spot Removal.
The other day (in February) I was vaccuuming. I had some extra time, so I decided to once and for all tackle the high-traffic grayish spot on the carpet that had developed slowly over the course of the last four months. You know, the one for which our leasing company will charge us exactly $536 for creating. I took out our free sample of spot remover that we were given when I accidently got Vaseline on the ottoman and had to call a professional, and I went at it. Voila. Spot gone. (Or at least faded enough that said leasing company won't notice.)
Then it occurred to me--what if we could do that with our bodies? How cool would that be?? I suspect we all have spots that we're unhappy with. For me, the sections fall into three categories:
A. Lookin' good for now but most likely will go downhill if I don't watch it;
2. Tolerable; and
D. Oh my goodness that just isn't right.
Sometimes I envision taking a sharpie to my body and outlining the three sections like a topographic map, just to see where I need to concentrate. I picture a short man with messy hair and round spectacles describing the landscape to an eager note-taking audience.
"Hmm...this ridgeline seems to extend beyond the valley and plateau in the nether regions."
(Hand shoots up)
"Professor, is it common in this type of terrain to see a mound like this fluctuate so freely in size?"
"Good question. A small amount of fluctuation is common, except in this case (uses pointer to poke my belly), the mound seems to only get larger. A unique phenomenon indeed."
Alas, we cannot "spot fix" our bodies. I've tried. I had a killer workout tonight in which I felt strong and svelt in almost every way, and then passed a mirror in my swimsuit and my heart shriveled at the uneasy landscape before me. I can only take comfort in assuming other people out there have their troubled spots too.
You do, don't you?
P.S. The carpet stain is starting to come back. Maybe it'll go away for good if the spot remover is alcohol-based; the same treatment I'm applying to the topographic map of my body.
Then it occurred to me--what if we could do that with our bodies? How cool would that be?? I suspect we all have spots that we're unhappy with. For me, the sections fall into three categories:
A. Lookin' good for now but most likely will go downhill if I don't watch it;
2. Tolerable; and
D. Oh my goodness that just isn't right.
Sometimes I envision taking a sharpie to my body and outlining the three sections like a topographic map, just to see where I need to concentrate. I picture a short man with messy hair and round spectacles describing the landscape to an eager note-taking audience.
"Hmm...this ridgeline seems to extend beyond the valley and plateau in the nether regions."
(Hand shoots up)
"Professor, is it common in this type of terrain to see a mound like this fluctuate so freely in size?"
"Good question. A small amount of fluctuation is common, except in this case (uses pointer to poke my belly), the mound seems to only get larger. A unique phenomenon indeed."
Alas, we cannot "spot fix" our bodies. I've tried. I had a killer workout tonight in which I felt strong and svelt in almost every way, and then passed a mirror in my swimsuit and my heart shriveled at the uneasy landscape before me. I can only take comfort in assuming other people out there have their troubled spots too.
You do, don't you?
P.S. The carpet stain is starting to come back. Maybe it'll go away for good if the spot remover is alcohol-based; the same treatment I'm applying to the topographic map of my body.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
The many faces of congestion.
I'm continually baffled by congestion. There's so many kinds, how can someone keep them straight? There's the "who snuck in my sinuses and filled them with concrete?" congestion. There's the floodgate of oozing watery mucus. Or the scary kind, when you blow your nose and chunks of strangely colored blobs force you backward. And I've never understood how each nostril seem mutually exclusive sometimes. Lay down on your left side, and the masses hunker down to the left. Lay a finger on your right nostril and close your mouth, and you're asphyxiating yourself. Switch the same finger to your left, and you now breathe freely. And don't get me started on sneezing.
(Sidebar: Sneezing is funny. Everyone has their own version. I'm a furious sneezer; I gear up for it with an arched back and outspread arms, then let it rip in one fell swoop and I'm done. My aunt has dainty sneezes that come out as high-pitched "eh-chew!" spurts, and twenty or thirty later she's free and clear.)
Back to me. I have the irritating kind of congestion right now. My sinuses feel boulder-like, clogged with a fury only Afrin can tame.
(Sidebar: What the hell is Afrin? If you're a fan of nose spray you know what I'm talking about; a couple of squirts in each nostril and you have instant and total relief of the unnatural kind. It doesn't seem right, but I just can't stay away. My brother was addicted to Afrin for several years. He popped a few squirts every half hour, I kid you not. And the generic kind didn't do it for him, it had to be Afrin. Finally he, with the help and support of his girlfriend, weaned himself off. They found a website that taught them how to properly dilute the Afrin in stages so eventually his tolerance would fade back to normal. To this day I don't know what he does about congestion without Afrin.)
Anyway, back to me again. My sinuses are boulders, but it doesn't stop my nose from running. Mind you, it's only the right side; the left is bone dry. And it's the annoying amount of nasal drip where I feel like blowing my nose every 4 minutes. My nosetip is slowly (i.e. every 4 minutes) being ground down to the bone by Kleenex. The tissue could be lotioned with the softness of an angel's ass and it would still feel like a 10-year-old carpet at this point. So I've done what any nose-respecting ill person would do. I've forgone the blowing and just shoved Kleenex up my right nostril and left it there. Erika says it looks like I have half of Wilford Brimley's mustache. I'd like to see how she deals with this kind of congestion.
It's truly a bitch.
(Sidebar: Sneezing is funny. Everyone has their own version. I'm a furious sneezer; I gear up for it with an arched back and outspread arms, then let it rip in one fell swoop and I'm done. My aunt has dainty sneezes that come out as high-pitched "eh-chew!" spurts, and twenty or thirty later she's free and clear.)
