busted out at the Y

~note: this blog was started on december 11, 2007~

jenn & i were at the Y tonight, & yes, it's been a while since we've been there, since, obviously, there's been a lack of blogging about. (right before i got promoted so did jenn. & with promotion comes extra responsibilities & longer work hours & less time to go stare at pretty boys, i mean, workout).

so we were back at the gym tonight & it was packed, which was annoying. but we did half an hour on the machines that are like a gazelle, i have no idea what the name is, probably some kind of cross trainer. then as a cool down before we left we did a half mile walk around the track.

when we got done on the track we were just leaving when we heard a voice say "hey, where have you been?"

busted.

it was holly, the girl who teaches the boot camp classes & helps with the friday night kick box d'oh classes.

so jenn & i basically stammered & stuttered & somehow explained the past few months with my bronchitis, her promotion, my promotion, & all the adjusting that new jobs require. yeah, it was lame, but we didn't have to drop & do any push ups right then, so that was good.

by the time we left jenn wound up promising we'd be at the tuesday night as well as the saturday morning boot camp classes. d'oh! & not as in kick box. not that i'm opposed to hard work, because i'm not in anyway, but i had been struggling at the boot camp classes & that was before i'd taken a several month vacation from the gym. i do know that i need to make friends with my local Y once again. i always feel better when i work out.

if i'd've known i'd've built an arc

we had a bit of a storm today. ok, that's like saying there was a little leak in the titanic. we had a huge frickin rager of a storm here today in the twin cities. i really WAS going to head to the Y tonight with the fabulous miss jenn, but i was wiped out by the end of the day. i had a second interview for a new job at work. & that is always a bit of an adrenaline rush, going through the interview process, trying to do your best to impress & hoping that it was good enough. along with the fact that i 've been up late most days this week for one reason or another. & the cough is still hanging on like i'm its new best friend (even though i have SO told the cough we're breaking up, it's kinda like when your 3rd cousin twice removed on your dad's side comes to visit for a weekend & three months later he's become one with your couch & your remote control & the local liquor store is sending you thank you notes for the vast amount of natural ice he's buying on a daily basis. extreme measures may need to be taken, for both cousin chuck & the cough).

so i wound up hijacking miss jenn for some mc-crack. & a happy meal. the sky seemed to be getting a little dark as i was eating my cone, but i really didn't think much of it because we've been getting a lot of thunderstorms here lately. & i seemed to recall something during the day about a chance of rain, so i really didn't think much of it. & as we rolled out of mickey d's & headed back to work it started sprinkling a bit, but nothing too extreme. well, for about a minute & a half nothing too extreme. but the closer we got to work the harder the rain started to fall & i knew we were in trouble when the temp dropped ten degrees in the space of a minute & the light poles in the parking lot were swaying wildly as the rain fell sideways in sheets. yup, houston, we had a problem.

i really thought it was one of those flare ups where the rain heightens, beats down, & then just lifts a bit. but it wasn't. by the time jenn was getting into her truck the rain was heavy, hard, & cold. . .first figuratively & then literally. she opened her truck & tossed her purse in, 20 seconds later when she was opening my car door to get her gym bag hail started to fall. like acorn-ish pieces of hail beating the crap out of her, she actually almost fell into my car with the first one slammed into her lower back. after being pelted by mother nature jenn made it safely back into her truck, but she did look kind of like one of those sad little kittens left out in the rain, just completely drenched from head to toe. i felt super bad for making her go get the mc-crack with me.

i was actually worried that i was soon to have a moon roof & a hole in my windshield because the hail was so vicious. i could barely see anything & i was presented with three options: head to the highway & try to get home, drive to the covered parking at work & wait the storm, or find somewhere else to hole up & wait. i drove towards the underground parking thinking that i didn't want to go much farther than that, knowing that i was not going to get on the highway because i somewhat value my health, & i wasn't sure where else i would go. & there was a small part of me that was freaked about my car getting beat to little bits.

jenn pulled up next to me & asked me what i was going to do. almost instantly the tornado sirens went off. since i was raised in minnesota i know not only what a tornado siren sounds like, but that they only sound them when absolutely necessary (& the first wednesday of every month at 1pm). i asked her what she thought i should do & this was her response:

"i've never seen a tornado before, i come from a state that doesn't offer them. i don't know the protocol."

i have to say, even in a potentially life threatening situation jenn is frickin hilarious. if i WAS ever to be in a situation like the titanic where the shit was not only hitting the fan, but being pushed through as a steady stream, i'd like jenn to be there with me because i know that some how she'd make me laugh & make the situation just a little bit better.

now, i do come from a state that offers tornadoes & i've had the protocol drilled into my head ever since i can remember: don't go out chasing them, don't stand near a wall of windows, get to an interior room or a basement, make sure you have a flashlight, & for god's sake stay eff-ing put! so, the smart part of me thought we should park our cars & get into work fast as can be even though we were technically off work & jenn's house was only a mile away, give or take a couple yards. & then there was that OTHER part of me that figured we should just head to jenn's house in the hail & zero visibility because we were only a mile away & we'd both be more comfy, her especially since it's her digs. so, that's what we did, leave the shelter of the parking garage & head out into the storm. awesome. sometimes i'm a frickin genius i tell you what.

with the whole zero visibility thing & the fact that i drive a little saturn sports car it just seemed like a recipe for trouble, & it was. the whole way to jenn's apartment i drove as carefully as i could & just kept praying that i wouldn't stall out or hit any big puddles. & i made it all the way to her complex without doing either one. i did manage to stall out in her parking lot though, which was awesome. jenn was a bit ahead of me in her truck & i didn't see her go through the water because of where i was at, but she said she just barely made it through in her truck. my car, to give him credit, made it most of the way through, & by the time i realized how much water i was actually in, he stalled out. i know jenn has told me in the past that the bottom lot floods with a lot of water or a fast spring melt, but i think i just spaced it.

to her credit jenn did try to call me to warn me, but by the time the call came through to my phone my car was dead in the water, literally. jenn was able to help me push my car out, she waded into the water, shoes & everything to get behind my saturn & help me get it out. now, i was in my interview clothes, if you recall, so i wound up taking off my shoes & socks & trying in vain to roll my pants legs up to get out & push. a little aside, once again, jenn is crazy strong & i wouldn't want to get into a street fight with her. i put my car in neutral & before i was out of my car i realized the car was moving in a forwardly direction & jenn was pushing me in my car out of the water. jesus bobby. i did hop out & do the whole push-on-the-door-frame-of-the-car-with-one-hand-while-steering -the-car-with-the-other schtick. & we had almost cleared the puddle/pond when a guy ran out into the rain to help us get the car out. by then we didn't need any help. but, thank you dude, that was quite kind of you. my car did wind up starting once it was out of the water, but it was not happy with me by any means & kind of gave me a few scares on the way home just as payback. so, lucky i own a small car, eh? it i had something huge like a navigator, well, probably would have cleared the water, but, IF i got stranded & had to push something like a navigator i would just curl up in the backseat & take a nap.

while things turned out ok with me, jenn, our cars & the storm, back home my parents had a few problems of their own. as it turns out, the rain was so fast & so heavy that it flooded the basement, coming in along the walls on the southeast corner so quickly that the water brought silt along with it. yeah, lovely. evidently at one point my brother looked down the stairs & saw actually flowing water. oh, jesus bobby. luckily my brother can be a super awesome person & he went into the basement & got everything up off the floor & got the water up too. which, for those unfamiliar, my parents' basement is where i have some of my stuff still. i have a small room there for when i go home & hang out just to get away from my roommates. so i was a lot not happy when i learned that it was my room was now playing the theme song "i am a rock, i am an island." but, thanks to my brother's quick action nothing of value was ruined. still need to go clean it all up, but he did the hard part.

