Tag Archives: musings

Goalsmack Month

3 Jul

Guys, it’s an important time of year.

I’m not talking about the birth of our great and glorious beer-drinking reality-television-watching nation or even the birth of myself (occurring the week thereafter but unrelated to beer or reality television) or Christmas in July. I’m talking about the halfway point to New Year’s Resolutions.

If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll know that the beginning of this month marks the halfway point for my Fat Ass 365 Project, wherein I vowed to do something health-related and workout-y for 365 days in a row, culminating in a 10K at the end of the year. Back in spring I participated in a 5K to keep myself on track and accountable and thererin concluded that I would rather die a slow and painful death in private than to be forced to do it publicly by running a long distance race..

Unfortunately, I’ve already committed online, in person, over the phone, and in print- I’ve locked myself in via every communication channel possible. I even have an accountability buddy. That is, a buddy who will come the day of the race to knock on my door and drag me to the starting line. This, of course, is all part of a well-constructed plan by pre-5-K Jackie, who believed she could do whatever she put her mind to and didn’t want to put up with wussy Future Jackie’s sissy whining. She set up safeguards and guarantees to ensure that Future Jackie couldn’t wiggle her way out of anything. Post-5-K Jackie, however, has the good sense to acknowledge how incredibly difficult it was to simply jog three miles straight and isn’t “sissy whining” so much as she’s “certain she will die”. 

But it’s too late. I’m locked in.

Death impending or not, I’m halfway to the reckoning. A little closer, actually, since the 10K is late fall. That means that in two weeks I officially start my training schedule. It’s not official, really. It’s just a piece of paper I tore out of a magazine that promised me lots of things. 

So I’m staring down the barrel of my New Year’s Resolution. So far everything is on track. I’m still working out, I’ve cut down my complaining to occasional, and when I think about running a 10K I still puke a little fear into my mouth. How you doin?homer

Many of you are in the midst of grand undertakings as well. Some of you got started bright and early in the year and some of you just hopped on board recently. You can start a 365 any time, so if this paragraph has you feeling left out, feel free to jump in any day now. If you’re nervous about doing the whole thing, you can always start a 30 Day Challenge. The mention of either is enough to get me all hot and bothered.

While you’re all assessing progress, charting future plans, and/or scolding yourself for negligence, I’ll be paying extra attention to Jillian Michaels  and logging more miles on my bike in the hopes that I can lower my risk of Death-by-10K. Maybe if I kick it up a notch these two weeks before training, I’ll thank myself later. 

Unlikely.

But first I must celebrate the glory that is Old Glory. I plan to do so with two toddlers, a baby, and a kiddie pool. I made cookies. It’s going to be excellent. 

Happy Almost Independence Day/My Birthday/Christmas in July/Goalsmack Month. And don’t forget – it’s never too late to join the crazy. ♣

Tags: , , , , , , ,

The Path to Crotchety is Paved with Typos

26 Jun

 

I’m having a hard time taking part in daily life with other humans without their blatant spelling and grammatical errors making me feel all funny inside.

This has been an issue for me for quite some time. I’m a lover of the English language, a relisher of commas, a juggler of prepositional phrases. I need things to be in their proper order.

For those of you unawares, a prepositional phrase is basically anywhere a squirrel can be in relation to a tree. Up a tree, down a tree, around a tree, in a tree, on a tree – squirrels can be lots of things to a tree and most of those things are the beginning of a well-formed prepositional phrase.

Some of you are going to mull over this for a while and come up with some things that squirrels can do in relation to trees that are not, in fact, prepositional phrases. Some of them might even be a little dirty. But you’re going to have to take that up with Mrs. Bennett, my 7th grade English teacher. Besides, this isn’t really an English lesson. Or about squirrels in trees (or inside trees or beyond the trees…) It’s about how I need to stop being so judgy mcjudgy about people who genuinely can’t get a handle on whether you make something plural by just slapping an apostrophe “s” on the end.

For the record, YOU DON’T. OKAY?! YOU DON’T. THERE ARE RULES. IT’S NOT THAT SIMPLE.

I’m sorry.

I’m not sorry.

I’m trying to be more sorry.

I think it all started around 1994. It was during this year that Ace of Base descended upon America with its hit The Sign from the album Happy Nation. My older brother had just spent his hard-earned George Washingtons on one of his very first cassette tapes (if you’re under 15, please click here) in order to listen to its Swedish pop glory any time he wanted.

After a bit of rewinding, of course.

I was giddy with glee at the idea of holing up for the evening to listen to it and had convinced him to let me. I shoved it in my cassette player (again, here) and began to sing along to each song, using the cassette insert to follow along to the lyrics.

