It's 8:00 PM Saturday night. Mary is at work, Cole and Miles are on a ski trip with their father and his new girlfriend, and my parents, married 36 years, skipped out the door two hours ago with a bottle of wine and a plate of chocolate covered strawberries, enjoying this fine Valentine weekend like a couple of red-cheeked newlyweds. The house is empty and still.
Today marks two weeks into this project. That's fourteen days of protein shakes, fifty-six tides of sweat pants, and a fortnight of online emotional dictation (in daylight, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee...). If it's true that it takes the human body about thirty days to establish a habit, then by tomorrow's workout I'll have reached the halfway point. Hopefully, the power of routine will ease the pressure of due-diligence, as the difficulty in establishing a new habit is that in the process you must first break the old ones. To become an active go-getter, I must first stop being a lazy shit.
An experience from today to illustrate this point:
I've been in the food service industry since high school: serving, busing, hosting, food expediting, bar backing, bar tending, cocktailing and even managing. Aside from actually preparing the food, I've occupied and excelled at just about every position a restaurant has to offer. So, when when Gary the cater waiter decided to criticize how I stack my busing trays I instinctively shot up my eyebrows and looked down my nose.
Under Gary's school of thought, glasses on a busing tray should be given about an inch of wiggle room on all sides. Gary believes that if glasses touch, they will knock each other over and, as such, should be kept at a safe distance. In this way, should one glass fall on the journey from table to dishwasher, the other's would be left unharmed. The notion that a falling glass might knock down other glasses like a tray full of loud, sharp, crashing dominoes was not something Gary cared to think about.
I feel Gary's tray-stacking philosophy may subliminally reflect the way he interacts with people.
The truth is, in tray-stacking (as in life) wiggle room lets things wobble and wobbling things tend to topple. A la bundles of sticks, herds of herbivores, and the U.S. of fuckin' A., when things stand united they are much more difficult to knock down. Unfortunately, Gary's belief system was also structured sans wiggle room.
Difference became disagreement, disagreement became dispute, dispute blew up into a full fledged scene. It wasn't long before my seniority status, experience level and moral compass were all called into question. After about twenty minutes of spitting and spatting, Gary's failing arguments (as shaky and as unstable as his tray) finally culminated with a resounding, "This is the way we do things here, man." I couldn't help but be baffled. There I was with facts and physics; logical evidence that proved Gary was practicing a poor habit and yet he refused to yield. Gary got angry. Gary got nasty. Gary abandoned all professionalism, called me a 'bitch' and a 'bastard' within the span of a sentence and made things really awkward. In five more minutes, I estimate Gary would've been ready to throw down.
I was confused. I hadn't yelled. I hadn't call anybody names. Was Gary really taking dirty dishes this personally? Did Gary come from a long line of tray carriers and dishwasher marriers whose proud traditions were being affronted by my new-fangled, 21st-century ideas? Possible, but not probable, though the principle is likely the same. This wasn't about trays; this was about much more than trays. This was about pride and Gary was seething with it.
Gary has been busing trays a in his own particular way since as long a he can remember and his way has served him as faithfully as a 1950's, white-picket housewife (Gary had never once dropped a tray). To even consider changing now would be like walking out on his sweet, docile, sexually-repressed marriage for that younger, free-spirited, scantily-clad divorcee who just moved in up the street. It seems Gary is more loyal than that and I guess I respect him for it.
As Gary so stubbornly demonstrated, it sucks to admit when you're wrong. It sucks even harder to admit that you've been wrong over and over again for an extended period of time, perfectly committed to something perfectly inferior. There's some level of shame, disappointment, and regret that comes with change and, I suppose, this is why people are so averse to it. As is the case with a misguided habit, it often seems better to suffer silently with the tried and true than dare to throw caution to the wind and brave the unknown. Or maybe the human animal is just a jackass willing to stubbornly deny reason until disaster forces their hand. Try as I might to illustrate a bold new way to stack his tray, Gary's gonna have to break a few glasses before he finds some wiggle room of his own. In the meantime, nobody likes being told the ideas they subsist on are weak.
...Damn this house is quiet.
Day 14. I feel good.
Thanks for reading.
See you tomorrow.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Friday, February 11, 2011
The Better and the Gooder
Tempers run in my family. Since the dawning of our clan, tantrums have often reached historical proportions, spanning oceans, continents and generations, pissing off no one more than we piss off ourselves. Throw enough of us together in the same room, add a few drinks, and my family gives the term 'nuclear family' a whole new definition.
