Adjusted Reality

Yesterday, in lieu of roller skating, we decided to hit the pool, because it was beyond 5000 degrees outside and remember, I put the clause of “doing whatever I damn well please” this week so it was still part of the plan!  We biked past this neighborhood pool yesterday (and even then I was tempted to get in, fully clothed) and decided to return and partake of it.  We did bring the car, just because we had planned to go to dinner right after and biking soggy didn’t sound like fun.

We paid our 3 dollars (hi, inflation – I remember paying a buck as a kid, and even after college 1.50-2 bucks to go swim laps) and got in – the pool was super clean, there was a seperate kiddie pool, and a huge, huge deep end so we had space to ourselves.  Zliten got in the normal way, but I eyed the diving board and decided that was the perfect way to enter the water.  It was the first time in 10 years I’d been up on a diving board, and I was a little nervous.  But, being the way I am, I decided it was go big or go home, and I went for a jacknife dive (jump up, fold in half into a pike, and then enter the water straight up and down, head first).  It wasn’t very good, but I also remembered I used to crank the board way back to 6 so it was tighter (and they had it locked on 1, which is suuuuuper springy), so it was a matter of getting used to the board.

Next time, I did a much better jacknife, and then I decided to pretend I was back in high school diving again and rock a front flip, first in tuck, then pike, then layout (which was kind of a failure).  I spent time swimming between each one so it took about an hour and 15 minutes, and Zliten was ready to leave.  I had considered considered chickening out, but I got up for one more dive.  I wanted to conquer the one and a half.  Was going to see how I felt, and I got just the right bounce so I went for it.  One front flip around, stay_in_just_a_bit_longer…KICKOUT and hey – I was up and down and even able to rip the entry with my hands semi-properly.

So, what does this have to do with what’s next?  Well, this was one of my goals this summer – to get up on a diving board (now that I’m not afraid I’ll break it) and see what I can do.  More specifically, I wanted to complete a one and a half.  The dive that generally separates the “I’m goofing off on the diving board” people and “I kind of know what I’m doing” people.  I still have it after 10 years (and actually 12 years since diving with any regularity).  Now, to find a pool that will let me try backwards stuff, reverses, and inwards!

Also on the list of fitness-y things to do by the end of summer:

-Run a mile in under 7 minutes.  I know I’m shooting for the moon here, but my best 400 sprint was 1:41, which works out to about a 6:44 pace.  I think I can do it if I go to the track intending to do one and only one mile (and not have to save myself for 4 more miles of sprints).  My first goal is to beat 7:50, my best mile time ever from middle school, but I really think I can conquer 7.

-Run a 5k in under 25.  Same principle.  I think if I plan properly for it, run it like a race, and give it my all, I can do it.

-Go for a really, really long run.  Pick a day I’m feeling great and pick a course I know the mileage, and see how far I can go.  Take like 3 hours, don’t push the pace at all, and see how far I can go not training for anything.

-Go roller skating.  At least once.

-Go ice skating again.  At least once.  Attempt at least one move that makes me worry that I might fall on my ass and/or break my face.  Maybe like this, or this.  Haven’t done either of those in about 20 years!

-Go climb again.  At least once.  Attempt the big-kid wall.

-Do my own unofficial triathlon one day, maybe in reverse order though – run a 5k, bike 12 miles, get to the pool and swim half a mile (and then just relax there, don’t really want to pay 3 bucks to swim laps and leave).

-Attempt a back walkover.

-Convince 3 of my friends to do a relay race with me September 4th.

-Maybe get antsy and do a short race.  But not until I am good and rested and trained up again pacing myself for short distances.

-Do one pullup, unassisted.  I’m damn close now, just need to gain the capacity to lift about 15-20 more lbs of myself.

I’m sure there will be many others, and I’m looking forward to meeting the challenges and doing something different.  I’ll just have to figure out how to enter the water headfirst and not get water in my ears (everything sounds fuzzy today).  What are YOU going to do this summer?

Even though right now the half-marathon is pretty much the only thing on the brain, I figure I should take at least ONE day off talking about it.   For the sake of my poor readers who might want to hear something else besides marathon training, how awesome I feel, blah blah blah.  It’s tedious, I know.  It’s almost over.  There will probably be a “pre-race” post and a “post race” post and then a “after I’ve been thinking about it for a while” post, but then that’s all.  Until fall comes and I start training again.

