Progress

I never did do a ‘before’ photo for my workouts… and I’ve been a bit bummed about that this past week and a half or so.

You see, I’ve felt as though I’ve not really made much progress in my fitness… not visually, anyway.

I have no full-length mirror to access at the moment – flea situation still, you see – and so I only get to see my stomach, really, on a daily basis.

And it doesn’t seem to have altered much since we started CrossFit classes.

Perhaps it has, and I haven’t noticed the ever so gradual change…, but it seems slight, if it has, indeed, changed at all.

I almost have a sense that my arms really are more defined than before, but I can’t be sure about it… when I flex my tired muscles, not much shows up still…

So, it feels like I’ve no visual results with all of this… and I’m definitely half in it for visual results – bikinis and swimsuits and awesome outfits are in my future, so my body needs to get into shape, literally.

And I’ve been getting a bit down and out about this all, wondering morosely if it’s all worth it, anyway, if I’m apparently doing it all wrong and not getting any actual positive results.

However, tonight, while brushing my teeth – of all things, right? – I noticed something…just past the outside edge of my collar bone, there is a semi-deep indention… on the other side of the intention is an extremely solid-looking shoulder muscle(!).

I mean, I couldn’t have flexed that muscle if I’d tried, but there it was, flexed, shining casually in all of its toned, 3-D shapeliness…

So now, at the very least, thanks to CrossFit, I look like and extremely fit and BA individual whenever I brush my teeth. 😛

Not my long-term or short-term goal is, but I’ll take it for now. 🙂

Thanks, CrossFit!

Post-a-day 2019

Ick

I hope you’re comfortable with discussion of bodily parts and dirtiness, because that is what follows here. 😛

I’ve just got to say: What is the deal with toenails?

Every time I shorten them, or even clean some fuzz (from the socks I’d just removed) out of them, it smells so stinky!

My feet typically do not smell bad.

And I never notice anything coming from the toenails.

Except, of course, when trimming them.

Am I really struggling that much with keeping them clean?…. is it actually that dirty underneath them, because I don’t clean them well enough???

That’s the only explanation I can imagine… and it totally freaks me out.

Totally.

I mean, am I carrying around grime in my feet all the time, and it only goes away by cutting the nail free, and, therefore, the creepy contents beneath it???

Eeeew!

That’s just gross.

And, the thing is, it is always the same smell… it never changes, if it is there at all.

Okay, I must get something I can use specifically to clean underneath my toenails every single night, a solid scrape of clean, since clearly soap and water don’t do the job.

Yikes… what a discovery… especially for someone who has panic around dirtiness…

Haha… that irony is actually hilarious… so long as I don’t think about the actual dirty, of course… 😛

How clean are your feet and toenails, really?

Post-a-day 2019

Mothers-in-law

Tonight, I attended a musical performance in an art gallery.

During the second part, after interacting briefly with a woman who helped me get water out of the near-empty water dispenser, the woman approached me:

W: As a mother of three boys, I have to ask you: Are you married?

H: [quiet laughter, because the concert has resumed in the next room of the gallery] I am not, no.

W: Good, because I like you… I have a blonde, a brunette, and a redhead, so you can take your pick.

H: Didn’t you just say that one of them is married?

W: Well, yes, the redhead is married.

H: [quiet laughter]

W: … But that might not last… you never know… And then you could have him… I’d be a good mother-in-law… I’m great at presents… I’ve had to deal with multiple mothers-in-law, so I’ve learned… I can be a very good mother-in-law… and I wouldn’t live next door.

Another 45 minutes or so later, the concert had ended, I had had several more reasons shared with me as to why I ought to consider marrying one of this woman’s sons, and I left the gallery with her e-mail and phone number, not because she had me convinced with her son who looks just like the (absolutely gorgeous, in my opinion) guy in “Fantastic Beasts” (though I remember him from loving him in “Les Mis'”), or with the fact that his job is a promise of absurdly high amounts of money for the rest of our lives, but because of her job…

You see, I was thinking to myself just his morning that I was interested in learning more about this specific something in Houston… and here I was tonight, under hilarious pretenses, handed a woman who works in just that specific something.

I plan to e-mail her this week to set up a meeting about her work.

And, who knows?… perhaps I’ll end up going out with her boy after all. 😛

H: [totally cracks up, alone in her room, as she considers the scenario]

Post-a-day 2019

Wedding

May the Fourth be with you…

I made that, using a Facebook messenger sticker as the foundation, and then adding the light saber and the extra message and stars and blue…., because I felt I needed a sticker of one of my characters holding a light saber for today (and the odd other occasion, of course, too).

At my friend’s wedding this afternoon, the string quartet played the Star Wars theme song as my friend and her now husband exited the chapel.

