Getting rid of stuff that's not working

As part of my Transform campaign, I'm working on making some changes in my life. But this process is largely trial and error. After reading Gretchen Rubin's book about habits, Better Than Before, I learned that the reward system largely does not work (e.g. If I lose 10 pounds, I can buy myself those cute shoes). Nonetheless, I still harbor the idea that if I do all of this hard work, I should get some sort of treat. I really don't know why this is.

I did learn that I am motivated by external sources, not internal (this was a bit of a surprise to me, too!). This doesn't necessarily mean other people--I love watching the little arrow progress around the treadmill's track signaling that I'm closer to completing another lap. But, this is also why I'm doing a sugar-detox diet with friends. Left to my own devices, I think I'd only be eating scrambled eggs and veggies. And I'd be doing a lot of crying. And I'd probably give up after about 5 days.

Part of this Transform journey is figuring out what works, but another part is figuring out what doesn't work. As it turns out, I really don't like exercising in the morning. When I lived in Oregon, I could manage it because I would work out with friends who lived in the same apartment complex, and we would use the complex's gym. Convenience, it turns out, is super-important to me. I am more likely to exercise at work, even if they don't have all of the equipment I'd like to be using, than I am to drive to my local gym. Mostly because I'm already at work.

I'm more functional when I have time to get up slowly. This morning I got out of bed at 6:40 am and left for work at 8:40 am. I'm pretty sure most people do not spend two hours getting ready to go to work, but I like to sit at the kitchen table and read while I eat breakfast, and whenever I don't do this, I feel sort of off-rhythm all day. Sometimes I do productive things before work, like pay bills, but most of the time I just read.

I've discovered that meditation does not work for me, at least not right now. It simply became another thing for me to do, and while I was meditating, I really, really struggled to turn off the "monkey mind." In theory, that's sort of the point of meditation--to be able to turn off the monkey mind, but I actually found my pulse speeding up while I meditated instead of doing whatever it was I needed to do IMMEDIATELY AFTER I FINISH MEDITATING. So I decided to stop trying to meditate. I might try again in the future, but right now, it is not a good fit.

As it turns out, this Transform project is also a project of self-discovery!

The tragedy of jogging

Somehow, I have become a jogger. I used to be a runner, but I am now sufficiently slow that I do not feel that "run" is the verb that accurately captures my forward momentum, or lack thereof.

As you have probably guessed from the title of this post, this is not a development that I am pleased with.

A friend wants to run the Portland Marathon in 2016, a race that I've already completed three times. Immediately after finishing my most recent marathon (not Portland), I swore I would never run another again, but as my running partner prophesied, I'd change my mind. (She didn't. She's still over marathons.) Which means I have a year and 5 months to turn myself not only back into a runner, but back into a marathoner.

I have several books related to running, including anatomy, specific workouts, and even a few memoirs. The first step is, honestly, to lose some weight. Not because I'm trying to be skinny, but because I'm about 25 pounds over my  marathoning weight, and that's a lot of extra weight to carry for 26 miles. (I blame all of the thug muscles I've gained doing CrossFit. And the squats. Don't get me wrong, I still love CrossFit. But for me, CrossFit and marathons are not compatible.)

I'm trying to up my running (and cardio in general) to get to a consistent number of miles a week so that I have a base on which to build a training platform. (At least I sound like I know what I'm doing!) Oh, wait, I do know what I'm doing! I'm becoming a runner again. I'm becoming a marathoner again. I'm transforming my self and my life.

I might be turning into Marlon Brando. Or not.

Basically this is a post with a lot of pictures. So it's a lot like a children's book, but even more random.

I've lost my voice. Which is generally sub-optimal, but even more so since my instant message communicator at work was causing my Outlook to crash. So basically I had to learn morose code to communicate today. It's a lot like Morse code, except you can also use it to communicate with Grumpy Cat.

(It's a good thing I can entertain myself, since I'll probably have no friends left after I force them all to learn morose code.)

Anyway, a coworker said I sound like Marlon Brando. When I try to talk. With my non-voice. Which I suppose is a step up from yesterday when I sounded like a drowning Muppet.

At any rate, I told said coworker that I was going to take a class at our gym taught by an incredibly enthusiastic 62-year old. This is him playing the role of Cupid on Valentine's Day. Obviously he suffers from low self-esteem.

Coworker says, I don't have the energy to take Cupid's class.

I say, I haven't worked out in a week. I might be turning to mush. Sort of like Marlon Brando when he got old.

Young Marlon Brando was hot. Old Marlon Brando looks like everyone's great-uncle Nelson. Which is fine for the great-uncles of the world, but not so much for a woman.

The worst Lent EVER

I found the below post in my "draft" file. I'm not sure where I was going with it at the time, but one of the things I'm working on in my Transform campaign is to figure out a food lifestyle that makes me happy, keeps me satiated, and is healthy. It's a lot of work to eat well, because it involves a lot of planning, and I don't particularly like to cook. But I also know that I feel better when I eat well. As Gretchen Rubin, over at The Happiness Project proclaims, one of her personal commandments is to "be Gretchen." Basically, this means that she needs to do what is right for her, not what she "thinks" she should be doing, and not what is right for other people. 

Okay, so here is the actual post:

My CrossFit gym (I REFUSE to call it a "box") is doing what my friend accurately described as The. Worst. Lent. EVER. It's basically this thing where, for 30 days, you can't eat anything fun whatsoever. I'm sure that if I managed to keep my shit together and not stab anyone ("
stabby" is a real emotion if you're from New Jersey...it essentially means angry, but has the colorful implication that someone might end up in a garbage can. Because that's how we roll), I'd actually lose a ton of weight. But I'd be the bitchiest version of myself, and the reality is that I'd probably gain it all back as soon as I stopped.

Marathoning, in retrospect

I recently ran a marathon. And it was terrible. It was the worst run I’ve ever had, and it was the slowest marathon I’ve ever run, second only to the marathon that I stubbornly ran despite my torn calf muscle.

A marathon is 26.2 miles, and a lot can happen in those miles. Runners twist ankles, fall, bleed, and acquire new and mysterious injuries. Professional runners die running that distance. Marathoning has become increasingly mainstream in the last few decades, but it is not for the faint of heart.