but, in the end. me, my family, & my friends are all safe & sound, which is the biggest concern. so, just 'cause it's fall in minnesota doesn't mean we've left the severe weather behind. & in the words of the weatherman on the news in regards to storms like this, here is my sage advice: "for your sake, for your next of kin's sake, if you're safe & protected stay there!"

the rules of kindergarten don't apply here

my first comment is: jesus bobby!

so jenn totally kicked my ass at kick boxing! twice now! on wednesday we were practicing "elbows" which is basically using your forearm in a sweeping motion to smack the shit out of your opponent. well, at one point she hit the target pad with pretty intense force & i was caught off guard & the target pad i was holding with my left hand bounced back, hitting me in the face & nearly knocking my glasses off my face. awesome. to jenn's credit, she felt really bad about hitting me in the face with my own arm. luckily i didn't bruise at all, & other than being a bit startled & kinda sheepish about hitting myself in the face, with jenn's help, no harm no foul.

so i figured that was a one time fluke accident. bizarre, but nothing that could happen again, right? WELL, not so much. two days later, once again at kick box d'oh at the Y, jenn punches me in the face, with my own hand, again. jesus bobby.

it was the same thing, practicing elbows, i was the target she was punching. she's also left handed, which means her left hand & arm are stronger than her right. & since i'm right handed the exact opposite is true for me. SO, when she is using all of her strength & putting her whole body into her left elbows, she's making contact with my left hand holding the target pad. but, i also think that i need to hold the target a bit lower, more toward my chest, that way, if something gets bruised it's my boobies & not my face.

the lesson in all this? don't piss jenn off, cause she can elbow the crap outta you.

no wonder marines are so cranky

last night was another fabulous new experience at the y, & that is not at all meant with the dripping sarcasm that one may intuit, honest injun! so jenn & i finally attended the famed boot camp class led by the intimidating holly. honestly, holly is one of those women that is beautiful, fit, & looks like she could totally kick your arse from one side of the planet to the other & barely break a sweat. she's definitely not someone i would want to cross. incidentally, jenn & i first met holly in the kick box d'oh class, she was a co-instructor one night. after class she told us we should come & see her at boot camp class. jenn immediately said "will do" & looked too peppy for someone who had just finished kick boxing class, & my response was "yeah, i'll work on that" meanwhile shooting jenn the you are mother frickin crazy daggers with my eyes.



well, oddly enough, i was the one that pushed jenn to go to the class last night with me. i think i just heard a thud, someone must have passed out from shock. well, they'll rejoin us again very soon. typically jenn is the one that takes me kicking & screaming, almost literally, to the classes (like body pump & kick box d'oh) but, for some strange reason, last night i was feeling particularly energetic & i told her that we should take the class. that was after we did some laps around the track, about a mile and a third, the last half of it we alternated between walking a lap & then jogging a lap. don't worry, i won't break my arm patting myself on the back, BUT, i am pretty flippin pleased with myself that not only did i make myself go to boot camp, but i got jenn to go along with me.



now, i will admit, i was having some serious shooting pain in my left ankle & my right hip was twinging a bit after the jogging, but there was something inside me that said i just had to go to boot camp last night, it was like a life or death pinnacle moment for me. usually i can't tell those pivotal moments in my life until they're in the past, the ones on which an entire future turn, but i know that last night was one of those moments, & going to that class would be, IS, the event that changes everything. i can't see what it is changing for me, but i know it is. to quote a song miss jenn & i listened to last night during our mc-crack fix: "the past is just the future with the lights on." btw, i /heart that line & i think it's really a motto to live by. it's deep man, super deep.



i'm not even going to pretend that boot camp was a cake walk. mmmm, cake. but, i'm also not going to say that it was impossible, because it wasn't! it was a challenge. since neither of us had been to the class we didn't know all of the moves. & our bodies are still not at the michelle kwan flexibility stage yet, but they're getting there. so one move, the garbage picker, neither of us did very successfully. basically you start a couple feet away from a stepper, you hop in, put your hands on it, hop just your feet back keeping your hands on the step, do two push ups, then hop your feet forward & stand up. yeah. i know. read it a second time. my reaction when holly showed it to us was: WHAT?!



&, at one point, mentally, i did pull out the "homey don't bend that way." much like last week at power down, holly very calmly said (while everyone was sitting on their step): "put your right ankle up on your left knee, ok, now put your hands behind you on the step, & slide yourself forward off the step, feel that wonderful glute & hamstring stretch." now, to my credit, i held in the snorted laugh that i was tempted to let loose, but i did give her my patented homey-don't-bend-that-way-look. & i did do my best regardless. i crossed my ankle over my left leg, i leaned back, & i scooted my butt forward as far as i could. i knew that if i moved my butt off that step that i would proceed to fall & crack my head on the studio floor. which is bad for business. interestingly enough, the staff at the Y don't like their members passed out & bleeding all over their floor. i know, how rude.



once again, this is a class that i would like to attend again. the big down fall of boot camp is that on tuesdays it is from 5:30pm-6:35pm & the power down class i like is on tuesdays from 6:00pm-6:40pm. yeah, that makes me a bit of a sad panda :( there is a yoga class after boot camp called power yoga, so once i feel a little less awkward from boot camp i'll have to try that also. luckily, boot camp is offered twice a week, so i could always drag my butt the 25 miles from my apartment to minnetonka to go to that some morning with the fabulous miss jenn.

boot camp did live up to its name, definitely! today i am one hurting unit. interestingly enough i have found glute/thigh muscles i didn't know exist. & my chest is hurting in ways it never has before, all of which is very good. if your local Y has a boot camp, i highly recommend it. holly was great about pushing everyone in class (we even got an extra set of running steps because no one told her their glutes were hurting. . .i won't make that mistake twice!), but she was also great about showing everyone adaptations of some of the tougher exercises so that those of us who aren't yet able to do all of the exercises, could keep pushing along. she also came up to jenn & i at the end of class & made a point of telling us that we did a really good job for our first time at boot camp *beaming*

with that said, boot camp gets an over all grade of an A from me. a really great workout, i can feel it the next day, but also very adaptable for different skill levels, & not nearly as intimidating as it sounds.

kick-box D'OH

so, after talking about it for many months, jenn & i finally went to the kick boxing class at the Y. & i'll preface this by saying: yes, i enjoyed myself, & yes, i will be going back again. with that said, it was quite an experience.

even though i know enough about exercising, and especially group exercising, to know that you always do some kind of warm up, i just spaced that fact. so the VERY first thing the instructor says, after making sure we're all paired up with a partner, is "let's do some jumping." my immediate gut instinct response is to think, "fuck jumping, i'm so out of here." & even though the last thing i really wanted to do was jump, i did indeed start jumping. & we kept jumping. up & down. left to right. front to back. bouncing all over the fucking place like picachu on speed. for me it was more like semi animated stepping & less like jumping because, well, i need to work on my jumping. & my jumping muscles.

