Category Archives: Me Me Me

by | 3 January 2012 · 6:08 pm

In Ink

2012 is going to be a year of change for me. So it seemed fitting that I should start the year making a major change to my body. I got a tattoo.

While I was getting it, Lou (my tattoo guy) and I were chatting and I was telling him about some of my adventures and he expressed surprise that I’d made it to age 36 without one. I can’t even settle down to a hair color for more than a month, how the hell am I supposed to deal with permanent ink on my body?

I’m a big fan of change. I like the idea that nothing is permanent, everything can be altered in some way. The outcome is never set in stone. So, no. No tattoos. I can’t even imagine that kind of shit my 18-year-old self would have chosen. And I know more than one person who got tattoos back then and I can’t imagine they love the Tasmanian Devil nearly as much now as they did then.

So I waited. I gave it a lot of thought, but could never really settle on something that I wanted to be a part of me, forever (or at least until I get old and it starts to meld into itself and become a shapeless black thingy). The idea actually came to me when I was pregnant with Jillian. I had only just discovered Editors and was listening to them more or less non-stop (some things maybe ARE permanent!) and during a particularly tough time, one of their songs spoke to me in a really profound way.

Fast-forward a few years, and my favorite band is putting out a boxed set. The first 200 people to order it get lyrics of their choice hand-written for them by the singer. I spent a good four hours making “squeeeee” noises and dancing around like a landed trout when I found out I was one of those 200 people (not to mention the way I acted once I actually received them), and when I got them in the mail, my choice was made.

Still, I sat on it for almost a year. I wanted to be sure. Then, last week, I finally made the appointment to have it done. And… it’s done.

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Filed under Me Me Me, Music

by | 1 January 2012 · 8:12 pm

All Is Quiet

Happy New Year!

I’m not usually a big fan of making resolutions. Why set myself up for failure, right? So I generally don’t attempt to say “I will” or “I won’t” when it comes to the first day of the year.

However.

There are some changes that need to be made, and so I have actually made a resolution.

I will stop wasting my time. Period. That’s it, that’s all. There are plenty of things and people upon whom I lavish time and attention they do not warrant. I’m simply going to stop doing that. I’m sure it will take a bit of work, given my incredible laziness and general pattern of outsmarting myself, but that’s it, in a nutshell. I will stop wasting my time.

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Filed under Me Me Me, Musing

by | 15 December 2011 · 11:29 am

Like the Weather

I only got out of bed this morning because I had to pee. As I pulled on my Comfy Pants and customary long-sleeved t-shirt (not gym clothes, because those are currently all in the dryer, which is all the way in the basement and beyond my capabilities at 6:30AM) and socks, I realized that everything I was wearing is a shade of grey.

Like the weather. Like my mind. Like my mood.

The Grey is something I fight against all the time. It’s easier in the summer, when there is sun and warmth and I can wear my sandals and drive around with the windows down, but it never really goes completely away. I’ve been told that it never will, and the best I can do is fight it and force it back into the tiny corner of my mind where such things live.

So that’s what I do. For a long time, I used medication to keep The Grey at bay. That was moderately successful, but expensive and riddled with a series of side effects that were, more often than not, the root cause of The Grey in the first place (sleeplessness, weight gain, etc). One side effect of one of the more interesting medications I was on was ‘mood swings.’ Are you fucking kidding me? MOOD SWINGS as a side effect of a drug that I’m taking to HELP ME WITH MY MOOD SWINGS?

Oh, pharmaceutical industry. You so crazy.

The last drug I was on was designed to ‘even me out.’ No more of the high highs and low lows! No more emotional rollercoaster! That was fine, for awhile. I wasn’t bursting into tears every five minutes or getting homicidal every half-hour, but I wasn’t laughing much, either. I could have gone on like that indefinitely (since the alternative was scary) but I got knocked up instead.

Don’t ever quit your SSRIs cold-turkey. It’s very unpleasant.

I’m sure I’ve written about it before, but pregnancy hormones chilled me right the fuck out. Or maybe they didn’t – could be that I was just so tired and distracted, I didn’t have time for The Grey to settle on me. Once Jillian was born, I KNOW for sure that I was exhausted, but it was all okay.

