Month: January 2012

A Clean & Jerk Parable

One of my bits when I hosted the Monti StorySLAM on Tuesday (oh yeah, I hosted the Monti StorySLAM again last week) was that Coach Dave kept harassing me about signing up for an Olympic weightlifting meet, and you could all go ahead and wipe that skeptical look off your faces because that didn’t mean this fatty would be trying out for the Olympics. It simply meant a competition of three attempts each at the two Olympic lifts: snatch and clean & jerk.

I hemmed and hawed and made excuses about not having lifting shoes. Then my birthday rolled around, and my family got me

Pendlay Do-wins! Lollipop laces provided by my sister-wife. (Photo by Coach Dave.)

So then I dug my newly-clad heels in about the world’s least flattering garment, the singlet. (Just google ‘singlet’; focus on the athletic ones, not the sparkly ones you see at Pride parades.) Well, then this gym in Cary scheduled a “developmental meet”, which means yes on shoes, not necessarily on singlet.

I still hesitated, but Coach Dave, he’s a wily bastard, and he knows me. He said, “It’ll give you something to blog about.”

I guess some people, when they sign up for a competition, follow some sort of plan to prepare. I went strict on the Pretend It’s Not Happening program. Coach Dave watched some lifts, Coach Phil at CrossFit RTP helped me work on my snatch for an hour and a half [insert punch line] last week, and my buddy Liz gave me some pointers and wrote me out an extensive list of tips on yellow legal paper. Other than that, I just kept CrossFittin’ and whistlin’.

Meanwhile, my support team was rallying. My dad was thinking about driving down the mountain for the meet. My friends were conspiring about a banner. My sister was going to bring her kids. But on Thursday, when I realized I was starting to hyperventilate a little bit about the whole situation, I sent out the following email:

So, with going to Boone last weekend, the stray pit being put to sleep, the StorySLAM, and getting a foster dog, it’s just all too much. I’m still going to go and participate in the meet this weekend, but I’ve decided that no fucks shall be given by me that day. Therefore, I would not mind if you saved—nay, I would encourage you to save—your fucks for giving to some other event which might require given-fucks.

I adore you all,
ame

And that worked. I did not give a fuck. Until Saturday when I walked into the place. It was so quiet in there, and there were people in chairs watching, and the women in the first session (tall, skinny ones; itty-bitty ones; really fit ones) were putting up some big numbers on the board. Like, way more than I could. I mean, I knew calling what I was doing “competing” was fallacious, but I didn’t want to look like a charity case.

At that point, I got all weepy, and poor Coach Phil had to shush me and tell me it was gonna be OK.

The situation was bad. Earlier in the week, I would’ve been satisfied to hit a Personal Record at the meet. Now I had a new goal: not to shit myself on the platform.

I weighed in, 77.2 kg (170 lbs), and rolled around on a foam roll for a while. Coach Phil helped me warm up. My cheering squad did not heed my emailed advice.

Get it? teAMY… Team Amy, but combined. There are multiple advanced degrees in this picture.

Snatches first. There was one woman in my session whose three lifts were all smaller than my opener, so she went. Then I was up. I hit my opener at 33 kg (72.6 lbs) and my second lift at 36 kg (79.2), but I missed my third. I can’t even remember what it was…37? I got it overhead but crumpled underneath.

Several more women (all of them at least 20 pounds lighter than me) went, lifting enormous amounts of weight over their heads.

After that came the clean & jerk. I hit them all: 42 kg (92.4 lbs), 46 kg (101.2 lbs), and 49 kg (107.8 lbs). (Phil had wanted me to do 51 kg (112.2 lbs) because it would’ve been slightly above my PR, and I should’ve listened to him. Those clean & jerks didn’t feel very hard.) Most importantly, I did not shit myself.

Again, the real weightlifters came next and lifted some real weight.

The organizers totaled everything and called up the winners by weight class. As I was the only competitor in the Over 75 kg group,

I won first place in my weight class. (Photo by sister-wife.) 

The lesson, children, is this: Sometimes it pays to be the fatty.

[Ed. note: I feel a follow-up post bubbling in my Broca’s area. But for now, to bed!, for I rise before daybreak.]

I’ll Take My Victories Where I Can Get ‘Em

This reduced-sugar resolution is difficult. I mean, I’m doing it. Not exactly on the schedule I set out, but still going whole days (often two, occaionally three) without dessert. However, I think about it a lot, and sometimes the only thing keeping me off the English toffee is

Trader Joe's Unsweetened, Unsulfured, Dried Pineapple Rings.

