Run: Don't be Veal

I started running again in January. It's been an on again/off again love affair for me ever since I was a child. As a child I just ran for the hell of it. You know, like kids do. They'll run over to their friend's house and then back home, just because running is how you get places when you're a kid. It kills me.

On my daily runs I go past a YMCA and there's often an AYSO soccer game going on. I look at the kids and think, "Oh man, those were the days," because I used to be in AYSO. And they probably look at me and think, "Why the hell is that lady running like that?" The kids these days swear a lot. And yes, I'm at the age where kids call me lady. As in "old lady ____" who runs the amusement park and tried to scare everyone away by rigging sheet-ghosts on the carousel.

The kids wonder why I'm running because they run as a matter of nature. They don't understand that when you get old, your body is heavier and running is harder. Life gets harder too and often a body sits more than it walks or runs. We grow from children who die for the chance to go outside in the hot weather to play on the Big Toy or get a game of kickball going, to adults who sit like veal in cages in air-conditioned office buildings. And while some of us get to look out windows, others of us only have Office Windows and Explorer as our links to the outside world. We feel our muscles growing soft and fatty (did you know your body can store fat in your muscles and organs if you're too inactive?), we look at our once muscular, shapely legs and see the pock-marks of blubber cells beneath the surface, and wonder, "Why have I let this happen?"

And that's part of the reason this old lady runs. When I was twenty-two and a junior in college, I ran out of fear that if I didn't, I'd gain that freshman twenty (or is it sophomore twenty?) everyone talked about. I didn't really gain anything until I was twenty-six and an entry-level copy writer. See? I had become veal. Something I had gone to great lengths (three years of graduate school) to avoid.

Inevitably I landed in a cubicle. And my legs grew soft and my stomach became flabby. No matter what I did, that 32 ounce Dr. Pepper every morning took its toll. I guess you can't drink 600 calories every day at a sedentary job, and only exercise three days a week after work and expect to keep the lean, trim figure you had during college. During college I walked everywhere, sometimes up Old Main hill twice a day. It was rough.

So, I'm running again. At first it sucked. At first my legs felt like cement blocks, they screamed with every step, and a mile was like murder. I felt like a fraud, like, "What the hell, who am I kidding? This isn't me anymore." But now it is. It's better. Sometimes I think I could run forever, on days when the humidity isn't a beast and the sun isn't a wench. Even then, once I get into it, four miles doesn't feel like too much for my basic run.

I've just challenged a bunch of people to beat me to 150 miles*. I'm no ultra-marathoner, but I kind of hope to be someday. I didn't get into the St. George marathon, but maybe I'll still be able to run it, and from there I have some other Everests to conquer.


p.s. Don't EAT veal, either.


*Anyone who wants to JOIN THIS CHALLENGE, let me know. It starts May 15th. The catch is you have to do it through the Nike+ ipod feature. So, get a Nano or something, buy the Nike+ sensor, and start running! The winner gets $100 on me.

4th Floor Windows

I wish I could open my window and ask the window/building cleaners (yes, they're actually cleaning the building too, washing the red brick and everything) if they could please do my window again. They cleaned it yesterday. And for some reason, today they did the windows ABOVE it. The cleaning fluid has coated my window and now it's like looking out from inside a bottle of Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Greasy.

I can see them out there now. I wonder if they know sign language...

Sense of Humor: Some people have it....

Nobody at work gets my sense of humor. I’ve puzzled about this for some time and have decided that the only explanation is that its so cryptic and developed (and also that I’m so intelligent). Or it might be that I mainly sit in my cubicle and refrain, for the most part, from talking to anyone for longer than one minute. In the space of one minute, how could there be any time to discuss anything other than the weather? Unlike farmers, though, the weather is less consequential to corporate business types like my co-workers and me. Co-workers schmo-workers. We’re hardly co-anything, me just recently 27 and most of them 35+. So anyway, I guess there are several reasons no one gets my delightfully sarcastic sense of humor, age being one of them. Here’s an example of how I fail miserably to connect with them:


Returning from lunch, Linda* passes me on her way out of our boss’s office. And she says over her shoulder what is mostly likely intended for our boss, but could have very well been directed at me since we’re facing each other and even make direct eye-contact, “Alright, good work!”

To which I reply, “Thank you.” She breezes by in her usual efficient, brisk walk. She says nothing. In fact, I almost think not a soul has noticed my casual wittiness until I hear Bob shout from his office.

“She was talking to me!” And this is followed by small, inconsequential half-banter, with me delivering the entire half of the banter.


But you see, this is how it always is. I might mutter a smart remark from within the confines of my cubicle and everyone around me largely ignores it. Five or six other people surround me, all within earshot, and I can’t even banter with them. In any other environment, my tongue-in-cheek ‘thank-you’ would have gotten a round of applause, followed by a snide-remark in return. I.E.:


“Alright, good work!” Said over the shoulder, obviously meant for someone else.

“Thank you.” Followed by much laughter.

“Ha, good work. Work is like the f-word to you, something you’ve never done.” Followed by more laughter, and this is obviously my fantasy job as a construction worker** since nobody here EVER says the f-word (or maybe they do, just not around me).

