hot body in motion

It's been at least eight days since I've been to the gym, so I force myself to put on stretchy pants and my Nikes. I get in my car and drive towards the gym, which is a bit like driving towards your own death. The entire time I'm behind the wheel, I am simultaneously shoving gummy fish into my mouth. I've got a whole bag of them sitting in the passenger seat, and they are hard to ignore. If you want me to explain to you why I've got a pound of Swedish fish in my front seat, then I'd also have to explain why I've got sidewalk chalk under my seat, masks in the glove box, and scotch tape laying on the backseat. So I'm not going to explain any of it.

Ten minutes and about 27 gummy fish later, I'm at the gym. You might say to yourself "Why don't you just skip the candy and not go to the gym?" To you I say, Why make your bed if you are just going to sleep in it that night? Why wash your hair if you're going to the beach? Why lock your front door if you have to go out it the next morning? We do these things because they make us feel better about ourselves.

Group Power is first, so I get some plates and a bench. But this isn't a restaurant. By plates, I don't mean the china, but weights. And by bench, I don't mean the kind you sit in at a park while you admire the sun shining or read the newspaper with a latte in your hand.

 I know I'm going to be feeling weak, so I only put 45 pounds* on my bar to start. This isn't the Marines. No need to try too hard. I do fine during the warm up, but then it's time for legs. The instructor advises us to double our weight, but I always take this as a bad suggestion that actually means 1.5 times your regular weight. I am a wuss and I'm not afraid to admit it. The music starts up and I heave the bar over the back of my head so that it can rest on my shoulders. Then it's time for squats and lunges.

I think squats were invented for people who have flat butts to get bigger butts, but this is the least of my worries. I've got enough booty to make a pirate jealous. And lunges? As far as I can tell, they just make your thighs bulge with muscle, which is a problem I already have. I've mentioned this in previous posts, but I have thighs like a kangaroo. Granted, I can't hop as high or balance on my tail, but these thighs o'mine are a workhorse.

For some reason, when the track is finished, I am out of breath and mostly feel like collapsing on the ground. This is what happens when you don't exercise for a week. But my least favorite track is the bicep track. Bicep work is always very difficult for me, because I have weak wrists. I feel like my wrists are doing all the work, not my arm muscles. Because of this, I have very fit wrists. They are super tiny, which makes it impossible to find bracelets that don't slip off. Unless they are Hello Kitty bracelets, because children's jewelry usually works.

Fifty-five minutes later, Group Power is over, but do I go home and faint on the couch? No. I stay for kickboxing, because it's my favorite class. Plus, you know, I'm a bad ass. Whenever I am in Group Kick, I pretend like I am Alex training in the Division compound, or Sydney Bristow training at The Farm, or maybe even I'm a Ninja Turtle practicing in the sewer.

I really enjoy the moves for the most part, but there is one particular move that I find uncomfortable: scissors. All you do is criss cross your legs back and forth, but I've found that all this jumping causes my brain to hurt. Like, my brain isn't strapped tightly enough into my head and it just kind of shakes around in there while I'm jumping around, and it gives me a headache. I once had a stuffed kitten with a similar problem. It had a special ball in it's head to make it sound like it was purring when you pet it, but after having the stuffed animal for a few years and dragging it all over the place, I think the ball kind of loosened up, because GreyFeather started to sound more like a baby rattle than a purring cat. But I digress.

I throw punches and kicks and do jumps that would clear a stack of encyclopedias,** but thank the Lord when we are two tracks away from finishing. We've just got to do our ab track and the stretching track.

 "Does Tracy usually make you do a victory lap?" Our substitute instructor asks before we get our mats.

"Is that what you call it?" I think. Because I call it the Lap of Torture. But I suck it up and jog around the gym twice, which is much like jogging around the entire city perimeter, except that you probably won't get mugged, but there's no 7-Eleven to stop at and get a Slurpee either.

After the dreaded lap, I lay down on the undoubtedly germ-drenched mat to torture my abdominals into submission. It's not much fun, but it's better than doing scissors or bicep curls. I actually have a pretty good set of abs, but you wouldn't know it by my ability to do a full sit-up. You might be able to catch a glimpse of my muscles when I do laundry though. When my washing machine breaks down, I just use the washboard called my stomach to scrub those clothes clean.

