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Hey, I noticed today I cannot respond to any comments or hit any share buttons. I also noticed my counter stopped working. Please email me if you are having problems too. It's weird, right?

My next blog will be the stellar adventure of just exactly HOW Captain Awesome and I, through joint efforts, secured a free trip, with upgrades. Oh yeah, you're on the edge of your seat, I know.

Fake it Till You Make it

I started Gym-ming it again (gummi word. I blame the Yoga teacher). I have never given up my membership, even when I was unemployed, because it’s only $20 a month. In the last few months I have been goading myself to get there because I found an insurance plan that pays $20 a month towards a gym membership if you go 12 times in that month. This seemed reasonable to me until my boss, a fit, athletic Amazon, said “Oof! That’s three times a week!” If SHE thinks that’s excessive….oh lordy. Suddenly this reasonable request started to lay bricks on my motivation, and built a wall 5 feet high of self doubt. Then the brick layers went to lunch; like a French lunch. I’m pretty sure they “lunched” 4 hours (in dream time….have you seen inception? That’s like 2 months) and got drunk. Then they returned, saw the wall, deemed it ugly, and went off to do French things. Yep, pretty sure that’s what happened. Very sensitive artist-y, my motivational brick layers.

The funny thing about the gym is that every morning you jump out of bed, like it's Christmas. You come running downstairs and ask the scale, "Am I skinny yet?" It can be very disappointing. But it's not all bad, and you have to remind yourself why you're doing it, blah blah blah. :)

Anyway, like any lame New Years Resolver, (to my credit, I never actually RESOLVED to go to the gym for New Year’s, it just happened to coincide with a particularly unflattering picture of myself), I started back at the Gym in January. I thought, “If I start early, I can get 12 sessions in,” and I went. I walked the treadmill to music on my iPod. I thought, “Everyone is looking at me,” and then, in style typical of me, I started thinking about whether or not that was true. Here’s my theory on gawking at the gym:

You can give yourself any reason not to go; I for one can talk myself out of almost anything. The worries are always the same: What if I only spend 10 minutes on the treadmill? People will think I’m lazy. What if people look at me? Am I cute enough to get hit on by that one guy who spends 8 hours a day on the weight machines, trolling for chics? What if my clothes make me look fat?

Good questions, all, and likely to keep you at home. I opted to put on my tightest clothes, fake my confidence, and go anyway. I have this athletic shirt that is kind of huggy, but promises to “wisk away moisture,” and as you likely have guessed, have never worn it. I have this philosophy about bolstering self confidence; it’s basically a “Fake it Till You Make it” idea, and it works…mostly. So I went. I tied my iPod to my arm, and I climbed on the treadmill. These can get VERY fancy, by the way. I figured it out, put on my music and did my thing. And yes, I looked around. Nobody was looking at me, I was the only looker. I started worrying about my time on the treadmill (there were 2 highschool girls on the treadmill in front of me, running. I started worrying about my speed. Then I realized (or convinced myself) that everyone there was really only worried about themselves, just like me. And I saw people do circuits; 10 minutes on each machine, and I realized nobody was really paying attention to me at all, and people come and go. My confidence started to become real until I felt my shirt start to creep up my back, and I spent a good 8 minutes tugging it back down. Now I go, and I ride the stationary bike (this is really fancy too; I just set how long I want to go, what level, and then hit “surprise me” for the route. I actually enjoy this, and can read at the same time), then I swim for a while, and I’m getting a routine down.

I have always wanted to do a yoga class, and I’ve done it at home, but it was some sort of milestone to do it in a class with people. I so wanted to do this, and was so resolved, that right before the brick layers started to pile on stones, I told my bosses I needed Wednesday nights off for Yoga. And I really wanted to go. I finally did, yesterday. I had a decent amount of confidence, as I know many of the poses by name, and did not think I would fall behind. Besides, I’d been singing “I have confidence in Sunshine” all the way to the gym, but this may have been because it was 20 below zero, and I was being optimistic. So I get there 20 minutes early, assured that I don’t have to bring a mat, and I’m excited, because Yoga is about connecting the mind to the body through breath, and focusing on the transitions between poses. It’s relaxing but taxing, as I like to say, because the pose may not be that hard, but hold it for 20 breaths, and you’ll feel uncomfortable. Get to know your discomfort! J I know a few of things about Yoga: 1.) If it hurts, you need to find a modification so it doesn’t. 2.) Moves like the Plow can kill you if you do them wrong, and should be supervised closely, so you don’t snap your neck while your feet are over your head. 3.) Yoga is meant to calm the body and the mind to focus on your next tasks, with a team of mind and body calmly floating through the world, ready to deal with anything (even MN drivers, which is another blog entirely).

So I get to the class 5 minutes early, and there are already territorial issues. People want their mats far enough apart so they don’t hit each other with a wayward warrior pose, but there’s not a lot of room to fit in. So in Fake it Till You Make it style, I ask, “is it ok if I scoot in between you two?” and they both move 2 inches to let me in. That was nice. The teacher starts, and says how important it is to breathe, my breath should be the most interesting thing in the room, etc. We take deep breaths, get started to Enya, and begin. She doesn’t do any poses herself, she walks in between all of us like a severe school teacher, yelling out poses so quickly, that there is no time to transition into one before she is two ahead of you, let alone breathe correctly. I imagined that she had a whipping stick she was slapping into her palm, but I am pretty sure she didn’t….pretty sure. Oxygen deprivation can do interesting things to memories. Calm area CRASHED. She slows down a bit, and we start to get in line again, and I am excited, because I know the poses she’s calling (which is good, cause she explained exactly NOTHING about how to do them), except a couple, and I look around to see what they look like, and people are doing different things, because clearly they don’t know either. I get a sharp look for looking around (not ONCE did this lady say to anyone, “Nice job,” “that’s it” or anything of the sort), and I’m having a really hard time finding a calm center. Every time I start to come back to center, something happens. A knock on the door, then my teacher (who STILL has us holding in chair pose), says very snappily, “I can only take one of you, I’m full. Class started SEVEN minutes ago.” She wants to sit and argue while we’re balancing, trying to find a peaceful center. The music changes to the local pop station instead of something that is conducive to yoga. Something wrong here?

