Month: July 2011

The Hatred

You remember when I did 1,500 push-ups in June? Well, having that goal, writing it on the wall, committing to a partner was really helpful.

I wanted to work on a new challenge in July: pull-ups. Coach Phil (who will be moving over to CrossFit RTP in October—yay for him! wah for me!) convinced me that, as sexy as 1,500-whatevers-in-a-month sounds, it’s just not the best way to get results. He recommended volume training: specifically, up to five reps on the minute for twenty minutes, twice a week, alternating pull-ups and chin-ups.

I harassed a bunch of other people into doing “Pull-Up Club” with me and even started a Facebook page so we could track our progress together. And for the most part, it’s been really good.

Now I can’t do unassisted pull-ups, which means I have to tie gigantoid rubber bands to the pull-up bar and put one foot inside to support some (read: a lot) of my weight. When I started at CrossFit last year, I was using the black band, the hugest, thickest one. It’s so thick that I couldn’t even get into it myself. I’d have to have one of the coaches pull it down so I could shove my foot in the loop. The other day, my sister-wife and I tried the black band just for shits and giggles, and—no joke—I felt like I was in one of those Johnny Jump-ups you put babies in. I worried I might shoot through the roof.

So good, yeah, I’ve worked my way down the bands for the past year, and during this month went from green and skinny purple, to green, to blue and skinny purple, to (today) blue. I’m not even close to doing an unassisted pull-up, but I’ve made progress, and I’m going to continue with the volume training until I do. I guess.

All this to say, you know, I’m proud of myself for the work I’ve done, and I know shit doesn’t change overnight and the food craziness is what’s in the way, but I saw a photo of myself from the gym this morning, and it made me want to jump off a bridge. The other day, one of my friends mentioned my upper body—just a throw-away remark, but clearly contrasting it with my lower body—and I laughed, which is what I do, because it’s comical, really. There’s something very carnival fun house about the area from my waist to my knees.

But I just hate it. I hate my body.

And I know I should STFU because, unlike Aaron, I have one that works.

And I know this is when people tell me don’t say that, don’t think that, you’re beautiful, look what you’ve accomplished.

But I’m telling you, don’t do it. Don’t tell me that. There’s nothing you can say that will make me not hate my body today.

Athos, Porthos, and Aramis Can Suck It

Yesterday, I ate my annual Three Musketeers bar and then wondered on Facebook how many years it would take me to remember that THEY’RE GROSS.

Because if I’m working on one skill in my old age, it’s turning down bad-for-you food if it’s not frickin delicious. If I’m going to put crap into my system, I try to make sure it’s sublime.

But yesterday, I had to go to yet another meeting, and I felt like I deserved a treat for going, so I went to the vending machine. The pickins were slim. I don’t know if Three Musketeers was my best choice, but when you’re trying to avoid gluten, options are limited.

Anyway, my status update led to an academic discussion of Three Musketeers’ worth when juxtaposed against other works in the chocolate bar canon. And a scientific discourse on the peanut butter-to-chocolate ratio in mini Reese’s cups vs. that of the full-sized variety.

Enlightening stuff.

So, my question is: which sweet treat do you pass up even when it’s offered to you free of charge, and which, despite its required money- and calorie-expenditure, will you snarf anyway because it’s totally worth it?

I'll let you know right now that, lately, this stuff has been haunting my dreams.

Scrat Roars

My gym is different from your gym. Not to say that my gym is better.

Except that it’s better.

Ha ha. OK, fine. I’ll add one tiny prepositional phrase: it’s better for me.

I never thought I would look forward to going to a gym, but I do. I actually look forward to going to my gym. I’ve documented how much I love CrossFit here, here, here, and here. But there are myriad other reasons. For one thing, I love that they tell me what to do and I don’t have to think about it. I dig the fact that there are no mirrors—it’s never about how you look; it’s about what you can do. And I get all giddy about seeing the friends I’ve made there.

In some ways, though, my gym is just a gym. Dudes call each other pussies. “Sweet Cherry Pie” is on heavy rotation. There’s dropping of barbells and grunting.

And, I have to admit, I have surrendered to the siren call of dropping a bar with a bunch of bumper plates on it. First of all, often it’s absolutely necessary—you’re lifting an amount of weight that would be dangerous to lower to the ground. But more importantly, when you’ve just hit a new clean & jerk PR and you drop that heavy-ass barbell, it makes the most satisfying sound when it hits the floor. My friend Steve once wrote to a bunch of us about his emergency medicine internship. He told grisly tales of gunshot wounds to the head and shit, but the image that has stuck with me all these years later was of him and his cohorts standing in line in the cafeteria when a chorus of beepers sang out from their belts. All those white coats dropped their trays in unison and bolted for the ER.

Come on. That is some badass shit.

Dropping a heavy bar two feet in front of me is about the closest I’m ever gonna come to being that much of a BMF.

