memo to myself.

the next time you get the brilliant idea that you should be the football block coordinator, thinking that it will be no big deal, no stress, and an easy way to help out…

…smack yourself repeatedly in the head and get a clue.

NEVER. AGAIN.

goodness.

of hummus, microtears, and displacement.

it’s 3:04 p.m. and i haven’t eaten lunch yet. i ate breakfast at 11, so this makes some sense, but i need to eat. and yet, because i am actually being productive and am starting to be massively sore from my past two days of working out, i really don’t want to move.

but i want some hummus, so it’s going to happen. also, if i wait to eat anymore, i’m going to have to find a way to eat 1400 calories in one meal. and that’s just gross.

i started a new strength training program today, and let me tell you what. i have two muscles–maybe three–in my body that aren’t just little whiny wimpy children. those muscles are my quads, worked into submission and strength by my cardio insanity over the course of most of the summer or at least over the past two months, and my biceps, which i guess i must use a lot in the course of my days because i really can carry seriously heavy loads without much pain. but the rest?

wimpy whiny pasty faced children crying for their mama.

i tried to do lateral raises with five pound weights in each hand. i barely got through 25. i know. you can laugh at me. i was similarly disgusted. and overhead presses? yeah. i got through a few more of those. but surprisingly, i’m excited about it. i’m going to be working REALLY hard over the next…say…three months so that i can get where i want to get by the time i want to get there. i’m excited to have the motivation to do it. i’d sort of lost it there last week.

also, although i know you really don’t care but this is my world and so i make the rules, i am working on being able to do all of the stadium stairs–not run, people…please…i mean just climb them at a brisk pace without stopping–without my heart exploding. i did about…33% of them yesterday.

and right now?

my legs are talking to me about them. stairs and those crazy ramps they have at the stadium which are like 25% incline. nutso. but actually lots of fun.

except when you have to walk past some sort of ROTC introductory hazing/humiliation exercise…not so much fun.

and also, what’s not so fun is that you have to rest after you just get started. hurry up and wait. man it sucks. i get all excited and motivated, and then i have to wait to do those exercises again so that my whole body doesn’t stage a massive revolt against me by, say, taking away my ability to be upright and mobile.

sometimes, i would like to not have to wait for things. that would be super fun. have you ever noticed how life is just one big juggling game? you start one thing, can’t finish it, toss it up in the air, and then catch and deal with something else that’s now pressing.

hmph.

and finally, in this crazy post of nothingness that describes almost everything that’s on my mind at this moment…you know you’re displacing something when you find yourself waxing nostalgic about an ex, visiting his facebook page, and remembering not the drama, angst, anger, immaturity, and did i mention THE DRAMA, but only good, fun times. i caught myself doing it and couldn’t believe it. what is WRONG with me?

but now as i’m actually thinking about it, i guess when you’re worried about the future, the past is quite a safe place to visit.

and boy is my future scary, what with plane tickets for conferences to buy and plans for suit shopping with mom in a couple of months for job interviews and chapters that are going (knock wood!) quite well and the ideas that are coming (which is just the biggest blessing EVER and i do recognize that) and realizing that it’s your last year in the place where you have, for all intents and purposes, grown up and become yourself.

yeah. that nonsense is now suddenly making a whole lot more sense.

now i’m hungry.

signs.

parades of undergrad girls in wedges or heels, followed by older girls in absurd hats going from house to house on 13th street.

norman field awash in brass and drums for marching band practice.

walmart populated by clumps of dormmates ooing and ahhing over rubbermaid storage solutions.

mowers on the new stadium turf, the smell of new paint in stadium concourses, and powersprayers working overtime to make even dull concrete gleam.

orientation parking signs.

a hurricane threatening just off the coast.

it’s fall.  i can’t believe it.  it’s fall.  my last fall semester.

i don’t know how to feel.

funhouse.

once upon a time, when i was about 16, i went to a halloween haunted house. just across the street from the junior college in my town, there was an abandoned storefront that an organization took over every year and turned into an event called, if i remember correctly, “scream in the dark.” it was legendary in my town and, finally, that year i went with my friends.

it was so popular that we had to wait, in line, for about an hour to get in. we stuck together, through the thrills and squeals and surprised starts. it was seriously fun.

at the end of the whole thing, we got separated. i distinctly remember this moment, because it was embarrassing, as you will see, but also because it seems, perhaps only now as i think back about it in a new context, like a metaphor for how i operate.