then we went on to the punching. & the kicking. the instructors would show us three different combinations & then we'd get to do them on our own with lovely background music, some of which really did make me want to punch someone or something. i was completely willing to let jenn be first puncher & i was willing to be the first target, but she insisted that i punch first. i have to say, at first i was a little bit hesitant & scared to punch. i was afraid i'd hit jenn in the face accidentally, or that i would look like a total ass, or that i'd fall flat on my fucking face. but i didn't do any of the above. i may not have been the most graceful person in the gym, but i did a good job of keeping up. one of the instructors even came over to me & told me that i could slow down if i wanted to since it was my first time taking the class. which i took as a compliment that i was working hard enough to impress. or, possibly, i looked like i was going to keel over dead.

but obviously i made it through the class alive & kicking. which, we did do some kicking too. i actually enjoyed the punching more. i planted my feet & tried really hard to put as much power as i could into each punch. imagining that i was beating the hell out of, uh, a certain someone. with miss jenn's encouraging, of course.

jenn did great too. actually, she scared the hell out of me. if she & i were to get in a fight, she would kick my ass ten ways from sunday, trust me. she's a serious hard core scraper. then again, she did grow up with older brothers. i, on the other hand, am the oldest. & way tougher than my brother. i kind of think when she was punching she was holding back alittle because i'm not as strong as she is, so i wasn't quite able to be a steady target, if you know what i mean. but i think she still got a decent workout.

the only downfall to the kickboxing class, & this is kind of a big one, is that the communal gloves are, well, a bit funky. & not funky in a good way, but, a bad way, really bad. let me put it this way: after having the gloves on for 20-ish minutes & removing them, i couldn't get my hands far enough away from my body. so, note to self: if i'm going to continue kick boxing, i need to invest in my own gloves. that's a recommendation to anyone who is interested in taking kicking boxing.

happy independance day

ok, so it's july 3rd & not the 4th. but this is a different kind of Independence day for me, that just so happens to fall around the Independence day of our country. for me, today is the day that i can FINALLY dump TFF's (The Former Fiance) cell phone off my verizon plan. we broke up in december, coincidentally just about two weeks after he lost the damn phone. but because i had put him on my account as a second phone, i still had another six months left of his plan before i could give his phone number an adios & fare-thee-well from my cell phone plan. which, yes, did totally suck. & then, because he had lost the damn phone, i had the account on hold for 30days so no one could find the a fore mentioned damn phone & charge calls to guam on my account. which pushed the date from june 3rd, to july 3rd, for me to be able to call verizon & get the number dropped once & for all.

this comes right on the heels of me getting my new digs. oh-yeah.

it's interesting. a year ago i was still planning a wedding for this upcoming saturday (7-7-7). it's funny in that every time someone hears that i WAS engaged & i called off the wedding they say how sorry they are & give me this pity look like "oh, i feel so uncomfortable, you poor girl!" but i always respond with "please, don't feel bad, i'm SO much happier now" & it's not in anyway a lie or bravado, i am really, honestly, TRULY so much happier now that i've called off the wedding & broken things off completely with TFF. i do wish he would still pay me back some of the SEVERAL thousand dollars he owes me, but if i never get it, well, it's his bad karma for eff-ing me over, not mine. & he's the one that looks like an a-hole.

but enough of that BS from the past. it's almost like a new year for me, a rebirth of sorts. i'm in a fresh place with lots of possibilities spread before me. i'm losing weight again. dev & i are being each other's long distance accountabilibuddies, & then i have jenn here as my local accountabilibuddy to kick my butt, make me go to the gym, & keep me from indulging too much in the many potlucks here at work. i feel like i've been able to shed some of the things from the past that were weighing me down. i feel like i'll be able to write again.

i feel like i'm shedding my old life, a skin that was suffocating me in other people's problems, issues, guilt, responsibility, & obligations. i was born in 1977, the year of the snake on the chinese zodiac:

The Year Of The Snake
People born in the Year of the Snake are deep. They say little and possess great wisdom. They never have to worry about money; they are financially fortunate. Snake people are often quite vain, selfish, and a bit stingy. Yet they have tremendous sympathy for others and try to help those less fortunate. Snake people tend to overdo, since they have doubts about other people's judgment and prefer to rely on themselves. They are determined in whatever they do and hate to fail. Although calm on the surface, they are intense and passionate. Snake people are usually good-looking and sometimes have marital problems because they are fickle. They are most compatible with the Ox and Rooster.

& it seems very fitting to me that, like a snake, i am shedding the skin of my old life, to emerge, changed, grown, & ready to continue on to my next adventure.

it's been a long strange trip thus far. & for people that have known me since the summer of burning man, it probably all seems very circular. i came back from my desert odyssey with much the same out look that i have now. uber motivated & very hopeful for my future. sure that not only were great things ahead, but that i would be doing great things. granted, i did lose almost three years of my life in this little detour that i took. but i learned a lot about myself, had a few lessons reinforced, & i feel like i've come out the other side an even stronger person. i'm more motivated now than i was right after burning man. i am more convinced than ever that i truly hold my destiny in my own hot little hands. & i'm more than ever convinced of what sinead said about me october of 2004, "She's brilliant, funny, a loyal friend, a rock in difficult times, and a wonderful woman who is becoming a force :-)" it's the last part that i was mostly thinking of. & i like that idea, of being a force. reminds me of a tempest.

so i'm a tempest. cool. i like it.

you really can't take me anywhere

week before last, thursday to be exact, jenn & i had hit the Y to try to get back into the tuesday/thursday girl swing of things. which basically means actually going to the gym four or more days a week, eating healthy, & lifting weights. ya know, the TTG* way of life. our gym return was less than triumphant. we did some upper body stuff, some time on the ellipticals & then we were done. so over the Y for the night. this was post the mean boys at the gym, but we were still trying.



i was getting ready to drive jenn home & offered her some crack, er, mcdonald's ice cream. we have developed this VERY bad habbit of going to mcdonald's for one of their ice cream cones. per jenn they are about 150 calories per cone if made according to the corporate specifications. & now it's almost kind of like pavlov's dogs: i leave the Y & i want a mcdonald's ice cream. i can even tell you how much two cones cost, with tax, at the plymouth mickey d's. $2.13.



but me & my crack, er, cone habit, are not the point of the story. the point is the absurd things that happen when i'm allowed to go out in public. so jenn wanted to get a salad when we went to mcdonald's because she didn't have anything to eat at home, er, nothing that was semi healthy. which, depending on the dressing one chooses, the mcdonald's salads are not terribly bad for human consumption.



so we roll through the drive through & order two ice cream cones & a salad, their new south western salad or whatever it's called. so we get to the drive through window, & we're in my saturn so we're riding pretty low to the ground. the guy hands us jenn's salad, then the two cones & goes away. jenn checks the salad & they gave her whatever the dressing is that matches up with that salad, & it had about a billion calories in the package. & she wanted a low fat dressing. so she & i both turn to our left & stare up into the drive through window. & we sit. & we stare. finally the guy turns around, looks startled, & then comes over to the window.

"uh, can i help you?" the mcdonald's dude asked.
"yeah, do you have any light or low fat dressing?" i asked while taking a lick of my ice cream cone.
"yeah we have a balsamic vinaigrette and, uh, yeah, that's it," obviously confused & disjointed.
"can we have the vinaigrette?" i flashed my dimples.
"one minute." he disappeared momentarily, the drive through window snapping shut.
as soon as his back was turned and the window shut, jenn pipes up, "yes, yes i did just order ice cream & i'm asking for light dressing with my salad."

if my life were a movie jenn would have actually said her comment to the drive through dude, as it was, she just said it to me, but it was still pretty hilarious none the less.

