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a complex athletic choreography

It’s with a similar embarrassed-pride to that conveyed in this entry last year that I begin this Monday entry.

I’ll start at the end and work to the beginning, if that’s OK…

My calves ache. My knees feel a little inflamed, and whatever part of my thigh-muscle (I probably know the name, but it’s funnier, and more in-line with my shtick, to feign ignorance) runs down the back part of my upper legs burns to match the calves. Even the little crescents of muscle at the base of my butt where my legs connect smart. Strange muscle groups; ones I’m not used to receiving feedback from. I mean, I’m better off than I was a year ago… I’m lighter and leaner and continue to take myself out for some exercise on a regular basis. Only thing is, even with a year of doing so I’ve not switched things up much. Sharaun says this is why I’ve stalled-out and am not losing more weight. Maybe she’s right. A year on the elliptical alone does seem a bit of a pigeonholed workout. But even being better off, even after that year, the muscles not worked in my limited workout protest when worked.

It’s an hour after noon on Sunday and the weather here is simply fantastic. Brilliant. The best we’ve had in weeks. Not a cloud in the blue sky and the sun is strong enough that the chill air doesn’t cut hard enough to push you back indoors. It’s the kind of “winter” day that makes you pine for springtime; the kind of weather that settles under your skin and itches as you hide from it inside the house. I’m in the garage. I’ve backed the car out into the driveway to clear one side and I’ve got the iPod playing through the speakers. I’m wearing a pair of “workout” shorts, a t-shirt, some tennis shoes and a hat to keep the sweat out of my eyes. In each hand I’ve got the ends of a blue jumprope and I’m whirring the thing over my head as I bounce on the balls of my feet. The “rope” is dark blue and made of soft plastic and the middle section is scuffed badly. I’m counting. Fifty-three, fifty-four, fifty-five, fifty-six, fifty-seven, fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty. I”m trying as hard as I possibly can to establish a rhythm while remembering to breathe. I have considerable trouble with each.

It’s getting late on Saturday afternoon and the shadows in the yard are getting longer and darker. There was some real sunlight today for the first time in a long time, but big white clouds billowed in before long and made the air seem cooler for no sunlight. I’m slicked in sweat anyway, and my eyes are dry and burn from the cold air. My throat hurts from sucking wind and my head is throbbing a bit. I imagine my brain swollen just a little too large for my skull, too tightly packed. I’m counting. Eighteen, nineteen, twenty. Crap. One, two, three, four. Damn. One, two, three…

Mid-afternoon Saturday and I’m jumping too high, I can feel my knees bend and it’s taking much too much effort to get off the ground. Doing it wrong is still hard work and I’m sweating. Those guys in the gym looked like they were almost bouncing on their toes. If you didn’t see them from the waist down you might think that’s what they were doing. I need to shoot for that kind of “bounce jump,” something that won’t be like doing hurdles in addition to trying to time this infernal spin-jump spin-jump combo. What finally clicked for me was the sound of the plastic rope smacking the ground as it came around. I started timing my tiny jumps to that sound, just a split-second afterward. From there I just realized it’s all just a continuum. I can time the jump to the sound, to the position of my hand in its rotation, to a beat, to my breathing, to anything. I can get two or three successful jumps in a row now. Small but it’s huge to me.

Saturday before noon. Just got back from taking Keaton to dance class and I’m standing in the garage. Just standing. I’m swinging a blue jump-rope from ground behind me, over my head, and to the ground in front of me. Over and over again; back to front. I’m not jumping; I’m just trying to be coordinated enough to whip the thing around my head consistently without smacking myself in the neck, getting it tangled, or having the resulting arc bulge out on one side and catch my hip on the other. I can’t explain why this is so difficult for me. I have no sense of muscle-timing, I think it’s why I’m so bad at sports. I have to think incredibly hard to get my body to do something; what might be innate to someone else is a complex athletic choreography for me. I can’t even begin to try jumping this thing until I can reliably swing it around my head and back, so I’ll start there.

Sharaun’s still got all the women from church over at the house so I can’t head home yet. Keaton and I stop at a sports equipment store so I can pick up a jump-rope. Her bun has fallen out and has turned into a ponytail. I have to carry her through the parking lot because the asphalt is still damp from yesterday’s rain and it’ll soak right through her thin slippers. They have a bigger selection of jump-ropes than I’d anticipated but in the end I just go with whatever’s cheapest. It’s synthetic with black plastic handles, probably made in China or Taiwan. I choose the blue one over green and purple options. Five bucks. Not bad, I guess, but I can’t help thinking a piece of cut rope taped on either end would probably have been cheaper. I buy it anyway because I’ve only got a few days to figure this out.

