Month: February 2011

No Such Thing as TMI, Part 3

Age thirty-five is better than 25 for many reasons.

One, my mid-twenties were rife with binge-eating and obsessive food thoughts and body hatred. I still have the thoughts and the hatred but with less frequency and intensity, and I have left the bingeing behind me.

Two, at 25, I still thought that just because I was good at something meant I should be doing it for a living. I kept saying to myself, “Ack! I don’t like this sales job either. I should get a different sales job.” Took me a long time to realize that it was the sales part, not the job part, that was making me miserable.

Three (and this is related to two), I’m getting better at determining cause and effect. That horrible gas and cramping? Yeah, don’t eat dairy, Ame. That crushing fatigue? You’re a glutard.

So, overall, my fourth decade is superior to my third.

There are lots of things about getting older, however, that don’t work for me. I have previously cataloged them. I’m getting gray hair and crows’ feet. (Yet I still get zits.) If I sit on the floor for more than five minutes, I have to kinda work out my knees—which snap, crackle, pop—before I stand up. I’m still pathologically incapable of finding an appropriate mate.

The thing that has caused me the most distress, in this journey toward the geriatric, is the urgency with which I now have to pee. A decade ago, I never woke up in the middle of the night. Now, it’s twice, thrice, even frice sometimes. During the day, I used to notice a gentle pressure in my bladder and know that I’d need to find a bathroom in the next hour or two. Today, it’s no pressure…no pressure…and then ABSOLUTELY NON-NEGOTIABLE.

Last night, I learned a little lesson. In case my cause/effect analysis goes on the fritz, I’m writing myself a little note here for reference.

Dear Amy,
If, when babysitting, you’re playing Ghost in the Graveyard outside in the crisp February air after dark, and you are the Ghost, and you hide behind the composter, and the kids find you and scream at the top of their lungs, you will pee a little bit in your pants.
(And jam your ring finger on the composter.)
Love,
Amy

Om Shanti

A year ago November, I receive word that I didn’t pass my National Board certification. I miss it by 0.006 of a point.

6/1,000.

Six-thousandths.

No 12% raise for me. Not for at least a year.

Last March, I redo one section of the test, and a few months ago, I get the news that I passed. Yes! Whew. I live a modest life. I’m no spendthrift. I just want to buy a new chair for my living room.

In December, I consult my payroll secretary, and she informs me that (despite the fact that I was told in the interview that “we keep up with the Durham Public Schools’ salary schedule”) my school doesn’t pay the National Boards supplement.

I’m disappointed, naturally, and let my administration know that I’ll be seeking a position elsewhere for the 2011-2012 school year. Then Violet tears up her knee, and I think, “You know what would help pay for this surgery? Twelve fucking percent.”

I’ve had a difficult year at this school, between writing all the curriculum, planning lessons, making do with fewer resources, and dealing with some really special kids. And I decide, you know what?, I’m done. I look online; I see an open Durham Public Schools (who would pay the 12%) position; I apply; I interview; I get it. I never thought I would be the teacher who left in the middle of the year, but there you have it.

Then the exact same day Human Resources sends me my start date for my new job, I get an email from the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards saying, hey, you may want to contact your State Senators and Representatives because they’re trying to cut your supplement from the budget.

I start my new job on Monday.

It’s times like these I try to remember that one day the sun is going to burn out and none of this shit is going to matter.

How Did I Not Know About Kale Until Now?

Sauteed shrimp, with a side of crispy baked kale.

Not a side of sadness.

I ate a whole bunch of kale. And I don’t mean “a whole bunch”, like “a lot”. I mean a whole BUNCH of kale. When you buy a bunch of kale at the grocery store, how many people is that supposed to feed?

Actually, who cares? It was delicious. I dropped some on the kitchen floor and shouted, “Five second rule!”

And I live alone.

In related news, I broke my heart

-covered mug.

My Baby Is Hurting

And it’s making me hurt.

She's shaved.
And swollen.
And wine-red bruised.
And sutured. (Seriously, who did these stitches? Dr. Frankenstein?)
And, worst of all, humiliated.
No, I mean, really humiliated.
Seriously, y'all.

I’m sorry, Violet!

Worst: no walks, no wrestling, no nothing—just going out to go potty FOR A MONTH. Week 5, I can walk her for five minutes twice a day. Week 6, ten minutes. Etc.

I’ve been vexed by how to get Redford enough exercise during the day so he won’t harass Violet and tear up her bionic knee at night. I tried doggy day care for two days last week, but it was expensive, and he wasn’t even tired when he got home.

Fortunately, Theresa, my friend’s mom and my neighbor, offered to watch Redford during the day while Violet’s recovering. We tried it today.

That seems like it's going to work.

A Competition, Physical in Nature

Well!