*tuesday/thursday girl AKA TTG is my own creation, don't swipe it or i'll beat you severely with wet spaghetti noodles. & trust me, if anyone knows how to inflict pain with pasta it's a fat girl

boys are pushy & mean

***warning, for the record, i am TOTALLY NOT, one of those women who's had some a-hole boyfriends & now hates all men, but the boys i'm talking about are: pushy & mean***

last night at the ridgedale Y there was a mildly triumphant return of the tuesday/thursday girls. basically jenn & i have been MIA from the Y for the past three weeks. with good reason i might add. i've been busy finishing class, planning a baby shower, planning a bachelorette, attending a funeral & a wedding & just in general being a busy busy (little) bee.

& jenn has been wicked busy too. i'll be honest, i've been pretty me-centric lately so i can't even say exactly what she's been busy with, but i'm sure that it is very important stuff that needed her immediate attention.

so with just eleven days left of may, & both of us needing to get to the Y at least 8 days to get our discount for the month's membership, we slunk into the Y last night. & for the record, while i'm loving the new work hours, getting to work at 7:30 am & getting the hell out of dodge at 4pm, the Y is not so wondrous a place at that time.

by the time we both got changed & then made our emergency stop by best buy for new headphones, the Y was pretty hopping. we each managed to score an elliptical, but not really near the other one. so while i was set up for an hour long cardio session jenn was done & wiping down her machine after a thirty minute workout & a three minute cool down. & maybe she would've just stayed on her elliptical for another half hour if she would've known what was to happen next.

((yeah, we're getting to the pushy mean boys))

as you'll all recall, jenn & i have been getting into weight lifting this year, mainly due to our (former) trainer, riley. with riley gone to a new Y for full time benefits, jenn & i are on our own with the weight lifting. which, is actually something that isn't SO bad. except for, it was a very hostile environment at the Y last night.

so i strut, or, as close as i can come to strutting since my legs are all jello-y weak & my face is cherry red & i'm sweating head to toe, carrying my pink weight lifting bible & pink water bottle into the weight lifting area. talk about being uncomfortable, the boys obviously didn't want a fat girl there, much less one dragging her friend along with her. they kind of gave off this vibe like they didn't want me touching their equipment. er, yeah, the weight lifting stuff. that's what i meant.

the ridgedale Y actually has a fairly large weight lifting area, at least three or four benches set up for bar bells & then at least three other benches for use with dumbbells. so plenty of room. except, the boys didn't want to share. they were hovering over equipment they weren't using because, well, they didn't want to share. finally jenn & i spotted a free bench. someone had left plates still on it, but that was fine, we're strong chicas & we can de-plate & replace a barbell. except...

WHILE jenn was removing a plate from the left side this skinny-ass boy in a pair of scruffy looking hospital green scrub pants came up & put a plate on the right side & basically glared us down.

& that's when we left the Y.

it's not like we were looking for a hand out or anything. but we wanted one bench, to share, to lift some weights. & the mean boys wouldn't let us play. the bastards.

cause of death: philanthropy

this is a few days late, but to be honest, i haven't really had the energy to even attempt a blog until today. on sunday jenn & i walked eight miles to raise money for the march of dimes, an organization that does research to find the causes of premature birth & assist parents of preemies. & with both tina & sinead "in the family way" it seemed like a pretty dang good cause. walking for babies & all that jazz.

now, as naive as this may sound, when i set off on this great adventure i kind of had no clue exactly how long eight miles would really be. yes, you may hum eminem if you must. i knew intellectually, but i didn't really take into account how that distance would feel to my body. i've been working out pretty hard with jenn & then training with riley. not necessarily recently, but semi recently. & i am so much stronger now than i was even back in december. & i do have more endurance & stamina. but, not so much for a long distance walk.

i will give a piece of free advice to anyone out there planning to do a charity walk of any kind: in your preparation, actually walk. i know it may seem kind of obvious & silly, but yours truly sorta forgot this little detail. & my advice would be walk for your training. yeah, i know that is something that you would THINK is obvious, but for some reason it never really blipped across my radar. i was hitting the weight training hard with riley, pushing myself with that. doing interval training on the elliptical & the gazelle-ish machine, but no walks. i mean, not like i dragged myself everywhere, of course i did the normal day to day walking, but no increase in my walking. & while being able to leg press 240lbs is a great accomplishment, that doesn't help in a long walk as much as you would think.

yeah.

the way the walk was set up we went half way around lake of the isles, & that's where the two paths diverged. jenn-jenn & i could've continued going around lake of the isles for the five mile walk (which is a pretty healthy distance) or veer off to the right, down a path under a bridge & go around lake calhoun & then finish going around lake of the isles which was the eight mile path (also known as jesus-bobby-i-want-to-die) by the time we got to the fork in the road, so to speak, i was one hurting unit. like i said previously, i really wasn't in shape for this. (ya, i know round is a shape, but i wasn't able to roll around the lakes.)

my back had started hurting within about ten minutes of the walk due to the three liters of water in my camel back along with the snacks that i packed (cause a fat girl can't take a walk without food, duh. jesus bobby) & then there were the hills. omg. i did NOT sign up for hills. at least, i don't think i did. & so in addition to the pain in my back my shins were killing me also. & i was sweating like a pig. & i had lost my sunglasses clips & didn't have any contacts, so i was doing all this in the bright sun with no protective eye wear. the only thing i did have going for me is that my pale self was covered in a nice think lacquer of spf 60+, basically the strongest sunscreen i could find.

while i'm sure she was hurting too, jenn didn't really say much about hurting or being in pain. &, to brag just a tad, even though i was in pain, i didn't bitch much at all. & when jenn looked at me & asked if i was sure if i was ok i told her that "yup, i'll be fine." i knew that complaining wouldn't help me one bit. even if i wanted to whine like a three year old.

so when we got to the point where we had to make a decision between short loop (5mile) & long loop (8mile) jenn left the decision up to me. & i really with all my heart & aching back wanted to slide in with the main pack & finish off the five mile. but then again i had promised the people who sponsored me, my friends, riley, & most of all myself, that i would do the eight mile course. so i pondered this rather quickly while using the porta-potty at the park. i weighed the pros & cons while trying to balance & not touch anything at all in the portable outhouse . it's rather difficult while trying to think & not fall flat on my face or breathe in too deeply. but i did it & came to the conclusion that while everyone else, even miss jenn, would understand if i slunk out of the plastic bathroom & just went around lake of the isles, i would be disappointed in myself if i didn't finish the whole eight mile trek.

& we carried on.

i won't pretend that this is any kind of hollywood ending. i didn't catch a second wind & wind up jogging my way back to the starting camp with a huge smile on my face. i dragged my feet. by the end i was actually literally dragging my feet, shuffling along the sidewalk because i had lost most of the feeling in my legs, which was good because i wasn't able to feel the blisters forming on my feet. i was severely tempted at one point to call for help. the conversation went something like this:

"i want to call an ambulance!"
"no, you're not calling an ambulance, keep walking," jenn said over her shoulder, about ten feet in front of me.
we then heard a siren & my ears perked up like a cat hearing a can of tasty feast open.
"no, that's not your ambulance, keep walking."

right after that the bus pulled up. no, not an ambulance, but a real actual school bus. they had a shuttle service to drive people back who couldn't finish the walk. they saw jenn & i & pulled over asking if we wanted a ride.

once again i had an inner dilemma, sorta like the porta-potty soul searching except i wasn't bare-assed & trying to pretend i was somewhere else. the driver opened the door & asked jenn & i if we wanted a ride. & jenn didn't say anything, she just looked at me leaving me, once again, to decide. & while i really wanted to drag myself up those steps & flop onto the sticky-hot vinyl seat for the bumpy ride back, i found myself saying "no thank you, we'll walk."

i think i was delirious from pain. & we did actually finish the walk. all on our own. both standing up right. i wasn't walking well when i got home sunday night after the walk. & have only regained the ability to walk somewhat normally as of wednesday afternoon, but it was worth it. i am proud of what i accomplished.