You have no idea the flood of good feelings I have walking into the coffee shop with Keaton next to me. It’s early Saturday morning and she’s all decked-out for dance. Pink tights, black leotard, pink ballet slippers with little bows tied in the thin lace-things, and a black knit “bun cover” in her hair. The bun cover has little jewels on it and I did the bun myself. Gave her a ponytail to begin with, twisted it around into a lump and pinned it with a pin I found in the bathroom. She looks all thin and tall, like girls do when they’re becoming whatever comes after “toddler.” Little girls, I suppose… but to me the period is marked by that lanky look. Because it’s just her and I people look and smile. I get the feeling that it’s a rare thing, a dad and his little girl out for dance. I see other dads at class so I know it’s not true, but people still look like they admire it or maybe they’re remembering a time past or it just makes them smile. Either way holding her little hand I feel proud, of her and myself.

Maybe I can get a rope and practice over the weekend. With three days to learn I should at least be able to look reasonable come Tuesday.

Man, getting to the gym in the beginning was hard enough to overcome for me and I can still stay in my own little world there. A class, some kind of social workout where I’m supposed to be keeping up and doing what everyone else is doing and not making a fool of myself… that’s something else all together. In my normal world I’d never do this, but for some reason I’m excited to try. It’s just that jumping-rope thing that’s got me worried. Sit-ups, pull-ups, stadiums, I even think I can make a passable uppercut or straight punch to the bag without looking wretched. But jumping-rope? All that timing and spinning and whatnot, that sounds hard. Not at all up my alley. I’m worried about the jumping-rope part; I really am.

Thursday morning at work and I’m talking to to a buddy who’s signed up for a “boxing fitness” class offered at work. It’s over at the gym every Tuesday and Friday from 4:15pm to 5pm (canceled this week because the instructor is sick). I know the guy who’s teaching it, works at the sawmill but is a spare-time boxing enthusiast, I think he may have punched around some local amateur circuit or maybe still does. I met him through Ben and Anthony some ten years ago and he used to sit near enough when I worked one floor down from where I am now. The class is basically circuit training. Hitting the bag, sit-ups, push-ups, medicine ball passes, and jumping rope. A but-whooping three-quarter hour endurance race. My buddy convinces me to sign up, I keep thinking back to Sharaun telling me I need to “switch it up” to get the weight loss going again.

“Yeah. A boxing class.”

“A boxing class?”

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she’d do if the sun exploded

Just beginning to write and it’s 11pm. It’s an ambitious topic so I have doubts I can finish.

Back in the late eighties, the days when I wasn’t much more than a pimple-stricken hair-trigger-hard-on of a lad, all the hottest girls wore something called Malibu Musk. I am convinced that marketing studies were done for this product. Focus groups made up of newly-minted teenage boys. A demographic wholly unfamiliar with anything sexual yet for whom hormones are suddenly richly in bloom. Confused teenage boys who begin to look at the bra and panties section of mom’s JC Penney catalog in a whole new way. If I can liken this group of sexually-adrift proto-men to felines, then I posit that Malibu Musk was chemically engineered to be their catnip.

I would smell this intoxicating dollar store toilet-water on those girls in their babydoll dresses and stirrup pants and LA Gear shoes. They’d brush past me, Trapper Keepers clutched tight and filled science notes where future last-names were tested out in margins, and that scent would waft my way. This stuff was aerosol from the Gods. Gifted to earth-bound females so they could in complete innocence short-circuit developing male brains. One whiff and the neural pathways were immediately re-wired, cortex to gonads, an even swap for driver’s seat.

I fell in love with most girls in middle school. It’s really easy to do. Happens to boys often in those years. I would sit in class and visually move from chair to chair down the rows, stopping to contemplate each girl in turn. Would I take that one? No? What about if the sun exploded and I had eight minutes to live and she said it was on? What about in that case? Yeah, she’d do if the sun exploded. I hope all guys did this. Man I sure did. I had mental relations with all manner of girls when the imaginary sun exploded. Girls who wore Malibu Musk were it, though. The tops. You had the Musk and you had my heart; no supernova required. I’m yours.

