And The Winner Is....

...Anne Hathaway's nipples!

And Fruit Fly.  Shoot me an email, yo.

Speaking of nipples, my were apparently jealous, because they spent all of yesterday's workout trying to get attention of their own.  It wasn't particularly cold.  Apparently I need a thicker sports bra.



Yeah, I'm not going to post a picture of my nipples on my blog today.

In other news, my husband and I pulled up the carpet to refinish our hardwood floors.



Sadly, the living room (unseen, the above is the dining room) has massive stains all over that don't sand out, so we're going to cover the existing floor with new wood floor.  This means I can't shake a glass of wine under company's nose and wax on about "the original hardwood floors riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight."  *sigh*

It did mean we had to clear everything out of our living room.  This is about 2/3rds of the books we own (the rest we keep in our bedroom):



I should have rearranged it so only my philosophy books and Raymond Carver collections were vision.  I'm so well read.  Blah blah blah.

I'm not, really.  I will re-read the same fun books (Sue Grafton, Stephen King, Jasper Fforde) more times than I care to admit, while my stack of "to read" get taller and taller, mostly because most of it is non-fiction, which I want to love.  I want to love it so bad.  And sometimes I love it ( A.J. Jacobs, swoon, Wittgenstein is my homeboy), but...



I've always been a re-reader.  I read Catcher In The Rye in high school, one reading after the other, until I loathed the main character so much I never wanted to hear about him again.  Thankfully, most of the time, re-reading a book is more like coming home for Christmas.  Everything is familiar.  I know I can just kick my feet up.  I read so many murder mystery novels that if I give myself six months to rest between readings I can usually forget "whodunit."  That might speak more to my faulty memory than my reading habits, actually.  Hmmm......

While we're redoing the floors we're sleeping at Sky's house.  Last night Sky's dog gave me a one dog performance of Ass Licking, Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close.  Good times.

Yesterday's workout was solid.

x3
10 deadlifts @ 115lbs (heaviest weight we can put on the bar until we buy more plates)

x3
10 clean and presses @ 65lbs

21 DL (all @ 95lbs)
0.25 mile run
15 DL
0.25 mile run
9 DL
0.25 mile run

x3
12 tricep pulldowns
12 bicep curls (two 15lb dumbbells)

I think that was it.  Solid weight workout.  But, I need to find more bumper plates so we can build up my deadlift, because maxing out at 115lb is weak, man.

In Which I Post A Picture Of Me Pointing At My Crotch

I'm three days late to the party, but

There are fat people with a thigh gap.  There are malnourished African children whose thighs touch. A thigh gap says more about the side and shape of your pelvis than it does about your anything else.  Of course, since like -4 insecure teenage girls read my blog this doesn't actually matter.  But I made this stupid picture and wanted to post it.  Forget the thigh gap.  Do some weighted squats to work on your ass instead.



I have lots of work to do in that regard.

So, let's talk business.  I got a check for $22 from BlogHer for the ads you have to tolerate.  $22 is a lame number, so I'm bumping it up to $25.  Amazon gift card.  Anyone who comments gets entered.  Random number.  No bonus points for anything, just a "thank you" for tolerating my bullshit.

Yesterday in the gym my arms felt like I hadn't picked up anything heavier than a carrot in months.  No clue what that was about, but it was frustrating to be doing shoulder presses with 15lb weights and have it feel like it was almost impossible.  THAT IS LAME.  I am stronger than that.  Boo.  Hiss.  Also, planks can go fuck themselves.  Though, the way they stretch out minutes reminds me of this:

“Dunbar loved shooting skeet because he hated every minute of it and the time passed so slowly. He had figured out that a single hour on the skeet-shooting range with people like Havermeyer and Appleby could be worth as much as eleven-times-seventeen years.

“I think you’re crazy,” was the way Clevinger had responded to Dunbar’s discovery.

“Who wants to know?” Dunbar answered.

“I mean it,” Clevinger insisted.

“Who cares?” Dunbar answered.

“I really do. I’ll even go as far as to concede that life seems longer i—“

“—is longer i—“

“—is longer—IS longer? All right, is longer if it’s filled with periods of boredom and discomfort, b—“

“Guess how fast?” Dunbar said suddenly.

“Huh?”

“They go,” Dunbar explained.

“Who?”

“Years.”

“Years?”

“Years,” said Dunbar. “Years, years, years.”

“Do you know how long a year takes when it’s going away?” Dunbar asked Clevinger. “This long.” He snapped his fingers. “A second ago you were stepping into college with your lungs full of fresh air. Today you’re an old man.”

“Old?” asked Clevinger with surprise. “What are you talking about?”

“Old.”

“I’m not old.”