Taking off my white glove (you didn't realize I was wearing gloves, did you), I reply by inserting a recently materialized brick into the glove, and then proceed to slap my co-worker's face several times with the brick-heavy glove, in manner of Yosemite Sam and Bugs Bunny. When I'm done, I shake the brick-remains out into a small pile at my feet. . . .


But, you get the idea.

And actually, I did have a job like this. The cd store in Logan. Graywhale. Where everything was always a joke and I was teased over everything, from my secret love for pop music to being a lesbian (which I’m not, but that didn’t stop my male co-workers. They were all male and fantasists). And actually, if I think about it a lot and am honest, I prefer the job where no one gets my sense of humor and there’s a thin pretense of respecting each other. I prefer that over the job where everything’s a joke.

But seriously. Can’t there be an in-between? If there is, sign me up.

Tomorrow,"10 things the bathroom at work is NOT intended for."



*Obviously names have been changed to protect me from losing my job over writing blog entries about work.
**Construction worker?

Old and Fat

So, I'll admit it. I've been feeling old. I've been struggling with the changes in my mental perspective (I'm more cynical and jaded than I used to be) and with my body (I've been sitting at a desk since August, drinking Coke non-stop). For 8 years I walked to school and walked around school and climbed billions of stairs and went on epic walks with lovers and friends. The last epic walk I went on was in September, with Stoker, who stoked my fire with his walking endurance and conversation. Now I hope to go on many epic walks with him, but in the meantime, Coke and sedentary 8-hour days have replaced the 8 years of being the walking woman. Finally, I know what love handles are -- intimate knowledge I could have gone 80 years without (okay, enough of the clever 8 thing). Love handles I lovingly refer to as bastards. My preferred term for anything and everything from bastard-drivers cutting me off in traffic, to the collective bastards otherwise known as The Media -- that nameless entity with enough cultural-capital to make Solomon blush.

So anyway, I've been feeling old and fat. Even though I'm not actually fat. I know. I just feel fat (last I checked I weighed 125, at 5'5). I sit around most of the day and have to take breaks to go down the stairs and then back up just to get some daily exercise. I try to work out 3 times a week, but often only get to it twice. I used to be lean. I rock climbed indoors and outdoors regularly. I used to be more athletic and tough.

About a month or so ago, my mom teased me (lovingly. An observation, not a criticism) that I'm turning into a woman. My butt is getting rounder, she said. I scorned that phrase, turning into a woman. I sneered in derision, after my shoulders slumped in defeat. I don't want to be a "woman." I want to be a girl. I've been just a girl for so long. Small. Petite. I've liked that a lot. Enjoyed being what I was. It's not about the type and development of my reproductive system. That's not what I'm protesting. I'm protesting this bastard-sedentary lifestyle that's turning the Coke calories into potential energy (and good luck ever tapping that energy), instead of beautiful kinetic energy. I want to be free and moving, liberated, for 8 hours a day*. Not kept in a cage nicknamed a "cubicle," sort of trapped. Sure, the money sets me free in another way and it's great to have it, but sometimes I feel the boundaries pressing in on me. I see the results in the flab on my once beautiful six-packed stomach.

The real point of all this was to share something I found in Utah Health magazine, under the title of "Celebrate the blessings of age." Ironically, the facing page was an advertisement for plastic/cosmetic surgery (for the following areas: breast enlargement, eyelid rejuvenation, facelift, forehead lift, tummy tuck, botox injections, collagen for your thin, lifeless lips, and collagen for facial lines and creases. "You can choose to perfect and refine whatever is making you feel self-conscious or unhappy."). A very well-placed ad, reinforcing the blessing of age.

The quote, for all you bitter, jaded 26+ers like me (my comments in brackets):

"Who says you can only bloom once in life? With each advancing year a whole new life opens before you. Recognize it and enjoy it. With age comes an inner, higher life and sense of purpose. You may try by starting each day with 60-seconds of self-apprecation [I'm smart enough]. Try standing in front of your mirror [I'm good enough]. Smile. Like yourself [And doggone it, people like me]. Examine each wrinkle, smile line, spot and dot [cancerous and non-cancerous] on your face, and see them as marks of wisdom, happiness, [not wearing sunblock] and a life richly lived. Also, release your inner child today. Do something playful [but not criminal]. Try on clothes you'd never wear in public [but don't go OUT in them.] Experiment with makeup [or just forget about makeup altogether]. Sing your favorite tune loudly in the shower. Go for a long bike ride. Go for it."


There it is. I actually like it, even though it seems like I'm making fun of it. Now, go for a long bike ride.


*Here's another contention: what bastard decided we, the American people, should work 8 hours of our day? We only have 24, and 8 of that should be spent sleeping. So thanks, thanks a lot for that measly 8 I'm left with, which isn't really 8 since 1 should be spent at lunch. And if you commute, about 1-2 are spent driving. Does that leave us enough time for nuturing our families and other relationships? 5 to 6 hours to do anything else. I'm proposing a swift change: 6 hours should be considered the new full time. Thank you very much.