I can’t even remember now what it smelled like. Probably candy. Something sweet and simple. Breezy. Maybe something guys of an age would like; Now and Laters or Skittles. Later in high school the Gods struck again with that insidious pear-smelling stuff from Victoria’s Secret. Ubiquitous on attractive girls of the early nineties it was Malibu Musk reborn into a higher caste, having left behind its lowly former instantiation and been reborn. Oh but it still titillated just the same, still lured and taunted and floated you along by the nose like the pies in windows do in cartoons.

Apparently they still sell the stuff; I should get some for Sharaun as a joke. A joke that I’ll implore her to humor me in, that is.

…

Turns out I lowballed it. I couldn’t concentrate to write. Sharaun had the TV on so I threw on the headphones and listened to something abstract to keep my attention on the laptop. I don’t know, maybe I did it justice. I wanted to write about Malibu Musk.

Goodnight.

Posted on

crack eggs like julia child

Happy Wednesday.  Week’s half-gone already.

After dinner tonight Keaton was asking for dessert.  Not that we do dessert as a regular thing, but she pretty much asks about it after each dinner.  Most times we just remind her that not every dinner is followed by something sweet.  Tonight I suggested we make cookies.  Keaton helped me dump in and mix the ingredients and then run the beater to blend it all together into a mushy dough.  She busied herself licking the beaters while I dolloped out the dough.  Afterward she used a fork to score them for baking (peanut butter chocolate this time around).  They came out OK… sort of overly salty and not very sweet.  Next time I’d adjust the recipe in both regards.  At least we had a good time.

I love doing with her.  Not just being or being-around but actually cooperating, teaming up, collaborating.  It’s surprising how much she knows and how decent she is at things like following instructions.  It’s in these instances when I tend to appreciate how much she’s grown up in her just-about-four years.  I can remember her helping me in the garden a while back and that she was too worried about getting dirt in her shoes to really enjoy it.  Now she cracks eggs Julia Child.

I’ve had this plan or idea or maybe notion… I’ve told Sharaun about it.  Keaton’s going to be four in a month and I think she’s old enough to go on a solo back-country hiking overnighter with her dad.  Well, not truly “solo” in that case I suppose, but meaning that she and I could have a daddy/daughter trip into the wilderness together.  I’ve been doing some trail scouting (online, since there’s currently snow in most of the places I’m checking), looking for a short hike in and out with relatively small change in elevation.  Despite wanting it to be short enough for her to hack, I’d also want it to afford us a chance to really get away into the open wilderness.

Last summer she aced the Happy Isles to Vernal Falls footbridge climb with Sharaun – so I know she’s got some stamina.  I’m thinking something along the same lines, around a mile or less in country and then an overnight campout in the backpacking tent.  A campfire with some good camp-food and marshmallows.  Maybe some books to read or a lesson on constellations or just listening to the wildlife before bed.  We could bum around the following day checking out nature, trying to identify the plants and trees by name or inventing our own names for land features (oh man I’m a nerd when it comes to this stuff).  Then break camp and head back down.

As adventures go, I think she’d rate this highly – and taking her out to show her God’s beauty in natural form is ultimately appealing to me.  Gonna do it for sure; already been hyping her on it for when the weather gets nice.

Goodnight.

Posted on

green thumbs & cold bones

The sun came out for part of the day on Saturday.  And despite the still mostly-overcast sky and cold temperature I got a kind of daylight religion and hatched a plan to get outside.

I took the sandwich sized Ziplock baggie from my dresser, the one I put all my loose change into, up to the coin-counting machine at the supermarket across the street.  $70 dollars later and I had a gift card to the local  hardware superstore.  This coin-conversion process always feels like “free money” to me.  Or at least infinitely more spendable money, I suppose.  I drove up the road to the hardware store (we live in the thick of it, I tell you) and made my purchases: new fill materials for the garden, a few large plastic planter pots, some grape vine starters, some blueberry starters.  Yeah… free project money for a half-sunny day.

Back at home I worked a long strip of rocky dirt above our current planter box.  All the recent rain made for light work loosening things up a bit and removing the largest of the upturned rocks.  I dug four holes about seven feet apart and planted the grape starters in a row.  A couple different table varieties, for eating, not winemaking.  With the earth so soft I went ahead and used the breaker-bar to dig holes for the trellis wire posts on either end of my new grape row.  I didn’t string wires yet as there’s no vine growth from the wood at this point, but I made it easy enough to do once (and if) the things take on the hillside.  I’m going to put a small set of steps near the corner of the yard by the garden box so it’s easier to step up onto the hill behind the retaining wall and care for the plants.  I was pretty proud at my use of space.