Yesterday I participated in my very first fitness competition. It’s true, I tumbled in some gymnastics meets until age 8 or 9. And the summer after fifth grade, the Brown Bros. Construction Company softball team went undefeated…until I went on vacation (buffs nails on shirt). I did my share of bump-set-spike on Cove Creek School’s seventh and eighth grade volleyball team. (Hahahaha! I did not spike anything! I’ve been a midget my whole life!) Summers, I sailed Lasers in some races.

But I’d never in my adult life competed in a physical pursuit. Against other adults, I should say. (For the last five years, I’ve been whooping some fourth-grade ass at the tetherball pole.)

So yesterday. Yesterday I participated in the Valentine’s Day Couples Throwdown at CrossFit Durham. You didn’t have to be paramours to participate, just mixed-sex pairs, so I sought out a partner. Paul, you remember Paul, already had a partner, but since he does six to eight times as much exercise as the rest of us, he decided he would take me on too and do each WOD in two different heats.

Big Love CFD was formed. My sister-wife Kristen, Paul, and I psyched each other up for the big shindig all week. As the event drew closer, I found myself developing quite the case of nerves. Fortunately, I received this email from Paul on Friday night:

By now you know how competitive I am. That being said, tomorrow is all about having fun! What’s “fun” you ask? Talking shit about our fellow CFers, cheering for the underdogs, and sweating up a storm. If we can accomplish this, the smackdown will be a success!

Whew. I could do all those things. I am an accomplished shit-talker, underdog-cheerer, and sweater.

I arrived and donned the heart-themed knee socks my sister-wife had brought for all of us. Kristen’s love is fickle, however, and when a hot guy showed up without a partner, she abandoned us without a backward glance. Paul and I were on our own.

The Throwdown consisted of two WODs. We all took a knee as Coach Dave explained the first one:

Partner 1: Eat 15 Hershey’s Kisses

Partner 2: Row 1000m

Both: 20 sit-ups (facing each other, touching hands in the middle)

Partner 1: Row 800m

Both: 20 sit-ups

Partner 2: Row 600m

Both: 20 sit-ups

Partner 1: Row 400m

Both: 20 sit-ups

Partner 2: Row 200m

Both: 20 sit-ups

Partner 2: Eat 10 Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups

Paul and I began to strategize. He said he despised peanut butter cups, and I don’t love them either, but the way the WOD was organized meant that Partner 2 (the peanut butter-cup eater) was going to row 600 meters more than Partner 1. We both knew that Paul was going to need to take one for the team and gag down those cups.

We were in the third heat, so we watched the other competitors. Paul kept pointing out what terrible form most of them had—Paul does not mince words—so I asked for coaching, and he gave it to me. The instructions were simple and straight-forward, and I knew I could do it.

The third heat began, and I ate the shit out of those Hershey’s Kisses. I finished way ahead of the other Partner 1s (all that binge-eating ages 17-30 finally paid off!), and Paul hopped onto the rowing machine. He is a speedy demon, that Paul. We ripped out our first set of sit-ups. Time for my first row. Paul was a GREAT coach, and it was hard, but I felt good. The next set of sit-ups was tough. Doing sit-ups while out of breath is way harder than doing them fresh. By the fourth set of sit-ups, I was grunting with each one and slowing us down. By the fifth, I was moaning. Whatever. We finished them.

Now, Paul could’ve done the rowing and the sit-ups thrice without a problem, but it’s a good thing Kristen flouted our covenant and he didn’t have to do the WOD again because eating those Reese’s cups nearly broke the man. That being said, he choked them down, and we finished sixth out of eighteen couples. What?! Sixth! Amazing.

The second WOD was a 10-minute AMRAP (as many reps as possible):

10 burpees

25m walking lunges

(turn around)

10 burpees

25m walking lunges

The kicker: it was a three-legged race. We had to do the burpees AND the walking lunges tethered together at the knee.

Let me be clear. I hate burpees like I hate racism. And to do them while tied to someone, particularly someone who is fit, oh mah gah!

We were in the second heat. During the first, I did my best to keep pace with Paul’s heckling of our opponents, but he’s got mad skillz, yo.

That was nothing compared to the WOD. We developed a burpee strategy: outside leg back, inside leg back, push-up, inside leg forward, outside leg forward, stand up. The band was cutting off the circulation in my leg, and we tried to move it to our ankles, but that threw off what little balance we had, so we moved it back up. During the last two sets of lunges, I had to tell Paul to stop several times, which he graciously did but got me back in the game almost immediately by saying, “OK, three, two, one.” And off we’d go. It suuuuuuuuuuuucked.

We completed three full sets plus ten more burpees, and placed seventh in the event.

Everybody shuffled inside, and when the points were tallied, Paul and I had come in seventh overall.

So hard.

So fun.

Watch out for us next year.

P.S. Here’s Paul’s version of the event.