That’s when my stomach began to feel funny. There were several…adjustments…that needed to be made for the lyrics to be accurate. Some of them were, I’m sure, Swedish quirkisms and lyrical liberties. But there were without a doubt several typos and oversights that made me feel as if some terrible injustice had taken place and so I set out to correct them. One by one. In pen.

My brother was so ungrateful.

I tried to show him how I’d improved his life; now he could listen and read and not feel funny in his stomach.

As it turned out, he was totally fine going about life as the owner of the inaccurate, typo-ridden lyrics enclosed with Happy Nation. In fact, since I’d marred his previously pristine cassette tape, he washed his hands of it entirely and bequeathed it to me out of what could have only been disgust for grammatical perfection.

The upside is that over the years, my brother continues the practice of bequeathing items to me in favor of better items for himself. The downside is that I’m staring 27 in the face (July) and I’m pretty sure I’m just as much of an asshat now as I was when I white-knuckled that pen in my hands at the dewy age of 8.

I’m plagued by a need for grammatical correctness. I don’t frequent restaurants that don’t demonstrate proper command of the English language on their signs or promotional materials for fear the menu would send me into a tizzy. I can’t enjoy a stroll through a neighborhood without proofreading sandwich boards. Everywhere is an improperly pluralized noun; lurking behind each corner is a homophone misunderstood.

I’ve begun to work out these anxieties in my work life by applying myself as office proofreader wherever possible. Recently, this has escalated to post-it notes on the mistake-containing materials with personal insults directed at the marketing manager and left on his desk for discovery later in the day. In my personal life, however, I’m finding it more difficult to exact vindication.

I have to do everything I can to stop myself from morphing into a crotchety old hermit, and while I’ve put certain safeguards in place to help prevent this (Lollipop Tuesdays, not working from home, my mother calling me at least every 3 days to make sure I’m not playing World of Warcraft again), I’m going to need to wear myself down on the proofreading mania. People will always make mistakes. Lots and lots of eye-burning mistakes.

I’m thinking of conditioning. I can collect menus, mass mailings, and other printed publications that offend me and go through them like flashcards each morning until I’m so numb to typos and spelling errors that I feel nothing. It’s going to be a long, hard journey but in the end, I’ll be able to eat at a slew of ma and pa restaurants I’ve always wanted to try but couldn’t bear the risk of error-ridden menus.

The key to every goal is a food-related motivator; I just have to find it.

Feel free to start my conditioning by writing error-ridden comments.  I know you’re going to anyway because you’re all so clever.

No, but really please don’t. I can’t bear it. I’m not ready. I’M NOT READY.

Heaven help me. Here I come, crotchety. ♣

crotchety

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Pressed and Pegged and Oh-So-Flattahed

19 Jun

Hello ducklings old and new, and Happy Wednesday. It’s time for a post.

The coveted badge. notice Peg's fantastic skills in the application, "Paint". It's part of her appeal.

The coveted badge. notice Peg’s fantastic skills in the application, “Paint”. It’s part of her appeal.

There are a few honors in the blogging world that are super exciting for writers. Like when you get a batch of new subscribers or get a spike in hits or, you know, anything that reminds you that actual human beings can hear you talking to yourself online.

My first blog-related pants pee was the first time I was Freshly Pressed. For those of you unawares, Freshly Pressed is when WordPress wizards, the people who happen to host my blog, round up some of what they consider to be good material and promote them on their homepage. It brings in a lot of traffic, and back in the day when featured posts lingered several days before turning over (now it’s several hours), it meant the holy blog gates had been opened and traffic would rush to your doorstep.

My first time Freshly Pressed was a stroke of luck, really. I wrote about Regis Philbin and he just happened to announce his retirement the next day. I wrote about how memorizing trivia in case I get the chance to get on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire minimized my mental storage capacity for the rest of my life.

Since then I’ve received the honor a few more times and have discovered a slew of great writers by reading other featured posts. One such writer is Peg over at pegoleg.com. She’s been Freshly Pressed a bajillion times, like for this one and this one and this one, to name a few. Now a seasoned Freshly Pressed Expert, Peg has started her own curating process and dubbed it Freshly Pegged. She invites hand-picked bloggers to select a post that should have been Freshly Pressed but was not. She refers to herself as a digital superhero, handing out honors to posts that have been robbed of their rightful glory.

She recently trudged through the muck and mire of my brain bits to ask me to shake the dust off of a former post and slap a Freshly Pegged badge on it and so I am oh so very flattahed to be featured today. Check it out here.