And it has been more or less okay for the past 5 years now. I feel like I’ve risen to the challenge of parenting and acquitted myself very well. I know for certain sure that I’m a far better parent than anyone ever expected me to be!

But The Grey is still there.

Maybe it’s because I’m older now, or I am smarter, or wiser, or some other thing, but The Grey is a lot weaker than it once was. It could very well be that I have better things to do with my time than sit around and be depressed. Could be that I’m just better at pushing it back to where it belongs. I don’t know for sure. If I did, I’d write a book about it.

I don’t know why I’m writing about this today, of all days. Everything is going swimmingly, all things considered. Everyone in the family is happy and healthy and we aren’t dealing with any more than the usual stresses of a regular family. We have more than enough of everything (except warm weather, but that can’t be helped). I guess it’s been awhile since I checked in with my brain. Everything is shipshape, brain! Keep up the good work!

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Filed under Me Me Me, Musing

by | 12 December 2011 · 3:12 pm

Checking in

A list!

1. After the frustrated post from the other day, I decided to throw caution and good sense to the wind and go to the gym.

1a. I was feeling chubby and murder-y, which are signs that I need to get to the gym immediately.

2. I haven’t showered in a few days, and the load of workout clothes got “washed” on the gentle cycle (which is to say, they got wet and swished around a tiny bit) so they’re still a bit smelly. And by “a bit smelly” I mean “goddamn, what the hell is that smell?”

3. Between the not-showering and the not-quite-clean workout gear, I started my day smelling pretty foul.

4. After my workout, whoa. I drove home with the windows wide open, despite it being rather chilly today. I may have to go Febreze the truck.

5. Yes, it was that bad.

6. At the gym, I got up on the elliptical and felt pretty good about things, overall. The left knee feels weird and loose and painful but I found that if I kept the machine on a lower ramp setting I wasn’t irritating the knee too much. I hope. I am hopeful that the lack of pain means that nothing worse is happening.

6a. I need to get more disciplined about weights. I have plenty of upper-body things I can do that won’t aggravate my knee, and since I’m basically a T.Rex when it comes to my skinny, weak arms, any work I can do in that direction will be beneficial.

7. I’ve been home for a good 10 minutes and I can still smell myself. Peee-yew.

8. After I pick Jillian up from school, I will shower and then bust out the ice for my recalcitrant knee. I hate you, left knee.

9. There is no number 9.

10. I am going to the doctor on January 16th. I hope I can get some answers and get pointed back in the healthy direction. I can handle a certain amount of pain, but there’s a big difference between “ugh, ow, I’d rather be on the sofa” and “OW FUCK WHAT HAPPENED THERE DON’T EVER MOVE LIKE THAT AGAIN SHIT.”

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by | 9 December 2011 · 10:17 am

And I was doing SO WELL, too!

I am frustrated. My knee is straight-up busted, and because of that I haven’t done a whole lot of anything physical, and that is a problem and a half. It’s also the holiday season (or “cultural lie” season, if you hate Santa, and yes that is a much longer story than I am ready to tell at the moment), and winter is coming and blahblahblah EXCUSES!

It’s putting me off my schedule. Not a huge problem (yet), but I was planning the odd 5K here and there until the weather turns and longer runs are less painful. Right now I’m not running ANYWHERE because I simply cannot. I can’t even do my goofy version of race-walking because my knee will protest. It sucks.

The upside is that I finally broke down and made a doctor appointment to get this looked at. If I need to have surgery, I’d rather do it sooner than later so as not to push my goals back any farther. I have less than two years at this point, and since I’m basically starting from scratch, I am going to NEED all the time I can get. So, doctor appointments. Not until January, but I’ll take what I can get.

I’m just so mad and frustrated. I don’t want to damage my knee further, so I’ve been taking it easy. I should be focusing on my upper body, but I just can’t get motivated to do anything. It sucks. I need to fix it.

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by | 16 November 2011 · 4:34 pm

Oh, woe is me

I’ve said it before, but my life is pretty fucking awesome. So it stands to reason that my “problems” are tiny and small compared to some.