My father fuse's is by far the shortest. Leaving lights on, taking long showers, being indecisive in front of the refrigerator, my dad is as temperamental as a cigarette in a gasoline fight. He's been this way for at least 40 years and these decades of pissy practice have left his face is a little redder, his eyes a little bulgier, and his voice at a constant volume of BOOMING. Growing up as one of his six children, it was so easy to set my father off that we made a game of it to avoid the emotional trauma. We'd invite people over, bait Pops into a touchy situation, whisper in our friend's ears, "Watch this," and proceeded to jump on the couch, leave a dirty dish in the sink, turn on too many lights, etc, and watch Old Faithful erupt right on cue. This is a time honored tradition and still widely practiced today.
I'd like to make it very clear that I love my father. He's a lobbyist now but was once a decorated legislator in the state house of representatives by the time he was thirty. Given time, his talent and ambition could have very well propelled him to politics on a national level and possibly even beyond. However, the paycheck of a public servant proves cruelly insufficient when you have six kids to feed and support through their own ambitions, so he chose stability and abandoned his unpredictable climb up the political ladder. My father is an incredibly caring, moral, and generous man who has sacrificed no less than biggest dreams of his life all for the sake of his family. Unfortunately, this does not excuse his temper.
While I've come to appreciate my father with age (though I still struggle daily), as an adolescent I no less than hated this man. He was impatient, relentless, loud, hurtful, and stubborn. In the most heated arguments, things easily got physical but we learned these limits very quickly. Our personal relationship was so volatile (there's that word again) that I developed a habit of locking doors, yelling, and running away from home at least three times a week for 30-45 minutes or as long as it took for my mother to come to collect me (my poor mother, this usually happen right before dinner. She'd slave over a hot stove for hours then, right before we eat, this crap happens). All the while, in typical teenage style, I vowed to never turn out like explosive old pops, promising I'd grow up to be his antithesis. for my kids I'd be the cool dad, the laid back dad, the unintrusive, understanding dad I never had. Better was the word. I'm gonna be better than him.
How naive I was.
It's cruel how emotions blind us from seeing ourselves. As soon I was old enough to be upset by my father's temper, the very second I decided that I would be different, I STORMED OUT OF THE HOUSE IN A FLAMING RAGE. Man, kids are stupid. Did I not realize I was doing the exact thing I was in the process of vowing not to do? Blame it on the narrow gaze of youth, but very often people fight so hard for patience and kindness that they become short-fused and harsh themselves. It's said that parents bestow their worst qualities upon their children but the truth is children take them willingly. We become the people who raised us for absolutely no other reason than that we don't want it to happen.
For those who missed it before the word again is better (as in, "I'm better than you") and I believe that this word is the root of the problem. The word 'better' carries with it a broad connotation of superiority, i.e. to say Object A is 'better' than Object B is to declare that Object A kicks Object B's ass in any and all arenas. Object A is stronger, faster, smarter, has prettier hair, has a perfect record and a bigger dick and is way more fun than Object B will ever fucking be. To simply say 'better' is to simply say something unspecific. This is a flaw in the English language I would now like to rectify.
When I was a tempestuous teen saying I wanted to be better than my father, what exactly did I mean? Did I mean funnier? Wittier? More flexible? Perhaps I wanted to get a higher GPA or go places he's never been. Maybe I wanted to legally change my last name and then procreate more than he did, that'd make me better in some cultures.
To say that I wanted to be better than my father completely undervalued all the ways in which he was already great. In all the ways he's smart and disciplined and loving beyond measure, I'd be lucky to be half the man my father is. When applied to people, the word 'better' discounts the value of the whole and broadly disregards the rest (and often, the best). If only there were a word better than 'better' that could let an upset teenager be upset while remembering the good stuff all at the same time.
Tempers run in my family, but my family is very good. In all the ways I hope to learn from their mistakes and take conscious, diligent steps toward positive changes, I want to be gooder. 'Gooder' is a word that remembers the good stuff. 'Gooder' recognizes the room for improvement while still believing in those you love. If only it were grammatically correct.
Great workout today. Hit the lats, hit the shoulders, hit the bis and tris. The boys and the dogs kept me company. Happy lucky number 13.
Thanks for reading.
See you tomorrow.