Hmm, ok, let’s try this not talking about running again.  So this week the smart thing would be to stay in and relax and basically do nothing but eat, sleep, work, train, and stretch, right?  Well, that was the plan except there was also a Yelp Elite event planned for Tuesday night.  And it was a fancy dress-up party.  At a REALLY expensive steakhouse.  And they had Maker’s Mark.  And spa treatments.  AND it was all free.   So, since it was early enough in the week, we made the pilgramage down to Finn and Porter and enjoyed Maker’s Palmers (whiskey, ice tea, lemonade, and a sprig of mint), amazing lobster salad on wontons, these potato cake beef bernaise things that were heaven – and I realized that I might not hate all salmon!  They also had sushi, but since neither of us are fans, we stayed on the other side of things.  We didn’t actually get any spa treatments because the line was so long, but we enjoyed some rich deserts instead.

Yelp events are also always catalysts to a night of debauchery.  We ended the evening getting poured a particularly strong (but yummy) manhattan, and neither of us were in any shape to drive (ok, so after one drink lately I’m not in any shape to drive but…yeah…), so we walked to the Jackalope (another bar, very much a dive) and stood out in our fancy garb and sobered up with about 3 waters (either they weren’t providing non-alcoholic drinks or they were super hidden at the event) while we nursed another whiskey.  We met this crazy cool chick with pink hair named Rev who was attending medical school.  Then we came home, had a nightcap, and then I willed myself to go to bed instead of staying up and pretending it was a weekend.  I woke up the next day feeling fine (a little tired because I didn’t sleep until close to 2am and got up at 8), and was quite happy my yesterday plans got cancelled because it would have been another night of it.

These days, I am a pretty responsible drinker.  I typically enjoy myself about once a week to the point of feeling silly and happy and tipsy.  Perhaps another night a week I’ll have a few on a weekday I don’t have to get up and run the next morning.  Occasionally, usually due to lack of sustenance before or whatever, I’ll have a little too much (and I used to do that a lot!).  Just to give you all a laugh, here are some funny things I’ve done while drunk!

I have (mostly in my younger, stupider college years):

-mooned a policeman, in an attempt to get a ride home because I was sick of walking.  Note – it didn’t work (but I didn’t get arrested either, yay).

-laid down in a yard on the way home from the bar to make “grass angels” or try and nap.

-crashed parties on the way home from the bar on New Years Eve of people I didn’t know.

-fallen asleep in our only bathroom with my fiance (remember, we have been together almost 10 years), because we were both too sick from drinking to be anywhere else.  Ah, love.

-passed out and used the Sega Dreamcast as a pillow.

-asked my fiance to grab me water, and then once he had it and wanted to know where to put it, I told him to just throw it on me, some would hopefully get into my mouth.   Bless his heart, he did exactly as I asked.

-before the water incident, I bartended the whole party, making specialty martinis (or as Zliten calls them, cocktails), and had to taste each one to make sure it was proper.  By the end of the party, I was still pouring, but I would each time drop the bottles, catch them before they hit the floor, and then keep pouring.  I wish I was that awesome normally!

-got into a hot tub fully clothed, and then once I realized how much that sucked, started taking my clothes off.  Thankfully I was stopped before I went full monty.

-got into a conversation about how I probably wore the same size pants as a friend, and we should trade.  Except I was all about it right then.  I found my pants on the bush the next morning.

That’s enough to keep me from ever being president!  So, what’s your funniest drunken moment?  If you don’t drink, what’s the silliest thing you’ve ever done period?

This post brought to you by www.textsfromlastnight.com.  Warning – not work safe, and if you’re easily offended, don’t go there.  But funny, and makes me both feel sad for the human race and happy I’m not quite as much of a lush!

I figured while I was having a cocktail and marveling over the awesome weather (rain and lightning and tornados, oh my!)**, I’d pop in and say hi. Work has been crazy, as I predicted, and some late nights, but we’re getting close! Never fear, I’ve been keeping up with my training, and I just have a yoga session tomorrow and my 12 mile run on Saturday morning to go!

I’ve been thinking lately – as I get close to being an “after”, life is peachy, of course, but there are some unexpected side effects.

1. I am very susceptible to cold! I remember at my heaviest I used to thank the dear fluffy lord for the awesome AC in my office, but now, I bundle up in a sweater, and run my portable heater constantly. Over the winter, I actually wished that I could add some fat back to my ass (from my own stomach of course) because I was so unnaturally cold when it was in the 40s. Thank goodness we rarely get in the 30s or below!

2. I used to never have to shave the inside of my thighs because they rubbed together, but now that there’s space between them, I am growing hair again. You would think 10 years would kill those follicles, right? Not so much.

3. I can no longer bitch about feeling bloated/lumpy/complain about my body in any way. I get eye rolls. Instead, everyone just wants fitness tips.

4. Instead of getting the pity look when I’m wolfing down a cheeseburger and fries, I get the jealousy look when I’m downing a cheeseburger and fries.

5. I don’t have the alcohol tolerance I used to. I have to make sure I pour all my own drinks at home to pace myself, and when I go out, I need to make sure I don’t try to “keep up with the boys” like I used to. When I do, there are some funny stories though!