Today’s issue is a humblebrag. Actually, scratch that – I do brag, but I am not ever humble. It’s not in my nature and is a waste of time, actually. Today’s issue is more of a This Is A Thing That I Have Noticed.

And here it is. I have a long torso. I usually don’t mind, but it does cause some problems with shirts always being just a little too short (coupled with my long arms, it makes buying tops problematic). Because of all the working out I’ve been doing, I have a rather nice ass to show for it. Add those two things together and put low-rise pants on me, and I AM AN UNHAPPY CAMPER.

It’s my fault that I didn’t notice these particular workout pants were low-rise. I usually do pay better attention, but they were on sale! So now I’m all pissed at them because they’re comfortable except for the fact that I can’t pull them up nearly enough to not be indecent. Thank goodness for long-length t-shirts, eh?

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Filed under Me Me Me, Triathlon

by | 10 November 2011 · 5:15 pm

One Bad Mother

I am a very lazy mom. It stands to reason that this would be the case, given that I am just a lazy bastard in general.

But I think being a lazy mom makes me a much better mom than I otherwise might be. You see, by not being scheduled and structured out the yin-yang, The Jillian and I are much better suited to disruptions in the routine.

I’ve seen it on Facebook, where there’s no school and all of a sudden, moms are freaking out, going “What am I going to do all day?” This is why there are so many indoor germ farms play spaces in my part of New Jersey. This explains why Chuck E Cheese exists. It sure as hell isn’t because these kinds of places are SO SUPER AWESOME, it’s because PARENTS ARE UNIMAGINATIVE. Or they hate their children. Either one is equally possible.

It takes A LOT to get me into one of those indoor play spaces. If it’s a kid’s birthday, fine. I will probably roll my eyes and complain and make bitchy comments under my breath and coat both Jillian and myself in Purell before and afterwards, but I will probably go.

So far in my five years of parenting, I have managed to avoid the Chuck E Cheese. There was a birthday party there but as luck would have it, Freddie and I were gallivanting around Scotland at the time so my poor mother had to go in my stead. I’m only a tiny bit sorry about that, mostly because I probably would have twisted Freddie’s arm and made HIM go, had we been in the country.

So what DO we do on days like this?

Well. We watch too much TV, for starters. 2 hours of My Little Pony, to be exact. Then we color. And have a snack. And chase the cat around the house. Then we have lunch. After lunch we went to the park, and while at the park we decided that there just wasn’t enough cake in the world, so we went to the grocery store for cake supplies. Right now, we’re making a cake and having a dance party. Tomorrow we might go to the park again, or maybe we’ll go to the pool and splash the old ladies doing their aquaerobics! Maybe we’ll go to the yarn store and hug the yarn. We will definitely watch Spinal Tap.

We SHOULD be folding laundry, but that’s too much like work.

I love my kid. I don’t find her boring. I do occasionally want to duct-tape her mouth shut, but that’s usually because she won’t stop singing. I don’t resent the days off school because we have more fun together than anybody I know. Between coloring and putting stickers on the cat and costume changes, there are very few dull moments in our life that would require a trip to one of those god-awful play spaces that so many suburban parents seem to love. I get it, but then again, I don’t. Have some imagination, people. Try a little harder.

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Filed under Jillian, Me Me Me

by | 8 November 2011 · 3:28 pm

November sunburn!

The weather is insanely good today. So, rather than coop myself up at the gym OR go to the doctor, I decided to go to the park instead. I walked from my front door to the end of the Duke Island Park path and back again in about 1:30. Since I do not have a good pedometer, I’m not sure how far that is, but it’s at LEAST five full miles, maybe closer to seven or even eight because I was hauling ass pretty much the whole time.

Wow, do I hurt. I did it to take inventory of the body, mostly, and the feet are sad, the left knee is fucked, my left hip is going OW FUCK WHY DID YOU DO THAT (probably due to overcompensating for the knee thing) and my left arm (shut up, left side of my body) is all chafed from the armpit seam of my shirt. The upside is that I can walk on the knee just fine (hills might be slightly problematic, but more testing will be needed on that), and if I can keep up a 4.0 walking pace that’s less than 7 hours for the marathon. Of course, that means I am going to have to swim and bike REALLY fast, but I’m hopeful that I can get the knee issues sorted and get back to running properly.