Back to me. I have the irritating kind of congestion right now. My sinuses feel boulder-like, clogged with a fury only Afrin can tame.
(Sidebar: What the hell is Afrin? If you're a fan of nose spray you know what I'm talking about; a couple of squirts in each nostril and you have instant and total relief of the unnatural kind. It doesn't seem right, but I just can't stay away. My brother was addicted to Afrin for several years. He popped a few squirts every half hour, I kid you not. And the generic kind didn't do it for him, it had to be Afrin. Finally he, with the help and support of his girlfriend, weaned himself off. They found a website that taught them how to properly dilute the Afrin in stages so eventually his tolerance would fade back to normal. To this day I don't know what he does about congestion without Afrin.)
Anyway, back to me again. My sinuses are boulders, but it doesn't stop my nose from running. Mind you, it's only the right side; the left is bone dry. And it's the annoying amount of nasal drip where I feel like blowing my nose every 4 minutes. My nosetip is slowly (i.e. every 4 minutes) being ground down to the bone by Kleenex. The tissue could be lotioned with the softness of an angel's ass and it would still feel like a 10-year-old carpet at this point. So I've done what any nose-respecting ill person would do. I've forgone the blowing and just shoved Kleenex up my right nostril and left it there. Erika says it looks like I have half of Wilford Brimley's mustache. I'd like to see how she deals with this kind of congestion.
It's truly a bitch.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Derail me, please.
I'm sitting in a coffee shop with my decaf mocha and my laptop alongside my Lobster, whose nose is buried deep in her homework. The scene is almost identical to last Sunday. My life has gone like this for quite a while lately--sailing along uneventfully, predictably, smoothly. Perhaps that's why I feel so bleh.
On the other hand, others around me have endured the Life Disruptions we don't care for. You know the kind. The ones that come suddenly and abruptly, demanding time and resources you don't have because your life is a moving train and derailing it ain't easy. My Lobster missed 3 days' work last week for a "viral sore throat" (or something like that; she just calls it "swallowing 2X4s with rusty nails jutting out of them"). One of our Kindergarten teachers was out all week for Influenza A. A friend of mine had his car broken into and radio bashed in. Another is having surgery on her sinuses next Wednesday. No one looks forward to these kind of interruptions.
As winter drones on, it's becoming clearer to me why I love Spring and Summer so much; the outdoors and the free time are conducive to creating Life Disruptions that erase the winter blehs. This summer two good friends are getting married, and it will be the first gay wedding we've attended besides our own. I have five triathlons lined up, each one promising to be a fresh jolt of life. A trip to the Badlands with three dear friends awaits us in August if we can only get our calendars to line up. It all can't come soon enough.
I guess I should count my blessings; I've been tooling along without any major Life Disruptions for a while now. And the flip side? I've been tooling along without any Life Disruptions for a while now.
On the other hand, others around me have endured the Life Disruptions we don't care for. You know the kind. The ones that come suddenly and abruptly, demanding time and resources you don't have because your life is a moving train and derailing it ain't easy. My Lobster missed 3 days' work last week for a "viral sore throat" (or something like that; she just calls it "swallowing 2X4s with rusty nails jutting out of them"). One of our Kindergarten teachers was out all week for Influenza A. A friend of mine had his car broken into and radio bashed in. Another is having surgery on her sinuses next Wednesday. No one looks forward to these kind of interruptions.
As winter drones on, it's becoming clearer to me why I love Spring and Summer so much; the outdoors and the free time are conducive to creating Life Disruptions that erase the winter blehs. This summer two good friends are getting married, and it will be the first gay wedding we've attended besides our own. I have five triathlons lined up, each one promising to be a fresh jolt of life. A trip to the Badlands with three dear friends awaits us in August if we can only get our calendars to line up. It all can't come soon enough.
I guess I should count my blessings; I've been tooling along without any major Life Disruptions for a while now. And the flip side? I've been tooling along without any Life Disruptions for a while now.
Sunday, March 2, 2008
I have no core.
Don't worry, my beliefs are firmly intact. My support system is resounding and loyal. I'm not talking about those kinds of core. I'm talking about my actual core--the midsection of my body that holds me up. My arms are pretty well toned, I have runner's legs and a nice neck, but my torso is floppy and flabby and unable to hold me up most of the time. My posture is terrible as a result. I fold in half like a gummy worm if I'm not propped up somehow. And worst of all is the belly. Ah, the bubble-like belly. I complain about it all the time to anyone who will listen, perhaps too much because last Friday my Mother-in-Law handed me (as a joke, I hope) a copy of "Women's Health" magazine with the cover story announcing that I, too, can have the flat belly I've always wanted. It's easy! they say. Yeah, right.
Well, I'll show her. I looked up the program they designed for me and my future six-pack. They claim that I will see results after only(!) thirty days, so that's how long I will give it. I will follow her program and get my perfectly flat belly and toned abs one 20-minute workout at a time. And if it doesn't work, then I guess I wasn't meant to lose the jiggle--or stand up straight.
I'll keep you posted.
Well, I'll show her. I looked up the program they designed for me and my future six-pack. They claim that I will see results after only(!) thirty days, so that's how long I will give it. I will follow her program and get my perfectly flat belly and toned abs one 20-minute workout at a time. And if it doesn't work, then I guess I wasn't meant to lose the jiggle--or stand up straight.
I'll keep you posted.
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