April 27
I called my mom this morning. She'd phoned last night, but I was out at the gym*, in Spinning class**. We were kind of blabbering about the trip, how excited we are, what we're going to do, what we're NOT going to do, the kind offers I've gotten from you nice people to accompany her to the ruins while I lie on the beach growing even more and more tan and leathery, eating local produce (grown in rancid human feces, of course) and hailing underpaid resort boys in white shorts to fetch me a little drinkypoo. In any case, we were talking about our much needed vacation and the state of our lives, at current, when she stopped suddenly and said "I need to go!" "Are you okay?" "Well, yes. But I have to depilitate my lip!" "Wait, you have a mustache?" "Yes! Aren't you jealous? Do you want some? I'll share it with you!" "What are you using??" "Well, I've tried the sugar, and that makes a MESS. " "Uhh..."
We giggled about that for a few seconds, then, from me:
"Maybe Mexican guys like women with mustaches!"
"If I keep it, and then share it with you, we can start our own ring of crime! We can be MUSTACHE BANDITOS."
"Mustache banditos? MUSTACHE BANDITOS??? Did you just say 'MUSTACHE BANDITO' to me??"
"Well, yeah! We can twirl 'em menacingly!"
By that point, the conversation had disintegrated into the both of us shrieking "MUSTACHE BANDITO" at one another, and she excused herself to go..well...get rid of her mustache.
* and **
I went back to the gym last week. I've hesitated mentioning anything about it because I've gone through a bunch of failed attempts in the past where I get into it all like 'Woo! I'm sick of being a fatass! I wasn't always a fatass! I shall be a fatass no more!" and then I'd lose steam and interest and inclination a week later siting other things as being more important. (i.e.: "I hear the buffet has extra pork buns tonight! Count me in!!") And then, I think back to how I talked about it and feel like a shithead because I've disappointed myself and let myself down and I get pissed off and on and on and on. So, I wasn't going to mention anything about it because it just turns into me beating myself up, which I do often enough that needing to do it in regards to my ever-widning figure is unnecessary and unhelpful.
In any case, I went back to the gym. I went back to the previously oft mentioned Weight Training for Chickies (when I walked into the room last week, for the first time in god knows how long, the instructor hissed "YOU! Where have YOU been??" I replied "Look at me. The answer ought to be obvious!") and looked around at the same people who'd been taking the class with me, what? 6 months ago? These people have been coming and coming to the gym all dedicated and are now toned and fit and I, Lady Layabout, am struggling to hoist 5 pounds over my head.
Yep. It was back to the beginning for me, in terms of what I was and was not able to lift. The next day, I was in agony. Agony. Ever use your triceps in a non-workout situation? Me either. Until last Tuesday, when I did dips off the edge of a step. Until I spent the minutes with the weights up over my head. Until then, my formerly tight triceps which had lain dormant, growing flabby and uninspired screamed and yelled in protest. I broke a sweat. It was awful.
Or so I thought. I thought that by going back to the class, I'd stood up to the worst of what it would be. Until the next morning. I noticed it when I had trouble lifting my arm to take my toothbrush. Then, when I couldn't hold up the blowdryer. Then, when I almost fell down the stairs. The pain lasted about a day, but I felt virtuous. I felt mighty. I felt above reproach, and the next week, it was better! It's been said that muscles have memory, and are fairly quick to remember how they were, that muscle strength is re-attainable. If that is indeed the case, which I suspect it might be, it explains the much better second class. Much, much better second class. Wow, amazingly much better. So much better, thought I, that I'd upped my time on the Stairmaster, cranked the treadmill steepness (steeposity? steeposiness?) to high, and was having a good old time. Until. I. Decided. To. Try. A. Spinning. Class.
"Well, I've been back for two weeks. I don't have all my aerobic capability back, but I have some. I'm not super strong, but I'm okay. I'll try it. How bad could it be?" reasoned I to myself. Completely ignoring a few important things:
1.) The people who emerge from the Spinning ( I have no idea why I can't not capitalize "Spinning", but I can't. It's Spinning, okay?) class sweaty and out of breath are not chubby. They do not take a 6 month leave of absence from the gym because they just don't feel like going due to some vague other thing that may or may not happen instead that night. They do not hunker down to the bar to knock back 10 Cider Jacks, and if they do, they are at the gym the next morning working them off. They do not know from "buffet".
2.) The people who bike, the ones who BIKE, the ones who bike on the streets in packs with their colorful jerseys (yep, I have one from the AIDSride. It is red. I look like a sunburned kielbasa. Pass...) and padded bike shorts and squeezy water bottles, who think nothing of reaching out and kicking or hitting my truck because they sense some unknown line I've crossed into their Personal Bike Space, these bikers take themselves very, very seriously. Very. Seriously. So much so that a class full of people like this, all racing up their personal hills while shooting The Fatty (read:me) dirty looks for taking up their precious air and panting and being self congratulatory seems like something I'd like to do, well, NEVER.
3.) (This is the most important one, so pay attention.) I HATE BIKE RIDING. You may recall my realization of this from last summer, when I was halfheartedly training for the Ride. This is not entirely true. I like bike riding when it is for FUN. I like tooling along, looking at shit. I like riding FLAT SURFACES. Yes, I am a pussy. Whatever. I can prove my machosity (machoness? machisma?) in other ways. Someone said to me today "anything worth doing is hard work". Bullshit. Sometimes it's fun just to go for a bike ride. As soon as I see people straining and groaning and killing themselves, my interest level drops in the toilet.
Putting all of this out of my mind, I went anyhow. Was I the fattest person in the room? You bet. Whatever! Determination! Yes! I am woman! I can ride a bike! I did it for three days! 45 minutes won't kill me! Well, as a matter of fact, it almost did. It started off fine and dandy. It got harder. I was still all good. Then, we stand. STAND, people. STAND on the bike. Stand and pedal? I can barely stand and walk at the same time. Stand and PEDAL? Fuck that! Thus beginning an internal dialogue of cursing the likes of which I'd not known since, well, the Ride.
After it was done, we had a two minute cooldown, wherein we all took our pulse. "You should be between 22 and 25!" the evil, smiling instructor chirped. I was at 33. THIRTY THREE! I was anaerobic the whole time. Ahh. I stepped off the bike, shaking. I walked out of the gym and realized I was nauseated. Fuck ME.
So, sure, I'll go back. I'll go back when I can sit down on the bike and not have the instructor by my side constantly "Are you okay? [there, fatty, what the fuck are you doing here? amongst us, the fit?!] keep it up!! Drink a lot of water! You're doing great! [leave. you embarrass yourself! you will fail!] and not feel like I'm going to kill someone with my shoe flying off or whatnot.
In any case, I did it. I made it through. It sucked, but it was cool. No big deal.
I'm going to try and update before I go. If it doesn't happen, I'll send you all a postcard. No, I will.
yesterday | home | email | soon, my pets.
You're such a strange girl
I think you come from another world
You're such a strange girl
I really don't understand a word
You're such a strange girl
I'd like to shake you around and around
You're such a strange girl
I'd like
To turn you
All upside downYou're such a strange girl
The way you look like you do
You're such a strange girl
I want to be with youI think I'm falling
I think I'm falling in
I think I'm falling in love with you
With you