Poor left side. Everything is angry over there. Right side of the body is feeling just fine except for a giant blister on the ball of that foot. That made itself known around the very last mile and I can almost hear it growing as I write this. I think that’s the socks, actually. Instead of my cheap-ass shitty Hanes cotton socks, I put on my fancy Asics tech-fabric socks and FUCK THAT. Cotton socks just work better for me, despite all the research and field-testing that says “no, they always cause blisters.” No, they don’t always. I love you, cotton socks!

Speaking of things I love, let me talk right now about my underwear. I know some people get all precious about their underpants and get all “oh, I would never wear the boring cotton underwear you buy in a 6-pack at Target” and to those people I say “FUCK YOU AND YOUR FANCY UNDERPANTS” because I am wearing the Hanes Her Way [barf] no-ride-up cotton boyshorts and HOLY FUCKING SHITBALLS, when they say “no wedgie guarantee” THEY MEAN IT. Those bitches STAYED PUT. Historically, I have had problems with my underpants constantly trying to crawl up my junk and so when I saw something that said “no wedgies” well, DUH. So, hooray boring cotton underpants!

Other than the knee thing, I am feeling pretty good overall. Can’t complain about having a sunburned nose in NOVEMBER.

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by | 7 November 2011 · 10:54 am

Hitting the Wall

I have a lot to write about and the ideas are happening, but the sitting down and doing the writing bit is not working for me today. I feel restless, which is never good, and I can’t seem to focus on anything. I am looking for an underlying reason but can’t find one since everything is more or less shipshape/normal.

That right there might be the problem.

Mondays are usually tough. Because I don’t hit the gym on weekend days, there is a bit of an endorphin deficit in my brain, which contributes to the bleh feelings. I know this. I should get to the gym on weekend days but there is just Too Much To Do on Saturdays and Sundays that can’t get done during the week, so the gym gets pushed away.

That will change, I know, but at the moment – especially with the holidays looming – it’s hard to get the time.

I’ll feel better after I get back from the gym. Right now I’m even boring myself.

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Filed under Me Me Me, Musing

by | 3 November 2011 · 10:59 am

Unstable

It appears that my knee issue is one of stability, which was my thought all along. I’m a medical marvel, I am. So I went to the local sporting-goods store to get myself a knee stabilizer (fancy term for a spendy knee brace) upon the recommendation of Dr. SportsMed and as it turns out, even the size XL is too damn small for my legs.

What the fuck? Don’t gigantic football-playing dudes with legs like redwoods need knee braces? I rock the thick legs, that’s true, but if a size XL isn’t going to fit, that’s fucking disheartening and a whole bunch of bullshit. This causes me to swear even more than I normally do, dammit.

So I either need to keep looking for bigger sizes like XXL, which fuck you, or go back to the tried and tested Ace bandage wrap situation. That’s not ideal, but for fuck’s sake, it works well enough.

Dammit.

Anyway.

I am thinking that it’s a hormonal/lady-cycle issue as well, since PMS week makes everything go wonky. I feel fine three weeks out of the month, but that fourth one, damn. The knees and ankles get all pissed off for some reason. I will have to do some research and run my theory past Dr. SportsMed who is often amused by me until he goes “hm, you might be right.” My thinking is that it’s a water-retention issue, which causes bloating EVERYGODDAMNWHERE. Which, fuck you. Gah.

The best workout solution to this problem is to get in the pool, but… but… but… DON’T WANNA. I will start up with that when the new class session begins because I am not seeing any point to getting in the pool if I’m not going to be able to work out efficiently. Despite my seemingly near-constant online presence, my free time is actually quite limited at the moment, so I have to get the most from my gym time.

I wouldn’t be able to go today anyway, since my cleaning ladies are coming and I will have to be here for that. Oh well – once they leave, maybe The Jillian and I will do a couple of songs from the new Just Dance that we got for the Wii. Not quite sure if that’s advisable for the knee, but I can modify things if I need to.

I am just SO GODDAMN FRUSTRATED.

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Filed under Me Me Me, Triathlon