& it was fun too. jenn cracks me up. & besides that, walking around lake calhoun is a great way to people watch! & it's not true: they do come out during the day *grins*

the two best lines of the day were also both provided by miss jenn toward the end of our walk:

(as we're nearing the starting area) i wonder if they have a beer garden?

(sitting in my car post walk eating lunch) it must have been hard to be jesus {pause} cause he walked a lot. . . .think any body gave him a sandwich after?

it's all about the shoes, baby

i feel rather tall today. & skinny. ok, relatively skinny. & i give credit to my shoes.

most days i wear my doc marten boots. have i mentioned i /heart my new boots? if i haven't, here's the declaration. & while they are hella cute, they're flat & don't give my short self much of a boost. today though, we had to dress up, more than usual, at work because we had some "big wigs" coming through today. so no cute boots :(

instead i wore a pair of my mudd dress shoes. a little bit of a heel. black. kinda funky & definitely cute in their own right.

my legs are still killing me from my second to the last riley workout yesterday. & my pecs are twinging from the upper body miss jenn & i did monday. & my abs are screaming at me too about the ab workout i did. but at least i feel tall.

it's like a bad 80's movie

i was going to name this blog "say goodbye to hollywood" but that wasn't quite right. & then i thought about just "say goodbye" but i think i did that one. so instead, i'll pull on the collective memories of 80's movie complete with perms, leg warmers, teased hair, t-top trans-ams, inspirational song tracks, & a montage. yeah, gotta have a montage.

last week jenn & i got some semi devastating news: riley got a new job. i mean, ok yeah for him, if he really thinks he needs to work full time & get benefits. but it means he'll be moving to another Y. & at first it appeared that perhaps he'd be able to continue to train jenn & myself, but alas, he only has a couple of weeks that he's allowed to do that, & then, if we want to continue to train with him we'll need to make the trek up 169 from minnetonka to coon rapids during rush hour traffic. yeah. right. about that. not gonna happen.

while i /heart riley as a trainer, i just don't have the dedecation to him to travel that highway to hell. for anyone who doesn't live in minnesota & is not familiar with 169 i'll explain. 169 is basically hell on earth in general, but especially from the hours of 3pm to 7pm monday through friday. which leaves me trainer-less.

*tear*

i'm now a gym orphan. well, ok, jenn & i are now gym orphans. we just started to get our balance in this whole weight training thing & our options are: a) find a new trainer or b) try to go it alone. both are unequivocally scary for their own reasons. after about three months with riley i feel like we finally found our stride. he knows us, he gets our jokes. ok, he doesn't ALWAYS get our jokes, but about 96% of the time he's right there with us & he isn't even uncomfortable when i make fat girl jokes.

like today when he was stretching out jenn & i's lower legs he said "you girls have some loose hammies"

& i said "mmm...ham, i'm hungry."

& jenn shot in with "never doubt a fat girl to bring ham into the equation."

so i'm not super excited about the thought of having to break in a new trainer. i mean, it's taken us the majority of the past three months to properly break in riley. so that leaves option b, going this alone. & while jenn & i have both had success in the past with losing weight on our own, but then again, neither of us is a size 0 skeleton wannabe. i'm still too fat to be a plus size model. at least according to twiggy & tyra.

there are definite bonuses to going it alone, the first being we'd each be saving $70 bucks a week, which means i could use that to put in my savings, or pay extra on bills, that would be an extra $280 a month i'd have to do something else with! & let's face it, i'm still kinda a broke ass hoe cause i'm working two jobs & going to school & still trying to live that big dream, so 280 is a whole lotta scratch for me. in a way i can't believe i've been shelling that out & not even cringing, must be because we pay each week.

i am still pretty worried though that i'm going to *twump* fall flat on my face & fail. again. my friend dev suggested that jenn & i make a pact that if one of us punks out on gym time then they owe the other one 20 bucks, which i think is a great idea. i'm not sure yet how miss jenn feels & if we'll be doing that or not. but it's an idea. i have all kinds of "incentives" set up for myself, but it's still hard to keep motivated day after day when i'm not losing a freaking thing.

i have been in the 250's since february, bouncing all over the freaking 250's, but not able to break through down into the 240's. can i get a mother fucker? mother fucker.

maybe with jenn as my co-trainer i can break through. i hope. i really really hope. cause this blows monkey balls. seriously.

yes, yes i really did need another hole in my head

2007 has, thus far, been pretty grand for me. even though i haven't accomplished as much as i would have liked at 25% of the way through the year, i feel like i've done a lot.

i'm finally me again. for those of you who have stuck by me through the last several months while i've been less than cheery, i appreciate it. sometimes, when you're in a situation that isn't good for you it's hard to see a time when things will be good again. luckily, i'm finally on the other side of that time, & i can see a time when things will be good again.

things are good right now.

i'm happy again. not deliriously so, but happy enough that it's noticeable to other people. i smile more, i'm more social at work, & i'm finally losing weight again. that's what stress does, packs on the pounds & keeps them there.

now, this wasn't on my list of 101 things, but it's something i have thought about doing for quite some time: this past sunday, i got my nose pierced. i will be posting a pic of it, i took several at home last night, but i didn't load them onto my imac from my camera yet.

i'm still getting used to having a facial piercing. i stare at myself in the mirror & i think i look wicked cute with the tiny pink titanium ball in my right nostril, but it's taking a lot of getting used to also.

because i got uber sick when i got my tongue pierced back in 2004, i asked jenn to come with me just in case i needed a nauseous driver to get me home. so i went to st. sabrina's here in the twin cities. & while i was handing over my license & getting my paper work to fill out, jenn goes up to the counter & decides, what the hell, she's in a body mod shop, she'll get pierced too. not her nose, her helix (upper ear/cartilage).

for the record, i did not in any way coerce miss jenn to pierce herself, she did that all on her own. so we signed our waivers, picked out jewelry (the afore mentioned pink titanium stud for moi, & a 16 gauge hoop for miss jenn). &we waited. & waited. & waited. i had no idea how many people would just randomly decide to pierce themselves on a drizzly sunday afternoon, otherwise i most certainly would have made an appointment.

jamie, our piercer, was very nice & definitely uber cute, in that pierced tattooed way that makes me swoon. he did miss jenn's ear first. & i'll be honest, i was going to watch, but at the last minute stared at her flip-flop clad feet because, well, i really didn't want to get sick before it was my turn to be poked.

even though i currently have a stud in my nose, i'm thinking i'll want a hoop some day, so i had it pierced so that either one will look good. now, ready for the dirty little secret of nose piercings? the after care, kinda, sucks, a bit. twice a day i get to mix up sea salt & warm distilled water, & sit with my nose in the glass for five minutes, wipe it with a qtip, & dip again for another five minutes. i swear, by the end of the three month healing time i'm going to have a permanent crescent on my face from pressing my nose into a glass of sea salt water. but, as long as it keep the infection away & helps the piercing to heal all cute & nice, then it's worth it, right?

jenn gets to lay with her head in a bowl of water. so *shrugs* six of one, half a dozen of the other, right?

