Adjusted Reality

If you haven’t seen this, go watch (SFW).

It got me thinking – I try to keep my status updates on facebook and twitter to a reasonable amount because, well, I don’t want to seem narcissistic and I really don’t think people care that I just took a crap or that I went to the kitchen and grabbed a plum to munch on.  However, I thought it would be a fun experiment to see what I’d write if I did.  Since I’m not going to subject my facebook or twitter friends to this, and I figure if you’re reading this, you’re more interested in my witty banter than the average bear, so it’s your own fault!

Quix:

is up too early.  Who gets up before 7:50 besides farmers?  (Yeah, I know but I can still bitch about it.) Argh. (7:50)

is dressed, geared up, mapping out her run route, and eating her pre-running otter pop. (8:00)

is finally out the door!  8 miles, ho! (8:15)

is back and soaked through and through with sweat.  That was rough!  How am I going to do 9 next week?  Felt good though. (9:40)

is dashing out the door, only a few minutes late.  Sans lipstick though, which will throw off my day. (9:53)

got to work a few minutes late, caught up on emails, got coffee and water.  Even threw in a little caf in my decaf to stave off an energy crash. (10:15)

is now mowing down a fiber one bar catching up on the internets while waiting for stuff to be done so she can get to work! (10:45)

now feels about 3 lbs lighter.  Don’t think about this one too hard.  Had to hand a lady back a button under the stall divider that fell off. (11:15)

is eating a plum and about to go harass the Soundland office and see how progress is progressing. (11:30)

is back.  Stuff for me to work on ready after lunch, audition still on at 2pm and now have a phone recording session at 2:30. (11:45)

is sooooo ready for pho!  And I even had it on Wednesday for dinner, but not at the usual spot! (noon)

is off to get some PHOOOOO!  I so love pho-ridays! (12:15)

is back from lunch.  I always feel so bad running my space heater in the office when it’s 90+ degrees outside, but it’s like a meat locker in here. (1:45)

is off to do an audition – that is, receive an audition, not give one.  Much nicer evaluating than being evaluated! (2:00)

is back.  Dude was pretty good!  I really liked his take on one of our characters.  It’s cool when actors are the ones with the good ideas. (2:20)

wonders if the male brain is just not wired to be good at packing… (2:40)

has just had her recording session cancelled (boo).  Bladder empty, water full, think imma head out for a smoke and then hunker down. (2:50)

is back.  I am so happy that running and smoking still just a little is not causing problems.  I would be so freaking grumpy… (3:10)

just found out that it was touch and go on the 4 day weekend (not mine since I’m out of town, but for everyone else) but stuff was deemed too minor to mess with.  Yay! (3:20)

is now in hunker-down, headphones on, implementer monkey mode.  The world needs to be ignored for a while! (3:30)

just had a thought.  If I could give one piece of advice to a young me or someone similar, it would be to take whatever they’re passionate about and pursue it.  Wholly.  Completely.  In a life consuming way.  Before they are too attached to standards of living and salaries and money.  Don’t wait.  Longer than a twitter I know.  Back to work. (3:45)

is not being ignored well today.  *Hides better* (4:00)

just realized after an hour or so of work that she was working out of the wrong branch of code.  Thx u awesome programmers for 1.  not yelling at me and 2. fixing it for me. (4:30)

is now alone in the office (my producer officemate just left).  I miss coming in and leaving early, but I also love running in the mornings. (4:45)

is done being a monkey!  Now, to Soundland to chat, get statuses of peopleses, and clear my head. (5:45)

is back.  Now, to listen to some offsite auditions and then duck out a lil earlyish. (6:15)

can take no more of this.  Shutting down shop and heading out to target to for trip shopping rq and then home to finish packing. (6:35)

is at Target, and has a shopping problem.  I go in for a few things and try on the whole store. (7:00)

doesn’t have as much of a problem as I thought.  Clothes-wise, came out with a pair of shorts (on list), red hoodie (not on list but 8 bucks), two pairs of sunglasses (one on list) and lipstick (on list). (7:30)

got everyone’s opinion and is keeping pair one of the sunglasses.  Brown, with studs on the side.  I will probably return the other black pair.  Maybe.  Ok, possibly I still have problems. (7:45)

is playing pool at the neighbors!  Won my first two games. (8:30)

has had a bit to drink, and lost game 3.  Yay for pizza!  I would feel guilty eating two slices of thin crust pepperoni and a meat lovers, but it’s less than what I burned today on the run and I haven’t eaten much (10:00)

…and, since I’m lazy, that concludes my day.  Up for the rest of the night is more hangin’ out, playing pool, cocktails (weak, since I am getting up tomorrow to run, yoga, and then finish packing and get thee to the airport on time), and sleeeeep.  In retrospect, it’s probably best that I have a twitter filter, and only tweet the notable and interesting stuff.  This is Quix, signing off, until next Wednesday.  Vegas, baby.  Yeaaaaaaah.

