The F-Bomb

A wise man once said, "Vulgarity is the refuge of the uneducated who lack command of the English language."  Well, fuck-fuckety-fuck-fuck that guy.

I love swearing.  I love ass, I love bitch, I love boner, I love whore, I love cooterpunch and thundercunt, jizzrag and cumdumpster.  I love combining swearwords like assfuck and shitdick, penispuffer and pissflaps to my heart's content.  These words positively tickle my tongue and send me into violent fits of childish delight.  I never really cared for George Carlin but I respect what he was about.

The problem with being Irish Catholic is it's such a fucking oxymoron.   The most talented, foul-mouthed people are somehow also bred into one of the most hostile audiences there is?  Teethmarks permanently indented in my pearly white knuckles from holding back all the shit I really fucking wanted to say, but still I tout piety.  My dad is easily the worst hypocrite of them all.  Two days ago he excuse-my-languaged his way out of calling my sister a fuckhead while last night he reamed me out for dropping an f-bomb of my own on the Pittsburg Steelers.  He literally set down his iPad, looked me square in the face and said, "No one swears in my house; watch your goddamn language!"

Frankly, my fucking mouth is his fucking fault.  Repression of a word only imbues it with the power to offend and offending can be fun.  Watch this:

Nigger.

Anyone out there fuming with indignation?  Even if I, a fervent supporter of free speech, heard this word in polite conversation I'd probably wanna throw down and crack some skulls.  Here's some more of 'em: A-rab, Beaner, Camel Jockey, Chinc, Coon, Cracker, Darkie, Dune Coon, Dot Head, Dyke, Faggot, Gook, Gringo, Guinea, Heeb, Jap, Kike, Lesbo, Mick, Nazi, Oreo, Polak, Porch Monkey, Redneck, Retard, Slanky-eye, Spic, Terrotist, Towel Head, Wetback, Whitey, Wop; every single one as infuriating as it is potent, and sometimes when the rage boils up inside us they spew out of our mouths like poison.  I only use them now to illustrate a point.  Personally, these are the words I'd rather see repressed.

But 'fuck?'  Fuck is beautiful.  Say it in parts: fah-uck you you fah-uck-ing fah-uck.  That one syllable wreaks of sweat, sex and freedom like, "Fuck, I just wanna fuck or fuck something up for the fucking fuck of it!" The etymology of 'fuck' is so old it can be traced back to the Latin in ancient Rome just before written documentation runs out and the word finally gets lost in oral history.  We've quite literally been 'fucking' since before the we had the alphabet to write it down with.  I personally feel it should be used as unnecessarily as is practically possible because, honestly, it's just fun to say.  Besides, anyone who takes offense at vulgar verbiage is most likely just a fucking idiot.  It's a word.  Relax.  Don't let it ruin your day.

Today I'm on a tight schedule.  Only time for some intense pull-ups and dips before a good friend's train arrives (especially when taking into account the time for my mental, blogging exercises).  Gonna have to revisit the weight room later tonight to make this workout more adequate.

Happy day 9.

Thanks for reading.  See you tomorrow.

The Tired and True

I have knack for the overdone.  All those catchy tunes that get stuck in brains, play on loops and drive people nuts, those are the songs that seek refuge in my head and on my page.  My muse is a washed-up, old hooker: cheap, ugly, and been done a few more than a few times too many.

Upon hearing the word "cliche," those with an ounce of doubt in them tend to immediately shrug off what is being said as irrelevant, unimportant and even untrue.  I find this outlook as sad as it is cynical for in it's purest form, the cliche is beautiful, beuatiful thing.  A cliche is a lesson that is so true it once had to be repeated over and over again until eventually it became accepted as obvious (as if it were always obvious) and then people had the nerve to actually get sick of hearing it.  Sick, as in, "if I hear that cliche one more time, I will probably puke all over the place."  The first time we hear a cliche we suck the life from its very tit of truth for years and years until the truth dries up and we have to stick that crusty old bag of truth in a old truth's home where the nurses are abusive and the bingo's rigged.  I for one think it's absolutely atrocious the way we treat our elderly truths.   Sure they get tired and frustrating, but a tired truth is still a true truth regardless of whether or not you're "over it." Are you hearing me you ungrateful little bastards?

Consider that my three forms of government-approved, photo ID should I ever unwittingly tread into the hostile territory of "Ugh, that has so been done before." I don't care if it smells like death and bedpans, I'll do the done-before as many times as many times as I damn well please because it makes me feel good sometimes in a familiar and comforting way.  The judgmental can stick that in their peace pipes and suck hard; may its fumes mellow them the fuck out.