all of this does bring up the question of motivation for body modification. i was asked why i felt i needed another hole in my head. & my response was that maybe i was just born missing this hole in my head & i'm not complete without it. i will admit there are some people who pierce or tattoo themselves to: fit in, be cool, piss of their parent/spouse/the world. but for me, in this life, it's all about evolution baby. it's about making myself into the person i am inside. & to be honest, i'm getting quite sick of being told i'm someone i'm not. so yes, i did need another hole in my head, it was missing. & yes, i need more tattoos. & yes, i'll keep on with the piercing & the tattoos until

until.

until?

until i'm done.

what happened to my tuesday/thursday girls?

today riley totally called me out on my lack of exercise outside of the training sessions. granted, week before last i was sick, so i did have a pass then, but i wasn't sick last week, i was just kind of being lazy. i did go in for personal training on tuesday, & then again on thursday when jenn was out of town (& that one cost significantly more expensive!) but besides that i didn't go at all. no extra cardio. nothing at all. well...i did shovel snow for about 2-3 hours with the white out that we received at the end of last week, but yeah, doesn't really count.

so i'm down a total of 13.4 lbs from january 8th, which isn't too shabby, that's an average of 1.625 lbs a week. which is a pretty decent rate, if i can keep that up by the time my birthday rolls around i can have lost another 20-ish pounds, which i would definitely love. but, deep down, ok, not even really THAT deep, i know that if i just watch what i'm eating more closely & if i get in five days of cardio a week & five days of weight training that i can lose much more than that. sometimes it's really hard to find the motivation.

as lame as it is, often it's much more appealing to go home, watch the most recent episode of gilmore girls curled up under my covers, & that really is what i feel like doing tonight. just cocooning myself until tomorrow morning when i have to get up & go into work again. at this moment i'm thinking that i should go to the Y, even though i REALLY don't want to, then again, i did get an hour workout in this morning, weight training, but that doesn't help me toward the end of trying to get in those cardio sessions.

what did happen to riley's tuesday/thursday girls? is it just that with time your interest has peaks & valleys? is it the snow which makes everything so oppressive & makes you want to go home as quick as possible & get cuddled up into cozy blankets? is it because it's tuesday & i'm tired? because, despite my steady results, i still have a feeling that all of this really is way too much too handle? how about we just chalk it up to a couple of bad weeks, quit the whining, & start focusing on the long term goals again.

yeah, that sounds pretty dang decent.

have you ever been in a fat girl? would you like to be?

it's official. jenn & i shouldn't go anywhere together. we're like a walking comedy show. last night we went to the gym, which i totally didn't want to go, but did anyway so that i can get my credit for my at-least-eight-times-per-month for my membership discount. & yeah, i know i'm in this competition, trying to avoid the slicey-dicey & all that jazz. but i was throwing a major three year old tantrum complete with floor kicking. & cramps. & then when we were there jenn told me that we were going to spend an hour on the ellipticals.

jesus bobby! & yesterday my abs & upper body were screaming from the torture of my tuesday workout. so i was one hurting unit, to quote my father. but i hung up my coat & slunk into the gym anyway & hopped myself onto my favorite elliptical to do some interval training. i think i mentioned this before, but riley has jenn & i doing interval cardio, so for two minutes we'll go along easy as pie & then push as hard & fast as we can for two minutes, then back to the pie. ((mmmm....pie....)) which, this whole thing is a lot harder than it sounds. i challenge you to do 30minutes on a treadmill, elliptical, or exercise bike however you normally would. then the next day, go back & do the interval. it will ki-ck your ass, in a good way.

i had my time set for an hour because, well jesus bobby, miss jenn said we were doing an hour, & it's just not acceptable to sit in the middle of the Y & read the subtitles on medium without actually doing any kind of sweating or exertion. & for some reason the interval training was just killing me yesterday. my lungs were on fire. i could feel that my face was hot, most likely fire engine red, & i was literally dripping sweat. i kept wiping my face with my scratchy Y towel. at about twenty minutes in, i reached up to wipe my forehead again, this time without said towel, & something didn't feel quite right. & that's when i realized i never took off my winter hat. over my bandana i was wearing my cute turquoise stocking cap with the white snowflake embroidered on it.

& i'm not entirely sure, but pretty close to sure, that i made a very weird face when i made this realization because jenn happened to look at me just as i realized i'd been killing myself on the elliptical for almost 20 minutes & i wouldn't've been so freakin hot if i would've taken off my hat. nice, eh? & jenn started laughing uncontrollably from whatever the odd expression it was on my face when i realized i'd been working out with a hat on for twenty minutes, she actually had to take a personal moment, pause & collect her thoughts to keep her from falling off the elliptical. oy, that's all i need is to be responsible for her untimely death at the Y due to a fall from cardio equipment.

we each only lasted 30 minutes of interval training on the elliptical, so then we decided we wanted to get in a full hour. i decided to do the exercise bike because, well, i got to sit on my ass, where as the treadmill would have meant doing interval training i would have to do something far too close to running for my personal comfort. eventually my bad self will run because, well, it's on my list of 1001 things, but wednesday was not the day.

while i happily intervaled my way along on the bike listening to augustana & dividing my attention between the twins game & the cnn coverage of the "astronaut love triangle" jenn was behind me nearly dying on the cardio equipment. too bad exercise bikes don't have rear view mirrors, i may have been able to see what was going on, even though i wouldn't've been privy to her inner monologue. which, as it turns out, was pretty damn funny.

now i wasn't going to do interval training on the treadmill because of the afore mentioned running that would have to take place. jenn on the other hand, not only felt up to the challenge, but faced it head on with a heart of moxie. she told me that after her two minutes, she upped the speed & started her running, & she managed to run about 1/10 of a mile before she decreases the speed & went into her "resting" phase. & while she was doing her resting she imagined telling riley the next day how she did. & some how in the midst of her day dream she was trying to convey how difficult it can be for a fat girl to run. except. she phrased the question, to her inner imaginary riley, as: have you ever been in a fat girl? which was completely & totally innocent at the inception of the question. & then turned dirty with a quick flick of the tongue to, would you like to be?

oh stop.

all she had meant was, had he ever been a fat girl. er, had he ever been fat? er, out of shape? um, had he ever put on the gwenneth paltrow fat girl suit? in any case, it was a conversation that never wound up occurring, because, well, he just may take that the wrong way. the whole would you like to be in a fat girl, yeah, wee bit inappropriate. & we want to do some more training with him before he realizes how inappropriate we can be at times. & by then he'll love us both for the fan-ta-bulous people we are that he won't want to lose us as clients so he'll put up with, & encourage, our inappropriate behavior.

it's a good thing you're cute

in our original interview with riley jenn said something about needing someone to kick her ass in the gym. & riley did remember that come tuesday. damn. & that's what he did on tuesday. double damn.

on tuesday we started with upper body. lifting free weights. using some of the machines to do rows, high cable flys, low cable flys. & then using exercise balls to do ball bench press, back extensions & tricep exercises. & on wednesday i felt it. a lot. do you realize that when driving you do actually use your triceps? an amazing, & painful revelation. but great at the same time. because i felt like i got a great work out in on tuesday, used muscles that had been laying dormant for some time. & the pain felt good.

hurt so good. Sometimes love don't feel like it should, you make me, hurt so good.

um, yeah, once again, not karaoke night.

on wednesday i could barely get my jacket on because my arms & shoulders were pretty sore.
& even though jenn & i were both in pain, we made it to the Y that night, did a half hour each on the elliptical, taking riley's suggestion to do interval training. so basically go for a minute or two, get our heart rates up, then kick it up, go as fast & hard as you can for two minutes, then back off, let your heart rate & breathing drop down for two minutes. & repeat. & THAT really kicked my ass too, in a good way. i felt like i got a much more intense workout in those 30 minutes than i usually get by doing the weight loss program on the machine.

when i left the Y wednesday night my heart was racing, my lungs were burning, my legs were worn out, & my upper body was still one giant ache. i limped home, & went to sleep hoping to feel better in the morning.