What are you up to this weekend?  Anything legendary?  Wanna convince me to tweet more (yeah, right).

Unlike this guy,  this week I just haven’t been into it.  It, meaning everything besides already being on vacation, relaxing, or just basically doing whatever the hell I want, whenever I want.  Considering I’m on week 6 of half marathon training, have a full week of work to do, and other obligations to attend to at home, it just hasn’t worked out.

Usually, my runs energize me.  I feel GREAT after working out.  I feel EMPOWERED after a great weights session.  If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be so into it, I’m not a masochist.  This week – not so much.  It’s been a chore to drag my ass out of bed in the morning (even more so than normal) and it’s taken a lot longer to feel good during a workout.  I didn’t feel like I could give it my all until TWENTY minutes into my tempo run.  My cross training day yesterday came just in time, I don’t think I could have physically run without risking injuring myself, I was so tired and sore.  Then, when my alarm went off this morning, I groaned, got out of bed, and felt so thoroughly NOT pleased with the idea of going running that I just climed back under the covers and snoozed.

I keep thinking I should feel bad, but I don’t.  I used to feel horrible when I’d skip a workout.  I’d think, “If I skip this workout, then I’ll think it’s ok to skip more workouts and all of a sudden I’ll stop working out completely and I’ll immediately be 265 lbs again and miserable!”  Sounds crazy, but somehow in my head, missing one workout was going to cause the great Quix fat-ocolypse or something.  Now, I’ve got 21 months of regular workouts under my belt.  Exercise is now part of my life.  I cannot imagine a week without it unless I was on my deathbed.   I don’t even dream about being lazy like I used to when I was just over the workouts and had the mentality that I just wanted to hurry up and be skinny already.  Now I realize to be a healthy, strong athlete, I have to be both consistent with my workouts on a grand scale, and listen to my body day to day for the minutae.

Now, I realize that one missed workout because my body genuinely needed the rest is not a catastrophy.  I do have a twinge of guilt when I miss a workout in lieu of something like happy hour or whatnot, but that’s different.  I guess the secret is distinguishing the “don’t wannas” from “exercise today would be really and truly damaging for me”.  And I’m afraid the only insight I have on this is that you get to know yourself after doing something regularly for a long time.  I know when I start feeling like I do this week, I need to take care to listen to myself, or I could get hurt.  I have a pre-planned exercise rest via Vegas vacation from Saturday – Tuesday (though I am bringing some workout clothes just in case, because running on the strip might be a fun experience) otherwise I might have knocked off a few workouts on the schedule and given myself a long weekend to rest anyway.  We will see how I feel when I get back.  I bet after 4 days I’ll be ready to get back into it.

Now, I do love pushing myself.  If I didn’t workout every time I just didn’t necessarily feel like bothering to do it, I’d probably skip about 1-2 sessions a week.  For me, the hardest part is getting changed and the first 5 minutes.  I will workout through a hangover, because I know what caused the crappy feeling and it usually makes me feel better by the end of it, or at least not any worse.  I’ll do moderate exercise through a mild cold on the same vein – I know it’s not going to hurt me, and it’s probably going to make me feel better.  When I start feeling unusually “not into it” and sore, I’ve learned that pushing through THAT is what gets me injured.  Some tough weeks I’ll feel like it the last day and do my norm anyway, but only because I know I have only.one.to.go and I’m done.  Getting the feeling when I still have a 4 mile run, a weights session, an 8 mile run, and yoga – now that’s a sign.