I always drew the line at grunting though. I mean, I make little runty-pig noises when I do push-ups and stuff, and when I’m trying to crack up my friend Erin, I’ll make this belabored “Eeeeeeeee!” sound

that she likens to the squirrel in Ice Age.

But never during lifts. No this-is-Sparta crap at the top of a front squat.

Well…

See, the WOD today involved a bunch of front squats, wall ball shots (pitching a medicine ball 9′ up a wall with a full squat at the bottom), and kettlebell swings.

One could argue that I sometimes go too light on WOD weights. It’s not that I’m afraid I’ll be last. I’m always last. I’m used to that. It’s that I’m afraid I’ll be so far last that people’s children will be at home sobbing from hunger pangs. Or worse, I’ll have a DNF. I’ve hated a lot of WODs; I’ve cursed a blue streak; I even kinda puked in my mouth once. But I’ve never logged a Did Not Finish.

So sue me, I go a little light on the weight, just to be sure.

Tonight, I was supposed to front squat 75% of my bodyweight. Ha! That’s, like, 130 pounds. My one-rep max is 115. I went for just under 75% of that: 83 pounds.

It was hard. It was so hard. The workout was a 21-15-9, which meant that you did 21 of each movement, followed by 15, then 9. I was breaking up the first round of front squats into 4 to 5 reps at a time. When I came up on about the twelfth rep, my lungs and throat emitted this great “Uhh!”…and I realized why people grunt.

It feels good.

It makes the lift easier too.

But mostly it makes you feel like a mythical beast.

I probably sounded like the squirrel from Ice Age, but I felt like a dragon. Rarrrr!

I love my gym.

Lo Que Pasa en el D.F., Part 3

Everything was blurry. My heart was thudding in my chest, and my characteristic mustache and soul patch of nervous sweat had popped out on my lip and chin.

I was swearing in both English and Spanish:

“Fuck me!” as a motorcycle buzzed between our car and the one next to us, choosing as its lane the dotted line itself.

And to Juan Pablo, the equivalent of “Fuck your whore of a mother! I’m never going to forgive you for this! Ever.”

But somehow, one by one the cop cars in the side-view mirror melted into the background. Blood started flowing to my extremities once again. My vision cleared. I seized the opportunity to cast scathing looks at my ersatz chauffeur.

We seemed to be driving to no particular destination, so I told him in no uncertain terms that he was to drive me home. “No, güera,” he cooed. “Todo está bien.” He said he would take me home in a while and pulled off the beltline into what was clearly another of the known drag-racing spots. Many of the cars from our last rendezvous point were there already. It dawned on me then that they probably had a circuit that they did every Saturday night, that the police chase was just a part of the routine.

Funny how that epiphany didn’t help squelch my anxiety when, ten minutes later, the sirens wailed and the pack zoomed away again. Now I was pissed. I said in Spanish, “Listen, you piece of shit, turn the car around, and take me back to my place.”

Alas, I had to go through another round-up and flight, and start walking my ass to the metro stop, before he agreed to escort me home.

On the drive, we were quiet, me seething, him humming along to the bachata on the radio. He pulled up in front of my building. I unbuckled my seat belt and started to open the door. Juan Pablo grabbed my hand, and next thing I knew we were in the middle of a hot and desperate kiss, our hands everywhere. I don’t know, something about the adrenaline spike made me lose my mind.

It’s a good thing we were on the street and his mumbling, “I’m coming upstairs,” was enough to remind me that this was a bad move, a stupid move. I needed to get involved with a scofflaw like I needed a hole in the head. I said no, “Basta,” and pushed him away. He looked surprised and then a little hurt, but pretty quickly resigned himself to the circumstance.

I got out of the car, and he at least had the decency to make sure I got into the building before he took off, surely to another drag-race rally point, surely to find a girl who wouldn’t say no, “Basta.”

And I was OK with that. I hadn’t felt that alive in years.

Fin

Lo Que Pasa en el D.F., Part 2

One evening, Juan Pablo invited me out to los jalones. I checked my Spanish-English dictionary and couldn’t find it, so I asked him what they were. He explained a little bit, and I figured it out, “Ah, Nascar.”

We jumped in his Beetle—and when I say “his”, I mean “belonging to whichever customer he was conning”—and drove down Periférico, Mexico City’s beltline, to… somewhere, I wasn’t sure. We pulled off on a side street and looked for a place to park. I glanced around for the stadium. Not there. Then I noticed about three dozen cars and maybe 15 motorcycles all just sitting around us. One of the motorcyclists took off down the empty strip of pavement and popped a wheelie.

That’s when I realized my ne’er-do-well suitor and I would not be cheering from the stands while Riccardo Petty drove his número cuarenta y tres car around a ring. We would be watching drag races.

Well, OK. I mean, not OK, but whatever, fine. I’ll watch some idiots burn down a surface street in hopes of winning a little cash or at least being considered the dude with the biggest dick. When Juan Pablo suggested I take a ride on the back of a motorcycle with his buddy, though, I declined.