6. I am that annoying chick that suggests exercise as a cure for anything. Tired for no reason? Go exercise, it will be make you feel better. Depressed? Go do a super intense workout where you can only think about the movement and not what’s in your head, and your mood will lift. It even bugs me when it slips out of my mouth too much, but it’s true. There are very few things that exercise DOESN’T cure.

7. If I’m wearing a tight shirt and/or pants, I’ll sometimes get “phantom belly” – as in I feel like my stomach is sticking out in a bubble like it used to (especially when I’m sitting. Then, I look down and there is either a little bitty lump that no one would notice besides me, or nothing. It’s quite odd.

8. My jewish nose is more prominent the skinnier I get. I forgot why I used to hate profile shots when I was younger. When my face filled out, it didn’t stand out so much. Now, schnoz-o-plenty is back!  See picture above for proof (I’m in the purple).

All in all though…I’ll take it over being 265 again. In a heartbeat.

What are some unexpected things that have happened after you got fit? Did you find out that you had funny shaped knees or collar bones?  Did you start evangelizing your new love of fat free cheese (I hope not, that shit’s nasty!)?

**Wrote this last night and got too into watching the awesome weather be awesome.  Happy Friday!

So, I had visions of doing a wrapup of E3 (the big gaming convention that just went on last week), or more stream of consciousness posts, but to be honest, work is crazy with a big deadline looming at the end of day tomorrow, and this week is the last (and hardest) of my marathon training so most days are like 2 hours of workout.  In role playing games, a creature or a quest giver or essentially something that you need, but only has a small chance of appearing or doesn’t appear for a while is a rare spawn.  So, I am going to say that I will be a “rare spawn” this week.  I might be able to carve out some time to yak away, but it’s unlikely. The dice rolls would have to be really good.

Instead, enjoy the hammer pants dance.

5 more runs ’til H-day.

Two years ago, I was in my final days at SOE, having given my notice about a week prior, and I was tying up loose ends, handing stuff off, and furiously trying to get those who were taking care of my duties up to speed on the massive amount of duties that were being dumped upon them.  At home, most of our stuff was in boxes, we were packing up everything to move from San Diego to Texas.  My life was chaotic, uprooted, and I was terrified.  As I always am when there is big change afoot.  Noteworthy perhaps – I was around 240 lbs then, so besides the fear of unknown, there was also the discomfort of carrying around an extra emaciated supermodel 24/7.

8 years ago, well, yesterday, actually, we left our Reno basement apartment just before sunrise with our lives in a small u-haul Zliten was driving and our cars, heading out to San Diego to live beside the ocean, leave the fires behind, swim out past the breakers, watch the world die.  In other words, getting the hell out of dodge.  But dodge was where I had spent highschool and college.  Life was chaotic, I was uprooted, and terrified.  At that point, I hadn’t seen a scale in months, but I was at least 200, probably about 215 if I had to guess.  I wasn’t quite carrying the supermodel yet, but I was at least carrying an extra 5th grader.

Besides the fact that I seem to always relocate in June, the other recurring theme is fear of change, but doing it anyway.  Both moves have been pretty bold, desperate changes that have been fantastic for me.  Both changes were definitely after months of wanting, but not set-in-stone for more than a few weeks before I was gone.  Both moves also created a bunch of financial uncertainty.

Leaving Reno after college for *anywhere else* was the plan.  I was pushing for San Diego, but the backup plan was Colorado Springs.  The weekend after graduation, we drove down and looked for an apartment.  Our current 3 bedroom(ish – converted basement) rented for about 650 per month if I remember correctly.  We were in for a shock when we couldn’t find anything in a safe neighborhood near town for under 900.  Discouraged, we drove back to SD to continue packing.  We had to be out of the apartment on the 3rd of June no matter what, so it was either find a place or move back in with the ‘rents.

The next weekend we drove back, with a mission – either find something in the next few days, or the next weekend we would be off to Colorado.  After much more looking around, we found and secured a JUNIOR one bedroom (folks, this thing was a glorified studio with a full kitchen and a wall between the bedroom and the other room) for a price we were comfortable with, saw Moulin Rouge (which was our present for finding a place, and to this day still one of my favorite movies of all time), and then drove back to Reno and finished packing.  I don’t think we even had a goodbye party, we didn’t have time.  As sudden and terrifying as this sounds already, keep in mind that neither of us had jobs there.  I had a tiny savings account but had already started racking up some credit card bills since I hadn’t worked the last couple months of college so I could concentrate on my thesis.