I filled two of the plastic planter buckets with equal parts peat, vermiculite, and compost.  Watered them down good and put the blueberries in to start.  I put them in the backyard on the porch to either side of the sliding glass doors.  Near enough that I can easily tap into the drip lines that run to the planters under the windows there but I didn’t actually hook up the water yet as it’s rainy enough now and I was getting cold down to the bone being outside so long.  I put the other planter over by the existing garden box and filled it with the same mix.  In this I’ll plant random small things like herbs or whatnot, maybe flowers to bring pollinators, but for now I’m trying garlic.

Lastly I pulled out all the dead and decaying vegetable matter from the garden box itself.  Stuffed it into the green waste bin and gave the box a raking to turn the dirt over.  Since my fill material is nearly two-thirds organic I have to refresh it quite a bit after every growing season.  I didn’t fill the thing back up and work it around though, because I’m not ready to plant yet and there’s no reason for the bed to be super fertile and ready if I’m not using it.  It’ll just be a destination for weeds and I don’t need that.

Man it was a good day working outside.  Sunday muscles were sore from pitching the breaker-bar and dragging the rake and hefting 50lbs bags of compost.  My grip was all off and I could feel all those tendons or strings or strands of tissue ache as I flexed my hands into fists.  I like that feeling; makes me feel like I did something productive.

Now it’s a waiting game.  The fruit is always the payoff.

Goodnight.

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tink-ta-tink-tinking

I stayed up too late last night.

Anything past midnight these days for me usually results in punishment come morning. So it was that I had a hard time rousing myself today. I snoozed the iPhone at least three times and only finally pulled myself from the sheets after I saw the time was well past seven. As I dragged to the bathroom for my pre-shower morning sit-down I could hear the rain tink-ta-tink-tinking on the windows. Through the tightened blinds I could tell the morning light wasn’t quite as light as the hour should have allowed. Sitting, flipping through the online news and working the dry out of my eyes, I noticed the sound of the wind on the roof. It wooshed and sang through the various attic vents. I could hear it against the outside wall, gusting. All omens of another stormy day.

The weatherman says it’s supposed to rain here for something like two weeks straight. That’s a long time. I have these cameras setup in the front and backyard of the house; they are mounted into the eaves, tucked away from the weather. They broadcast live video wirelessly. Originally I put them up with some notion of “security.” A misguided notion, to be sure, as they really serve no purpose above allowing me to randomly view what’s going on at my house via the internet. Sure, they can send me a note when they detect motion – but they are incredibly imperfect at detecting motion. Such as, they do nothing positive and have been reduced to novelty usage. For instance, I logged onto them today to watch the wind and rain I mentioned above. From my desk at work I spent a few minutes hypnotized, watching it bully our big empty garbage cans and rattle the spindly limbs of our fruit trees. Watching the video of home really made me homesick though, so I had to turn it off and get my brain back on sawmill-stuff.

But I had a meeting with someone. At work we have these hallways between the many buildings, we call them “breezeways.” The suits have setup little tables and chairs there lining the long ceiling-to-floor windows that look out. I’m on the third floor so this view is actually pretty nice. I can see a bit of the city and I can watch people walking to and from their cars in our huge parking lot. For cubicle folks like myself, windows are something of a fascination. Imprisoned so at the computer these snatches of the “world outside” become filled with some sense of nostalgia. “Oh dear it’s really beautiful ‘out there,’ isn’t it? Makes me remember the times when I was outside.” Maybe this is just me. Either way I enjoy having meetings in the breezewere where I can look out the windows. Today I sat and watched the storm during the hour I was there talking office politics, annual reviews, and technical crap. That kind of stuff is a lot more palatable when you have a visual reminder that a real world exists just beyond a thin pane of glass.

Cold and wind and rain dampen not only the ground, but my designs on productivity as well. I’ve been meaning to go out in the backyard and do some colder-weather cropping. Planting, tearing down dead summer stuff, arranging, etc. I thought on this yesterday after work, as it wasn’t raining – but the outside temperature in the car on the way home read 46 and I couldn’t muster the go-get-‘em required to go to work in the soggy outdoors in those conditions. Yes I know it’s not like I’m in Wisconsin or something… but the warm house was too inviting and I once again pushed the work off, mentally, to the weekend. Perhaps feeling a bit guilty, I changed the air filter in the house. Had to get out the step-ladder and everything. Even this little bit of productivity improved my spirits, likely because I’d also mentally pushed it off more than once.

Goodnight.

