Shit socks

Things my gym has tricked me into:

1. Being a member. It started with a free month from a great friend. It smelled of eucalyptus in the parking lot and the free lotion, shampoo, mouthwash and feminine items (ahem) in the locker rooms won me. I love free things. Especially when I'm paying for them with high-priced membership fees.

2. Buying Lululemon. I joined believing I could get away with wearing my Target yoga pants and my Old Navy tank top. I'm not above peer pressure though. The peer pressure that comes from seeing it on every tiny little yoga body in my Ballet Body class (see #3). Plus, the gym is actually ABOVE a Lululemon so I just wandered in one day... as if I belonged. And my not-small butt walked out looking smaller and prettier (definitely poorer). Now, "Lulu" (as the insiders call it) has been in the news because their CEO seems to hate women and I'm not even going to touch that controvery because I happen to BE a woman. But it's my gym's fault that I'm weighing my taut bum vs my feminist ideals.

The speed of sound is slower than you think... or slower than I think

At the gym tonight I took a class using the VipR. I've taken it a few times and I was super excited because the friend I'd mentioned in my last post was there and she asked me to be friends again and it was awesome. (Note: We still haven't exchanged info because we don't carry our phones in the gym and I must be remembering her last name wrong because I can't find her on Facebook.) 

Yup. Just me and my VipR. In the park. Being ripped.
Or this isn't me. 

So, in between sets of torture half of the class had to switch sides of the room with the other half of the class. For some reason, this one lady and I kept walking directly at each other. No matter how I started my walk/crawl to the other side of the room, we always ended up doing the dance... left... no right... no you go left. 

And to me this is funny because it happens all the time. I assume it's because I'm like the sun and I create a gravitational pull. I usually just stop moving and let the other person pick a side and then they go around. This is not because I think I'm too good to go around, but to cut to the chase. Someone has to make a decision that doesn't mirror the decision of their partner. 

Origin Stories

I went to see Thor: The Dark World the weekend it came out because I need reasons to leave the house when there's work looming. The original Thor (in the current reboot) was kind of boring because they spent SO much time on the origin story that you didn't get much meat. (FYI: I loved the Dark World for it's delicious meaty center... aka Loki.)

Plus, I was annoyed by the Jane-and-Thor-love-at-4-hours-of-knowing-each-other, MFEO bullshit. At 36.5 (I'm counting half years again), and still very very single, I find this obnoxious and lacking in realism. I'll believe in semi-gods of Thunder coming from the sky with giant hammers, but love at first site? Ridic and insulting to my intelligence.

Can you imagine them at a dinner party? "So how'd you guys meet?" "Well, my father took my hammer, banished me to earth, and while there I met this tiny little scientist with whom I fell madly in love.  And while I vowed to return I got distracted by alien invasions and whatnot. When I did come back like 2 years later she was still single and I took her to meet my parents who weren't impressed. Also, it's pretty much her fault that a bunch of people died. No big." 

But not always

Sometimes it's 10:30 pm on a Friday and you realize you're out of toilet paper. Like out out. And you're not going to the store.

Sometimes you might steal toilet paper from the public bathroom in your building because you still aren't going to the store.

Sometimes you wish you'd never read the news.

Sometimes you wake up at 3:30 a.m. and you don't know if you were just dreaming of a horrible asthma attack or if you're actually having one. And maybe it's not even an asthma attack. It might just be a panic attack, but you find your inhaler and take a hit anyway because even if it's not asthma and it's just panic, sometimes panic goes away simply because you took action.

Bird Shoes

This could have been me. Or you. 

I was hit by a bird.

I was minding my own business, walking through the city, when a pigeon side-swiped my head. It was horrifying. In that millisecond between something coming up from behind, slamming my head, and flying away, I thought something terrible was about to happen. It could have been a mugger. It could have been an old friend gently trying to get my attention. It could have been a goose.

Go lay down.

One of my favorite things about yoga is that if things get hard, you're encouraged to lay down, take a break, and join the class again when you're ready. I love laying down. It coincides well with hating when people tell me what to do. So I get in a sandbells class and the instructor shouts "10 MORE! YOU CAN DO IT! DON'T GIVE UP!" and I immediately want to lay down because fuck you. (But then I remember that I want to look like Madonna when I'm 52 so I have to keep working out and flexing in the mirror.)

My boss makes me want to fight until my eyes bleed. I have been fighting him on a topic for 3 months and I decided before I went on vacation that I would win this war. I WOULD WIN!

Shame Sharing

In yoga this week the instructor shared a story about running his minivan into a wall. For the second time. He was obviously embarrassed, but, like myself, finds sharing the shame to be part of the recovery process. He also used it as part of his lesson to the class in humility and rejecting judgement. Blah blah blah blah. Lessons...

On Thursday I was at Katie's house making not-sangria and was bending down to find a pitcher when my shorts split all the way up the back.

Financial Planning

I apologize in advance...

I wore some old yoga pants/shorts on my jog tonight and they kept falling down because the elastic is kind of shot. Also, yoga pants aren't running pants. At one point, as I was struggling to just grab the shorts and not the underwear underneath (thus giving myself a wedgie if unsuccessful in the separation), I realized how incredibly unsexy I must look. Cell phone protruding from my sports bra. Red faced. Sweat pouring (it was really humid today). Face scrunched into some weird clenched teeth, squinty eyed frenzy to pull my pants up and over my belly... which I'd been trying to suck in on the run because, unlike my good yoga/running shorts, these did NOT hold in the flopping lower belly.

I then thought about all the other times when people probably don't realize how unattractive they are. Like yawning. For god's sake, People, cover your mouth and nose because your nostrils flare, your lips curl up into some weird look of horror and your eyes start to look like bees are flying at them.

Crushing

I think I have a crush on this woman who teaches my Sandbells class. Andrea, the instructor, would probably annoy me if I wasn't kind of in love with her.

1. Her class is too hard. But she always gives me a thumbs up when I drop the weights and just do whatever the hell I feel like while everyone else follows directions. 
2. I hate props and she loves them... That half ball thing, and steps, and whatever. I want the sandbell to be my only prop. I hate trying to balance on things (which I know means it's probably good for me... shut up). But I want her to like me so I keep trying. Which I guess makes her a good instructor. 
3. She hates the sandbells. I'm not sure why she's teaching the class, but she really doesn't know what to do with them. I really like them. I want her to like them. 

Running Between Rain Drops

It's my birthday and I'll wax poetical if I want to.

I have a crisis about every birthday divisible by 5. This isn't some OCD-driven thing like my inability to stop a list at 7... well, maybe it is. But that doesn't matter because this year I turned 36, which is divisible by 1, 2, 3, 6, 12, and 18*. None of those is 5 which means I don't get to have a crisis.