I’ve talked a bit about my time in SD, but it was definitely the best of times, and the worst of times.  Everyone should live in a big, expensive city once in their lives.  Everyone should also live by the beach once in their lives.  I took care of this with one fell swoop!  I found out that to live in paradise, you have to work so much it’s hard to enjoy it.  Our first apartment was in one of the best neighborhoods – we were within walking to tons of local shops and restaurants and bars, and what is now a walk but then would have been a 5 dollar cab ride to the nice area of downtonwn SD – the Gaslamp district.  However, we rarely went out, because we couldn’t afford it.  After the newness of beach wore off, and also once we were on normal people hours and could only hit the sand when it was crowded with tourists, we started going less and less.  I think besides the times work took us for an outing, I can count the beach trips in the last 5 years of living there on my hands.  Sad, for someone who is a pisces and wanted to live by the water more than anything.

Then, we moved up near work to cut the commute down – but we left the fun and funky to live in suburbia chainland tech mecca mesa.  Due to raises and promotions we had much more money to play with here, so we lived on restaurant food, but it was stuff like Chilis and Applebees and Chi Chis.  There were 3 dive bars in the area that were HORRIBLE, so we didn’t go out much, but that was probably a good thing.  Then after 2 years we realized that we were a) fat b) never going to own a house and c) besides the awesome climate, could be living in a big apartment complex anywhere in the country and not have it cost 1500/mo for a 700 sq foot 2 bed 1 bath.

We considered Australia (the studio went under last year, so glad we didn’t go under down under, hehe), and were just about set up with jobs in Vancouver when they fell through.  Then, at the urging of a friend living there, we started looking in Austin, trying to overlook the fact that it was in Texas, and people can carry concealed weapons.  We decided it couldn’t hurt to visit, and I secured a handful of interviews and meetings to look for a position, and off we went on Mother’s Day weekend in 2007.

We fell in love with it.  I had more fun and social interaction with cool people and friends in that 5 days than I had almost the 5 months prior.  Not everyone wore a cowboy hat and carried a gun.  There were tons of cool places to eat and drink and swim and shop and hangout and it was all affordable!  We found our neighborhood and if I would have gotten a job offer, we would have put an offer on a house we found.  I have no regrets because I love our house to pieces, but this one was cheaper and had a pool (and…erm…needed lots more love, but that’s besides the point).

I was back to work for about a week and then on that fateful Thursday evening, I got a call from my current boss’s boss, asking if I wanted to job, for just slightly less than the outlandish raise I asked for.  Out of town interviews are so odd – basically, these people decided from seeing a list of what I had done and spending 45 minutes with me, that they wanted to pay to move me out there and have me work for them.  In 45 minutes with them, I had to make the decision that I was willing to uproot my life for a startup (well funded, but still) that couldn’t even tell me the name of the game they were making.  Zliten luckily landed a job the second week we were out there making gaga looney money as well, but at the time when I accepted, we had no idea how long it would take him.

But it all worked out lovely in the end.  This is not my most favoritiest JOB I’ve ever had, but the product is top notch.  It’s good talented people, it’s stable, there are some really awesome PARTS to it, and it doesn’t eat my life so I can do crazy things like train for a half marathon.  It sucks that we’re in a situation where my poor Zliten has been out of steady work for so long, but at least we live in a town where we can get by on what we’ve got.  We’ve got a great circle of friends, and pretty much any day of the week, Austin has some sort of event going on, more than anywhere else I’ve lived in my life.

I guess the moral here is – feel the fear and do it anyway.  You just might learn something.  Very few choices are true forks in the road – if a choice makes you unhappy, you can always go back.  Or make another one.  A good, hard life shake up is sometimes just what you need to get yourself right again.  The move to San Diego focused me into finding a career I love instead of becoming a professional waitress/student like I was leaning towards (because it was what I knew).  The move to Austin reminded me that being successful is not everything.  Having a social life is worth the effort, and so is being active, even though it’s not directly helping me achieve the goal of world domination, fame, and riches.

While I’m hoping we stay here for a while, I doubt Austin will be our final resting place.  I wonder where our next adventure will take us?  More importantly, I wonder what our next adventure will teach us?  Oh, I’m sure I’ll feel the same way – chaotic, uprooted, and frightened, but at least now that I have 2 under my belt, I probably won’t be as much so as before.  I get attached to spaces and places more than things, so leaving an apartment or an office is usually a pretty heartwrenching goodbye, but once I lock the door for the last time and say my adieu, my goldfish brain is already thinking, “What’s next?”.

I watched Pump Up The Volume recently, and something that’s always stuck with me was Happy Harry Hard-on’s words after the suicide.  If you’re so unhappy you’d consider ending it, why not do something else crazy that’s not so…final?  So if you’re feeling unhappy or unsatisfied with something in your life, why not go nuts?  Do something drastic, paint your canvas with bold strokes with wantan regard for the end result, because doing SOMETHING, even if it might not be the RIGHT something, is usually better than nothing.  Chances are, you’ll end up somewhere cool, even if it’s not perfect, and you’ll surely learn something from the experience!