I highly recommend latching on to Peg’s musings of the mind featured above – particularly her condemnation of her sister for ruining the economy by deciding to diet at Christmas.

Thank you all for reading. I think you’re just the bestest. Here’s a picture of a unicorn.

by LadyAlora - click to visit her at Deviant Art

by LadyAlora – click to visit her at Deviant Art

♣

Tags: , , , ,

My Struggle with Dance

4 Jun

napoleon dance

I wasn’t born a dancer.

I have the long, gangly limbs of an awkward schoolgirl married with the anxieties of a shut-in. Though I’m often mistaken for the kind of person who will get up and dance, it’s one of the pastimes I prefer our culture had never actually developed so that I could never live to be pressured into the misery of participating in it.

I danced once in middle school. I had developed a deep-seated complex about having to shower naked in the open with other girls and so to distract everyone’s attention from my conscientious objection, I stood on one of the benches in the locker room and performed a rousing rendition of “Father Abraham”, which I learned in Christian School.

Father Abraham had many sons, and many sons had Faaaaather Abraham. I am one of them, and so are you. So let’s all praise The Lord! (Right Arm!) Father Abraham… had many sons….

It went on in this hokey-pokey like fashion until all my body parts were involved. It was the dancing highlight of my first decade.

About five years later, I took a real stab at it in college. It was a pact between a friend and me– we were both ungifted with grace and thought taking Modern Dance would be an excellent way to help gain control over our gangly limbs. I remember it taking me several weeks simply to memorize the warmup routine. I also remember slamming my head off the stage during the final performance. Mostly.

A few years after that, I made one final and last-ditch effort to fall in line with society’s demand that I dance. After knocking out my gen eds, I transferred to a performing arts conservatory  with a nationally-lauded dance program. I was in the acting track and thought it would be prudent to dip my toes in the dance water to help not embarrass myself in future auditions that require rudimentary movement.  I signed up for “Dancing for Actors” – a class specifically tailored to actors who want to avoid humiliation. We learned basic steps and combinations and had to choreograph a piece and teach it to the class.

I struggled. There was a lot of stepping on toes and attempting to lead, which apparently isn’t permitted by humans with hoo-has. For my final piece, I choreographed “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” and featured a freestyle section where everyone was commanded to channel their inner jungle animal and move through the space. It was beautiful.  It’s the only assignment on which I got an A.

And also the only assignment for which I didn’t dance.

My least favorite part of being a non-dancing human is weddings. People will always try to get me to dance at weddings. Somewhere along the way, someone told society that if you’re in an environment where other people are dancing and you’re not, you must not be having fun. The reality of the situation is that I’m highly skilled in self-entertainment (as a child I spent a lot of hours sitting in the car alone while my mom ran errands). But because society has been taught that dancing is fun and non-dancers are miserable, it becomes everyone’s personal mission to make non-dancers dance at weddings.

As if it’s not humiliating enough to have to scramble for a bouquet of flowers in front of everyone.

I have made two attempts at dancing in the past several months (a new record). The first was at a wedding where my friends pulled me onto the dance floor against my will and gang-danced me into a circular cage until I had to either move or ruin everyone’s fun. The second was last week.

I was at the wedding of a lovely and fantastic couple and feeling quite safe about the experience because Dave has been very vocal about his distaste for dancing. I remembered that quality being one of the things I checked off my “ideal man” list that I keep in my pocket at all times for cross-referencing. However, at this particular wedding, he was dancing.

This was an entirely new kind of pressure. Dave is a very attractive man, and weddings typically feature moderately attractive women. So added to the weight of ruining a wedding with my sourpuss non-dancing and the pressure of my friends egging me to do so publicly, I now had to consider that if I didn’t get out there and dance with him, some other boobed lady beast would.  So I did what any self-respecting woman would do: I asked the DJ to play “I Believe in a Thing Called Love” by The Darkness and threw caution to the wind. He followed it up with “Brick House” and two things occurred to me: 1) I don’t mind dancing if it’s to amusing music and 2) I don’t mind dancing as much now that I’m not so fat.

That last part is a big one.

For those of you following along at home, I’m halfway through a venture I’ve dubbed Project Fatass 365, wherein I must work out every day all year. There on that dance floor I realized that there was much less jiggle in my jiggy and that I wasn’t nearly as concerned with people’s eyes being on me as I used to. Not just because there is less of me and because I can better control what I have, but because I just care a lot less about what people think. Now that I’ve shed some of the megagut I was using to store my food for winter all year long, I have more energy to be my middle-school self.

I’m still not a dancer. I will probably never be one. I’m living proof that slides, be they of the cha-cha or the electric variety, are not universally demonstrated. But that’s okay because I do one hell of a Father Abraham.