My father fuse's is by far the shortest. Leaving lights on, taking long showers, being indecisive in front of the refrigerator, my dad is as temperamental as a cigarette in a gasoline fight. He's been this way for at least 40 years and these decades of pissy practice have left his face is a little redder, his eyes a little bulgier, and his voice at a constant volume of BOOMING. Growing up as one of his six children, it was so easy to set my father off that we made a game of it to avoid the emotional trauma. We'd invite people over, bait Pops into a touchy situation, whisper in our friend's ears, "Watch this," and proceeded to jump on the couch, leave a dirty dish in the sink, turn on too many lights, etc, and watch Old Faithful erupt right on cue. This is a time honored tradition and still widely practiced today.
I'd like to make it very clear that I love my father. He's a lobbyist now but was once a decorated legislator in the state house of representatives by the time he was thirty. Given time, his talent and ambition could have very well propelled him to politics on a national level and possibly even beyond. However, the paycheck of a public servant proves cruelly insufficient when you have six kids to feed and support through their own ambitions, so he chose stability and abandoned his unpredictable climb up the political ladder. My father is an incredibly caring, moral, and generous man who has sacrificed no less than biggest dreams of his life all for the sake of his family. Unfortunately, this does not excuse his temper.
While I've come to appreciate my father with age (though I still struggle daily), as an adolescent I no less than hated this man. He was impatient, relentless, loud, hurtful, and stubborn. In the most heated arguments, things easily got physical but we learned these limits very quickly. Our personal relationship was so volatile (there's that word again) that I developed a habit of locking doors, yelling, and running away from home at least three times a week for 30-45 minutes or as long as it took for my mother to come to collect me (my poor mother, this usually happen right before dinner. She'd slave over a hot stove for hours then, right before we eat, this crap happens). All the while, in typical teenage style, I vowed to never turn out like explosive old pops, promising I'd grow up to be his antithesis. for my kids I'd be the cool dad, the laid back dad, the unintrusive, understanding dad I never had. Better was the word. I'm gonna be better than him.
How naive I was.
It's cruel how emotions blind us from seeing ourselves. As soon I was old enough to be upset by my father's temper, the very second I decided that I would be different, I STORMED OUT OF THE HOUSE IN A FLAMING RAGE. Man, kids are stupid. Did I not realize I was doing the exact thing I was in the process of vowing not to do? Blame it on the narrow gaze of youth, but very often people fight so hard for patience and kindness that they become short-fused and harsh themselves. It's said that parents bestow their worst qualities upon their children but the truth is children take them willingly. We become the people who raised us for absolutely no other reason than that we don't want it to happen.
For those who missed it before the word again is better (as in, "I'm better than you") and I believe that this word is the root of the problem. The word 'better' carries with it a broad connotation of superiority, i.e. to say Object A is 'better' than Object B is to declare that Object A kicks Object B's ass in any and all arenas. Object A is stronger, faster, smarter, has prettier hair, has a perfect record and a bigger dick and is way more fun than Object B will ever fucking be. To simply say 'better' is to simply say something unspecific. This is a flaw in the English language I would now like to rectify.
When I was a tempestuous teen saying I wanted to be better than my father, what exactly did I mean? Did I mean funnier? Wittier? More flexible? Perhaps I wanted to get a higher GPA or go places he's never been. Maybe I wanted to legally change my last name and then procreate more than he did, that'd make me better in some cultures.
To say that I wanted to be better than my father completely undervalued all the ways in which he was already great. In all the ways he's smart and disciplined and loving beyond measure, I'd be lucky to be half the man my father is. When applied to people, the word 'better' discounts the value of the whole and broadly disregards the rest (and often, the best). If only there were a word better than 'better' that could let an upset teenager be upset while remembering the good stuff all at the same time.
Tempers run in my family, but my family is very good. In all the ways I hope to learn from their mistakes and take conscious, diligent steps toward positive changes, I want to be gooder. 'Gooder' is a word that remembers the good stuff. 'Gooder' recognizes the room for improvement while still believing in those you love. If only it were grammatically correct.
Great workout today. Hit the lats, hit the shoulders, hit the bis and tris. The boys and the dogs kept me company. Happy lucky number 13.
Thanks for reading.
See you tomorrow.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
The Worst Failure I Know
My sister, Mary, is an interesting character. She is one of the most talented and indecisive people I've ever met, which means she's someone who can do anything but chooses not to. In the span of 10 years she's been a single mother, a student, a wine distributor, a four star chef, a happy housewife, a PTA powerhouse, the co-founder to a four star restaurant, a waitress in that newly three star restaurant, a sommelier, an interior designer, a party planner, and a single mother all over again. The Will & Grace character of Jack McFarland comes to mind as I watch her flit from vocation to vocation, and just like Jack in season six, she has found yet another passion... nursing. How she got from food service and hospitality to the medical field is anybody's guess, but I'm sure Grey's Anatomy had something to do with it. She succeeds at everything and so I am sure she will be a successful nurse... for as long as it sticks. In the meantime, here we are, one 23, the other 41, and both of us back under our parent's roof feeling like failures.