& by yesterday morning, our second appointment with riley, i was feeling better & pretty optimistic about things to come. & what came was a lower body workout. ouch. & he remembered the whole ass kicking thing again. double ouch.

& then, because he's cute, with the brightest blue eyes & most adorable smile, i couldn't wimp out. so i pushed myself hard to try everything he suggested. & when he asked if the weights were ok or just light, i actually said, they're a little light, let's bump it up. jesus bobby. i'm really not a masochist, but when you're paying $35 an hour for personal training, you may as well get the most out of it, right? & that's exactly what i did.

today i woke up because i could feel the muscles in my big toes crying out in pain. i didn't even know that i had worked out the muscles in my big toes. but evidently i did. cause they were letting me know they hurt. along with my calves, thighs, glutes....basically everything, even that muscle at the very top of your inner thigh.

have i mentioned that i live in a basement? with no bathroom or kitchen facilities in said basement? getting ready for work this morning was definitely an adventure. & it seems like my legs are getting more & more sore with more time. so that i'm walking more funny now than when i woke up this morning with the aching toes. stairs are NOT my friend right now.

& then yesterday riley suggested that jenn & i try to weight train 4 days a week, so two with him & two on our own. & i was thinking for me the weekends would be the best time for me to do weight training. which means i should try the upper body workout tomorrow & the legs on sunday. & once again, cause he's gorgeous i don't want to punk out. so my dumb ass will be getting to school early enough tomorrow to work out & shower before my class starts. jesus bobby.

the very last stop

one thing that they want to make sure of, at least at HCMC, is that before you make that drastic move of getting gastric bypass that you have really truly honest injin tried every single thing that you could in order to lose weight on your own. & i've been there. i did slim fast, metabo life, richard simmons, just about every program you can think of for weight loss. i've done meal replacements, i've done drastic changes to my diet, diet pills, working with a nutritionist, doctor supervised monthy monitoring...i mean EVERYTHING. & still, here i am weighing in at 260-something & while i have come down from my overall highest weight of 323, so that's about 50-ish pounds gone for good, it isn't enough for me.

my surgeon consult is set for friday february 9th, at 8am. so just under two weeks & i'll be sitting down to meet with the surgeon, he'll write a letter to my insurance company telling them that i'm the perfect candidate for surgery cause i've tried all the afore mentioned methods & i'm still a fat pig. ok, he'll be more professional than that in his letter, but that'll be the general tone of the letter.

& that brings me to what jenn & i just did today. no, nothing remotely thelma & louise-ish, & for you dirty boys in the crowd, nothing girl gone wild, or even just girls on too much schnapps-ish. we went to the Y & signed up for a personal trainer.

dum-da-da!

yeah. about that. we were just going to do their free program called fit start, which would've been great for us a year ago when i was able to do a whole minute on the elliptical before falling off & declaring that i would indeed die a painful death from my lungs bursting. the fit start is basically a twelve week program that gives people a wee bit of guidance while they find their way off the couch & onto a treadmill. luckily, i'm beyond that point. not where i would like to be, by any means, but still better off than i was a year ago.

so riley went over fit start with us, & jenn & i both quickly came to the realization that it was too basic for our current needs. so we decided to take the plunge & go for personal training. for group training it's $35/person/session. EEK! but the sessions are an hour long, & since we have similar goals it should work out well. so we're starting with two sessions a week, which means we'll be shelling out $70 a week to go into the Y & have a beautiful boy spend time with us. YUM. oh wait, i mean we'll be spending $70 a week to get focused weight training to increase fitness & health. yeah, that's it.

it's a lot of cash, admittedly, but if i really am going to admit defeat & say that yup, i need to go for the surgery, then i need to be abso-positively-fuckin-lutely sure that there is not anything more that i possibly could've done on my own to change things. & while if i stick to the on my own way, it will take longer, i think that i may get more satisfaction out of it.

the cute boy litmus test

last night jenn & i made our some what triumphant return to the Y after being gone from the gym for a little over two weeks. part of our motivation being that we both feel like crap after stuffing our gobs with cookies, fudge, gravy fries, alcohol, & such until we thought we would actually literally burst. & then part of it is that challenge number two rolled around & she & i have some serious competition this time around & we need to kick some serious tail this time around! when we strolled into the Y, ok, jenn strolled, i was more like waddling into the Y, there was only one elliptical free, which i graciously told miss jenn to take, only to have another open up ten seconds later, so i was ellipticalling in no time at all. when people say it's a whole lot harder to start something again after quitting, they are so not lying! yesterday i almost died on the elliptical, seriously. jenn was so close to having to post me on mydealthspace & then attending my funeral. but luckily, i drank some water, counted down the seconds, & didn't fall on my face as i dismounted the elliptical. face planting in the Y is definietly not a good thing.

i walked by jenn's elliptical as my legs did their impression of jello, she was breezily gliding on the elliptical with another 27minutes to go, she was doing an hour. the chubi. seriously, love her to death, but wanted to punch her square in the balls because i was there hyperventilating & she was breathing normally & looking decidedly NOT sweaty. she offered to leave early for me, & s grunted that nah, i should really do some time on the treadmill.

as i walked to the back of the gym to the nice brand-new-just-arrived-after-thanksgiving treadmills i noticed a boy. correction. a hot boy. & then i had this awful image of this dark haired beauty running & watching my jiggly ass in my black leggings bounce around & laughing so hard that he trips & is shot straight into the wall. no way was i going to be responsible for that. so i went to the back row on treadmills, an old guy is short-shorts between me & the beauty.

but then i started doubting myself. cause my cute boy radar has been quite dodgy lately, i’ve been declaring males hot who were showing up as a definite not. & i was seriously wishing jenn was next to me so i could get her spot on opinion of the dark haired possible hottie. i was still dutifully plodding along on my treadmill at a whopping 2.2 miles per hour with a everest like incline of 3.0 when the hottie jumped off the treadmill & went to lift weights.

ye-haw. he was going to walk right in front of jenn’s machine.

if he was indeed cute i’d see a sign, even from halfway across the gym. so the dark beauty with the built upper arms & tattoo walked right in front of jenn & nothing. damn it. & then. something wondrous happened. jenn’s head tilted ever so slightly to the right & i just knew, just KNEW that her eyes were following the boy into the weight room. now it’s not like she was ogling him like a ravenous dog & a steak or anything, it was the smallest little movement, as if she was looking at the clock, which just so happens to be right above the weight lifting area. but the timing was just right so i knew that she sure as fuck wasn’t checking out the time.

hot damn, he really was hot. he passed the jenn test.

but the very best part of the whole night was as i was dropping jenn off at her apartment. & i was telling her that there was this cute guy that i saw, but then i wasn’t sure if he was cute, & then, he walked in front of her & i saw her checking him out. & she kinda couldn’t believe that i caught her checking him out.