(a day when i won’t find a metaphor in my experience is probably the day that i embrace geometry as my life’s work, but that’s neither here nor there.)

the last room was completely dark, the only light coming from glow-in-the-dark paint and a stream of light from the exit door. the only purpose of this room was to get you to the exit. that’s important to know. the exit door was on the left of the last wall, the glow-in-the-dark paint creating a walkway into the wall to the right. can you picture this? the walkway was a diversion, a distraction.

i fell for it. i followed the walkway, doubting the instinct/common sense/little voice that told me that the exit was, hello, where the light was, instead trusting the rules i’d lived by. the rule is, of course, that walkways and roads get you where you want to go.

so i walked into the wall, only then realizing that the place you want to get wasn’t always connected to the road. the teenage boys who were working that room cracked up laughing at me. i don’t blame them–they must have wondered what on earth my problem was.

i didn’t get it, though i should have: sometimes, in a bizarro world you don’t recognize, the rules change.

–

tonight i went to/planned a small get together for my wonderful pal’s birthday. we went bowling and to steak ‘n shake. it was good fun. playing with my friends is always fun.

when we went to steak ‘n shake, we were all sitting together. our waiter was adorable and sassy, and before i realized it, i was assertive and sassy back. and saying things that i never would have said before. it was fun. i was confident, and i haven’t a clue where it came from.

as we were all leaving, i was the last to pay and my friends, who had all come in separate cars, had already left. i went up to the register, where adorable waiter and his waitery pal (who i had seen him high fiveing in the back and talking to throughout our time there) were standing. waitery pal, who was adorable too in a sort of tall, independent film, curly haired (brookem, if you’re reading this, he had a GOOD HOH), guitar-playing, scruffy way, sort of leaned on the counter by the registers as i was paying and asked me how my brownie sundae was. i don’t really know how to describe his tone, but there was something to it. something i didn’t really recognize.

i told him it was fabulous (brownie, ice cream, hot fudge, whipped cream, and a cherry. tell me how that could be ANYTHING but fabulous? that’s what i thought.) and he told me that he had had a complaint about the brownie sundae earlier and so he was just curious. all of this while leaning on the counter and making eye contact and keeping the conversation going…with that unmistakable yet indecipherable tone.

and, while i sort of avoided eye contact at some points, i played along.

the whole time?

i had really no idea what was happening.

i should say, perhaps, that i knew exactly what was happening. i had known what was happening the whole time we were there. but i talked myself out of it, over and over again, not believing what i saw.

–

do you see the connection?

i now live in bizarro world where the rules are totally different. i haven’t caught up yet. i don’t know how to catch up.

when you’re fat, people don’t look at you. they look at you, but they don’t see you. or if they see you, they try not to see you. they look beyond. they look inside. nothing wrong with that. i don’t mind people seeing inside. i have a blog. i’m obviously kind of okay with my innermost thoughts being on display. my inside? i feel good about it. not to be obnoxious, but i know that i am quite awesome in that regard. i’ve had practice at that.

but i’m not at all used to being seen. not just seen, but seen, appraised, and obviously appreciated. noticed. and there being a positive reaction to that noticing. it’s a language i don’t understand. it’s a perspective i’m not used to. everything seems upside down and inside out. i used to be the one that nobody saw. now i’m the one that gets singled out? i feel like i’m walking into walls still, instead of seeing the door and going towards it with confidence.

i feel like the rest of the world is seeing me in a way that i don’t see myself.

how do you get past that? will i catch up?

breaking news.

i ate a spicy salmon roll today. well, half of one. the other half is in the fridge for tomorrow (that’s okay, right? totally refrigerated…).

i.e. i ate sushi. real sushi. like, with real fish in it. i also ate half of a california roll, but i don’t really feel like that counts at all. nothing potentially scary there.

bow down before me. i am wicked brave. now to translate that into the rest of my life.

also…and on an entirely different subject that will remain purposefully vague…you know how you see something coming, and you’re cool with it, and then it happens, and you’re surprisingly not so cool with it?

you know that sort of punch-in-the-gut feeling?

i hate that.  for reals.

that doesn’t mean my eyes will soon be turning red.

the rain has thwarted at least three of my well-conceived plans.