Our party favors, which happened also to be the main point of the send-off (which we faked way early, so everyone could go play, and then the bride and groom didn’t have to leave the party at any particular time [and they ended up being there as one of the last handful of duos present], and no one had to worry about breaking things), like a sword salute tunnel, were light sabers(!!!!!).

At one point, a friend and I were playing with ours, and he suddenly declared that he really wanted to go dance the current two-step with our light sabers just in our hands… and so we did… and the party progressively included more and more light sabers in active (and mostly appropriate) use.

It was such a blast of extra fun to have at the reception, those light sabers…. to the very end of the party, they were wonderful.

I also happen to have some fun ideas for photos now… 😀

Because, you know, I have four light sabers…. it pays to be one of the last ones around, helping. 😛

Also, my friend’s dad told me how, at the shooting ranger this morning, all the targets were from Star Wars: The Death Star, Darth Vader, Storm Troopers, and the likes…. and he said they discussed how you can’t take down a Storm Trooper with a direct hit, but that is have to miss, if you really want to get them. 😛 (Watch the first movie, if you don’t get it, and focus on the scene where Leia shoots at the Storm Troopers on the ship.)

Post-a-day 2019

Opera…

… so dramatic…(!)

But I totally love it, and largely for its actually absurd level of drama – the characters in shows are just plain nuts… and, if you don’t think they are, just pay a bit closer attention to their words, and they’ll wind up nuts soon enough.

Seriously, though…. almost all the characters… in almost every show… 😛

It’s kind of great. 😀

Whenever my mom and I attend a Mozart opera, at some point in the performance – and it sometimes happens more than once, if the music makes it really too hard to resist the secret explosion – my mother leans over to me and whispers through slightly pursed lips, “Too many notes…”

She doesn’t mean it, of course – she is merely commenting on how clearly she can hear the amazing number of notes that happen in a matter of seconds in Mozart’s compositions.

And, of course, she does so by quoting Signore Salieri from the spectacular film “Amadeus”.

(If you haven’t seen it, watch it… if you have, feel invited to watch it again soon.) 😉

It always gives me a bit of crack up, while simultaneously bringing a sense of awe into the space: Mozart’s compositions truly are magical.

And the ‘too many notes’ thing really is magical, too, because, upon first listening, I never notice the hundreds of notes…, but, when I think of Salieri’s comment, I suddenly hear them all, flying about, going this way and that, like butterflies of all different colors, going in all directions, but somehow all painting a beautiful picture in front of you with their combined colors en masse… it’s like a Seurat with notes…

And I love it.

Post-a-day 2019

Hair

I had my hair cut today.

Actually, I had a whole lot of my hairs cut today… and voluntarily.

I’m extremely pleased with the result, though it somewhat freaks me out a bit… as though the person I see in the mirror is someone else from the person I saw every time before this evening.

The whole goal to the haircut was to step closer still to the person I want and long to be… and every time I take those steps, then tend to be quite scary… the fear of failure – and various tangents off of it, too – always makes me feel a bit wobbly as I take these steps, though they usually gain solid ground and confidence rather quickly once I actually take them.

So, with the hair, I’m still a bit wobbly on my feet, so to speak, but I am finding the ground to be increasingly solid and stationary, the more I allow myself to experience the panic and discomfort, and, therefore, to let it go.

And no, this is not over just a little haircut, just so you know – this was my hair this morning:

and this was the floor* after the haircut:

*Including the 18-inch section that I set down for the photo; hair that I am donating for wigs for cancer patients (yet again)

And my hair is not very thick, mind you… that’s a pile of an additional four and a half inches that came off after I relaxed a bit about it all, and I was ready for the real haircut and style to happen. 😛

That’s 22 and a half inches of hair for the longest parts, with the bulk of it being around 20 and a half inches long…

Kind of crazy, huh?

Post-a-day 2019

Caffeine

My protein shake thing had caffeine in it… I can still tell… twelve hours later… it is past one AM, and my eyes are only just starting to droop a bit, and my body grow slightly weary…

I have to get up to sub tomorrow, which means leaving home at around seven AM… which, rather, I suppose, is today, not tomorrow… and just thinking about it makes me feel exhausted…

I am so tired, so sleepy, but my eyes and body are not having it… the caffeine won’t let them relax.

But it is beginning, at last, to give in, ever so slightly…

So, I suppose, I shall see if it will allow me to fall asleep now…

Fingers crossed!

P.S. I bought a plane ticket today to visit Japan this coming winter… woohoo!

Post-a-day 2019

Education

I feel that one of the most valuable things that school could give a student at the time of the education (that is, while in school) is relevance and immediate applicability.

As we have been reading various books on utopias and dystopias in one of my classes this semester, so much of it all has become relevant in my life within a very short time of its initial introduction.  

The struggle one character has with God in this book, and how she finds change to be inevitable (and, therefore, God), applies to my life the week following my reading of it… I can relate to her struggle immediately, and then the change comes up in conversation and contemplation regarding my relationships with people in my life.