I won't divulge the many heartaches of my sister's life out of respect and love for her and her children, but I will say that over the course of a life only about half what happens is ever in our control. It's Newton's First Law of Motion: Every body remains in a state of rest or motion unless it is acted upon by and external, unbalanced force; or, no change of direction ever happens without cause. Be it mistakes, opportunities, or (usually) the fallings in and out of love, whatever path we chose in life is beset with land mines. One wrong step blows up in your face, and if you find yourself terribly maimed chances are you'll accidentally one-leg hop into another pitfall, and another, and another. We get blown off the path. Before you know it, you're 23 or 41, right back where you started, under your parent's roof feeling like a failure.
Failure. Disappointment. Regret. Shame. It's a steep spiral. All the way down you wonder where it went wrong and who's to blame, generally annoyed by anything and everyone that may be holding you back. Watching TV with Mary a couple of days ago, she turned to me at every joke (in what I found to be a particularly unfunny program) and declared, "Come on that's funny." Even when I smiled, even when I laughed, Mary could not help herself from turning around and insisting on every, single jokes hilarity. Come on that's funny, Come on that's funny, Come on that's funny. 45 minutes later, it was definitely not funny and I regrettably snapped. I looked Mary right in her happy, unassuming eyes and snarled, "Mary! I am not incapable of laughter nor am I incapable of deciding for myself which jokes I find funny. Every time you say, 'Come on that's funny,' it ruins even the funniest moments and it makes me want to punch you in the face. You're annoying the shit out of me!"
I felt satisfied. I felt justified. The outburst was concise, appropriate, and completely called for. Then Mary surprised me. She looked at me and said, "Everything annoys you, NJ. You're so volatile."
Her statement was fair. It knocked the breath from my chest. It was just as accurate and justified as my own outburst, only even more concise and even more called for, cutting as deeply as only the most truthful insults can. Mary is annoying, people have known that for years, but I am volatile and no one had ever told me. Perhaps they were scared; I'm good at blame, boiling people down to their most hurtful qualities in the most well-reasoned ways. I had been a volatile person for weeks, and possibly for my entire life, completely unbeknownst to me.
There were no apologies; there were, in fact, no more words at all for the rest of then night. Mary and I simply watched TV in silence, contemplating our respective un-likabilities and after a few days of deep, deep, uncomfortable thinking, I cannot help but return to the feeling of failure.
The typical person reponds to failure in one of two ways. Some choose to reject the responsibility entirely, careening to a fro, spewing blame and excuses on every plausible canvas. Their shortcoming becomes the fault of others, or of circumstance, of rules, government or God. The failure-action becomes the unavoidable hindrance and the failure-person becomes the victim, blazing past their mistake at a million miles an hour. Nothing is learned and nobody grows.
Other people take failure in the other direction. Instead of grazing over the problems like their predecessors, this other breed of people hug their failure like their fluffiest pillow on their loneliest night. They cry into their failures, they sink into them, they find them comfortable and hold them like a lover. They squeeze, spoon, and molest that pillow deep in the darkness until that failure becomes them. These people love their failures so purely, they never get out of bed.
In terms of these two failures, Mary is the first, I am the second, and neither of us is right. Here we are, both adults, both years of experience wiser, and both of us acting exactly as we did when we were children: stubborn, stupid and small. We stepped on a few land-mines and let that be the death of us. We never understood that to let the paths define your life instead of letting your life define the path is the only place anyone can really fail. Thankfully we're not dead though, which means instead of over, our lives are somewhere in the middle. If we choose it, the best is yet to come.
A failure is a challenge, to recognize it a blessing, and I will work really hard to be less volatile. Today I tried to be compassionate, to laugh, to smile, and to forgive, especially with regards to myself. I worked out with Bianca for an hour and a half and I'm blogging now feeling much better about it than I did about it yesterday.
Don't ever call yourself pathetic. You're not. I swear it.
It's day 12.
Thanks for reading.
See you tomorrow.