So here’s to a new Jackie – a Jackie who dances not because she’s egged on or pressured or gang-danced to humiliation, but because she hears Brick House and wants to get funky and doesn’t really care what it looks like to everyone else. It’s a shame that I ever lost that spark that got me on the locker room bench in the first place.

But you still can’t make me shower in public.

Father Abraham had many sons, and many sons had Faaaather Abraham. I am one of them, and so are you. So let’s all praise the Lord (LEFT ARM!) Father Abraham….♣

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Can’t Work; Gone Camping

29 May

I’m approaching my foretold destiny as a child of the forest.

By “foretold”, I’m referring to my having told you before. Though, I’ve also told you I’m a well-ripening cat lady so it appears I’ve laid out before you two possible Jackies: forest child hippie commune Jackie and shut-in cat lady Jackie.

I know no other futures.

The thing is, this year has been doing funny things to me. Ever since I committed to a 365 Fitness challenge, (I believe it’s formally dubbed “Project Fat Ass 365“), I’ve been getting out more often. I mean, I kind of have to. I was doing Jillian Michaels for a while there (and still do when I have need to crush a can with my butt cheeks) but working out is a lot better if I keep my options open. Lately, that has meant biking a lot.

A really cool thing happened in Pittsburgh recently- a bike trail that runs the length of here to D.C. called The Great Allegheny Passage was completed. Well, technically it will be complete in two weeks when everyone plans to celebrate it. Anyway, it’s just a few miles from my place, runs along the water, features several pedestrian bridges and even serves as home to a Bald Eagle. I discovered it after volunteering for Bike Pittsburgh a few weeks ago and am having a hard time getting things in life done because I’d rather be riding the trail. Oh yes, that’s right – you heard me: I’m having a hard time being a responsible adult because I’d rather be biking.

I don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner. Biking is the perfect activity for a hermit. You move quickly through the space so no one can notice your fat jiggle while you exercise or see your face long enough to recognize you. It’s acceptable to practice biking alone and since everyone you pass gives you a nice smile and a flick of a nod, you kind of feel like you’re being social. Well, you kind of feel like if you do it once in a while, your skin won’t be so pasty and your eyes look so terrified all the time.

Part of the grand allure of The Great Allegheny Passage is that it makes a nice substitute for hiking The Appalachian Trail. I’ve often told myself I should just put my stuff in storage, select a good trail name, and make like a nomad until I understand all the mysteries of life and/or get eaten by a bear. Of course, my parents are terrified that I’m more likely to be bear food than to be enlightened and when I consider the requirements of the situation, such as buying a bunch of hiking gear, leaving my job for about a year, and somehow managing to pay for all my junk in the meantime, well, I go back in my apartment and play Fat Princess some more.

 

This gem was done by TheGrossUncle, who has a pretty groovy collection of work over at thegrossuncle.com.

This gem was done by TheGrossUncle, who has a pretty groovy collection of work over at thegrossuncle.com.

But this bike trail would just require that I take a vacation, a few hundred dollars, and head into the woods with all the bike equipment I already own. Plus, Dave said today that he’s getting the itch to get rid of a few things and go buy a bike. And since we all know that Dave is the king of the forest, his doing so would mean that I can bike and hike and camp to my heart’s delight and while I’m busy getting all enlightened, he can tend to the bear fighting.

That’s where he’d rather be anyway. I could strip him of everything but his underwear and drop him off in the woods only to come back three days later and discover him the king of some man tribe, complete with forts, trolleys, and a fully-fledged hunter-gatherer society.

When presented with these fantastic possibilities, I find it difficult to focus on daily tasks like work and hobbies taking showers. 

So for now, there are two potential Jackies: forest hippie child and shut-in cat lady. Maybe my life is about being the latter and constantly seeking the former. I have been hexed with the struggle. This is my burden and I share it now with you.

Quickly: to the forest! ♣

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Strumpets in the Summertime: Part Deux

22 May

I was all geared up to write you a poem about the oncoming summer. It was something to do with the good Lord protecting us from the inevitable onslaught of boobly boobs and private unmentionables coming our way with the heat. Spring has been hot and muggy, and while prefer it to the bitter cold I am never quite prepared for how bare-ass naked other human beings can be in the wide open public with complete and total comfort.

But as it turns out, I’ve already done that one. It was called Strumpets in the Summertime and was one of my 365 musings in the 2011th year of our Lord. So here I am, getting all old and cranky with the same, repetitive complaints about humanity. I guess that sums up my life experience to date: I was simply born a cranky, old woman. I like to think I just matured at a terrifyingly rapid pace.