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I apologize, dear reader.  That bitch-out was not directed at the general public.  It was actually all aimed at the mirror, though if it's applicable to anyone out there with their nose up in the air and their head up in their ass feel free to let it ride.  I generally don't condone judging other people's happiness.

Have you ever written something down because at the time it feels so absolutely true only to re-read it later and think to yourself God do I sound tacky.  If not tacky, then possibly stupid, preachy, or pretentious.  Choose your own adventure.  

Over the last week, some of the morals from my Aesop's Fitness Fables have included: 'Complaining does no one any good,' 'it is important to be a good role model,' and 'if you just adjust your attitude, a little hard work can be super-dooper fulfilling.'  Dear Lord, I see where this is going.  In 142 days I'm gonna log onto this blog and say, "See guys?  If you put your mind to it, you can do anything!"  My gag-reflex heaves at the thought of it, and yet this is me formally acknowledging the distinct possibility that I, NJ Anonymous, may be little more than a two-bit, commonplace, everyday, ordinary, nauseatingly typical cliche.  And to that I say...

So fucking what?  What's true is vaild and what's valid is true, even if it's valid for only a moment, even if it's true for only me.  Cliches are true for centuries and if they're not true for you then I guarantee that they are at least true on some level for dozens of your loved ones.  The only way that's not a possibility is if you are unfortunate enough to love no one but yourself, in which case you have every bit of my hackneyed pity.  Get it?  Got it.  Fan-damn-tastic.

Light workout today.  It is, after all, Superbowl Sunday.

P.S.  What group of self-respecting athletes dresses in yellow spandex, tackles other men all day, then calls themselves "the Packers" like no one's gonna notice?  I'd insult them but it'd just be too easy.  Go Steelers.

Happy day 8.

Thanks for reading.  See you tomorrow.

The Pass of the Torch

I grew up with a pretty stellar cast of role models (not referring to the movie here, though it too has a pretty stellar cast and is totally worth the rental).  My parents, my siblings, a selection of teachers, professors, and instructors from high school through college, and the all the other nut balls who have wandered in and out my heart leaving deep, sturdy footprints.  This isn't something I noticed as it was happening.  Partly due to their typically humble natures and partly due to my own willful arrogance, it took years to realize just how influential these people have been in the arduous shaping of me.  I've always been a know-it-all.  Sue me.

Knowingly or not, my mind subconsciously clung to these people, perhaps because all minds work this way.  After all, we begin our lives completely dependent on guardians and caretakers and spend roughly two decades weaning off of the convenience.  For years, we gradually gather responsibilities and grow toward self-sufficiency in the hopes that we will become mature, capable, and happy human beings.  For those of us who are fortunate, this whole process happens within earshot of a role model's unconditional, undivided attention.  They are the wings our minds tuck themselves under when storms force us back to the nest, silently (or, in my case, kind of obnoxiously) nudging us toward our fullest potential.

Today, I find myself at a crossroad lingering somewhere between adolescence and adulthood in the vasty, murky grey of "young adulthood." It's now nine months post college and I am left severely leaning on my support system as if I just grew a pair of new, noodle-y legs and am haphazardly hobbling to find my feet.  I work on rectifying this uncertainty everyday, but the only thing I'm sure of is how unsure I am.  How will I know when I'm ready to step back from my familial crutches?  When will I at long last 'come into my own?'

I think the problem has something to do with motivation.  In exercise especially, we grow up with coaches, captains and Marine big brothers whose experience makes us want to follow them.  They see things more clearly than we do; they know how much we can take and how to keep pushing us through our own self-doubt.  Without these leaders, motivation requires a scarily powerful strength of will.  In fact, it's so scary and so powerful that people will pay a personal trainer hundreds of dollars an hour just to shirk the responsibility.  The laziest move only when pushed, and pushers don't come cheap (just ask your friendly, neighborhood crackhead).

I was financially fortunate in this matter.  Growing up I had big bro AJ and he didn't charge a red cent.  He awed me with how much he knew about weight lifting (breathing and form, circuits and rotations...)  and he imparted all of his wisdom onto me through brutal, demanding study and practice.  But years later, without AJ to guide, motivate and protect me from myself, what is a grasshopper to do without his guru?  The question has been plaguing me for a while now, but today, in the depths of the weight room with nephews in tow, I finally found clarity.

At some point in the last few years, completely unbeknownst to me, the mantel had passed.  I grew up, AJ moved away, and now there is no one in the whole of this house more qualified and decorated in physical fitness than me.  I am guru now; the burden of motivation is mine.