Nom nom nom.

I know I should cut the sugar out completely. People say that the cravings would go away. But I just can’t right now. I’m 100% positive I would end up bingeing if I tried to go more than two days. Even one time last week, I was trying to avoid a sweet item, and I ended up eating everything around it. And then it.

But sugar is a poison, and I don’t want to be toxic. Sugar is a drug, and I don’t want to be an addict. That’s why I’m doing this.

Funny thing is (not funny-ha-ha, but funny-makes-me-throw-temper-tantrums-in-my-head), people assume I’m doing it for weight loss. Realized this a couple weeks ago when I talked with another woman about eating two Hershey’s kisses and really savoring them, rather than doing the Lucy in the Chocolate Factory routine I usually do.

Other woman: Well, you’re not worried about the sugar, you’re worried about the calories, and that was only thirty calories, so that’s great.

Me: …No, I’m not worried about the calories. I’m trying to cut down on sugar for its own sake.

‘Cause I don’t do shit to lose weight anymore. I don’t believe I’ll ever be thinner than I am. I’m—what’s the word?—resigned.

Not that I don’t want to be not-fat. I do want to be not-fat. I just have no confidence that I can do—or, I guess, that I can cultivate the willingness to do—what’s required to be not-fat.

Of course, four people in the last few weeks told me how much weight I’ve lost or said I looked skinny. I told them it was because I was wearing a tighter shirt than normal so I was sucking in my gut. Which was true.

Naturally, I haven’t lost weight. I weigh five pounds more than I did when I started CrossFit*. OK, whatever, muscle mass, distribution, toning, blah blah blahdi-fucking-blah. I’m sick of thinking about it.

Point is, I’ve made my bed every day of 2012. That counts for something, right?

*Update: I guess not. When I weighed in at the meet on Saturday, I weighed 170, which is approximately five pounds less than a year and a half ago.

M.O.

My super-friend at the shelter and I were having an email conversation after my meltdown on Sunday, and she said, “I don’t think you’re irrational. I think you’re angry. I wish more people were angry and we could channel it, make it into something productive.” And something in my brain went ding. My modus operandi when I’m angry is to seethe, stew, cast aspersions onto everyone (including myself), and curse the world.

But, by design, anger is a motivating emotion—it can drive us to action; that action can be harmful or productive. Like my friend said, we just have to channel it in a positive direction.

I wondered, what productive actions can I take? My thoughts jumped to this Facebook note from the Coalition to Unchain Dogs, which is enormously powerful (the note and the organization). But I immediately got overwhelmed thinking about “the hard work of relationship building and education”. Made me want to stand in the middle of the living room with my hands on my face, which is my modus operandi when I’m overwhelmed.

I backed up. If I wasn’t emotionally equipped to build relationships and educate people right at this moment, what could I do? I follow Carolina Care Bullies on Facebook. A few days ago, I saw that they had pulled a blue and white pit from a shelter but had to leave her sister behind because they didn’t have a foster family for her.

And I fretted, ate compulsively, and scratched at my face, which is my modus operandi when I’m nervous. Three dogs is so many dogs. What if she didn’t get adopted? What if she didn’t get along with Redford or Violet? Could I afford it?

Then I thought about my friend Kate K. Every year, she makes the same New Year’s Resolution: Say yes.

So I said yes.

I'm picking Buffy up on Saturday.

Maybe that can be my new modus operandi: Say yes, and see what happens.

Irrational

So I was pretty hysterical last night when I wrote the last post, and I woke up in the middle of the night several times with half-thoughts that I wanted to get out there.

First, the title “No Reason” was supposed to reflect my state of mind, not the shelter’s motivations. Yes, I am mad at them, but as a third grader is at the nurse who gives him a shot: reasonable enough to understand why it’s happening but still angry about it and misdirecting that anger at the messenger.

My anger should really be directed at the stupid fuck who (most likely) bought the dog and then didn’t parent him and then decided even not-parenting him was too much trouble and put him out on the street. And the stupid fuck before him who didn’t spay and neuter the parent-dogs.

And, I’m very thankful. Thankful to the shelter for taking on this Herculean task of maintaining a reasonable pet population. I also know that the pit bulls they send into the community have to be ambassadors for the breed and that DW might have been detrimental to the cause of bully compassion.