My running partners and I set a goal of running a sub-4 hour marathon. A sub-4 hour marathon is a 9:09 pace. It’s a good clip, but not impossibly fast. This was to be my fifth marathon, and I felt confident it would be my best. I knew my weaknesses, I knew how to train, I knew what it felt like to push myself, and I knew how long those last 1.2 miles were after already having run 25 of them.

I created a training plan, and bolstered by my enthusiasm and the promise of blueberry pancakes, my friends and I proceeded to knock off mile after mile. We ran up and down hills. We ran in the fog. We ran in the sun. We ran past beach volleyball players with hateable bodies. You know—those tan women with sun-bleached hair who make wearing a paper bag look like couture. Yes, even distance runners hate those people. To be fair, the lone male among us loved running past the volleyball girls.

At mile 14 of the race, my last running partner dropped behind me. I thought as long as she could see me, she’d keep up, but after the race was over she told me she developed severe thigh cramping—something that’s never happened before. At mile 14 I was about two minutes ahead of where I needed to be based on the meticulously plotted racing strategy developed by my sister, who is a 2:55 marathoner. (That’s the insane pace of 6:40 per mile. I sort of hate her, too.)

Two minutes was a nice lead, but not enough that I could sit back and relax. I wasn't worried that I had gone out too hard—my sister and I anticipated this and figured any lead I had was padding for when something unexpected happened up ahead. I just didn't expect it to happen in the next three miles.

By mile 17, I was behind schedule. By mile 20 I was running 12-minute miles. And by the time I saw the finish line, I was just glad to stop running.

My husband and I have a code: he watches me race, and when he sees me, he says “You’re doing great! See you at the finish line!” and I answer “Yes!” This exchange informs him that I’m fine and planning on finishing this run, no matter what. As he says, “You better show up.” Not finishing this race didn’t even cross my mind.

When I look back on this race, all I can say is that it got very hot and very humid very fast. My training was great and I didn’t suffer any unexpected injuries. You can only do so much planning for the weather. The week before the race, my friends and I knew it was going to be hot. We drank extra water every day to stay hydrated. But you can’t train for a marathon the week before the race. By that point, if you haven’t done the necessary work, it is already too late.

It is disappointing to set a goal and not achieve it, but this marathon wasn't a failure. I finished the damned thing, and I did so with the support of my husband, my sister, and some good friends. It was okay that I didn't meet my goal, because my family and friends were still proud of me, and I was, too.

Changing my life: TMD is ruining my life.

I have TMD. Here's a link to an article about it. Basically, it's the worst pain I have ever been in, and your face says Fuck You, I'm going to be unbearably painful and keep you up at all hours of the night no matter how much ibuprofen you take (for the record, I'm averaging between 2000 and 4000 mg a day. At some point, I'm sure my kidneys and liver are going to reject all of this and my stomach is going to start bleeding, but on the upside, maybe it'll lead to death and then I won't be in this kind of pain anymore. Yes, it really is that bad).

As I was telling my husband this morning, it's the kind of pain that makes you think really crazy things, like if someone took a hammer to my jaw and broke it and we wired it shut and just started over, maybe that would be better (and hey, as an added benefit, I'd have to be on a liquid diet, so I'm sure I'd be skinny).

And since it's Halloween today, maybe I can find a zombie to just bite off that part of my face. The downside is, then, wouldn't I be infected with a zombie virus and I'd be inclined to prefer brains over, say donuts?

And unrelated to all of my problems, because I have an awesome boss, and I work at a company where you can, in fact, go to the cafeteria and get not only a costume, but also face paint, my boss went there to get zombie face paint (maybe to help me with my TMD problems, despite the fact that he's dressed up like a pumpkin), and came back with a wizard hat for me. Which is sort of funny because this morning I took a shower. (Go with me on this.) I normally shower on days I work out, which is really fine, because I exercise almost every day. But yesterday and today I didn't make it to the gym because I was up half the night in pain. So I totally wasted time showering today, because everyone knows Merlin never took a shower.

So, what I have found works best for managing the pain for TMD is two Vicodin and a shot of tequila. Which is the way all healthy, well-adjusted adults deal with their problems, right? Because it causes the pain to go away COMPLETELY, and I sleep through the night, unlike the rest of the time when I wake up between 1 am and 3 am praying that my face explodes and ends the misery. And I know I sound like I'm being dramatic, but I'm really not.

And for extra fun, another coworker got me a Captain American face mask. So now I'm wearing both a Merlin hat and a Captain America mask.

Captain America mask

Merlin hat

Captain America mask with Merlin hat

My "magicy" face to go with my Merlin hat

Um, yeah. There's really no reasonable way to end this post. 

I'm going to change my life

On my drive home from work today, I decided I needed to change my life. I'm really bored. Like back-in-high-school bored. And so I fill up my time with a lot of things, like going to the gym (which is actually good, because it's healthy and because it exhausts me so that I don't remember that I'm so bored). And then I started thinking about how much fun I had last year with NaNoWriMo, and how much I'm looking forward to it this year, too. And I thought, maybe if I spent more time writing, I'd be less bored. Which got me thinking that I need to change my life.

As maybe weird (or maybe not) as this sounds, I think the first place to start is with my diet. I love to exercise, but I wouldn't have to do quite so much of it if I ate just a little better. Which, of course, to me, means I should first focus on eating up all of the stuff I shouldn't be eating that's sitting around the house. Or I should just be eating up all of the random stuff in general so that I can start this program with a clean slate. Which is how I ended up eating mystery soup for dinner.

A few months ago, when I was feeling totally overwhelmed by the amount of random food being provided by my CSA, I chopped it up, mixed it with some olive oil, salt, pepper, and herbs, and roasted it. Then I froze it, figuring at some point in the future I'd want soup (by my calculation vegetables in liquid equals soup). I did date the bag (from May). So tonight, I dumped that bag of roasted veggies into a pot with some frozen broth (I'm not sure you can freeze broth, but I did, and we'll see if I'm still alive tomorrow), tracked down my immersion blender, blended the shit out of it, and called it dinner. (This sort of activity might be why my husband hesitates to leave me home by myself).