I won't divulge the many heartaches of my sister's life out of respect and love for her and her children, but I will say that over the course of a life only about half what happens is ever in our control. It's Newton's First Law of Motion: Every body remains in a state of rest or motion unless it is acted upon by and external, unbalanced force; or, no change of direction ever happens without cause. Be it mistakes, opportunities, or (usually) the fallings in and out of love, whatever path we chose in life is beset with land mines. One wrong step blows up in your face, and if you find yourself terribly maimed chances are you'll accidentally one-leg hop into another pitfall, and another, and another. We get blown off the path. Before you know it, you're 23 or 41, right back where you started, under your parent's roof feeling like a failure.
Failure. Disappointment. Regret. Shame. It's a steep spiral. All the way down you wonder where it went wrong and who's to blame, generally annoyed by anything and everyone that may be holding you back. Watching TV with Mary a couple of days ago, she turned to me at every joke (in what I found to be a particularly unfunny program) and declared, "Come on that's funny." Even when I smiled, even when I laughed, Mary could not help herself from turning around and insisting on every, single jokes hilarity. Come on that's funny, Come on that's funny, Come on that's funny. 45 minutes later, it was definitely not funny and I regrettably snapped. I looked Mary right in her happy, unassuming eyes and snarled, "Mary! I am not incapable of laughter nor am I incapable of deciding for myself which jokes I find funny. Every time you say, 'Come on that's funny,' it ruins even the funniest moments and it makes me want to punch you in the face. You're annoying the shit out of me!"
I felt satisfied. I felt justified. The outburst was concise, appropriate, and completely called for. Then Mary surprised me. She looked at me and said, "Everything annoys you, NJ. You're so volatile."
Her statement was fair. It knocked the breath from my chest. It was just as accurate and justified as my own outburst, only even more concise and even more called for, cutting as deeply as only the most truthful insults can. Mary is annoying, people have known that for years, but I am volatile and no one had ever told me. Perhaps they were scared; I'm good at blame, boiling people down to their most hurtful qualities in the most well-reasoned ways. I had been a volatile person for weeks, and possibly for my entire life, completely unbeknownst to me.
There were no apologies; there were, in fact, no more words at all for the rest of then night. Mary and I simply watched TV in silence, contemplating our respective un-likabilities and after a few days of deep, deep, uncomfortable thinking, I cannot help but return to the feeling of failure.
The typical person reponds to failure in one of two ways. Some choose to reject the responsibility entirely, careening to a fro, spewing blame and excuses on every plausible canvas. Their shortcoming becomes the fault of others, or of circumstance, of rules, government or God. The failure-action becomes the unavoidable hindrance and the failure-person becomes the victim, blazing past their mistake at a million miles an hour. Nothing is learned and nobody grows.
Other people take failure in the other direction. Instead of grazing over the problems like their predecessors, this other breed of people hug their failure like their fluffiest pillow on their loneliest night. They cry into their failures, they sink into them, they find them comfortable and hold them like a lover. They squeeze, spoon, and molest that pillow deep in the darkness until that failure becomes them. These people love their failures so purely, they never get out of bed.
In terms of these two failures, Mary is the first, I am the second, and neither of us is right. Here we are, both adults, both years of experience wiser, and both of us acting exactly as we did when we were children: stubborn, stupid and small. We stepped on a few land-mines and let that be the death of us. We never understood that to let the paths define your life instead of letting your life define the path is the only place anyone can really fail. Thankfully we're not dead though, which means instead of over, our lives are somewhere in the middle. If we choose it, the best is yet to come.
A failure is a challenge, to recognize it a blessing, and I will work really hard to be less volatile. Today I tried to be compassionate, to laugh, to smile, and to forgive, especially with regards to myself. I worked out with Bianca for an hour and a half and I'm blogging now feeling much better about it than I did about it yesterday.
Don't ever call yourself pathetic. You're not. I swear it.
It's day 12.
Thanks for reading.
See you tomorrow.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
The Evil No Mere Mortal Can Resist
This is so dumb. Blogging is pretty dull when you get right down to it, and if you're playing along, I really do apologize. I imagine reading this is like looking at the photographs from someone else's vacation, only they went somewhere really, really boring. This is me, here's some more me, this is how I felt then, and this is how I feel now, here's learning stuff, here's me writing what I learned down, oh, and here's me on a horse! Look how high I am on my high, high horse! Somebody euthanize me. Is there anything more self-indulgent than an exercise blog? I'm laughing as I write this but I can't believe I contractually bound myself to this shit. Voluntarily, no less.
OK, fuck it. Let's go for it. Let's be interactive.
