• August 18th – Returning to the scene of the class war — Feministe – Henry Ford was a union-busting, Nazi-sympathizing jerk, but he understood that to be successful people had to make enough money to buy his product–automobiles. The economy we have right now is the direct result of people no longer understanding that basic concept.
• August 18th – The Self-Educated Cinéaste – VID: A Sophisticated Song (Cary Grant & Katharine Hepburn) – For all you classics fans – a Cary Grant/Katharine Hepburn fan video. SO Much FUN!
• August 18th – Would Neil deGrasse Tyson please run for president? : Pharyngula – Really, Neil DeGrasse Tyson = AWESOME!
• August 16th – darkravn: my bedroom sometimes feels like… – This is awesome! I think it might be my living room.
• August 16th – Angry – AWESOME!
• August 16th – How To Go Primal (without really trying) :: stumptuous.com – I thought this was interesting – I am not really on board with the Paleo diet concepts, BUT the first part of this makes sense no matter what.
• August 15th – GLSEN issues cease-and-desist letter to Family Research Council – Here is the thing – why be against a group if you have to make shit up for people to be upset with them about? Sometimes I think i will never get “people”.

Still feel like I don’t quite have the right break out of exercises yet for circuits, but I am working on it. I have come to realize that I have to split up the ones I like in with the ones I like less, and then use them as an incentive – hey if you do those push-ups, then you get to do your lat pull-downs!! I like doing the lat pull downs – so far they are kind of easy no matter how high I have moved the weight – so they make me feel like I am strong.

I don’t have a cute red dress hanging outside my closet to fixate on. I don’t have a size I want to be. I don’t have a some weight that I picked because it sounded good, or because someone’s math told me it was the right weight for my height.  And contrary to what the motivationalists will tell you – this is a good thing for me.

Which isn’t to say I have NO goals – I would have to have much better access to much more fun chemicals to lose that ability.  And I won’t even say my goals are small or modest. But they are more nebulous. That might come back to bite me later – or later the goals might get more concrete. Or maybe someday i’ll just decide that I’ve gotten there.

There will not be mantras involved in getting there. Someday they might invent “motivation for cynics” – but I haven’t found a version yet that doesn’t make me want to gag. I think wanting to do it is going to have to be enough.

So currently the plan and goal – is to go. Meaning go to the health club and do “something”. Something is not going to be very defined – at least for a while. Get to the club, if there is a class that is interesting – take it, if not, do something else.  (I know, strangely logical) So far that is panning out to about two classes a week (pilates or yoga) and two days of treadmill/bike/elliptical/aerobic thingie plus some circuit machines and stretching. When I come back from vacation at the end of March i hope to add swimming in there. But vainly, I don’t want to do too much chlorinated pool blended with funky hair dye before going to see the family I rarely see.

So that is the plan …

A. When I start making a plan and goals, if I don’t meet them perfectly, I then use it as an excuse to not continue. And once I start planning, I start micro-managing – thus leaving me endless opportunities to fail to meet the plan. This affects way more things that exercise – but as one can imagine especially with something like exercise  where I have sort of a love/hate relationship  with it anyway. It can make an impact.

B. This one is more weight than exercise –  My parents, society, stupid beauty norms – they all say i should lose weight. And I mostly say – fuck that.  The fact of the matter is – my mom bugged me about my weight when i had a 28″ waist and weighed 110 pounds. (And seriously if I had  weight problem at 5′ 3″ 110lbs and DD chest – I’ll eat a bucket of worms) I hated her hangup about my weight, and to me, I feel like I never learned how to normally limit my own weight, because I have been running fast away from someone else trying to control it.  I now weight twice that much (that was in high school).

But seriously – I HATE getting approval from any place my brain has determined as “establishment” for something that makes me more “normal”.  The most dangerous time for me when losing weight is when my family starts noticing, and giving me praise. I feel like a sell-out.  And then the only thing they’ll want to talk about is what I am doing to lose weight.  I realize that logic doesn’t enter much in here, but I can’t escape the feeling that I am suffocating just remembering a family gathering the last time I lost any serious amount of weight.

C. Not surprisingly, my parents love to be active,  exercise, love to be in shape, watch what they eat, follow nutrition fads – they do the whole thing. My dad was a marathon runner, then he did 100 mile bike races, now he lifts weights and does rowing machines (I think i am right about the machines). My mom used to do 1/2 marathons, goes aerobic walking, does yoga and tai-bo and step aerobics etc.  They both have my whole life. I don’t ever remember enjoying it. Which isn’t to say I didn’t do my share of activities when I was younger, I swam competitively (although I rarely cared if I won), and loved to dance. But my parents would go cross country skiing, and so can’t contemplate that one might not enjoy it, that they don’t remember me not enjoying it. (You’d have thought the crying was an indicator – but if I tell them that now, they’ll tell me I am just being dramatic.) To me quite a bit of “exercise” like activities are associated with aches and pains, and being left behind, and boring pointless repetition.

D. I think I’ve spent the last year in a circle mantra – “I am going to have to start exercising, because I am not going to do a ton about the way I eat.” “I am going to have to change the way I eat, because I don’t see myself exercising.”   – Its frustrating knowing that the way one is treating their body isn’t good for it, but not being able to figure out a way to change it that will work.  I tend to think in ways that are BIG CHANGE BIG CHANGE, and tend to miss the ways one can do series of small changes.

that is sort of the short list – followed by -
“Damn, have you seen what they charge fat women for work out clothes?”
“Really, fat people can be athletically fit?”
“No, I’m sorry I can’t make that pose, my tits are in the way!”
“What do you mean, you would like a sports bra that will keep you from putting an eye out?!”

so getting over, around, above etc all of that and walking in the door of the club – well WHEEEE!  and NO this isn’t a “You should feel bad for me” type post. But if I am going to keep posting about working out – I want folks to know where I am coming from, and why I make some of the weird seeming choices I make about how I approach it.

2nd -  I have a new phone number – (847) 693-7951  this number doesn’t replace any other number except that it should ring both my home and cell, and any other place I set it to as well.

3rd – As a reminder I read LJ regularly, I post at my blog which cross-posts to LJ and dreamwidth. I try to keep up on twitter, and post occasionally. But I almost never read or update at facebook, so please if you’ve mostly migrated over to FB, email me if you need me to know something, please don’t assume I’ll see it if you post it only at FB.

4th – Summer is eating me alive, I can’t figure out how it got to be late July already.

5th – I want to see harry potter, go to botanic gardens, clean house, garden, play some games, relax

6th – I am designing a pair of socks that I am very excited about.

7th – “Get dropbox” is a cool app for people using more than one computer. It creates a folder that is automagically synced to its online store of data.  You can move files to it as easy as copying or moving files on your computer, you can use the folder on multiple computers or you can access it through the web if you are on a machine that you don’t want to install their little app on.  Even better it works on all of the big three – Windows, Mac and Linux.