So then, here are some other random things going on. So my company is giving away a free super bowl commercial, and all the employees get to vote on the top 20 finalists. I realize I just did a very bad job of describing the contest, but whatever, you'll have to deal. The point is, I'm super excited about the finalist I voted for, Goldie Blox, because they make engineering toys for girls, and I really think I should have been an engineer if anybody had ever told me that there was some other math-based career path than teaching. But I'm old, and I have two non-math related degrees, and a bunch of student loans, and going back to school sounds like the worst thing possible to me right now, so I'm just going to bitch about missing out in some other alternative universe future. But I don't want that to happen to your girls so check this out. (By "this" I mean the link I posted above.)

So then, my coworker shared with me this thing she bought to sit on that makes her chair so much more comfortable, so I have to have one. And while I was Amazoning (yes, that's a verb), I figured I should do some white elephant shopping. Last year I totally scored big time and received a Black Santa Pornament. It is awesome. So I thought I'd regift it and get him a girl. You know, so he wouldn't be lonely. But the only one I could find on Amazon looked like this, and I didn't want to spend $20 on her. Because I have standards, people. So then I did some more internet searching and discovered that there's an insane amount of this sort of stuff that you can't order directly from the manufacturer. Instead, like the perv I've apparently become, I have to go to some other third party to buy my girly pornament.

So then I thought, what else would make an awesome white elephant gift? Tactical Bacon, that's what! But I didn't want to spend more than $20 on that, so I started looking at some cheaper options. And I found Zombie Apocalypse Survival Kit in a Sardine Can, Canned Unicorn Meat (that you apparently can't actually eat, although based on the Harry Potter premise that unicorns are more or less sacred, you probably shouldn't even think of owning their meat), and Zombie Jerky, that you can apparently eat, but maybe wouldn't want to.

So now I have too many white elephant options. And I haven't technically been invited to a white elephant party. Oh boy. This might be why I need to change my life.

In the event of a zombie apocalypse...

In the event of a zombie apocalypse, you're going to have to kill some people, or at least former people, in order to survive. This is what every zombie movie ever made tells us. And this was my first thought when Captain America told me that a box had been stolen off our front stoop.

My second thought was that the fucker who stole it probably wasn't even going to use the DVDs, and that's just really wasteful. (But then I realized that all theft is wasteful.)

So here's what happened:

A while ago, upon the advice of some friends, I purchased the Insanity set of DVDs. I did the first month of workouts faithfully and noticed NO CHANGE WHATSOEVER. So I decided to stop. I didn't loose weight. I didn't loose inches. I didn't even gain stamina. And according to my heart rate monitor, I burnt only about 50% more calories in an hour of Insanity than I did in an hour of yoga, and about a third of the calories I burnt in an hour of running. I decided that it was simply not the workout for me. It took up too much time, and was producing no results.

But I kept the DVD set because I paid for them, and I figured I could take them on trips or something and watch them on my laptop if a gym wasn't an option. Or maybe I'd try them again later and have better success.

So fast forward to a few days ago when a girlfriend asked me if she could borrow them. Of course I said yes. I told her I'd leave the box on the stoop for her and she could stop by whenever and pick it up. (I realize there is always an inherent risk that something will be taken off your stoop by local delinquents.)

All day long the box sits on the stoop. Captain America comes home from work. I come home from work. I leave to go to yoga. A few minutes after I leave, Captain America comes around a corner in our house and sees the back of a woman walking away from our house carrying the box.

The back of the woman doesn't look like our friend, but it does look like our friend's best friend. So Captain America assumes that our friend was busy or tied up at work or something and sends her friend to come get the DVD set for her. (In hindsight, of course, this is a little silly, but the mind can invent fantastical scenarios when needed.)

I come home from yoga and notice the box is gone, and figure our friend stopped by, like she said she would.

Captain America says, "I don't want you to be mad at me. I'm mad and you have every right to be mad, but I don't want you to be mad."

Captain America frequently gives such prologues before delivering news of any sort, but especially bad news. He is also a bit of an overexplainer. There are worse people to be married to.

Anyway, he proceeds to tell me that the Insanity DVDs were stolen, and how he's mad at himself because he saw the person who took them, but because he had assumed it was our friend's friend (now a seemingly odd mental concoction), he didn't stop her. He's mad at himself for being so trusting (again, there are worse people to be married to). He says our friend showed up about an hour after the theft, rang the doorbell and asked for the DVDs. Which of course, we no longer had.

But I didn't get mad that the DVDs were stolen (apparently it's been that kind of week where thefts from my front stoop just go along with everything else). My first thought, evidently spurred by Captain America's comment on being trusting, was that in the event of a zombie apocalypse, he'd have to shoot some people. You CAN NOT trust zombies. They WILL eat your brains. My second thought was that the person who stole the DVDs probably wouldn't even use them. Of course, when the zombies come for her, she's going to regret that bad choice, as she won't be able to outrun the zombies.

Oh, karma will get even with her...eventually.

Lessons from crossfit: the way to prevent a zombie invasion is to properly stretch your shoulders

Today I took my first full-length real crossfit class at a real crossfit gym, CrossFit 858. (When I was in Hawaii, I noticed that there were all sorts of places called things like Bikes 808 or Burgers 808. Apparently no one could get more creative than their area code. And apparently the owners of my crossfit gym think that's very original. It actually seems like the kind of name you'd come up with when you couldn't think of a name, and you were all, well, we have to call it something, we can always change it later, and then everyone started calling it your silly fake name and that's what stuck.)

Anyway.

We did a lot of shoulder work today. The instructor was walking us through how to properly stretch our shoulders and he commented to the girl who was clearly a chemist (I say clearly because she had a chemical tattooed on her rib cage. I'm pretty sure this is the sort of thing only a chemist would want permanently etched on their body). The instructor, who's name, I think, was Reggie, said we needed to properly stretch our shoulders. He said he didn't want Ashley, the chemist, to be reaching for something and accidentally knock over a bottle of chemicals and create some bizarre new disease.

"Zombies" said Ashley.

"Zombies," said Reggie, "we do NOT want that. Folks, the way to prevent a zombie invasion is to properly stretch your shoulders."

I think I'm going to fit right in.