Hey guys! Guess what I did today that's about as newsworthy as a tweet? Here's a hint: it's old but it never gets old, it's always a good idea at parties, and it happens when the midnight hour is close at hand... Anyone? Anyone? OK, I'll tell you. Today I did what every Michael Jackson fan does at some point in his or her love of sweet, sweet dance tunes. For approximately two hours this morning in the middle of my living room wearing no socks and no shirt, I taught myself how to Thriller.
Why would anyone choose to memorize the choreography to this epic 1980's Halloween classic, you ask? No, you don't ask because that requires absolutely no explanation. Everyone who hasn't learned it themselves wishes they had and if you say you never had any interest at all, you're a terrible liar. Thriller is the shit on every continent, in every language, in every context and occasion from now until the fiery, zombie-dancing apocalypse. It's a given, people. Get with the program.
Given the depressing pattern I'd been slipping into on a typical day of this project (wake up, eat, fart around, eat, wait until the last possible second before I finally list through my workout and trudge through this blog, shower, go to work, eat, come home, sleep), the change of pace was nothing short of rejuvenating. When the long-and-short of your entire day's activities consist only of obligations and procrastination it's bound to make anyone a little emo. The days I don't have work I just sit around all day knockin' ye ol' balls around while contemplating how little I actually do. What should be a thirty minute workout takes two incredibly slow, lazy-ass hours. It's freaking depressing. Sure I finish what I need to get done, but bare minimum is the term, listing through my days in what feels like a living coma.
I've got nothing against relaxing, mind you, and for the most part a low-commitment reality kinda rules. However, I may have actually relaxed myself into anxiety. All I think about all day long is the things I want to do (but am yet to even try) and the things within myself I need to fix before I can do them (laziness being at the top of the list). I focus on all the broken parts of my life until the good stuff breaks down too I end up (ah, that's where the term comes from) breaking down entirely into a wet, sobbing mess, or a giggle fit or--- DEAR GOD, I'M DOING IT AGAIN. This last half a paragraph makes me wanna sterilize myself. I'm pretty sure they make pharmaceutical happiness for this kind of crazy (if only I weren't raised to believe ADD + dyslexia + the occasional stroll down depression lane = "character building").
So hell yeah, today I switched it up a bit. I woke up around 6:45, pounded a protein shake, hit up the weight room with Mary from 7-8:30ish, went back upstairs, drew the blinds, cleared the living room furniture off the dance floor and broke it down. I watched Michael's thirteen-minute 1983 music video first, but also spent some time on crappy wedding versions, sacrilegious modified versions, and the version from 13 Going on 30 (I can't help but enjoy dimples-for-days Jenny Garner). The best youtube tutorial I found is by some British chick named Zoe, should you feel the need. It's broken down into three parts with the original choreo direct from the music video (none of that watered down bullshit), and everything sounds better in an accent (for real though; try reading this blog again with the accent of your choosing and watch how much more entertaining I get).
"Follow your bliss" is a good motto to live by. Imma follow mine every morning til I can thriller in my sleep. After that I'm gonna take "Beat it," "The Way You Make Me Feel," and "Smooth Criminal" all up and down the neighborhood. This the kind of workout I can get excited for.
Don't worry, I'm not quitting 150 days. This project will still occupy a hefty, daily chunk of my time, but I strongly dislike the idea of it becoming my entire life. I think I'll be better off filling in my days with other enjoyable things as well; you know, the small stuff, the little triumphs, the pleasures that only take a minute but can make my entire day. What a novel idea. I'm gonna be a zombie next Halloween. A sexy zombie.
Day 11.
Thanks for reading.
See you tomorrow.
OK, fuck it. Let's go for it. Let's be interactive.
Hey guys! Guess what I did today that's about as newsworthy as a tweet? Here's a hint: it's old but it never gets old, it's always a good idea at parties, and it happens when the midnight hour is close at hand... Anyone? Anyone? OK, I'll tell you. Today I did what every Michael Jackson fan does at some point in his or her love of sweet, sweet dance tunes. For approximately two hours this morning in the middle of my living room wearing no socks and no shirt, I taught myself how to Thriller.
Why would anyone choose to memorize the choreography to this epic 1980's Halloween classic, you ask? No, you don't ask because that requires absolutely no explanation. Everyone who hasn't learned it themselves wishes they had and if you say you never had any interest at all, you're a terrible liar. Thriller is the shit on every continent, in every language, in every context and occasion from now until the fiery, zombie-dancing apocalypse. It's a given, people. Get with the program.