People milled around. Guys revved their engines. Girls, midriffs bared, preened. Juan Pablo chatted with his cuates. I just leaned against the car, waiting for something to happen. Two cars finally lined up at an arbitrary spot and seemed to be gearing up. I stood on Juan Pablo’s bumper to get a better look.

That’s the moment when la policía came blazing down on the group.

Juan Pablo yelled, “Get in the car!” I was still pulling out my seat belt when he jerked the wheel over. The whole peloton veered back onto Periferíco and hauled ass. I cursed Juan Pablo loudly and peered in my passenger’s side mirror, wondering how many officers I was going to have to bribe to keep myself out of jail. I pictured myself, awash in tears, emptying the Banco Santander ATM with a line of cops behind me, palms extended. And that was the best-case scenario.

[Continuará…]

Lo Que Pasa en el D.F., Part 1

Before we get too far into the story, let me clarify that I, personally, was not doing anything illegal in the Federal District of Mexico. That being said, associating with people who do illegal things while in a foreign country, a foreign country in which the police force is notoriously corrupt, is not the wisest decision.

What can I say? I was 22.

Jeff Polish, the director of the Monti, said August’s StorySlam theme might be Heat. Well, this story has two kinds: the kind that slaps blue lights on the roofs of their cars, and the kind that makes you feel all tingly in your bits.

My friend and roommate, Sarah, had this boyfriend, Cristian. Cristian was a good dude, but his cousin Juan Pablo was pretty much a delinquent. He and his brother “owned a garage” in which they supposedly “fixed cars”… I just know that he used a customer’s Jetta as his own personal vehicle for a good month before returning it.

Juan Pablo was constantly trying to get in my pants, but I brushed him off. It wasn’t that he was unattractive or anything. He was cute. I just knew that he was bad news, and I was trying to maintain the tiny bit of self-respect I had left after a debacle of a relationship with a guy who, turned out, hadn’t actually broken up with his girlfriend who, turned out, was pregnant with his baby. That’s a story for another time. The point is, I didn’t think hooking up with Juan Pablo would do good things for my self-image.

It wasn’t easy though. I was 22 and in Mexico City. My body was saying, ¡Ándale, muchacha!

(Continuará…)

What Happens en el D.F.

Last night, I went to the ever-entertaining Monti StorySlam. Between studying for the Praxis and my new job, I hadn’t gotten it together to prepare a story, so I just spent the evening eating takos and tots from the Kokyu food truck—em… eff, that stuff is good—and

listening.

Boy, is it a different experience. Whenever I do put my name in the hat, my limbs go numb, and all the other stories reverberate with the din of a turbine supercharger inside my head. Instead, last night was pleasant for me, sitting there listening to stories without wondering if and when my name would be called and trying to discern whether the other stories were better than mine.

When the theme for the event (Law and Order) was announced last week, I couldn’t for the life of me think of a good story. I’ve been pulled over one time in my life—because I had a headlight out—and that was nearly 20 years ago. There was also that night in high school when my best friend and I were told by a cop that we couldn’t park on that dead-end side road, and we breathed huge gasping sighs of relief after he left because he must not’ve smelled what we were cookin’. As it were.

But as I sat there last night, I realized, really, even though I’ve never been a super-straight arrow, I haven’t had any brushes with the law.

Except—Oh, yeah. I forgot about Mexico City.

Wanna hear that story?

OCD, Easy as 1-2-3

Whilst celebrating the birthday of my sister-wife* today, I met a friend of hers, who I immediately connected to. Remember how I talked about sparks? It was like that. Now don’t get too excited—her friend was gay, but I’m just saying, you know when somebody you meet is a kindred spirit.

Anyway, so, not sure how the topic came up, but I was sharing with the table at Vin Rouge that, when I was a kid, I had some variety of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder or something. Maybe a sensory input problem, I didn’t know.

The way it manifested itself was, say my right leg itched. Well, if I scratched it, I had to scratch my left leg in the same place or else I felt unbalanced. If I bumped into a wall with my left elbow, I would turn around and bump my right elbow into it too.

Turns out, Kristen’s friend—the one I want in my posse—is a psychiatrist, so I was all, “Hey, what the hell was wrong with me?”

He explained that, when we’re little, we believe in magic, we believe things that are broken can be made whole again, etc. But as we develop and understand the bounds of reality, the transition can be jarring. The “balancing” actions I took were a way of holding onto the old scenario. If I stretched one arm out, stretching the other would make it as if neither happened.

This was my meager understanding of what he said. It’s totally possible that my paraphrasing is completely wrong.

But it’s interesting to think about, right?

You want to know the best part? One day, when I was probably eleven or twelve, I was like, “Amy, that is some fucked-up shit. You need to cut it out.” I had always known it was weird; I had always felt like I had to hide it. So that day, I just talked myself out of my mental illness.

Sure wish I could do that with the rest of my emotional special needs.

*To clarify, my sister-wife, Kristen, and I are (in our fantasy) both married to Paul, who is (in real life) married to Jeff.