Resolution follow-up

While I seriously doubt that anyone is actually keeping tabs on whether or not I'm accomplishing any of the goals I set for myself this year, having a giant chart of them in the office is (I think) helping me keep on task.

I had nearly complete success in reading The Hunger Games trilogy and books 3-5 of the A Song of Ice and Fire series, more commonly called Game of Thrones, which is actually the title of the first book, and not the name of the series (unlike The Hunger Games, which is both the name of the first book and the name of the series). And while I'm being weird, I can't remember if grammatically, I'm supposed to remove the "a" in A Song of Ice and Fire, since I have to use the article, the, with the noun, series. And I don't feel like looking up the answer.

Anyway, I'm part of the way through A Dance with Dragons. The problem is that Clash of Kings is a doozy to get through and took me a really long time to read.

In terms of my exercise/losing weight resolutions, I burnt more than 700 calories in a day 17 times in March and April, and ran at least one mile 26 times. And, I have been managing to lose weight, although I may have undone all of that progress this week, but sometimes life smacks you upside the head and hands  you a 19.5-hour workday. What can you do?

I also managed to watch all of the Dirty Jobs and 30 Rock recordings I had, and am ahead of schedule with about 40% of the DVR space available.

I'm thinking of moving my "run a sub 4-hour marathon" goal to next year, mostly because I haven't found a marathon this year that I want to train for.

Stuff I discuss at work

Or, how yoga leads to world domination

My friend: I am so sore. Yoga works!
Me: I know.
My friend: But I might try the 'gentle' yoga next time
Me: Gentle yoga is after spin on Friday
My friend: Haha. Although I am totally fine with not knowing what I am doing.
Me: There will be no stealth ninjas in gentle yoga. That alone might be worth sticking with power yoga. Of course, you could do both, like me
My friend: Haha! I did enjoy the ninjas. Well, watching others be ninjas.
Me: Yes. I dream of the day I become a ninja. It's a goal.
My friend: Yes, indeed. In the meantime I'll work on trying to touch my toes.
Me: I was supremely unflexible last night. Usually I can touch my toes. When I got to Pilates, my trainer told me my back was all jacked up. That might also explain my un-ninja-ness.
My friend: Haha! I am extremely inflexible. This is why I'm interested in yoga. I am so inflexible I'm not sure how I get around sometimes.
Me: Haha! my sister is totally unflexible, too and she exercises like crazy. Her idea of flexibility is as long as someone can touch her toes, it's all good.
My friend: Same here. It really is something you have to practice. You and Bob [another coworker...names have been changed to protect the innocent] are definitely on your way to ninja-ness!
Me: Usually that someone is the person giving her a pedicure.
My friend: Hahahaha!
Me: I don't touch her toes...she totally has runner's feet.
My friend: Well, one step at a time I guess. 1) touch toes 2) do ninja stuff
Me: That sounds incredibly similar to an outline for world domination!
My friend: Haha! You're right!

Resolution follow-up

I'm either organized or crazy!

So, as you know, I made eight resolutions for 2013. Because I'm a firm believer in the mantra, if it can be measured, it can be managed, and also that if it's scheduled it gets done, I made a giant chart for my resolutions, breaking things down into two-month increments, and then sometimes breaking them down further into monthly or bi-weekly tasks.

For the January/February period, under number 6, read all of the books I've borrowed from friends, I was to read the books on my bedside table (including the books borrowed from Voracious, T), and also finish World Changing. Not only have I not managed to read the books on my bedside table, but I have not touched even one of the four books I've borrowed. I did manage to get through a bunch of magazines that were on the bedside table, and finish World Changing, though, so it's not like I've been doing nothing.

Because I have eight resolutions, and because apparently this is how accountants think, I have to complete two resolutions every quarter to stay on track. I've completed one already, number 1, consolidate my reading lists.

I broke down goal 7, lose weight, into two-month tasks. The January/February components were to burn 600 calories a day (when my sister saw that I had listed simply "600 calories," she was concerned that this was what I planned to eat every day), and to not eat stuff I don't bring to work (we have amazing snack drawers at work). I burned at least 600 calories on 23 days in January and February (note that there were many days where I exercised but simply didn't burn 600 calories), and I didn't eat stuff I didn't bring to work 23 days (also note that I was on vacation for 4 working days in January). (These were not necessarily the same 23 days, although sometimes they were.)

Not actually on the resolution list, although on the giant chart, but because it causes Captain America a lot of stress and otherwise our DVR would be completely full, I broke down watching all of the recording I have into monthly tasks. Combined, for January and February, I was supposed to watch all of my 30 Rock and Dirty Jobs recordings, as well as four movies. I managed the four movies, and a lot of both 30 Rock and Dirty Jobs, but not all of them. Additionally, because, like I said, I like to measure stuff, each month I need to watch enough recordings to have 8.5% of the DVR free (cumulatively getting to 100% by the end of the year...Captain America relaxes at about 70% free, so around September or October he'll be able to chill). The good news is, as of last night, I had 34% free, while I only need to have 17% free by the end of February (so I'm 200% successful on this non-resolution, despite not watching all of the assigned shows).

Finally, while I haven't accomplished any of my financial goals, I have made a spreadsheet (of course I have), detailing how much I have to pay out of each paycheck to meet these goals by the end of the year. The schedule is updated monthly for the number of paychecks remaining and the changes in the balances.

I realize this is already a fairly long and wordy post, and I'm just going to add to this by continuing, but I've also been giving a lot of thought to why accomplishing these things and being neurotically organized about it is so important to me.

I've been watching the new season of the biggest loser, and one thing that's constantly reiterated by the show is that there's a reason the contestants gained all that weight, that food is something they've turned to as a substitute or solution or excuse for something else. The contestants just finished a "face your fears" week, and a lot of the fears are common to everyone...fear of heights, fear of the unknown, fear of failure, fear of sharks, fear of close spaces, and fear of talking (or singing) in front of others.

I think, for me, the fear of failure resonates the most. It's one of those things that's really rather illogical...I mean, if you look at my life, I clearly haven't failed. I have a good husband, a good job, two degrees, a house, a retirement account. I'm not saying that there haven't been mistakes or problems along the way, I'm just saying that really, they didn't lead to failure. And honestly, when I try to think of something that I really failed at, I don't come up with much (except for maybe an occasional cooking experiment or two), but still believing that who you are is enough is really, really hard.