Given the depressing pattern I'd been slipping into on a typical day of this project (wake up, eat, fart around, eat, wait until the last possible second before I finally list through my workout and trudge through this blog, shower, go to work, eat, come home, sleep), the change of pace was nothing short of rejuvenating. When the long-and-short of your entire day's activities consist only of obligations and procrastination it's bound to make anyone a little emo. The days I don't have work I just sit around all day knockin' ye ol' balls around while contemplating how little I actually do. What should be a thirty minute workout takes two incredibly slow, lazy-ass hours. It's freaking depressing. Sure I finish what I need to get done, but bare minimum is the term, listing through my days in what feels like a living coma.
I've got nothing against relaxing, mind you, and for the most part a low-commitment reality kinda rules. However, I may have actually relaxed myself into anxiety. All I think about all day long is the things I want to do (but am yet to even try) and the things within myself I need to fix before I can do them (laziness being at the top of the list). I focus on all the broken parts of my life until the good stuff breaks down too I end up (ah, that's where the term comes from) breaking down entirely into a wet, sobbing mess, or a giggle fit or--- DEAR GOD, I'M DOING IT AGAIN. This last half a paragraph makes me wanna sterilize myself. I'm pretty sure they make pharmaceutical happiness for this kind of crazy (if only I weren't raised to believe ADD + dyslexia + the occasional stroll down depression lane = "character building").
So hell yeah, today I switched it up a bit. I woke up around 6:45, pounded a protein shake, hit up the weight room with Mary from 7-8:30ish, went back upstairs, drew the blinds, cleared the living room furniture off the dance floor and broke it down. I watched Michael's thirteen-minute 1983 music video first, but also spent some time on crappy wedding versions, sacrilegious modified versions, and the version from 13 Going on 30 (I can't help but enjoy dimples-for-days Jenny Garner). The best youtube tutorial I found is by some British chick named Zoe, should you feel the need. It's broken down into three parts with the original choreo direct from the music video (none of that watered down bullshit), and everything sounds better in an accent (for real though; try reading this blog again with the accent of your choosing and watch how much more entertaining I get).
"Follow your bliss" is a good motto to live by. Imma follow mine every morning til I can thriller in my sleep. After that I'm gonna take "Beat it," "The Way You Make Me Feel," and "Smooth Criminal" all up and down the neighborhood. This the kind of workout I can get excited for.
Don't worry, I'm not quitting 150 days. This project will still occupy a hefty, daily chunk of my time, but I strongly dislike the idea of it becoming my entire life. I think I'll be better off filling in my days with other enjoyable things as well; you know, the small stuff, the little triumphs, the pleasures that only take a minute but can make my entire day. What a novel idea. I'm gonna be a zombie next Halloween. A sexy zombie.
Day 11.
Thanks for reading.
See you tomorrow.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
The Dog Whimpering at the Top of the Stairs
I woke up at 6:00 this morning feeling rested and determined. I am yet to exercise. Day ten feels exactly like day one.
It's not easy. 23-year old me remembers 18-year old me and how excited he was about his work out every single day. I remember the addiction to it; how in the beginning it tasted like an ashtray but how eventually it seeped into my system and found myself slinking off into the cellar every 30 minutes for a fix. God, do I wish pull-ups came with nicotine.
In between the repulsion and the cravings I remember some foggy time of discipline and maybe an act of will. I'm not positive about those weeks, unfortunately. I think AJ, in his infinite wisdom, may have made sure to ride me particularly hard during that period. I'm sure he knew if I were allowed to dwell on how sour those days tasted they'd only have defeated me.
Either way, I truly detest the limited capabilities of my memory. Had I been blogging back then I'd at least have some written account to refer to. What I would give for some concrete evidence, something to prove how it had all been done before (even more, how it had been done by me). A record could definitely offer some valuable perspective. Presently, all I have are theories that run in circles. Was it the blind ambition of youth, that thirst for an unexplored frontier; the youthful ambition of vanity, wanting to see how beautiful I could make my body; or was it the vain ambition of the blind who simply wander without bearings, hoping they don't wind up exactly where they started, as if they could tell the difference. It is a daily struggle to find enthusiasm.
Every time I look in the mirror my reflection half-smiles back at me, vastly disappointed with the place he's standing yet meekly hopeful this is the place he's supposed to be. Hopefully this dissatisfaction is me learning some valuable lessons that will be necessary on the path toward future, unknowable joys. However, to let that hope outweigh the disappointment takes a little more faith than I am comfortable with.