“You’re inches away from death every time you go on a mission. How much older can you be at your age? A half minute before that you were stepping into high school, and an unhooked brassiere was as close as you ever hoped to get to Paradise. Only a fifth of a second before that you were a small kid with a ten-week summer vacation that lasted a hundred thousand years and still ended too soon. Zip! They go rocketing by so fast. How the hell else are you ever going to slow time down?” Dunbar was almost angry when he finished.

“Well, maybe it is true,” Clevinger conceded unwillingly in a subdued tone. Maybe a long life does have to be filled with many unpleasant conditions if it’s to seem long. But in that event, who wants one?”

“I do,” Dunbar told him.

“Why?” Clevinger asked.

“What else is there?”

And now I need to go back and read the book again.  I've read Catch-22 dozens of times.  It's fucking lovely.  Everything about it.  So maybe I should do more planks.



Ummmmmm......Still running with the dog.  Haven't progressed beyond that.  I'm officially in a curling league.   The rest of the team emailed me to welcome me aboard and instruct me to purchase knee socks with a rooster on them so we could match.  I think I'm going to like it.

We're tearing up our carpet this weekend and having someone refinish the floors on Monday.  Yay homeownership and all the costs that come with it.

At some point I'm going to need to start run-training again.  I'm scared to start, because I'm afraid I'll quit again, which is silly, because that would place me where I am right now, which is not really running.  Blarg.

So.  Hi.

Lessons

1.  Trying to search google for a video about a Chinese kid snatching over 40kgs is risky.  The video was almost worth my trainer realizing he probably shouldn't google "six year old snatch."  o_0  This is the downside to all those pervy lifting terms.

2.  There is no sympathy for callouses.  Callous about callouses.  Etc, etc.  10 snatches in to a 50 snatch set I let out a "my palm hurts" whimper.  "Nut up" was not what I wanted to hear, but I guess it worked.  I love watching Jillian Michaels on TV, but it's weird to have my trainer employ similar methods.

3.  Yesterday I was super fucking grumpy.  Everyone was annoying me.  I just wanted to throw myself on the floor and make unpleasant noises.  And then I got home and ran with the dog until my face was flushed and my lungs burned and then I felt great.  It's a lesson I feel I relearn every time I run.

4.  At some point in the last year getting up early for expensive races stopped seeming worth it.  This morning a friend emailed me about a $100 half marathon that starts at 6am.  I responded with a "I'm getting too old for this shit" gif.  Because nothing about that sounds fun.  Nothing.

That's all I've got.  Here's a picture of me looking like a dipshit after last night's dog run.

Curls For The Girls

Last night I took a curling less.

Curling.

Like the Canadians?

Yeah, that curling.



So, what the fuck is curling?

It's sort of like bowling, bocce, and extreme lunging.  On ice.

So you have a 42lb "rock".  Your goal is to get as many "rocks" as you can closer to the center of a bullseye ("house") than the other team's "rocks" on the other side of the ice.  You send the "rock" out across the ice by doing a weird lunge/slide thing, and releasing right before you start decreasing yours speed.  Your teammates do the ridiculous sweeping thing in front of your "rock" to reduce friction, so it can travel further.



Every part of curling looks ridiculous, but it was so much fun.  Sure, it was a little cold, and I saw way more buttcrack than I bargained for. But the sweeping part warms you up, which was nice.

The rink where I took the lesson is less than 20 minutes from my house, and they have a league starting up next week, which I'm seriously considering joining.  It was just a really fun time, and very different from what I'm used to.

So, yeah, that's what curling is like.

In other news, Saturday night I went to an art gallery party (technically a birthday party, but it was at an art gallery, so whatever).





My friend Andrew said that before he moved to L.A. he assumes all L.A. parties were art gallery parties.  They should be.  It was fun, and there's always an easy topic of conversation with strangers (not that I talked to anyone I didn't know, but I could have, if I were, you know, an extrovert or something):  the art!  "I feel the emotion behind this painting is very reminiscent of Degas, but the brush stokes speak more to Gauguin."  Boom.

What else?  My cat turned a corner about a month ago and decided she would, on occasion, let us pet her.  It's fucking awesome.



Thursday's training session was filled with cleans and deadlifts and all the things that make weightlifting the best.

Still doing little runs with the dog.  My hair ties don't always cooperate.





======================

What's the weirdest sport you've tried?

I've been thinking about taking parkour lesson, but the odds of me injuring myself are pretty high.  Plus, I don't want to do it alone, and no one wants to go with me.  I also want to take a velodrome lesson, since there's one near my house, and I should take advantage of that.

I Don't Know Why I Wrote This Post This Way

"Your snatch looks great!"

I'm lying on a treadmill.  The weight bench is being used by a aging Russian boxer, and the floor felt too far away.  I can hear my trainer complimenting me over my heartbeat, but just barely.  He's right.  They felt great, too.  Everything just clicked.  Every motion felt *right.*  I know my wrists will be bruised later, but only just barely, and only because I faltered once or twice as I got tired.  30 snatches per arm made me feel tired, but also feel strong.  Some exercises take longer than others to click, but when the do, the satisfaction is worth all previous frustration.  I bask in that, supine on the treadmill, for a moment longer because I stand up for another 60 snatches.