i could grab an umbrella and suck it up and do it anyways–and that might happen later–but it’s annoying me. don’t get me wrong–i very much appreciate the fact that it is not a sweltering 900 degrees in the shade and that we desperately needed the rain because the ground it was so thirsty–but seriously. enough already.  keep the clouds. adios the perpetual rain.

i also need a massage.

first, before i say this, you have to understand that i am not a massage person.  it’s a personal boundary thing.  a person you don’t know?  i don’t think so.  but my neck and shoulders are in some serious knots.  i don’t know what i did yesterday while i was walking or sleeping or something, but once i was done, i had some serious muscle spasms.  super.  at least i can say that it’s not the kind of muscle spasm where you can’t turn your neck–try driving with that one. yeah, good times–but it does hurt.  so that sucks.

also, let me just tell you.  if you have a persistent muscle twitch, possibly related to the fact that your entire back feels like it’s in knots for whatever reason, and you google it? you will find out that you do not in fact have a persistent muscle twitch likely related to exercise or a dietary deficit (who knew magnesium was so important?) but instead some debilitating disease like ALS or MS.

yeah, don’t google your ailments unless you are prepared to write a will and say goodbye to friends and family.

deep breath. i’m going to go and try to salvage my day, which will involve walking in the rain, going to the library, and doing something productive like i did yesterday.

go me.

status update.

routine.

i’m sitting here watching olympic men’s beach volleyball on tv, contemplating taking advil for the fairly persistent headache i’ve had the past few nights (my body rebelling against bob costas olympic coverage, i wonder? i doubt it.  i hearts me some bob costas, with his deep voice and his ability to make anyone cry with the story of anyone doing most anything. in fact, i do believe that i am now having flashbacks to a dream i had as a child–perhaps shortly after the 1984 olympics (oh good heavens did i just say that out loud on the internets?)–where bob costas narrated my life as an olympian.  or it’s possible that i just made that up because i’ve eaten one too many cinnamon cereal clusters.  regardless, i loves me some bob costas) and trying to figure out my new schedule.

see, i don’t know if you know this or not but i am now embarking on the grand new adventure of having NOTHING WHATSOEVER TO DO.

you know, except a giant fat dissertation.

and to be cute, which takes SO much more energy and effort than it seems.

and to flip out about the future.

but let’s concentrate on the fact that my routine, normally determined by when i have to teach and work and hold office hours, is now entirely in my control.  i mean, starting in the fall semester i will be back freezing my carcass off in the reading and writing center, helping one and helping all to focus their paragraphs in their attempts to save the world one personal statement at a time.

it’s a rewarding work, let me tell you.

but really, i can work when i want to. so when the email came asking me when i wanted to work, i asked for mornings.

let’s stop for a moment to soak that in.

I ASKED FOR MORNINGS.

because my goal, fine readerly friends, is to be A MORNING PERSON.

let me tell you how this usually works.  i stay up too late–for example, watching the very exciting men’s gymnastics final on tv last night until the feed froze during a japanese gymnast’s high bar revolution, which was kind of creepy and totally annoying because it’s not like NBC is TiVO and is just going to start where they left of and OH MY GOSH there was pommelhorse going on and what happened with that guy who was notoriously inconsistent and you see how i’d be awake still–but plan to wake up early.  i set my alarm, the same alarm that i’ve had since i was 12 and just starting junior high–because in CA that’s what it is–and the alarm that still wakes me up but with whom i have a love hate relationship.  meaning that i hit the snooze button an insane amount of times and then hate my alarm for not doing its job better by, say, growing legs and kicking me (gently?) in the face until i wake.

but by then, i’m at least an hour off of my ambitious MORNING PERSON schedule, and i feel like it’s totally fine if i just eat a blueberry bagel in my bed while watching i love lucy because the whole MORNING PERSON thing hasn’t really worked out thus far.  or my grand ambitions of running up and down the stairs is thwarted–THWARTED!–by rain.

you see how i could get the idea such a routine is not organically familiar.

but i’m thinking that is what i want.  i tell you all of this because now is the time when i get to set a routine.  now, when i’m without distraction and can set my own schedule, undeterred and undaunted.

and i have decided that i want to be that morning person that gets up and goes and works out and then comes home and is all chipper and happy and spends hours in the library NOT surfing the internets or blogging about inanity but churning out page after page of brilliance.

because as much as i’d like to think that i can get things done at night, that i am more productive in the evening, i am sitting here with a pile of unread articles on ann radcliffe and all i am thinking about is advil and the complete oddity that they are playing beach volleyball in china.