Isn't it supposed to get easier the longer you do something? Didn't I hear that somewhere, once, a long, long time ago? And more importantly, aren't we supposed to find happiness exactly where we are? I repeat this mantra in my head over and over again I am grateful, I am grateful, I am grateful and I certainly am for some things. A lot of people are far worse off than me. I have a home, I have a family, I have a job. I'm only 23 years old, for God's sake. Aren't these the blessing some people starve for, pray for, kill and die for? I'm an American, middle-class, loved, young, free, white male and I have the nerve to be unhappy. I feel like such a spoiled brat.
The solution is shut up. The solution is smile. The solution is suck it up and stop with all the self-pitying. It's not supposed to be easy. Easy is a word for planning and retrospect and that's not where people exist. Life is hard. There's no other word for it. Life is day after day of hard, hard work and it doesn't ever end. It's like that Greek myth, Sisyphus, where the gods compel a king to push some boulder up a hill over and over again only to watch it roll back down for all eternity. He's cursed, damned, doomed. Game over, Sisyphus. The only way he'll ever be happy is if he somehow finds a way to enjoy his tedium. Ah, there's the rub. The Happy Life: a series of petty, difficult, unglamorous tasks... and pleasure in the doing.
One of my dogs is scared to come down the basement stairs. She's crying at the door right now, hoping someone will come and carry her down. Sorry, babe. That's not how stairs work.
Guess I'm gonna shut up and go to the weight room now.
Thanks for reading. See you tomorrow.
It's not easy. 23-year old me remembers 18-year old me and how excited he was about his work out every single day. I remember the addiction to it; how in the beginning it tasted like an ashtray but how eventually it seeped into my system and found myself slinking off into the cellar every 30 minutes for a fix. God, do I wish pull-ups came with nicotine.
In between the repulsion and the cravings I remember some foggy time of discipline and maybe an act of will. I'm not positive about those weeks, unfortunately. I think AJ, in his infinite wisdom, may have made sure to ride me particularly hard during that period. I'm sure he knew if I were allowed to dwell on how sour those days tasted they'd only have defeated me.
Either way, I truly detest the limited capabilities of my memory. Had I been blogging back then I'd at least have some written account to refer to. What I would give for some concrete evidence, something to prove how it had all been done before (even more, how it had been done by me). A record could definitely offer some valuable perspective. Presently, all I have are theories that run in circles. Was it the blind ambition of youth, that thirst for an unexplored frontier; the youthful ambition of vanity, wanting to see how beautiful I could make my body; or was it the vain ambition of the blind who simply wander without bearings, hoping they don't wind up exactly where they started, as if they could tell the difference. It is a daily struggle to find enthusiasm.
Every time I look in the mirror my reflection half-smiles back at me, vastly disappointed with the place he's standing yet meekly hopeful this is the place he's supposed to be. Hopefully this dissatisfaction is me learning some valuable lessons that will be necessary on the path toward future, unknowable joys. However, to let that hope outweigh the disappointment takes a little more faith than I am comfortable with.
Isn't it supposed to get easier the longer you do something? Didn't I hear that somewhere, once, a long, long time ago? And more importantly, aren't we supposed to find happiness exactly where we are? I repeat this mantra in my head over and over again I am grateful, I am grateful, I am grateful and I certainly am for some things. A lot of people are far worse off than me. I have a home, I have a family, I have a job. I'm only 23 years old, for God's sake. Aren't these the blessing some people starve for, pray for, kill and die for? I'm an American, middle-class, loved, young, free, white male and I have the nerve to be unhappy. I feel like such a spoiled brat.
The solution is shut up. The solution is smile. The solution is suck it up and stop with all the self-pitying. It's not supposed to be easy. Easy is a word for planning and retrospect and that's not where people exist. Life is hard. There's no other word for it. Life is day after day of hard, hard work and it doesn't ever end. It's like that Greek myth, Sisyphus, where the gods compel a king to push some boulder up a hill over and over again only to watch it roll back down for all eternity. He's cursed, damned, doomed. Game over, Sisyphus. The only way he'll ever be happy is if he somehow finds a way to enjoy his tedium. Ah, there's the rub. The Happy Life: a series of petty, difficult, unglamorous tasks... and pleasure in the doing.
One of my dogs is scared to come down the basement stairs. She's crying at the door right now, hoping someone will come and carry her down. Sorry, babe. That's not how stairs work.
Guess I'm gonna shut up and go to the weight room now.
Thanks for reading. See you tomorrow.
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