The goblet squats ladder doesn't go so well.  I have to stop and stretch.  My knees don't come out far enough.  I can feel the fatigue curving of my back.  It's tough, but the bad kind of tough.  The mental weakness instead of the physical.

And then, bells up cleans.  My right arm clicks, even with the blisters forming almost immediately (but before the biggest rips open and my trainer decides it's time to move on).  My left arm never gets it.  The motion is wrong.  My grip is off.  I almost hit myself in the face repeatedly.  It's not pretty.  Worse, it's frustrating.  I bite my lip to push my emotions aside.  I don't like failing.  I roll my eyes every time the bell falls against my wrist.  I don't care that it hurts, just that it fell, try again, try again.  We quit before the left arm gets more than one satisfactory clean in a row.

Chest presses.  A lower weight than we've done in the past.  And yet, two sets in, I quit.  I left the dumbbells fall clumsily against my chest.  "Nope," is all I say as I lie there in defeat.

That's what it is.  Physically, I probably could have pushed through.  My arms felt noodley, but instead of letting my arms fail, I let my mind fail.

Distancing mental discomfort from physical discomfort is a huge issue for me.  It's why I panic 200ms in to 400m sprints.  It's why I rage quit running 8 months ago.  It runs the risk of a vicious infinite regress. I've briefly thought about it a number of times over the past few weeks.  It's certainly not the only thing holding me back from whatever I'm trying to do, but it's not doing me any favors, and beyond acknowledging it and "nutting up," I'm not sure what to do about it.  I know it doesn't do me any good to feel panicky when things get difficult in the gym.  That's an obvious statement.  But awareness isn't a solution.



In other news, I ran 4 out of the last 5 days.  Never far, and always with my dog.  We go until he gets tired, then we head home.  In the grand scheme of things, it's nothing.  But, it's a start.





This is me pretending to be wolverine.  I used to walk around pretending I had adamantium claws all the time as a kid. Less often, now, but sometimes when I'm alone on a dark street, I think about how, if I were attacked, and had claws, I'd be okay.



So, yeah, I'm still acting like a dipshit for pictures, and still making excuses for not living up to my potential.  But, I'm having fun doing it, whatever that's worth.  And I'm started mentally mapping out training for June's Camp Pendleton run.  We'll see how having expectations for myself goes this year.

I have a heart on for you

I'm Kind Of A Big Deal

First, I released my line of greeting cards.




It was kind of a soft launch, so don't be sad you weren't invited to the party.  Okay, it's just a tumblr full of shitty drawings.  Whatever.

Then, I started my own ad agency.  First client?  Aspaeris.





Okay, so maybe they just sent me a pair or shorts and asked me to make some dorky videos.  And being a dork online is kind of one of my favorite things.

This was my third idea, but it got nixed at the brainstorming session.



I have no idea why.

Since Last We Met

Let's see.  How to make this interesting.

Running:  Nope.  I think I jogged across the street once in the last few weeks, because I was jaywalking.  That's about it.  Laziness.  Apathy.  Whatever.

Lifting:  Last week my trainer made me do 65 deadlifts over the course of an hour.  I felt fine the next morning, but needed handicap bars in the bathroom to pee by the next evening.  It was that satisfying kind of crippled where I know I earned it, but I still deserved everyone mocking me.

...

...

I'm still taking oddly angled mirror pictures that make me look like a bobble head.



My BFF Sara sent me a "Make Your Own Vagina Cookies" kit.



I have big landscaping plans (just need to get my husband on board).



I applied for a job at Hallmark, but I haven't heard back (the application was sent, 4realz, but only in jest).



After this happened I bought a jumprope of my own, so I can get to the point where I don't scar myself.



So, that's it.



I exist.  Life is fine.

=============



This shit is hilarious.  Apparently bragging about your distance on Facebook and Twitter isn't enough.  Strangers on the street need to know exactly how long today's run is!  Are you fucking kidding me?  That's sad.  I mean, yeah, sure, be proud of it, but don't have a closet full of shirts that dictate your distance.  You know you can just sharpie it on your forehead if you're only in it for the accolades, right?

==================

Up coming races!



I'm trying to put together a relay team for this, because it's fucking awesome and everyone should sign up.



My trainer and I signed up for this just after midnight on NYE.  I came in, what, 11th in my age group overall last year?  I think I can do better.  I have 4 months to train, as of tomorrow, so, yeah.

That's it, folks.  In 2012 I signed up for every dipshit race that crossed my radar, then bailed on most of them out of laziness, illness, injury, or apathy.  This year I should probably not do that (though, in the big picture, the money still went to help whatever the race was for, and that's what really matters to me).

==================

This Die Hard song is fucking solid.



=====================

El Fin.