I think teachers, schools, curriculum planners aim to have books students read in school to be relevant to the students’ lives, but they often fall short of the mark… they miss the applicability of the ideas and actions somehow, and only assume that this specific struggle must be applicable to all students of this age… and it often isn’t.

From English class, we need concepts, ideas, brainstormed theories that we can learn to apply to any part of life…

For history class, a historical context would be only an enhancement of our understanding of what’s going on right now, what people are discussing from the news, and why it seems to matter so much… we hardly do more than regurgitate facts, and rarely know much about what they really were like or why it mattered to people who lived it (and therefore why it might matter to us).

I today was learning of a book about a man struggling in Russia, and, as I heard the details, I knew it was around the 1920s…, because of the Russian refugees in season four of “Downton Abbey”… there was a story in which I could invest myself, and ideas to which I could relate and from which I could draw my own ideas and conclusions, and the history just kind of stuck with the affinity for the people in the story…

I interested myself with the French Revolution recently, because I discovered the wonder of the film “The Scarlett Pimpernel”… and I remember details about the revolution because of how they connect with the story of the film and its characters.

The actual history became relevant and immediately applicable for me, because of my investment in the film.

The same is so with my investment in “Downton Abbey”.

How could I possibly relate to the Russian refugees or to the French upper class, when I merely read some statements of facts, names, locations, dates, and a summed-up given political meaning to it all?

I guess that’s why I remember just about nothing from my history classes in school…

Perhaps it everybody needs this kind of education, but everyone certainly could benefit greatly from it, I dare say.

You know what I mean?

Post-a-day 2019

Little siblings

I never had little siblings, younger brothers or sisters… I was the baby of many, and by a bit.

My eldest sister would be mistaken as my mother whenever we would go out places… eleven and a half years difference can do that.

And so, I grew up learning loads of things not to do, loads of mistakes not to bother making, because at least one of my older siblings did that thing, made that mistake, and I learned the result long before I might have considered doing any of it myself.

Therefore, I’ve always struggled to understand what it could be like, having your younger sister in grammar school or still in high school… going to their terrible school performances or sports games… my siblings were all older by a good amount, so their performances and games were always awesome to me – in my child mind, they could have been pro compared to my own performances or games at the same time.

Tonight, I ran into two old classmates who were attending the art show of their little sister… and it reminded me that people actually do that, come back to the high school because of the younger sibling… I’d forgotten.

I’d thought people only really returned to visit for themselves, see old teachers and new buildings… that sort of thing… or to work there.

As I pondered how odd that idea feels, I suddenly recalled that I actually can relate a little bit.

You see, it’s almost like I have a borrowed younger sister.

My best friend lives in England, but her youngest sister lives in Houston, and she’s in high school right now.

Though I mostly am at the school for work purposes, I occasionally arrange my schedule around seeing her or spending time with her.

For the art show tonight, I had already planned to attend it, because it is always amazing.

However, I also knew that she would be performing in it, and so made sure to arrange accordingly to be there when she performed.

I always record her performance, and send it to her sister, who, naturally, is too far to make the trip for a short little performance every time.

So, in a way, I have a borrowed little sister: my best friend’s little sister.

It’s not exactly the same as her being my real sister, because I’d have attended loads more of her events and such…, but it has enough similarities for me to be able, ever so slightly, to relate to those who have younger siblings.

You know what I mean?

Post-a-day 2019

Wowzer

I started today with lots and lots and lots of tears… and a decent amount of snot, too….

And then, as though I had just ended a long-term dating relationship, I finished crying, cleaned myself up, and spent the day with my mom, my eyelids weary and, ever so slightly, burning…. every mirror glance made it look as though I had just been crying, though I hadn’t cried since hours earlier…

I felt a heavy weight had lifted away from me, one I had very much grown accustomed to being ‘normal’… and the ghost of a weight still lingers, as though my emotional and psychological muscles are gushing back to normal size, the blood finally flowing through much more freely again, oxygen reaching the muscles fully, at last… and a certain sense of nervousness at what is to come from this openness, this space that had been so large and so occupied (and heavy) for so long…

And I can feel how much my everybody wants this rest that tonight has to offer me in this big and cozy bed at my mom’s house… I cannot quite imagine what tomorrow will bring, but I can sense that there will be a sort of ‘other side’ I will reach, come morning…

Although, this dog that just began barking next door… could be a problem here… when the neighbors first got him, months ago, he barked all night long for days… and I slept almost not at all, until the dog went hoarse from the barking, and I couldn’t hear it anymore……… oh, goodie(!) – he’s stopped.

Anyway, I await happily the person I will be not only free but able to be tomorrow.

Thank you, God, for today.

It was terrifying.

And I think I’ve been working toward it for quite some time now…

So, it is nice to have it somewhat handled, at last.

Thank you. 🙂

Post-a-day 2019