I’m also so grateful for my friend who works at APS who (though she doesn’t even work on that side of the business) kept me apprised of the situation, who fought for me and DW , and who went over to be with him in his final moments, a task I’m not sure I would’ve done had our situations been reversed.

No Reason

Two weeks ago, I had the kids write short autobiographies. I told them that they should include some of their strengths and accomplishments but that readers also want to hear their struggles, challenges, flaws. “That’s what people can relate to,” I said. As usual, I wrote a piece to use as an example. One of my struggles is I get overly sentimental about dogs, I wrote. I explained how I feel really sad when I hear about dogs being hurt or put to sleep.

One of my students piped up, “That’s what they do at the shelter. They be killing dogs for no reason.”

I practically leapt at her. “The Durham shelter takes in over 6,000 animals every year, and fewer than 1,500 get adopted. What are they supposed to do with the rest? How are they supposed to take care of them? They do the best they can. They put down the ones that can’t be adopted. Not for ‘no reason’.”

On Thursday, my girl inside Durham APS called because she had the whole story on DW. He had shown a lot of problems in the temperament testing: along with the barrier aggression, wildness, excitability, difficulty following commands. They said he would have to go to a one-dog family, but with the heartworm diagnosis, they weren’t going to keep him around long.

He needed someone to walk into the shelter and say, “I have no dogs right now, and what I’m looking for is a black pit bull, preferably with issues. Behavioral and medical, if possible.” No one did.

I asked them to reconsider; could I please foster him? They said no.

On Friday afternoon, they put DW to sleep.

I was headed out of town with some girlfriends for the weekend, so I swallowed hard and wiped my eyes. I went and lifted heavy things over my head at the gym, and then I put my emotions in a box and locked it in my house here in Durham. My friends and I drove up to my childhood home in the Blue Ridge Mountains. We tried on my high school prom dresses, ate Mud Pie at Pepper’s, giggled at gaudy things in the antique mall on King Street, and hiked the Boone Fork Trail.

Then I came home, and when I unlocked the door, the box expoded open.

They killed my boy. Not for no reason. For lots of reasons. I know there were lots of reasons. And I know they know so much better than I do about these things, but I loved him. For lots of reasons.

I’m so sad.

I’m so mad. At them. At myself.

I can’t believe he’s dead, and I can’t stop hugging Redford and Violet, and I can’t, can’t, can’t get the lid back on the box.

:(

What’s Making Me Sad:

DW’s foster situation is not working out. Apparently, he’s shown some “barrier aggression”. “What does that mean? Fence? Crate?” I asked my girl inside.

“Yes, something like that, but they didn’t tell me exactly what,” she told me. He stayed in the crate at my house just fine. I wonder what happened. Can spending a couple weeks in a cage at the shelter made a dog squirrelly?

Also, he has heartworm. Treatable, but expensive.

So many strikes. I hope it’s not too many to get him adopted, but I have a bad feeling that it is.

They Have a Dream

Last week, I showed all my sixth graders Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. We discussed its historical context and the impact it had on the Civil Rights Movement in this country. I gave them the assignment to write their own “Dream Statements”, a few of which were chosen to be read at our awards ceremony for last quarter. Some of the kids wrote deep and moving pieces about domestic tranquility and global change. Some of them wrote the following, which are profound in their own way. [Vocabulary words are in all-caps. I didn’t tell them to include them, but I’m glad they did. Though I need to review a little bit with Tobias.]

Cayla: I have a dream for the world to meet people not judge a color by it’s book.

Bongani: I wish I could meet Obama not with his bodyguard like I really want to touch with the bodyguard touch me or stuff. [My family] will like nobody to get sick no more. We will except for me no more baby.

Hillary: …without bullys and fighting i wouldn’t be all shy. This would allow more HARMONIOUS work to happen! It would make me ECSTATIC!

Callie: As a country we need to decrease our death average. I don’t necessarily want everyone to have peace with each other because of course we’d all collapse but at least of whos life your taking away, or who your harming. Think about all the pros and cons, or just dont do it.

Layla: My biggest dream is there to be less crazy people, and what I mean by that is teens and school shootings, parents hanging and raping and droping babys off of briges.

Gabby: I do not be jugged by my hair.

Brandon: …in my dream, everybody puts a weapon into a spaceship and it goes toward the sun, and it just disintegrates because it gets so hot.

Nelson: Since I started 6 grade I want to be somewhere around Americas crime rates. Just something that will help the nation incredibly…I want them to decrease not increase. Less people are getting kilt, less drugs sneaked around in our nation.