I should note that Dave caught me checking a girl out the other day (boobs are magnetic, I don’t care who you are) and said it’s a frequent observation he makes about me. So I guess I’m the one needing protection from The Almighty this hot, muggy spring. 

May He be with us all.

Strumpets in the Summertime

 Is it just me or are clothes being made smaller and sluttier?

That has to be the only reason it’s acceptable for all these body parts to be out on display.  It’s not even summer and all the gals in the city are free-flying with their anatomy out in the sunlight for all to see.  Tiny little short shorts, dresses with dangerously high hems, and low, low, low cut blouses.

How, exactly, am I supposed to compete with that?

I don’t really have any good ideas.  I mean, I’ll put on a dress but I’m not about to approach looking like a lady of the night when I do it.  Quite frankly, I was raised a tomboy and the fact that I’m willing to wear dresses or skirts of any kind should have everyone’s mouths agape.  When I reach for a makeup brush, people should have near-heart attacks.

Or at least they would be if there weren’t five girls within a 50 foot radius at all times with their legs and arms and boobly-boobs on display.

It’s not really a matter of competition.  After all, I’ve got a handsome guy by my side and I don’t really have any interest in attracting anyone’s attention but his.  But holy cow if I were him I’d have a hard time paying attention to me.

Since I’m unwilling to go the way of sluttery, I’m going to have to think of something else.  Maybe I could always smell like something nice.  Not flowers or musk – I need something that competes with tittery.  What’s a good scent to get a man’s attention? Bacon? 

I don’t know that would help my cause to be associated with cooked pig.

Why isn’t there already some sort of scent out there to assist in these situations?  Perhaps I should bottle something myself and label it as strumpet defense.   The commercial could feature a bunch of strumpets (naturally) all dressed up in their strumpet clothes (of course) and a decent-looking-but-not-blow-your-socks-off woman in the midst of them with an aura of light around her and a man staring at her with rapt attention.   And then some clever slogan. 

I’m going to have to work on that.   In the meantime, I’ll just have to keep making delicious food and being charmingly dorky.  Because those are really my only two redeeming qualities and I’m not sure the last one even counts.  I’m just trying to slip that in so I can make ‘redeeming qualities’ plural.

Maybe the bacon perfume isn’t such a bad idea after all.  It might remind him of pig, but that will remind him of food and that will remind him of me.  We can go from boob-gazing to food-grazing in 3 seconds flat and I can pull him out of the outside world of strumpetry and into our apartment where it’s safe and where I feed him and make him forget that there are attractive, young women absolutely everywhere.

Oh man- it’s only spring!  I’m gonna need one helluva plan when summer hits. ♣

Tags: , , , ,

The Reckoning

15 May

Hello, beautiful people.

Today is the day I announce The Gauntlet winner. Isn’t that exciting? Well, maybe not. If you didn’t compete, I guess this can just be a post to read about people who have bigger balls than you.

Zing! That was harsh. I take it back mostly.

If you’re new around here, let’s catch up real quick: I do 365 challenges, I have a series called Lollipop Tuesdays where I blog about having tried something new that I totally suck at, and sometimes I have contests. The Gauntlet was a contest where I combined these things and challenged everyone to pick something they suck at and do it every day for 30 Days, no cheating. When they were done, they were to write to me about it so I could judge their awesomeness. The most awesome wins a $100 Visa Gift Card.

Behold, Judgment Day has come.

I should come right out at the start and say that most of you sucked at this. Which is okay. It’s hard to make time to do the same thing every day for 30 days. Work happens. Kids happen. Oversleeping happens. Lots of things are there to get in the way before your brain even has the chance to try to talk you out of it.

It’s amazing, the variety of things we suck at. Some of us suck at being more proactive about job hunting, others at taking time to be creative, and still some at keeping in touch with certain people. There were promises to be more social, oaths to wake up early every day, and the ever-popular commitments to exercise.

But most of you failed. Kind of pathetically so. I received confessions of all kinds – texts, calls, in-person confrontations… people treating me like their priest, walking me through the things that tend to hold them back, the thought process that led up to stopping… humans are strange creatures.

I should note here that establishing habit is attempting to break your will, discipline your mind, and change the way you’re wired in order to redefine comfortable. People sell all their things, go to India, shave their heads and join monasteries to do this. This is not an easy task.

That’s why I was impressed by every single submission I got from readers who completed the challenge. And while I appreciated every single one of them and could see how hard each person worked to overcome obstacles, I’m fortunate that one submission was a clear standout to make the job easier.

