dynamic elf

Here's an announcement that will shock exactly nobody reading this: exercise is important to me. I feel better, sharper, happier and more interesting when I'm getting enough, and when I'm not, I feel dull and cranky. So why is it so hard to get enough?

After trying seemingly every kind of tracker out there, I've settled into an amazingly simple and effective mechanism for keeping tabs on my exercise level: a wall calendar. Every year, dilletante buys me a calendar that features pictures of strong women, and every year, I hang it up and use it to track exercise. I used to just use it for tracking my lifting, but last year I hit on the idea of using it to track everything.

So that's it: in my basement bathroom, I have a wall calendar. Every day that I exercise, I write the name of what I did in that day's square. "Running." "Biking." "Climbing." "Long walk." "Yoga." No distances, no times, no metrics of any sort, just a word or two to note the day's accomplishment. This means that every time I'm brushing my teeth, I can see with one glance how many of the month's squares have a word in them, and how many are empty. If there are too many blank spots, I know I need to spend a bit more energy to fit in a workout soon. So dumb, so easy, so effective!

But I've had a TERRIBLE winter. Terrible. I was sick for all of December, and I stopped biking to work, which threw me into a funk that I am just now dragging myself out of. And again I was faced with that familiar problem: god DAMN, if I love exercise this much, why is it SO HARD to get started with it, every day? And then, while I was cleaning out a closet last week, I found this year's calendar from dilletante and realized that my precious exercise wall calendar was still displaying December 2010 -- entirely blank. I'd fallen out of my habit of tracking just as easily as I'd fallen out of the exercise habit itself.

Last Wednesday, I hung it up, and it was like magic. Thursday, I biked. Friday I went to yoga with redheadedmuse. Saturday, climbing with dilletante and starphire and minerva42, and then later in the evening again with bbbsg. Sunday, a bit of running and a long walk with Natalie, and today I biked in despite the rain. And I'm smiling! I'm singing to myself, and my thighs ache, and I feel a little bit more alive every single day.

Welcome, spring.

Things that are awesome:

Buffalo meatballs
Topical ibuprofen
Natalie dancing with a blindfold on

---

What else is awesome?

It's really all about dairy.

There are a lot of valuable, meaty things I could be posting about -- there's plenty of fascinating and depressing political things to mull over, and plenty of baby stories to tell -- but (a) I'm not going to say anything you've never heard before, and (b) I don't really have the time to write it all down anyway. Instead, I'm going to tell you:

Oh holy shit, goat milk yogurt.

I picked some up from a stand at the Common Ground Fair when the 4+2 of us trundled up to Maine as a household, and I just got around to eating it tonight.

Seriously, it's the promised yogurt. I love Liberté's Mediteranée, which you can now get in largish plain containers, and I love Fage Total, but this stuff is the yogurt I've always dreamed about. I hope they sell something like it somewhere around here.

Going on an impromptu run to Walden for midnight skinny-dipping with aroraborealis: brilliant.

Running in to 20 people who'd had the same idea, and discovering we knew them: probably more surprising than it should have been.

Water: warm and relaxing. Weather: pleasant at night. Molly: happy.

( The short story: I'm not dead! )

Overall: what a great day! My run time was probably abysmal, but I did run the nearly 2 miles that were paved. And everybody on the sidelines shouting "nice job! go #273!" really brightened my spirits. The one woman walking her dog who stopped and looked at me and then yelled, "YOU ARE AN INSPIRATION!" made me grin like a crazy woman. After the race, I got a kiwi from the national kiwifruit council stand or whatever, packed up my bags, skipped the Rotary club barbecue and free massage (!), and headed back to the car, feeling good. I had one perfect ripe peach waiting for me there, which I had been looking forward to for the last mile or so of the race. Under the windshield was a flyer for two triathlons in the area on August 13th -- one is a 1/4 mile swim, 10 mile bike, and 2.5 mile run, and the other is a 1 mile swim, 20 mile bike, and a six mile run. I might just try one of those. Haven't decided which one, yet. Anyway, once I'd loaded my gear back onto the car and started off, I rolled down the window, broke out the napkins, and polished off my peach. Just lovely.

Because I was reminded of it by fanw, I will remind you all of Song of the Open Road:



I think heroic deeds were all conceiv’d in the open air, and all great poems also;
I think I could stop here myself, and do miracles;
(My judgments, thoughts, I henceforth try by the open air, the road;)
I think whatever I shall meet on the road I shall like, and whoever beholds me shall like me;
I think whoever I see must be happy.

[...]

I inhale great draughts of space;
The east and the west are mine, and the north and the south are mine.

I am larger, better than I thought;
I did not know I held so much goodness.

[...]

Allons! be not detain’d!
Let the paper remain on the desk unwritten, and the book on the shelf unopen’d!
Let the tools remain in the workshop! let the money remain unearn’d!
Let the school stand! mind not the cry of the teacher!
Let the preacher preach in his pulpit! let the lawyer plead in the court, and the judge expound the law.

Mon enfant! I give you my hand!
I give you my love, more precious than money,
I give you myself, before preaching or law;
Will you give me yourself? will you come travel with me?
Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?

You know, maybe she only smiles when she's going to sleep, but it's the biggest, goofiest grin in the world.

Happy anniversary to my marvelous husband. Here's to like a bajillion more.

sometimes the most ordinary nights turn amazing for no good reason.

The Insight is so slick. Every time I see one on the road, I have to smile and look inside to see who's driving.

We watched "Near Dark" the other night - it's a fun, cheesy vampire movie that manages to avoid using the word "vampire". The female lead was a sexy straight chick with short hair. It occurred to me that you don't see many short-haired movie women who aren't lesbian, hard-assed, or both. The sultry straight babes always have long hair. Mind you, I think hard-ass dykes are also sexy, but it's a different role. I can't think of any counterexamples, other than "Near Dark" right now, and I'd like to be proven wrong.

One of the best parts of my day is kissing David goodbye in the mornings. It's a little ritual I'm completely attached to. I wake up first, stretch, drink water, read my email, feed the cat, get dressed, and walk back over to the bed where he's still snuggled under the covers asleep, like a sleepy little bed enchilada. I sit on the edge of the mattress, which usually wakes him up a little, and he makes those sleepy "mmf" noises and smiles and I kiss him and tell him to have a good day and he smiles some more and says "you too". Sometimes, his eyes don't even open. Then, out the door to work! It's a great way to leave the house all happy.