I think I also have a concern that I'll look back on my life and discover that I haven't really done what I've wanted to do, that I haven't really found meaning in my life, because I've been too busy doing a whole bunch of other stuff. I think making and scheduling resolutions helps keep me on track for what I want, whether is silly or fun or practical or a Big Important Accomplishment. And even if I don't accomplish everything on the list, I can still look back and see everything I have accomplished, which is pretty awesome, too.

Do we all just live in a perpetual state of anguish?

This isn't Cicero.

Sometimes I do what I want to do. The rest of the time, I do what I have to. --the character Cicero in the movie Gladiator.

I was on the phone with Captain America the other night, complaining about how busy I am when it occurred to me that it's all my own fault that I'm busy. The problem, in a nutshell, is that there are so many things I'd like to be doing, or doing a lot more of. 

For instance, I love to read. Probably more than I like to do anything else. And I read a lot, but not nearly as much as I'd like to. I feel like I am so far behind on what I want to be reading that it's actually stressful trying to figure out when I could fit more of it in. But I also feel like I'm so close to getting to a point where I could read as much as I want...like if I could just get caught up, I could stay caught up. 

I feel the same way about exercising. When I'm unemployed, a trip to the gym can take me four hours, door-to-door. That allows me 15 minutes of driving each way, an hour of ellipticalling, 40 minutes of running, 40 minutes of lifting weights, 40 minutes of stretching and the like, 20 minutes in the sauna, and 10 minutes to deal with things like peeing and filling up my water bottle and changing my shoes to use said sauna (don't get me started on how stupid I think that rule is). I get that four hours is a lot of time at the gym, and obviously this would be the long day (the short workout is the alternative days when I don't lift). In real life, I do get to spend about two hours a day at the gym, but then I have days where there is no way I can fit in 30 minutes of cardio. Which, for me, is a stupid amount of time. I have to spend the same amount of time wrangling myself into my sports bra, and the same amount of time stretching, for a whole lot less exercise. I realize this sounds like an excuse, but somehow 30 minutes is just where I say, I have better things to do with my time. If I know I can get in 45 minutes, though, it's worth it. 

So, I'm perpetually feeling frustrated because there are SO MANY THINGS I WANT TO DO, and instead, I have to spend my time at work, or even worse, commuting to and from work. (I am aware that all of my problems are first world problems. As I was discussing with a friend the other day, isn't that sort of the goal? I mean, how awesome would it be if everyone's problems were first world problems?) Don't get me wrong, there is absolutely nothing wrong with my job. The pay is good, the company is good, the people are nice, the hours are even reasonable. It's just not nearly as enjoyable as reading or exercising.

What I was wondering aloud to Captain America the other night, though, is whether or not everyone else lives in this same perpetual state of anguish that I'm in that I'm not doing what I want with my life, or if everyone else has managed to grow up and accept it and I'm still the teenager raging against the world. 

Good Lord, I hope not. 

Why I need to get more sleep

So my sister moved out Tuesday and Captain America left yesterday to go to Oregon. So I have the house to myself. Except this isn't nearly as much fun as it sounds because it's close week at work so I've been working crazy hours, and I've been trying to be consistent about going to the gym because I don't want to blow my whole marathon training program by not running for a week the week before the marathon. I mean, what if I forget how? Or what if my butt gets even more wimpy and pathetic?

Anyway, so between work and the gym and various other chores, I didn't get to bed last night until 2am this morning. Which is sub-optimal in general, but definitely a few days before a marathon. While I was busy not sleeping, I started to think about that book I just read, Hour Game, in which the serial killer mimicked other serial killers, and I thought about how he observed that no one closes their blinds well enough. Which Captain America complains about as well (actually, he complains about me wandering around in various states of undress, while the blinds are in various states of openness...and no, this is not sexy. This is usually me about to get into the shower post-gym only to remember there's a container of yogurt in my bag that should probably be refrigerated and that while I'm walking around I may as well make a to-do list and pack lunch. Meanwhile, I'm probably wearing pants, a heart rate monitor, and no shirt. And I'm probably still sweating. So I feel like anyone who's busy peering at me through my windows while I'm in this state gets what they deserve. Except when Captain America is out of town. Then, I feel like I should make sure all of the blinds are in proper working order).

And then I thought about how I had left the front door open when I went to put the garbage can away, and that's when the serial killer probably walked into the house. He probably quickly hid somewhere, like the shower, taking the 50/50 odds that I'd either find him when I went to shower and he'd kill me then, or he'd just kill me according to his regularly scheduled killing plan. I thought, maybe I should sleep with the gun next to the bed, when I remembered that I can't actually get it out of the holster. And that Captain America keeps it locked when we're out of town. So then I thought I'd just get a big knife from the kitchen and sleep with that next to the bed, except I figured that would really just help the serial killer along, as he would have his wits about him, being awake and all, while I'd be all groggy and, well, dead. And then I thought my best bet would be to not panic and use up all of the oxygen in my lungs while I was being strangled. If I acted quickly and calmly, I could probably inflict enough damage on my serial killer to leave behind some DNA evidence, and the cops would at least be able to catch him with that. Assuming he had committed other crimes and thus already had a DNA record (that's how those things work, right?). He probably has already committed other crimes. I mean, it wouldn't make sense for the serial killer to pick me as his first victim, mostly because I'm in reasonably good shape and we keep a gun in the house. Unless I was specifically being targeted. Then all bets were off.

At this point, I decided I had just better go the fuck to sleep. And so I did. For four and a half hours. So needless to say, my mental capacities were not operating on all cylinders today. And I almost told the guy training me that I was not a recovering heroin addict.

Because he was eating chips. And we have magical food drawers at work. That somehow sprout snacks during close. And I told him that if he was eating chips, I'd feel like that meant I should be eating ships, and he told me, oh, YOU can have chips, in that sort of voice that suggests a double entendre, but I couldn't think of one, so I figured he was just as tired as I was, because he has a baby at home. So I got some Cheetos out of the magic drawer (I mean, maybe chip-eating was part of the training, and I didn't want to miss part of the training). I picked Cheetos partly because there wasn't much of a selection left, and partially because I figured he wouldn't want me getting yellow #7 on his keyboard, so he would just let me observe rather than think, which I was pretty sure I hadn't been doing all day anyway.