The winning submission logged each day of their Gauntlet participation in a journal detailing activities, dedicated their participation to a cause, and is hoping to use the winnings to donate even more. Isn’t that ridiculous?

Michelle Laurie initially joined The Gauntlet quietly. She didn’t tell anyone, she didn’t even email me – she just made up her mind to do something for at least an hour every day to help animals, educate herself, or call others to veganism. But when she realized that a $100 gift card could really help her cause so she raised the bar and spent the next 30 days watching documentaries, ordering campaign materials, compiling and distributing information packs, working at Vegan Society bake sales, and even sponsored a hen named Scrags.

Like I said: ridiculous. You can read all about it here.

So here’s to you, Ms. Michelle Laurie. You’re the clear winner of The Gauntlet and I’m inspired by the depth of your commitment to a cause and your ability to go all in. You’ll be hearing from me shortly.

But I’m not done. I mean, I’m done with Michelle but I’m not done talking about awesome people. Though I’m far too poor to be establishing award-receiving runners-up, I would really like Annette Padfield over in this corner of the Interwebz to take a nice big bow.

Though Annette technically failed because she missed one day of the thirty,  she managed an enormous feat of a different kind: she completed the contest anyway.

So many people say they’re going to do something, mess up, and take the energy that could be spent on trying again immediately on focusing on their suckiness.

We all suck. There’s no need to get all inside yourself about it. It’s okay. 

Annette treated herself to a needle felting machine and let it gather dust in the corner for a long time until she challenged herself to make something with it every day for 30 days. There was one day within that span that she produced absolutely nothing.  She could have given up, because that was a pretty big bummer and she’s tried to commit to things in the past and failed. Instead she just pretended that day didn’t happen when she woke up the next day, finished the challenge, and in the spirit of being a finisher, emailed me her update – confession and all.

So that’s pretty awesome. Also, I didn’t know a needle felting machine was a thing. It’s a thing. Take a bow, Annette. I’m too poor to give you a real reward, which is good because people who did their challenge without missing a day would probably resort to violence, but you’re awesome for making a way instead of making excuses. 

This concludes The Gauntlet. There will be no more tweets or posts or hounding about it, and there will no longer be an enormous picture of a gauntlet in my right sidebar. It’s been replaced instead by an updated layout, buttons to stalk me, and a rabid bunny you can click on for a random post. Enjoy.

Thanks to everyone who entered; I’m impressed by all of you. Some of you started year-long challenges, some of you inspired others to join, and some of you simply learned a little more about yourselves. All impressive things. If ever you’re feeling down on yourself for missing a day or not putting forth as much effort as you’d have like, just remember that just by continuing to try you’re getting closer to your goal than all the people who are still paralyzed by their most recent defeat.

And to all those paralyzed people, remember: any day is a good day to get back on the train. ♣

Tags: , , , ,

Behold: The Jackalope

8 May

Ladies and gentlemen, IT’S LOLLIPOP TUESDAY!

Man, it’s been a while since I’ve said that. I think that has a little do to with the fact that I’ve been focusing on the 5K (read: rocking myself to sleep in the fetal position while clutching my training schedule) and forgetting that the whole ‘get out of the house and try new things’ thing can’t come to a hault because of a longterm goal. I’ll do better. Really.

In the meantime, I’m sure it’s been so long that you can’t even remember what a Lollipop Tuesday is so instead of directing you to the top of this page where it says “What’s Lollipop Tuesday?” as I am wont to do, I will let you stay right where you are and tell you that Lollipop Tuesdays are an occasional series here on the jackie blog wherein I challenge myself to get out of the house and try new things in an attempt to stop my hermity old cat lady ways in their tracks.

Or at least slow them a bit.

Anyway, I’m evading the point, which is that on May 4th of this, the 2013th year of our Lord, I chugga chug chugged my tubby tub tub across the great urban plains of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in an attempt to run three point one miles without stopping.

For someone who got winded a few months ago just walking to the bus stop, this is quite a feat.

This was one of the hardest things I’ve done in a while. Not only because it took several weeks of preparation, but also because there was no way to wiggle my way out of it. I signed up, I told a bunch of people; I was locked in. For weeks I’ve wanted to quit and for weeks I’ve had to tell myself to suck it up. That’s why when I was about halfway through the race and I looked longingly at the people who were taking a walk break, I could tell myself to stop being such a baby and to pedal my jelly rolls onward toward the goal.

Actually, halfway through I struck a deal with myself that if I finished the 5K, I could back out of the 10K. Because let me tell ya – after doing all that, the only thing I was certain of was that I was not, no way, ever going to run a 10K.