A few of the poses are particularly painful in my hips, specifically the right side. I modify them. I get a look. LOOK lady, I’m not killing myself to be YOUR star pupil, ok? Then she starts throwing in extras for the people who have been her student for a while; “Option to go into bird of paradise. Option to raise that left leg,” and it’s clear it’s not for our benefit; she’s trying to place us in order of advancement (Which is SO not yogi material). Then, just for laughs, she tells us to transition in to PLOW. With no insight on modifications, nothing. People do it. They’re falling, they’re whimpering because it hurts, and I…well I refused, frankly. I’m not breaking my neck over this, and I’ve got neck issues; I’m a terrible candidate for plow, as are the ladies on either side of me, easily in their 80s. I did another pose, in similar form, so as not to draw attention to myself.

I kept thinking, “just get through the hour, you’ll be happier and feel better,” but I didn’t. I mean, I got through the hour, but I can’t say it was worth it. Then this nice lady comes up to me after, and tells me that if I’m going to use the gym mats, I should use 2, because they are very thin. And if I have one, it’d be better, because they smell, and people snot on them, and they don’t get cleaned very often. Also, I should come ½ hour early on Saturdays, and put my mat down, then go do my circuit, because they fight over real estate in there.

So there it is. My first experience in a yoga class, and I can NOT resign myself that it was normal. I don’t have any respect for this “yogi,” who said she wouldn’t do any poses because a couple of days ago she was doing Crow Pose and kneed herself in the eye, making it black (it wasn’t black). She did do a couple after class when her star pupils talked about themselves; she had to get the attention back so she did a couple to show them how it should be. I’m a bit sore today, but not at all calm. Just irritated. It’s like going to a spa and they play heavy metal music through your massage.

And what is confidence in sunshine anyway?

Vacation, Take me Away!!!

Children live lives of permanent vacation…the days seem long and empty. As we grow, time seems to grow shorter also. Is this because we’re always coming off vacation mode? Or is it because we’ve come off vacation mode so long ago that even when we get the rare vacation (or vacation day), we try to plan out how to maximize our time? Get out the old Excel, boys, we need to do some linear programming on maximizing down time!

I get a discount at the gym if I go 12 times a month. I’m thinking “no problem! That’s like a few times a week.” My friend points out, in her Gen Y tilt of the head (we ALWAYS want the Gen Y opinion), “that’s like every other day.” Suddenly I’m thinking, “A month is so short!” A cycle when all the bills are due, and they always seem to be due too early.

I’ve been in a rut of nose grinding for a while now. So much so, that even when I’m home, I’m freaking out about time. Here’s what goes through my head for the last hour of work: “I’ve got my gym bag in the car. I’ll go to the gym, take my shower there (I HATE my shower, but this is another blog entirely), run home, cook supper, put the dishes away (and some Mondays I get a cheerful pick-me-up) watch “Chuck.” I think we all know I love Chuck by now. I get so worried about getting there, I am stressed out all the way there, imagining phantom cars behind me, riding me, waiting for me to turn left. I just gotta get there. Just be faster, just make better turns, just be…superwoman! Sometimes when I am in this rut, Captain Awesome will point out that I am stressing him out. Or he’ll not be ready to go when I am (really???). I usually try weakly not to freak out, but he says something like, “are you hungry?” and I resent this question (it is akin to “are you PMSing? Here, have some wine), so I turn in to a toddler that says, “No. I’m not hungry…hmmmpf!!!” I usually eat something to appease him, and it turns out I usually am hungry, and apparently this adds to all I’m worried about. Millions of people dying and starving in the world, and I whine about not wanting to be thought of as hungry. But I digress.

So I’m driving along, speeding, needing to be there, when I realize I need to be. Just be. Then my mind laughs out loud….”like Drew Barrymore!!!” In Ever After, when she wears that terrible dress and pulls her hair up and glitters up her face. The camera comes in close to her, from underneath (really?) and she says, “just breathe.” NOT the Drew Barrymore school of acting, which is a fictional place that Captain Awesome and I made up where actors go to learn how to fake cry, but never really graduate; they just make the whiny face and nothing comes out of those stinking tear ducts (sidenote: I saw a commercial, they have eye drops for that).

So time flies by faster and faster, and suddenly one day you realize that It’s been 2 months since you saw your best friend, and you’re not sure how that happened. People don’t even invite you places anymore because the chances of you going are pretty slim. You realize you’ve been devoting all your good energy to something you don’t love, and there doesn’t seem to be energy for things you do. Even at home, on my rare days off, I try to figure out how to maximize my time and still get a little time for myself. Why do I always come in last? No, second to last. My friends seem to always come in last. That sucks, and it’s not OK anymore.

I am one of those people who need time alone and in QUIET to really settle myself, and with neighbors like mine, goals I’ve set, and a boyfriend who works where we live, it’s tough to do. I really need to change my perception about a lot of things, so that I can enjoy the journey a bit more, and live in vacation mode for longer periods of time.

Today’s Song of the Day is

Why so Serious?