And, in case he argued with this logic, I was prepared to point out to him that if he let me use his keyboard, he should be prepared to explain to his wife why his fingers looked like they had been pollinating plants all day and not accounting. (Because you can't get yellow #7 off. No matter what you do. Too bad I didn't have any when the serial killer was in my house last night...the cops would have had no problem catching him.) Anyway, I imagined his wife being both pleased that her husband was concerned about the plight of the bees (you did know that the bees are suffering, right?), but concerned that the pay scale wasn't as high as accounting.

I figured after the Cheetos and the yellow #7, the least I could do was chew a piece of gum. And I even offered him one, too, 'cause I'm nice like that. And then I thought about telling him that when I'm stressed, like in grad school, I'd chew a piece of gum until it was dead, spit it out, and immediately start chewing another one. Like a chain-smoker trying to quit. Or a recovering heroin addict. But I caught myself and realized that that probably wasn't a thought I should say out loud at work. Instead I decided to share it with all of you.

And that's why I need to get more sleep. Although it doesn't look like that's about to happen quite soon enough.

So many different things, I don't know where to begin

I have such an unbelievable amount of stuff to say today that I've actually begun five different posts.

First of all, somehow the rest of my life is so much more interesting than what I do at work. I'm actually quite glad of that because I'm an accountant. For the most part, I don't mind being an accountant. The pay is good, I know what I'm doing, I work in a nice climate-controlled office; all-in-all, I can't really complain. Except that today there was a brown grasshopper dying in the corner of my cube. I'm pretty sure it was a grasshopper, although I always thought they were green, but it had that body type. I didn't want to touch it in case it was more alive than I thought and jumped down my shirt or something. I didn't think that kind of hysterics was appropriate on my second week at work.

Anyway, this post is not supposed to be about grasshoppers. It's supposed to be about how much more interesting my life is outside of the office. However, I do have one other office related story. While I usually attempt to keep other people's internet profiles low, I really don't know how to tell this story without revealing this person. So I work with a woman who's first name starts with an S and who's last name is Slover, which means that her login is sslover. Like a boat. When I saw her type that in, I almost told her that's what she HAD to name her yacht. But I caught myself before saying anything because I wasn't convinced that she'd appreciate that kind of thing. I mean, if that were my name, I'd tell everyone to call me S.S. Lover, but that's just me.

So back to my interesting life.

As you may or may not recall, I've been training to run a marathon. I've developed my marathon training program partially from a program I used years ago and partially from trial and error. However, just for fun, my running partner and I like to mix things up a little bit. Last weekend, we added in some cetaceanus fun. (How do you like that adjectification?)

Last weekend, Running Buddy (whom I shall now refer to by her Jersey Shore name, Mo-Scream, which, further paranthetically, is a tool she told me about because for father's day she renamed her dad G-Train. How cool is that!?!?). Anyway, Mo-Scream and I were on our final long run before we begin our taper. We were doing 22 miles and had started running at around 5:45 am because it was supposed to be balls-ass-hot out by about 9am. This run was intentionally designed to be suckier, albeit shorter, than the actual marathon.

On our return trip, we stopped at a bathroom in a park to refill our water bottles. I was reading our stats off on my watch: we'd been running for 3 hours and 22 minutes, we'd traveled 16.9 miles, and we had burnt 1543 calories. At this declaration, a fellow park-attending dude whipped his head around and proclaimed, "You just burned 15-hundred calories?" I'm still shocked that he didn't get whip-lash from his sudden interest in our athletic prowess.

Yes, I responded, we bench-pressed a whale.

If you Google an image of that, you get 152,000 image results, and yet, no one took a picture of ME doing it!

Park-dude looked both astonished and baffled, but I had another 5.1 miles to run, so I couldn't really hang out explaining all of the details involved in accomplishing such a feat, but it looks something like this:

Oh, adulthood, how you vex me sometimes!

So I'm trying really hard to be a mature, responsible grown-up. It's not easy, people.

I started a new job. At a pretty awesome company. The catch is, they want me to change the dates I'm in Portland for the marathon. I was originally scheduled to be in Portland from Wednesday-Monday, but they want me in the office on Wednesday-Friday. For some meeting. And that's really all I know about that. I have a meeting with two of my bosses on Friday to sort that one out.

As you may recall, I became a really bitter person at my last job (okay, I've actually had three jobs since my last job, but they were short-term consulting affairs. Except one. Which was a mistake, but not because of anything I did...the position was presented as one thing and ended up being another. Anyway.). One of the things that really bothered me is that we were NEVER ALLOWED TO TAKE VACATION. There was always something going on at work that was more important than anything anyone on my team could possibly have going on in our personal lives. It really sucked. Big, hairy monkey balls. Yes, that much.

So, this job asked, before I started, if I could move my trip. I explained that I could change my flights, but that I couldn't move a marathon. So yes, I agreed to all of this before I started. Because it's a good company. A really good company. And I didn't want something like a few days in a city I've lived and visit at least once a year in to be a reason I couldn't get a job with a good company. But I'm still not very happy about it.


But because of my experience at my old company, I have this niggling feeling that I'll never be able to take a vacation when I want to. Which is totally not fair because it's not like the two companies have anything to do with each other or anything. I'm just projecting. At least those years of therapy have been put to good use--I can now identify my emotional behavior. Go me!


I'm trying to be accepting of my feelings that I'm not happy about moving my flight, while at the same time, accepting that I've also agreed to this, and that I shouldn't let it make me bitter. (I'm trying not to make "good" the opposite of "perfect"--It's still a good company to work for, and I'll still have a good time in Portland, it would just be perfect if I could have my proverbial cake and eat it, too, but wouldn't we all like that?)

And if you write good enough times, it starts to seem like a funny word...I mean why isn't is said with the oo-ee sound like gooey?