Unfortunately, I’ve already publicly committed to the 10K and paid the registration fee so I’m roped in, squealing and kicking and all. 5K Jackie was tricking non 5K Jackie. It was a dirty, dirty trick indeed.

When I first started the whole thing and I found out that you get a medal at the end, I was kind of annoyed. It reminded me of when I used to chair Model United Nations in college *pushes up glasses* and the organizer always made me give every kid who talked a certificate. It made me livid. Just because you talk doesn’t mean you’re contributing to the conversation. I don’t care if you’re 14 and need encouragement. You know what’s encouraging? Getting a trophy next year when you actually decide to say something worthwhile.

Okay, I’m obviously still harboring a lot of unresolved resentment about this. Let’s move on. My point is that I may have disagreed with the “everyone gets a medal!” mentality before the race, when I was finished I grabbed that thing with both hands and threw it around my neck whilst furiously gargling my spit. Because when a chubby girl with asthma runs three miles without stopping for her inhaler or a lollipop, you give her a damn medal.

Seriously though, I’m glad I did it. The whole point of starting Lollipop Tuesdays was to stop defining myself by the things I hadn’t done and start defining myself by the things I had. I couldn’t ever imagine running a 5K and now I have. So now I get to raise the stakes and try to go for the 10. It’s good for me. I hate to suck at things, and there’s nothing like watching children half my age and their parents twice my age running effortlessly ahead of me while I struggle to maintain a 12-minute-per-mile pace. It keeps me humble. And by humble I mean self-deprecating.

I think I also unearthed a nugget of self-knowledge here. Even though months ago I would have been thrilled to run for 3 miles without stopping, as soon as I crossed the finish line I started to think about how I should have been more tired and that I must not have pushed myself hard enough. I thought about how a 5K was okay, but what was actually impressive was something big like a marathon. I thought about how maybe if I did a 10K and I could shave two minutes off my mile that I would really achieve something.

In a way, that’s a great thing. The want to constantly get to the next thing keeps me moving and keeps me interested. But in a way it’s absolutely awful because no matter where I get, I fail to appreciate my arrival. Dave, who listened to me groan and moan for months about hating my body and how I was constantly tired and miserable, saw me cross the finish line, took a bunch of pictures, and took me out to celebrate. He was at least four times happier than I was. When he went on and on about how proud of me he was, I started to feel like he was mocking me.

Of course he wasn’t. He’s Dave the Great. I’m the sucky one.

So I guess my goals are now twofold. 1) Take time to appreciate the getting there before going elsewhere 2) Remember to continue to do little new things while attempting to do one big new thing.

Nay, threefold.

3) Run a 10K. ♣

Here I am, medal and all. Just in case you suspect I make these things up. I'm talking to you, Jules.

Here I am, medal and all. Just in case you suspect I make these things up. I’m talking to you, Jules.

Tags: , , , ,

For the Love of All Things Holy, Please Don’t Take My Lollipops

1 May

I’m developing a problem.

Okay, I’ve had a problem for a while and I’ve only recently watered down my stubbornness enough to taste the truth of it: I have a serious affinity for sugar.

I know, I know – big surprise. I suppose my love letters to Cap’n Crunch, Ben and Jerry, and anything white, doughy, and delicious over the years have made it obvious to everyone but me. The truth set in last week, which was just one of several completely ordinary weeks in which Dave suggested I had a sugar problem. I don’t really pay attention to him but it was something like “snarfle snarfle diabetes snarfle”. It wasn’t until I was in the midst of pouring chocolate syrup from the economy-size jug onto a table-size spoon with a course set directly for my belly that I actually heard the whole “diabetes” thing in between the snarfles.

It occurred to me that it might be helpful to know what the daily recommended maximum of sugar is for a human such as myself. The answer is the amount equal to the spoonful of syrup I was about to swallow. That doesn’t count the other spoonful from earlier in the day, the yogurt I had afterward, the lollipops I suck on to keep myself from aggressively attacking people when I’m angry, or the bag of M&Ms I would sneak into my bag at the store later.

Apparently this is not an acceptable way to go about my daily activities, in spite of the fact that instead of supplementing my sugar dosage with pizza and kids’ cereal, I’m now rocking whole grains and vegetables. And I’m running and stuff. But now I’m starting to get ever-so-slightly concerned. I’ve been under the understanding that working out, meeting a calorie count, and making healthier choices was going to put me on the track for being in the best shape of my life by the end of the year. As it turns out, those things will help, but I’m supposed to only have one lollipop a day, and that’s only if I really, really must. The chocolate syrup injections should probably inch their way out of the equation as well.