A couple of days ago I wrote about my nephew, Cole, as my self-appointed personal trainer.  Even as I was writing the words I had an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach, like something out-of-joint was staring me right in the face.  The fact of the matter is, Cole is just 9-years old.  Sure he's funny, he's smart for his age, and he definitely adds to my workout experience, but what the hell does he know about physical fitness?  It's not his job to motivate me and it's rather pathetic of me to divert the responsibility and laugh it off as a funny picture.  This is my gym; I'm senior officer of this rickety-ass bucket.  He's not the Mick here, I am and today I started acting like it.

Cole and Miles are my new project.  So is Mary.  So is Bianca and anyone else who dares to study in my dojo of pain.  When their in my weight room, I choose their exercises, I critique their form, and I set the rules until I'm comfortable that they know what they're doing.  I make them wear shoes, and put their shirts back on, and keep the equipment tidy because they must learn to respect this space.  I will not let them quit when they are giving up on themselves because that's my fucking job and I'm going to do it.  My heart swells with purpose today and I know now that that's how one self-motivates.  That purpose made me go for that extra rep today; that purpose made me push for 5 minutes more; and that purpose is what'll make me come back tomorrow because if I don't what a waste it will be.  I will only be the first of all the people I'm letting down.  I get to be the role model for a change.  This is how we come into our own.

Good way to close out the week.  Happy day 7.

Thanks for reading.  See you tomorrow.

The Love of the Burn

Deep in joys of exercise there is something affectionately known as 'the burn.'  Certain popular phrases utilizing this term include, "Feel the burn," "Oh God, this really burns," and "Sweet baby Jesus, my ass is burnin'."  Anyone familiar with long-distance running, contact sports, circuit training, wall-sits, wide pull-ups, diamond push-ups, six inches, plank position, pilates, plyometrics, Tae bow, Bikram yoga, regular yoga, dance, Zumba, Richard Simmons' Sweatin' to the Oldies, or any other activity that pushes the threshold of one's physical capabilitles is undoubtedly familiar with this fiery sensation. The burn is the thing that keeps working out from being comfortable; the ache that lingers for days.  The burn is that thing that creeps up on you 30 crunches deep into a set of 60 and makes you tell your friend, the good-natured, sweet-faced, ready with encouragement personal trainer, to go fuck himself sideways.  It's that thing we both chase and avoid, long for and fear; the thing that'll make you seriously consider cheating and quitting over and over again.  The burn is the pain that comes with progress.

My big brother, AJ, is a proud member of the Marine Corps and he introduced me to the burn when I was just 17.  While enrolled at the United States Merchant Marine Academy, AJ spent months at a time at sea and needed a way to stay in shape when he returned home in between tours.  It was on AJ's suggestion (and military discount) that my family came to own our first set of workout equipment and it was on AJ's  insistence that I became his designated workout buddy.

To be honest, I hated it at first.  'Hate' may not even be the appropriate word.  I feared those workouts.  You see, AJ learned how to exercise under the supervision of some of the loudest, angriest, meanest drill sergeants this great country had to offer.  When he was  my age, barely 18, he shipped off to the Naval Academy Preparatory School and spent 10 months in a boot camp, hell hole somewhere in the woods of Rhode Island.  He didn't have the comforts of his family or his hometown or a gym in the basement of his parent's house.  He had mud, New England's temperamental weather, and enlisted officers who's only job was to systematically beat the comfort out of him so that he might better survive under the duress of war.  To this day AJ regards that year as the most miserable of his life.

Now, I don't want to paint an ugly picture of my brother.  In fact, he is one of the most incredible role models I have ever had the privilege to learn from.  He is warm, disciplined, and has within his pinky toe on a Tuesday afternoon more love than most people have in their whole body on their wedding day.  However, in a training situation (such as teaching his little brother how to work out) AJ was nothing short of a pink, floppy dickhead.  He did not tolerate excuses, accepted nothing less than everything I had to offer, made every muscle in my body burn beyond belief, and made it a point to belittle me when I burned the most.  Under AJ's philosophy, emasculation was a tool for motivation: the more he said you were a giant, roast beef sandwich of a vagina, the more you would want to prove him wrong; the more humiliated your ego, the less you would care about how much your body burned; the more you hated him, the better you would be for it.  Lying in a sore heap on the rubber gym floor, I knew in my heart of hearts that AJ called me 'the biggest pussy he'd ever seen' because he loved me.

And so, in those times when AJ was at sea, I thought only about preparing for his return.  Everyday I forced myself downstairs into that cramped basement; through discomfort, through stress, through laziness, I willed myself to do set upon set of wide-grip pull-ups until I was good at them.  In the beginning I was lucky if I could do sets of ten (on my last set, I'd normally only get four before I found myself pulling like hell and going nowhere, desperate for a fifth); in six months time I was doing three sets of 25 without even breaking a sweat.  I came to love the burn.  It's how I knew that tomorrow I would be a little better.  It's how I knew that in a few months, when AJ was back, I'd make my big brother proud.