mornings.

we’ll see.

snapshots.

i was going to embed a snippet of the movie i just saw. i went online to find pictures of the sassy, adorable, super cheap dresses that i bought. i was going to show you the yummy smelling lotion that i figured that i finally earned and have been wanting for about six or eight months.

i figured i would tell you my day in pictures.

i was going to not tell you the story of how my dressing room experience was infinitely the reverse of the last time i hit the jcpenney 70% off sale, when i was frustrated beyond belief because nothing fit right. i was going to ignore the fact that i almost cried when i put on a black and white dress that was SO cute but waaaay too short but that made me look TINY…and how amazing that felt. i was going to skip over the fact that i took a moment, right then, to really look at myself and realize how far i’d come.

i was going to not talk about the fact that adorable guys in the mall sought out eye contact and smiled at me when i was just walking around minding my own business and how i smiled back, not assuming that they were skeezy or weird but figuring that they just thought i was cute. because i am.

i was going to pass over the story about how today’s workout was dancing around my entire empty house, like an idiot, to the Mamma Mia soundtrack. and how much freaking fun it was.

i stopped looking for pictures to tell you my story because i think the first one fits best. i think this song just expresses my mood perfectly.

this? has been a frickin’ awesome day.

snippet of my soul.

i have heard lately that women are difficult to understand.  one time i told my mom that i didn’t think i was that complicated, and she laughed right in my face.  i actually don’t think i’m complicated once you get to know me, but maybe i’m wrong.

regardless, here are some things that have been rattling through my brain lately, the reactions to which ought to tell you more than i ever could about me:

• i gave some seriously low grades this semester, one of which went to a student that i genuinely like.  i was pained by this, despite the fact that the performance merited the grade, and considered warning the student that the grade was coming rather than have that student discover it simply by logging in to check grades. i decided against it.  when i saw several students were just on the line between a grade and a grade +, i rechecked my math to make sure that i hadn’t missed something–but i didn’t change the grade.  as a teacher, i grapple constantly with the line between justice and mercy.
• submitting grades is always accompanied by some degree of fear, mixed with elation, mixed with relief.  but mainly fear–that i’ve screwed them up, that i’ll have to deal with student reactions, that i’ve done something wrong.  it all feels very important and eternal.  i am daunted by it.
• i was in the car yesterday afternoon, about to leave to pick up a gift for the reception that i was planning to go to in orlando, when a wave of exhaustion hit me.  the week caught up to me, right there, as i was driving on archer road.  i called my mom at home.  she wasn’t there.  i called her cell.  she didn’t pick up.  i shook my fist at the heavens. i called home again.  see, i needed permission that it was okay for me to not go to the reception.  i felt bad–i did want to go, but i just couldn’t see how i was going to survive the drive, the festivities (which would require serious social energy because most of the people were people that i didn’t know and i was planning on going alone), and the drive back without putting my car into a wall.  mom called back shortly after i u-turned to back home.  i still really needed her to tell me that the decision that i made was okay.  once she did, i went upstairs and fell asleep for like four hours, taking solace in the fact that i would buy them a bigger present than normal and that, having just been married, they probably wouldn’t even notice my presence.
• i have been thinking about writing something–two somethings–unrelated to school for a while now.  the first is something that actually has to be done in the next few months.  it’s always been sort of vague and the ideas never felt right.  this week, phrases started to come to me.  the second is something that was always sort of just a dream, but now i wonder if i actually want to commit it to paper.  at times i find myself musing about it, trying out word combinations and wondering how i’ll approach it.  somehow it feels like if i actually write it down, it will be real and will somehow get away from me.  going over them both again and again–or forcing myself to not think about it in favor of the work i have to get done–seems safer.  everything seems safer when i’m only imagining it.
• i was very zen about the future up until about a month ago, when the future all of the sudden seemed a whole lot closer.  now i alternate between being zen, fighting nausea, and maintaining my carefully constructed state of denial.  mom tells me to worry about the things that i have in my control and not anything else, and i do that well most days.  i am still anxiously engaged in my life, working hard on the things that i can work hard on and meeting goals every day.  i am actually very proud of that because it’s an entirely new mindset for me.  but i can see my life having equal chance of going in about three or four different directions in the next year, and not knowing which path to prepare for freaks the ever-loving crap out of me.  if i could learn anything, i would like to learn how to let go and enjoy the ride.