I’m pretty upset about this. It’s like the time I read Skinny Bitch and spend 8 months as a vegetarian (until Thanksgiving, thankyouverymuch); I don’t want to hear this truth but I’ve heard it and I can’t unhear it and NO ONE TOLD ME THEY WERE GOING TO TAKE AWAY MY SUGAR.

Honestly, people – isn’t a couch potato committing to a 5K and eating more broccoli enough anymore? 

Last night I rebelled, like a kid at camp in Heavy Weights. I went to the store, bought an entire loaf of Italian bread, a bag of M&Ms, a bag of lollipops and more milk in which I can pour even more chocolate. 

So this Saturday I run my very first 5K (or attempt to, rather) and that will wrap up April’s fitness focus. It appears May is going to focus on sugar. Which means I’m probably going to get less done, be grumpier while I do it, and attempt to fill these gaps in my life with some other terrible vice. Who knows what it may be. One lollipop less per day could mean one more serious act of violence. One forgone spoonful of syrup could translate to cussing and profanities of all kinds. It’s possible that the only thing making me a marginally pleasant, somewhat successful human being is my affair with sugar. Without it, I’m quite certain I’m just a regular, exhausted, pessimistic schlump of a thing.

I’m worried about May, people. Real worried. This could be the month I fall off the wagon.

…and dive into a swimming pool of sugar in literal sweet rebellion.

Growing up is hard. It’s always just so hard. ♣

Image

Me, circa next week.

Tags: , , , ,

Showerheads. Furries. I’m Tired.

24 Apr

I have lived in my apartment for three years and have only just now discovered that this entire time, my shower head featured a massage function.

Well, “massage function” insomuch as an apartment shower head can offer. That is, with poor water pressure, constant fluctuations from scalding heat to shocking cold, and an overall lackluster performance.

A poor person’s spa treatment, if you will.

I’m sorry I said that just now. Not the poor people thing. We allow ourselves the pleasure of mocking our own class and race so I’m going to go ahead and cash in on the Poor  Cracker category.

No, I’m referring to the use of the phrase “if you will”. I’m pretty sure it’s a result of grad school. It’s only in my brain because I noticed it used several times in the last two weeks by people attempting to explain tiny concepts with many words. That phrase makes no sense to me. It only goes to great lengths to make you sound desperate. Unless you’ve said it with a somewhat British accent, in which case all is well by me.

Last night in class, while I was noticing the excessive use of the phrase “if you will” in class, I successfully inserted the word “poop” into the conversation.  You know, to balance things out a bit. Also, the professor was discouraged by our lack of feedback on each other’s public relations plans so I took a note and decided to get involved.

My classmate’s plan wasn’t poop. Rather, her plan was centered on a downtown hotel’s ineptitude at attracting convention center visitors. And as you may or may not know because I may or may not have spoken emphatically about it before, our downtown convention center is utilized for a major Furry Convention.

I watched as the scene played out before me. One student looks confused at the term and half the class pretends to know. The other half recognizes the one confused face as an opportunity to witness the first-time reaction to the description of a Furry.

And I’ll tell ya – it was a darn good thing I was there because wouldn’t you know discussion in the room drove right to how all furries dress up like cats and use their hotel rooms as a litter box.

This is our world. These are its issues.

So, having no other motivation to speak prior to the mention of furries, I sought to clarify the definition. I didn’t want virgin ears to be polluted by these allegations.  I apparently leaped to the defense of furries everywhere and was sure to inform the class that furries range from fan kids in costumes to fully-fledged hotel-carpet-soiling cathumans.

Right, so poop.

Look! There's one now!

Look! There’s one now!

 

Where were we? Oh, the showerhead. Yes. I’ve made a discovery today. It wasn’t so much about the shower head (or the furries) as it was that I’m beginning to notice I’m a bit tired. I suppose I thought that if I were awake and paying attention, I’d have noticed this detail. Then again, that seems to insinuate that I’ve been tired for the last three years.

…Which, now that I’ve said it out loud, actually sounds kind of accurate.

But hey, the semester is coming to a close so now’s not the time to quit over a little shower head confusion. I’ll admit that I’m tired. And before when I got this tired I could choose to lose sleep, drink coffee, and carry onward. But I’m already doing those things and it’s still not enough time.  But there are places I can squeeze it from.

When I think of all the time that accumulates over the course of several years for personal grooming alone, I go insane.  If I’d just give in to bushy brows, chin hair, woolly armpits, and year-round leggings, I could sneak in a few more hours of rest.

You know, it’s a shame we’re so far from No Shave November.

Here’s to the home stretch. ♣

Tags: , , , , , ,

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →

Design a site like this with WordPress.com
Get started