And…I’m also not apologizing because I bet I make up what I missed.  I’m already feeling better having slept a bunch (over 9 hours) and rested this morning.  I’ve got my gym bag with me to do weights tonight – and I have visions of hopping on the treaddy first and seeing where it takes me.  I might not do the full 4 miles I was supposed to this morning, but I can see a quick 2 mile jaunt or something.  I also have scheduled Saturday as an offday, but have the morning before the airport so I might do a quick run then.  I just have to make sure I’m rested enough for my 8 miler tomorrow morning (ner-vous! this is by far the longest run!).

Internets, how do you cope with finding the balance between “don’t wanna” and “gonna get injured”?  What level of discomfort or disinterest makes you skip a workout?  Will you ignore the running shoes if you just don’t feel like it, or are you lifting weights until your arms fall off?

This, which is a very fine read on it’s own got me thinking, but on a slightly different subject.  It’s something that I’ve discussed with friends on some levels, but I’d like to put it out to the internet as well.  As we’ve become more technologically inclined, levels of communication have definitely changed and evolved from 15 years ago.

Case in point: when I was 15 years old, the options available to me to communicate with someone was to either see them in person, call them, stick a note in their locker, or write them a letter and mail it.  Considering most of my friends and I went to the same school, it wasn’t much trouble to see someone in person if I wanted to speak with them.  Most of the people I took time to communicate or share with were at least close acquaintances that knew me pretty well.  It was pretty typical to spend a good amount of time that I was not hanging out with one or a group of people either on the phone with a local friend, on the phone with a friend from Chi-town, where I used to live, or writing a personal letter to them.

Fast forward to college, around 10 years ago (Did I really say that?  I am getting so old).  My time was a bit more in demand then trying to do school, work, and theatre, and the internets had become a presence in my life, so the breakdown was a little different.  The most important people got alone time – usually meals or coffee or whatnot.  This was pretty much only for my best friends and boyfriend at the time.  Then, there was group interaction – going out to a party or hanging out with a group at coffee or whatnot.  There were still phone calls and texts, but usually dedicated to the same people that were on the “alone time” level unless they were super short utilitarian ones (making plans to go out, asking a quick question, etc).   I had pretty much stopped writing letters in favor of emails.  At that time, they were still usually personal ones, I didn’t graduate to the bulk “here’s how I’m doing” letters for another few years.  This is also about the time in my life where my friends weren’t only back in Chicago or near me – people had scattered to many different towns and places.

Now, I’ve got friends even more scattered.  I’ve got people I could consider good friends in Chicago, San Diego, Reno, New York, Denver, LA, Portland, Phoenix, Lexington, and I’m sure quite a few other places I’m forgetting.  Seeing them face to face is right out.  I wish I could take that many vacations per year, but yeah, totally not happening.  I wish I could be better about calling these people on the phone to chat and catch up, but the only people I ever call are my parents.  I used to send out nice long personal emails, but I don’t even have time for that anymore.

Beyond the group of local friends I see on a weekly/monthly basis and my parents, my answer to anyone that wants to stay in touch is not my phone number and address, but first my facebook and twitter info, and second my IM and email address.  I have been lucky to have met a seriously large amount of cool people in my life and I’ve always wanted to keep in touch with as many of them as I can.  The disconnect is between my want and my level of effort – I just don’t have the time and energy to spend on the phone catching up or out to dinner with a different old friend each night.  I guess it would be different if I lived in the same area all my life, but I’ve been a midwesterner, a desert gambler gal, an attitude-clad so-cal-ian, and now a southern hippie.  I’ve not traveled like some of the army brat folks I know, but I’ve been around.

I am in love with sites like Facebook/Twitter/Live Journal/etc – as well as the ability to have my own blog.  I think it’s super keen to be able to tell everyone at once today that “Leah is feeling rebellious.  Eff you, I won’t do what you tell me.  Ok, I probably will but I’ll grumble about it.”  And past coworkers, friends from middle school, former gymnastics teammates, and current friends of friends can comment about how dorky I truly am.  It helps to feel close to people who there is no way you could keep in touch with otherwise.  Some folks I’ve actually become close to *because* of the sites, people who were acquaintences but feel more like friends now.  It’s like back when I played MMOs, but with less 2am corpse runs and 6 hour raids.  Bonus!

I’m sure you can argue the downsides, but I’m not really feeling that right now.  I’m just happy that I can know what everyone’s doing and what’s one everyone’s mind whenever they feel like sharing.

What do you think about communication nowadays?  Hate that a personal message for some people is a text?  Love that you can meet and keep in touch with people over the intertubes?