& i have a whole new reason to drag my ass to the Y every night, the beautiful tattooed boy. although i’ve also developed an odd phobia regarding how people view me from the back when i work out. maybe it’ll even out in the end.

jesus bobby & the porn: a ca-nadia adventure

in my first telling of the great canadia adventure 2006, i neglected a few details. the first being to explain the title. which is reasonably funny without explanation, but could probably do with just a wee little bit of explanation.

jesus bobby comes to us thanks to miss jenn's mother who has been known to exclaim "jesus bobby" anytime her husband, bobby, does anything that infuriates her. while miss jenn was in vermont hanging with her family her little niece & nephews asked if she would like to hear an impression of grandma, when jenn said yes the three of them, in unison, said "jesus bobby!" & evidently sounded exactly like jenn's mom. unfortunately i didn't hear jenn's mom do her jesus bobby, but i heard jenn's niece heather do it several times, & it was freakin hilarious. i also met the infamous bobby, from jesus bobby, jenn's dad, & he's a very sweet guy.

& soon enough after leaving jenn's homestead the three of us were jesus bobby-ing our way across the country side. although at the border we made a different exclamation, it was much too serious for a jesus bobby...& we didn't want to confuse the border patrol & have them ask who's bobby. we escaped un-probed from the new york/canada border, & we're all glad for that.

the porn i was going to let slide with just mentioning it in general, but jenn wanted me to mention the porn, not sure why, but here it goes. we were at some random gas station in wisconsin, this was after our stop in chi-town for geno's pizza. we filled the car & got some so bad for us but oh so tasty snacks to stuff in our gobs when jenn's boy-dar went off. boy-dar is kinda like gay-dar except instead of alerting her to gay boys, it alerts her to cute boys. nice. & the cute boy was indeed very cute. & very naked. & on the cover of playgirl. ye-haw.

i'm still not quite sure how it all happened. but some how jenn & josh exited the store, with jenn still starry eyed over naked cutie on the playgirl, the playgirl still firmly in the magazine rack all while i was paying for chocolate to gnosh as we got back on the road. but jenn wanted the boy, badly. & i found myself back inside the gas station in po-dunk nowhere wisconsin buying a playgirl while the wholesome farm raised cashier blushed & picked the magazine up using as few fingers as possible to scan it & get me the hell out of her store. yeah, fat girl buying chocolate & a playgirl. there's gotta be a cliche in there somewhere.

on day one of our trip. pre-new york. pre-canada. pre-border patrol & near probing. jenn had told josh & i that she can't, under any circumstance, read while driving. & she also said that she often times she gets car sick just from riding in the backseat of a car. with all that said, i handed the playboy over to jenn, started the car, & guided us back onto the interstate to try to get us home at a decent hour. after playing with my digital camera, making josh look at the playgirl, & exclaiming after cutie's tattoos & other attributes i heard a small voice from the backseat say "i'm car sick."

"were you reading the play girl?" i asked, hoping that the back of my head wasn't about to be covered in recycled pizza.

& she admitted that yeah, she'd been reading the magazine, so josh asked, "& what did we learn?"

& jenn's answer was, "no reading porn in the backseat." in the same exact tone a kid would say something like "no cutting my brother's hair with saf-t scissors."

so there's the jesus bobby, the backseat porn, & we were in canada, so of course, gotta add a little eh, eh?

true story.

jesus bobby, no reading porn in the backseat, eh

so vermont & canada were a blast, eh.

left out of vermont quite a bit later than we really intended, & for once i was not the one making everyone late! ((that did feel good, a lot good, btw)) so we wound up not rolling into flint michigan until after 3am on the first of the year. it's the first time i've celebrated new years while traveling, & i mean while actually by-god-on-the-mother-fucking-road-at-the-turn-of-the-year, & i liked it. there was something semi-freeing about being hundreds of hundreds of miles away from home & on the road while the clock officially ticked over to 2007, & maybe that's just cause in a lot of ways 2006 sucked, big time.

at the last minute josh decided to join miss jenn & i on our great north american adventure, so it was kinda like thelma & louise in that we were traveling cross country with a boy, but unlike thelma & louise, no one got laid, murdered, or drove off a mountain. & none of it was done in a convertible. so maybe it wasn't quite like thelma & louise. but we did have porn. & pizza from geno's. & all those oddly canadian road side snacks like ketchup flavored lays potato chips, eh.

& if you pay any attention to the canadians & they're labeling laws, for rockstar (& other such energy drinks) "Recommended dose (adults): Drink 473ml 1 time per day, as needed." & according to the same can, one should not drink more than 500ml/day of rockstar. now if i don't listen to the recommended dosing of my own government, what makes anyone think that i'll listen to the guidelines of our neighbors to the north. & jenn & josh did have to cut me off having a 3rd 16oz can of the good stuff as we rolled on over the border from canada into the us. which probably wasn't a bad thing, cause if i hadn't've been cut off i may just have been the reason we got stopped at the border for a second time in 24hrs.

yeah, so about that. . .everyone will eventually hear about it, so i may as well fess up now & avoid the rumors & the paparazzi camping out on my door step. the three of us got held up in new york trying to re-enter the united states. see, what happened was, i hadn't been quite paying attention & we came to a T intersection in the road with a huge mother effing sign that said new york, with an arrow pointing to the left, and canada with an arrow pointing to the right. & jenn started to take a left, & then i said some smart ass comment about don't we want to go to canada, so she took a right, we were in canada for literally 2 seconds when we realized we made a wrong turn, hung a u-ey & tried to re-enter the country of our birth.

& that's when things got ugly. see, our story, which is 100% true, is that jenn was in vermont for a week visiting her family for christmas, she was buying her mother's car from her (which happens to have vermont handicap plates on it & four tires tied to the roof) i flew into burlington the day before to drive back to minnesota with her, josh flew into boston & then drove up to burlington from there the day before, & we planned on driving through canada to avoid the tolls, eh. yeah, even typing it the whole thing seems very bizzarre & highly suspect, but you know what they say, truth is stranger than fiction, & this is the by god truth.

so the guard saw the tires, the plates, the three minnesota ids & was like "yea, right, about that whole getting back into the country thing. . . ." & we were hauled into the office. grilled about EVERYTHING.

have you completely emptied your pockets, why do you have uncashed checks in your wallet, where are you going, why are you doing there, who's that, who's that, who's jenn, how do you know her, who's beckah, are you carrying any dope, why haven't you cashed these checks yet, who's john, why do you have a check from him, how long have you been at your job, what do you do, who's that, do you have any dope, why do you have vicodin, what's wrong with your ankle, is everything in that vehicle yours, take off your hat, flag your pockets, who's that, why are you going to canada, why are you in vermont, who's car is that, why are you going to minnesota, how long have you lived in minnesota, where did you live before that, do you have any dope on you. . .

yup. & basically the same on & on for a while. then they searched the car. basically tore everything out, put it back in a haphazard manner. threw our ids at us & basically told us to get out. god bless america.

so when we rolled across the border into canada a few hours later they asked our citizenship (american) & why we were going to canada (to drive through it) & said welcome to canada, have a nice day, eh.

& then after several hours on the road, a burning smell from the engine, rain, salt trucks, desolate canadian highways, & without tim dots, we pull up to the american border again, give the guy our licenses & he asks if any of us have ever been pulled inside before. awwwww shhhiiiitttt is all i could think. & we got a much shorter version basically asking us if we picked up anything in canada (just some left over's from boston's & some chips if you want 'em). the guy stares us down & says he'd hate to have to tear the truck apart. double awwwww shhhiiiitttt. & then, while i nearly passed out from holding my breath, he said happy new year, waved us on, & i casually, & like satan himself was chasing me, put distance between us & the border.

& for the record

happy twelve-twelve!