*So I exaggerated a bit. I only put 15 pounds on my bar to start.
**a stack of two. Let's not get crazy.

Things that cause me unnecessary anxiety

Here is a list of things I put off because I just don't want to confront them. This is due to my weird phobia of talking to certain people, even if they are nice people and have nothing mean to say. I am pretty sure I have a form of Aspergers that gives me an irrational uncomfortableness towards certain everyday situations. Unlike that new girl on Glee, I can't just say whatever the heck I want and follow it with "Sorry, I have Aspergers." Through introspective journaling and long talks with my rabbit, Roo, I am trying to pinpoint what part of my childhood this problem stems from.

I dislike:

• responding to certain e-mails
• Calling Comcast to get my bill lowered
• making medical appointments
• calling people on the phone for the first time that I have never talked to on the phone. I could talk to a person 8 times face to face, but when it comes time for me to call them, I clam up. This is why I prefer e-mail. I don't know what my problem is. Introversion, maybe.
• wheeling my garbage can to the end of the driveway. Okay okay, so I'm not filled with anxiety when I do it, I just dislike it. Not because it's difficult, but because I seem to always forget on Sunday nights and then remember at 3am, so I have to hop out of bed, put on shoes, and drag it down the lane in the dead of night. And the sound of wheels grinding against the pavement probably wakes my neighbors and causes them to hate me, but what do I care? They park on my property like it's a Walmart lot open to RVs.

Do you have any irrational anxiety problems? Have you discovered what part of your traumatizing middle school experience this has resulted from?

The Last September

I think this may be the last September. I pray to God that it will be. I had hope that things would take a turn for the better, but instead we've turned a sharp corner and rammed straight into a pile of garbage cans. I'm not sure how much longer my voice will hold out. I was on the elliptical at the gym (first time in about 5 weeks), thinking that maybe this is the last September I will need to prepare for. That my last first day of school may have passed for good. That this could be it.

If you have a child who goes to school, then I hope you pray for their teacher. They need it more than anything. God bless teachers, they are abused. I did the math and I get paid $0.81 to teach each child per hour. If I had a child, I think I would be willing to spend much more than that. I mean, heavens, would you hire a tutor for your child who thought 81 freaking cents was fair? I would pay more and I would request that their class size was no larger than 15. Teachers can't save everyone, we just can't.

I did some more math and did a very low-ball estimate that last year I spent an extra 245 hours at school. Minimum. That is the equivalent to 30 work days. Would you want to work for 30 days for free? I mean, lord, try paying your rent with that kind of wage. 

I'm not trying to make myself out to be a martyr. I'm just telling you that I don't think I can last much longer. I keep thinking back to a book I read about time and finances, and how you need to tell yourself "I am not on sale." Because I swear, everyone seems to think teachers are on sale. That we should go for a bargain. And we do. You are getting a damned good deal.

But enough of that. Let me tell you about how recently I have been consuming a lot of Dove chocolate, because 1) the chocolate is divine, and 2) the wrappers have little messages that I sort of take as cryptic letters from God or whatever. I kept this one that said "What would you do if you could not fail?" Because what would I do? My word, I have a list. It's the list that excites me to think about, the list that makes me bubble with joy to think about.

And I think to myself, what would I give to get out? What would I do to rescue myself from this? I think about how much time I have wasted not doing what I love, and of how much time I have spent trying to do something that I thought I would love. And I think of how I have failed.

I am not usually one to give up. But there comes a point when you need to realize it's just not worth it. This September is it.

Chinese water torture

The amount of torture I put myself through is ridiculous. I had 26 writing samples to grade. My kids had written fairy tales, each about 4.5 pages long, double spaced. I had to grade them all for voice, ideas and content, organization, conventions, word choice, and sentence fluency. My students turned them in the last day of school, before break. I should have gotten them graded by December 22nd. Ha! I just finished them today. It was agonizing. And now to torture myself further, I am typing up all their stories, because I said I would. We are making a class book. Why do I come up with these great ideas?