Being busy and related ramblings

I'll confess: I read this article on busyness a while ago and don't really feel like re-reading it. http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/30/the-busy-trap/?smid=fb-share It basically talks about how Americans are all saying how busy they are. And I find myself telling people how busy I am, but when asked to articulate what I'm busy doing, I just find myself annoyed. Here's what my typical day looks like:
6:30am-8:00am--breakfast, read the paper, get ready for work
8:00am-8:45am--drive to work (stop and get coffee if I'm super sleepy)
8:45am-6:00pm--work (I'll leave earlier if I have a random appointment, which happens on a fairly regular basis...in fact, probably too regularly to be called random)
6:00pm-6:45pm--drive to the gym or other random appointment (If my appointment is for 6:30, in, say, Hillcrest, then I actually leave work at 4:30.)
6:45pm-8:30pm--gym time, including changing
8:30pm-8:45pm--drive home from the gym (sometimes I have to stop at the library or the grocery store, or something so this takes longer)
8:45pm-10:00pm--make something to eat, maybe watch a little recorded TV, take a shower, do laundry, pay bills, balance my checkbook, do the dishes, etc.
10:00pm-11:00PM--pack all of my bags for the next day, say hello to Captain America, who's just come home from work, brush my teeth, maybe read in bed a little if there's time, and then it's bedtime.

I don't know if this looks like a lot or not because most of the people I know are also busy. Although, I do have a friend who will say things to me like, I think I might go to the beach this weekend. I don't remember the last time I had enough free time to think I might do something. On the other hand, I really am into scheduling stuff, so I'd probably just schedule a trip to the beach if I wanted to go (assuming I had the time).

I would like to have a less busy life, I really would. I dream of finding a cute little neighborhood coffee shop, curling up with a really good chai, and getting lost in a book. Then, I'd walk home, maybe pick up something fresh at the grocery store for dinner. I'd prepare the dinner, and afterwords, Captain America and I would leisurely do the dishes and maybe have a drink on our patio.

But I also dream of paying off my student loans, traveling to Antarctica, and buying a hot tub.  All of this means I have to have a job (not to mention all of our normal bills and expenses require me to work). Which gets me to a maybe unrelated task--Captain America and I need to sit down and review our budget.

But it seems I also need to review how I budget my time.

Gretchen Rubin, over at the Happiness Project, sometimes blogs about busyness. I'm not sure that's exactly how she puts it, but she does discuss it. She's obviously a busy person: she's a mother of two, a wife, an author, a blogger, a columnist, and she's actively trying to be happier, which, to even think about while running a household and holding down a career is a lot to manage! What I like about Gretchen is that her approach to happiness is very, here's what I've tried, here's what worked for me, here's what didn't work for me, and here's what I'm trying next. She never says to be happy you have to do x, y, or z. However, she's a big advocate for eliminating falseness from her life. She's not into being busy for the sake of being busy. She confesses she doesn't like to dress up and go out. She's not a hermit by any means. In fact, she's a member of several book clubs, as an example. But I suspect she'd leave these book clubs when they stopped being useful to her. She also doesn't like false choices, which are not really relevant here, but important to understand anyway. False choices are when you think you have to pick one thing or another, but you don't really. For example, I can make a lot of money OR I can have a job I enjoy. You, at least in theory, can have both, you just have to figure out how.

Anyway, back to being busy. I'm still trying to figure out how to free up more of my time. My commute takes  up a lot of time right now. I have found that when I come in a little earlier and leave a little later, my commute is no big deal. As I'm currently paid by the hour, this is no big deal for me, either, but I could always take a longer lunch. The down side of this is that I'll have to figure out a way to have fewer commitments in the evening.

I had to go to the dentist yesterday and have a root canal done. I apparently grind my teeth despite being a devoted bite-guard user. So I think I'm going to try some mediation. I'm serious. I'd been thinking about this anyway, because I took a class in it a while ago, and it was nice. And mediators sleep better. And I'm currently seeing an acupuncturist and a massage therapist, which takes up both time and money. I'm hoping to determine if I can get essentially the same results from meditation and more stretching. If not, I can always go back to the acupuncturist and massage therapist, right?

Also, despite what Captain America might say, I've stopped recording so many shows that just aren't worth my time. Which should free up time in the evening for stretching and meditation.

The big hurdle to tackle is eating. Everything about eating is time-consuming, especially if you want to eat well. One thing we've started doing in my house is buying those pre-made fruit salads. I'm much more likely to eat fruit as a snack if I don't have to do anything with it. I've got to also remember to get carrot sticks and cashews. I'm pretty good about eating yogurt, and that's a good source of protein and carbs. What I'm still looking for is that satisfying, satiating sweet-tooth item, but one that won't ruin my diet. (If I could lose a little weight and find a way to keep it off, I wouldn't have to spend so much time at the gym.)

And this is why I never get anything done--I'm busy writing blog posts about how busy I am!

Catching happiness

“The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.”
--Benjamin Franklin

I just watched a documentary called Happy that was given to me by my Pilates instructor, and while the movie didn't really introduce anything new to me, it was still interesting. My Pilates instructor and I discuss happiness a lot. We're both trying to figure it out. And for the record, both of us are actually happy people. We're trying to figure out who we are, we're trying to eliminate bad habits and cultivate good ones, and we're trying to figure out how to fit in everything we'd like to do and find important to do with going to work. Both of us like our jobs, but they take up so much time that everything else has to be crammed in.

One phrase that the movie introduced to me was the hedonistic treadmill, which is basically that cycle we're all on where we want something new, and when we get it, we lose interest in it and then we want something else new. I don't consider my friends or myself to be particularly materialistic or egocentric, but I know we all do this. I recently attended a rehearsal dinner and wedding where everyone had separate outfits for each event. This isn't particularly unusual, but when you think about it, I have two distinct outfits for special events that don't get worn on a regular basis, don't qualify for work attire, and that require special accessories to be complete. I mean, really what have I got to complain about?

The movie talks about extrinsic happiness and intrinsic happiness. Extrinsic happiness is like what I talked about above--it's based on money, self-image, and status. The movie doesn't say this is bad, it just says that this is at odds with intrinsic happiness, which is based on friends and family, feeling good, and feeling a connections with the world. Just like yin and yang, you probably need both, but I'm having a very hard time figuring out how to balance the two.

I had something else I wanted to talk about here and I was going to jot it down before I lost it and then I lost it before I could jot it down so there you are. You may or may not get to learn about it at some point in the future, if I can remember whatever it was.