Siarra: I dream too, that my New born nethew is going to grow up healthy, safe, and Atheletic.

Jay: I will have enoght money to buy a ferreri. but befor that happens I half to go to a good collidg.

Kalim: When I grow up I want to be a good Basketball player because you can Learn a Lot from Like Hit three Point, Layup and Free thorw I aslo want to Past collge so I can g a Degree

Tobias: I have a dream that I am very successful in life. Three of those things are get into a good college and be SCHOLAR[L]Y. Also [for my family to] follow there dreams and be successful and have a AMIABLE life.

Jeremiah: I Have a other dream that people [don’t] call me mexican when Im not…I want my family to stop getting in my bisness my love bisness too.

 

DW Update

My girl inside has been sending me reports about DW. First thing, she told the front desk people and the vet techs at the shelter to keep an eye on him because he was special, and they were like, “Everyone says that about every dog.”

They put him in a cage for the requisite five days to give the owner a chance to claim him and then spent more than a week doing tests of various sorts: heartworm, temperament, whatnot.

Another friend of mine who has been considering adopting a dog went in to see him earlier this week. He wasn’t done with all his tests at that point, so he couldn’t play, but she saw how cute and lovey he was. Her concern: “I’m not sure his head will fit through all the doors at my house.”

On Thursday, APS of Durham dubbed him Grayson—come on, he’s not an English lord, for Christ’s sake—but whatever, they posted him on the Adoptable Dogs page! Which I may or may not have visited every other hour.

Then last night he was gone. I looked and looked, but I couldn’t find him. At shelters, Friday is often kill day. I frantically emailed my friend: Where did he go?

She said she didn’t know but got on the horn this morning to find out.

What’s Making Me Happy: One of those vet techs found my little guy irresistible and pulled him from the shelter to foster him until he gets a fur-ever home.

Lucky in Love

The fortune-cookie fortune that rides around in my wallet, occluding my face on my driver’s license photo, says, “Look for the dream that keeps coming back. It is your destiny.” I think I put it there two years ago.

The Independent Weekly ran this horoscope for me a while back:

Even if you’re not sick, you need some medicine. What kind of medicine? The kind that can transform what’s pretty good about your life into something that’s really great; the kind that will super-animate your merely average efforts and blast you free of any lackadaisical attitudes you’ve come to accept as reasonable. This medicine won’t come in the form of a pill or a potion, but rather will be produced by your own body if and when you slip away from your comfort zone and go out to play in the frontier. Be your own doctor, Libra. Break your own trance. Crack your own code. Escape your own mind games.

It’s been on my fridge since May 2008. I moved last year; it must’ve come with me from Hillsborough. I don’t know—sometimes these newsprint divinations, these cookie runes, they speak to me, and I just hang on to them.

As I was tidying up the other day, I found a fortune on a very dusty dresser that said, “You will be lucky in love.”

And I scoffed. I did.

I said something like, “Psh.”

Being 36 and single in this society makes one feel decidedly unlucky in love.

But I really am trying to be more thankful these days, so I thought, OK, what if I take romantic love out of the picture? If I take romantic love out of the picture, I’m a leprechaun-rabbit’s-foot-four-leaf-clover-heads-up-penny in love.

See, there’s my family: my dad, who is my greatest advocate (and provides much amusement); my mom, the offerer of sage advice, even if she doesn’t remember giving it;  my sister/best friend; my brother-in-law, of the Magic Lawnmower Sauce and other timely rescues; my brother, the shifter of paradigms; my sister-in-law, an unsuspecting classmate at Carolina who I badgered for seven years to marry my brother before she finally gave up and did (I must tell that story sometime);  and their progeny, including a nephew I got for Christmas! (When I told a co-worker that, he did a double-take. He thought I said I got an Eff You for Christmas.)

And then my friends, who make every day awesome, who inspire me and make me laugh, who know better than me, who let me stay at their houses even though I can be a disaster of a house-guest, who do silly things with me, who like me despite my being self-absorbed, impatient, and mean-spirited. …I could link/name-check all day. If I didn’t link to you, I’m thinking of you, and if I haven’t yet written about you, there’s a very good chance I just haven’t figured out how to express how dope I think you are. Man, I love you fuckers.

And of course, two of my very favorite people, Violet and Redford, who I love so much it sometimes startles me.

I’m pretty sure all these people and dogs love me back in equal measure, but even if that ain’t the case, I suppose I’m lucky in love regardless.

Lucky in love. Lucky to love. Same difference.