I told you I was a rock when I was 18 and that rock was igneous: forged in flame.  However, after five years of sloth, the burn has faded into the long lost love of my life.  I walked out on the burn way back when and now I'm a pathetic loser begging her to take me back.  I want to feel that fire again, that sense of "I can do anything."  I want to feel like my friend Bianca did last night when she screamed during her final exercise, "I feel like I'm gonna vomit BUT I LOVE IT!"

Fortunately for Bianca, I was there pushing her, shouting encouragements and laughing at her complaints, while AJ is not around to do me the same favor.  AJ's halfway around the world flying Cobras in the South Pacific.  We haven't been workout buddies for quite some time.  There's no one here to push me but me.

Day 6.  The first workout to ever make me feel lonely.

Thanks for reading.  See you tomorrow.

The Mick

7:00 AM on a Thursday morning, diligently spinning on a busted-up stationary bike and listening to the dreary local weather report.  The icy New England weather has given my nephews yet another 90-minute delay and roofs all over are collapsing under the weight of the snow.  Roads aren't plowed, businesses are closing and, for the first time in a week of blizzards and snow days, I finally have a shift at work.  For this reason, completely channeling my frustrations into exercise, I woke up unbearably early, trudged down into the dungeons for a morning workout and miserably drifted off into my own little world.  I was grouchy, unshaven, cold and hungry when suddenly, sweet and melodic as a church bell, a child's voice rang out from the darkness.

"What are you doing?"

I jolted back to reality to find Cole, like Cindy-Loo Who sneaking up on the Grinch, standing in the doorway, still sporting pajamas and an I-don't-give-a-fuck hair-do.

"What are you doing?" he repeated, this time more indignantly.

I thought to myself, That's a dumb question.  Cole deliberately sought me out me in the depths of the dark, damp morning and can plainly see several things I am currently doing (spinning, exercising, ignoring him entirely) and Cole is by no means a slow child.  Knowing my nephew and how he has undoubtably taken all of these things into consideration, it appears that he has posed a question to which he already knows the answer.  I am deeply suspicious, but I play along.

"I'm workin' out, bud.  What're you doing?" I replied.


Cole has taken to the dip machine and scaled up the pull-up bar like a shifty little monkey. "Is that as fast as you can go?" he scoffed.

This is a set-up, I'm sure of it, but Cole knows me at least as well as I know him and knowing me he knows I am not a humble man.  So I retort, "Oh, I can go faster."

Cole donned a shit-eating grin like he had just pantsed me on national TV and mumbled under his breath, "...Yeah right."

And there it was.  Hook, line, sinker, the little shit baited me.  Within the three seconds it took for Cole jab to sink in, my brain was overflowing with indignations such as Excuse me? I'm sorry, I must've misheard you from all the way down there, you cocky little oompa loompa.  Did you just challenge me?  Did you just call me out?  Did you just questioned both the size of my cojones and the bed of hair upon which they rest?  DID I HEAR YOU RIGHT, YOU CHEEKY LITTLE BASTARD!?

Before I knew it I was riding that stationary bicycle like it was a Harley on the Highway to Hell and I wasn't a huge vagina for spinning at 7:00 in the morning.

"Oh, you go this fast, shithead?  No, I didn't think so.  Suck it, Cole.  SUCK IT!"

He then called me a pussy for using on his mom's workout equipment... and so I spun even harder.

It seems yesterday's impromptu workout workshop with the boys has spawned something every boxer, body builder, athlete wannabe nightmares about:  A greasy Mick.  Sure he's only 9-years old, he's yet to develop an alcohol dependency and his swear vocabulary leaves something to be desired (though it's still impressive), but Cole has nonetheless taken it upon himself to be my very own pint-sized, Mickey Goldmill pain-in-the-ass.

And so began an hour-long hard-hitting, below-the-belt-kicking, overflowing-with-Irish-pride cock fight.  I yelled, he taunted, I laughed, he miscounted my reps and made me to start over from the beginning.  Cole made me explain my exercises to him in such detail that it ended up reinforcing my own standards of proper breathing and form.  Was I grateful, you ask?  Fuck that.  By the end I wanted to ring his scrawny, little neck like Homer goddamn Simpson.  The hour flew by so quickly it barely registered and we climbed out of the basement around 8:30 (me off to blog, him off to 3rd grade) ready to start our respective days with no hard feelings at all.

I'm sore.  Good sign.  Five days down.

Thanks for reading.  See you tomorrow.