I stayed up too late last night. Anything past midnight these days for me usually results in punishment come morning. So it was that I had a hard time rousing myself today. I snoozed the iPhone at least three times and only finally pulled myself from the sheets after I saw the time was well past seven. As I dragged to the bathroom for my pre-shower morning sit-down I could hear the rain tink-ta-tink-tinking on the windows. Through the tightened blinds I could tell the morning light wasn’t quite as light as the hour should have allowed. Sitting, flipping through the online news and working the dry out of my eyes, I noticed the sound of the wind on the roof. It wooshed and sang through the various attic vents. I could hear it against the outside wall, gusting. All omens of another stormy day.

The weatherman says it’s supposed to rain here for something like two weeks straight. That’s a long time. I have these cameras setup in the front and backyard of the house; they are mounted into the eaves, tucked away from the weather. They broadcast live video wirelessly. Originally I put them up with some notion of “security.” A misguided notion, to be sure, as they really serve no purpose above allowing me to randomly view what’s going on at my house via the internet. Sure, they can send me a note when they detect motion – but they are incredibly imperfect at detection motion. Such as, they do nothing positive and have been reduced to novelty usage. For instance, I logged onto them today to watch the wind and rain I mentioned above. From my desk at work I spent a few minutes hypnotized, watching it bully our big empty garbage cans LINK HERE and rattle the spindly limbs of our fruit trees. Watching the video of home really made me homesick though, so I had to turn it off and get my brain back on sawmill-stuff.

The weather dampens not only the ground, but my designs on productivity as well. I’ve been meaning to go out in the backyard and do some colder-weather cropping. Planting, tearing down dead summer stuff, arranging, etc. I thought on this yesterday after work, as it wasn’t raining – but the outside temperature in the car on the way home read 46 and I couldn’t muster the go-get-‘em required to go to work in the soggy outdoors in those conditions. Yes I know it’s not like I’m in Wisconsin or something… but the warm house was too inviting and I once again pushed the work off, mentally, to the weekend. Perhaps feeling a bit guilty, I changed the air filter in the house. Had to get out the step-ladder and everything. Even this little bit of productivity improved my spirits, likely because I’d also mentally pushed it off more than once.

Posted on

i should be able to pull it off

Happy Wednesday already internet.

I don’t know where this week is going, but I’d like to change the posted speed limit or at least get it to pay attention or something.  I need just a few more than five days this time to get things done but I’m somewhat unwilling to give of my personal time just yet.  Oh that day will come, each project at the sawmill exacts its slow-times revenge with requisite after-hours work at some point… I’m just not ready to yield even bits of my evenings quite yet.

I didn’t have a lot of options this morning.  The laundry situation was dire.  I don’t say this as a marital indictment, our recent travel is to blame.  Feeling creative, I set about scavenging an outfit.  After assembly and a quick mirror test I walked into the house proper where Sharaun was busily preparing breakfast for Keaton and coffee for herself (that’s allowed with a baby in-progress, right?).  My wife then looked at me askew, cocked her head inquisitively while taking in my wardrobe decision and said, quite matter-of-factly, “It’s not your best outfit, but you don’t have to go change.”  To her answer of my unasked question I laughed and said, simply, “Thanks.”

Don’t think this shook me, folks.  No don’t pity me the belittled man.  No way man, I’m the kind who easily suffers a factual judgment or criticism.  You remember that when you really want to tell me something but are afraid to, OK?  I can take a punch.  And anyway, I was actually pretty proud of my creation.  I don’t have a picture so I’ll word it out to you.  Black dress slacks, matching black shoes and socks, and very dark and very bright (if that makes sense) blue button-down long-sleeve dress shirt.  The kind of blue that’s just bang-for-sure primary blue.  As blue as it gets.  Over that blue shirt I donned a white sweater I have.  It has little white braids down it in vertical stripes as decoration or dress-up.  I wore this such that the only place you could see my Crayola blue dress shirt was up top and the neck where the collars popped out from under the sweater.  I’ve always wanted to wear a dress shirt under a sweater in this way… it some how looks scholarly to me.  Like something Professor College would wear.

So I don’t know folks.  Maybe it was the combination of bright white, stark black, and this vibrant blue.  Maybe it was the sweater itself, I got a couple more jabs on it later in the day – I think it’s the white braidwork.  Or maybe just the white in general.  A white sweater is somewhat non-standard I suppose. I see other people at work rocking this shirt-under-sweater look with success (or at least to what I deem success) – I feel like I should also be able to pull it off.

Goodnight.