Ah yes, on a maybe-only-related-in-my-mind sort of way, I've read that kids can really only handle three things. The article was in reference to after school activities and basically said that you have to count school as one thing. So you can sign your kid up for soccer and scouts, but if you try to add in piano, that's where the meltdown will occur.

I have a theory that the same is basically true for adults. I can go to work, exercise, and read, but when I add in taking a class, for example, everything else suffers a little. Obviously this sort of counting eliminates things that have to get done--laundry is not a thing. Grocery shopping is not a thing. You're an adult. You do laundry, and grocery shop, and pay the bills, and a million other things that can't be a thing.

I wish I was good at clip art or something, because I really think a picture would help me explain this. So back to my Pilates instructor and me. Both of us are struggling to lose some weight. Neither of us are fat. We're just not fitting into our respective pants, and we're not happy about it. My Pilates instructor concedes that she can't claim ignorance. She knows she eats a little too much. But, as she points out, it's no fun to go out with your friends and watch them eat burgers while you have to have your grapes or whatever. And she doesn't want to sacrifice her social life.

Figuring out how to be thin is in the extrinsic camp, while having a good social life is in the intrinsic camp. What's a girl to do? The thing is, neither of us feel like we look as healthy and fit as we actually are, which is just frustrating. And what's doubly frustrating is that we both are making healthy changes but are no closer to closing the top button on our pants. Ugh!

So yesterday, I went to the gym for about 3 hours. (This is a luxury for me--I don't normally get to go to the gym for 3 hours.) However, that means that I was more tired AND got less work done, so there's that. I know I need to get more sleep in general, but I can't figure out how to do that without doing less of something else.

I feel like I've talked about how I'm training to run a marathon about a million times already, and you all know I love to read. Typically, I actually enjoy working. Okay, the getting up and getting dressed thing maybe can be annoying sometimes, but in general, I like working. Except lately. I'm just not that into it. I just saw a quote (probably on Facebook) that caught my eye. It basically said, we can't wait to do something until we're inspired to do it because very few people are truly inspired and they're already really busy.

The obvious follow up, is so quit complaining and just go and do it. However, while I wouldn't normally say I'm inspired to work--my job is not particularly inspirational, I'm also generally not uninspired to work. And that's a big difference to me. So it has me thinking about where I am in my life and what I want to be and where I'm going and where I'd like to be and what I have to do to get there. As I'm sure you realize, all of this thinking has gotten me exactly zero answers. What I'd like to do is to take six months or so and just sort of figure things out, and then come back and have all of the options I currently have now still available, if I want to pursue them.

But the reality is that we've all got to figure things out while we're doing a bunch of other things. So I have no advise to offer other than good luck!

Analyzing the Data

It should come to no surprise to you that I love data.

I just received a heart rate monitor/GPS watch for my birthday that is AWESOME!

I can track how far I've run, what my fastest mile is, what my average heart rate is, how many calories I've burned, and probably other stuff I don't know about yet!

Today, for the first time, I wore my heart rate monitor while doing my Insanity workout. I burned 167 calories in 37 minutes. This is very sad, but I'm going to give Insanity the benefit of the doubt and guess that my caloric burn is so low because it was a recovery workout. However, when I log this info into Sparkpeople, it predicts that I've burnt (vt?) 269 calories! I realize there are a vast array of differences between my heart rate monitor and the algorithm in the website, but this is a difference of 102 calories (or, in other words, Sparkpeople thinks I burned 61% more calories than I really did). Ugh.

When I'm in Oregon in July, I'm going to a clinic that a friend goes to to have a VO2 test done to determine my optimal fat-calorie burning zone. In the mean time, I've identified the following four areas of my diet that need work:

1. Consume fewer beverages that have calories. As much as I hate this, I'm going to have to cut out juice and just eat real fruit. I've decided that on days that I've run more than 10 miles, I'm allowed a glass of orange juice (because it just tastes so good!) and a bottle of vitamin water (because it really seems to help with recovery). The jury's still out on whether or not hot chocolate counts as a beverage with calories. I know I drink it, but milk is actually digested as a solid. I am also allowing myself one cup of tea a day because when I tried to give up tea, it made me really sad. The conundrum is, I have open bottles of both alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages in my refrigerator. Should I consume these and just not replace them, or should I toss them to more quickly align with my diet? I hate wasting food, but I also want to lose weight. (I would like to point out right here that I know I'm not fat. I'm just outside the weight limit of my wardrobe and I'd like that to change.)
2. Consume more fiber. Hopefully a lot of this will be managed by cutting out juice and eating real fruit. I've also discovered that I really like raw veggies dipped in ranch (although ranch isn't exactly diet-friendly). I'm going to see if I can find a DIY recipe for ranch that uses Greek yogurt or something. I still don't really like to eat salads, but there's a soup/sandwich/salad place right across the street. Is it worth the money every day to buy a salad? (One of the big problems with salads for me is that it takes so freakin' long to make a good one, and it's impossible to use up all of the ingredients at the same time, so you nearly always have something random in your fridge that's just about to go bad.) Also, when I lived with The Vegetarian (now The Vegan), she'd cook up a whole pot of veggies, and we'd eat them all week. I should get on that.
3. Burn more calories. I'm running a marathon in October, and I've yet to actually get serious about my training. Somehow, I'm failing to make a consistent exercising schedule. I have a schedule, and I keep updating it as I learn what is not working, but I have yet to discover what will work. 
4. Eat more protein. This is questionable. According to Sparkpeople, I only consume enough protein about half of the time. (This is actually the pro argument for allowing hot chocolate.) How much protein a person needs is a frequently debated health topic. Americans tend to overindulge in protein because we're such big meat-eaters. I am, in fact, the worst vegetarian in the world, but I don't actually eat a lot of meat (this is probably more due to the fact that Captain America gets home around 10pm and cooking dinner for one person is just a waste of time). I do drink milk, eat yogurt and cheese, eat mushrooms and avocados, and eat eggs. I'm going to try to add one hard boiled egg a day to my diet and see what happens. I know that when I don't eat enough protein, I don't have as much energy, but I have yet to figure out what "enough" actually is. I guess I'm going to need more data points!