New Year's Resolutions Revisited

The first three months of the year are gone, more or less, so it's a good time to think about my resolutions and how they're going.

I'm happy to say that, for a change, I'm right on track. In fact, I think I'm going to blow right past my weightlifting goals, no problem. If I stay on schedule, I'll run 30 minutes straight for the first time the week of Christmas, so that goal will be met also.

On the other hand, that resolution I made about not wanting to lose weight because I'm done with that battle? That one's not going so well.

The unfortunate truth is that if I want to reach my weightlifting and running goals, I'm going to have to cut weight. My knees are not going to tolerate longer and longer bouts of running at my current weight for very long before they really start hurting. They're not going to tolerate a 100% body weight squat or deadlift for long either if I have to move my current body weight along with the weight on my back or in my hands.

So, we're back to that shit again. Ugh. I'm not happy about it, but my motivation is different this time. Now I'm not thinking about how I look or what other people think of how I look, I'm thinking about not being able to meet my goals if I don't get closer to a "normal" weight for my height.

Being as Monday is also the first of the month, I'm going to start "cutting" then. ("Cutting" sounds cooler and somehow less depressing than "dieting".) The goal is to lose a pound a week until I'm at the high end of normal for my height. I'm hoping I'll have enough muscle by then to make that a good weight for me to carry around the track and to the gym.

So, here we go again. Maybe this time I'll be successful and not spend every day beating myself up because I'm not where I think I should be. Maybe.

Post Second Draft Depression

Actually, I don't know what to call this. I finished my second draft of Novel Three on Sunday. Like, all I did on Sunday was write and do laundry. I didn't clean, I barely cooked, all I did was write. I was almost stressing about it and I nearly did a jig when I wrote "The End" at the bottom of the last page, took a picture of it, and sent it to my husband.

So, this is where I put the novel to bed and let it age for a little bit before I start working on the third draft. I let my first one sit a year before touching it again. The second one sat for a month. This one I have scheduled to sit for two months, mostly because I have vacation coming in May and I don't want to be in the middle of draft three and then have to stop for a week. I'm happiest when I can maintain a little consistency.

Except I can't let it go.

I plucked it out of my writing pile yesterday and started reading it again, even though I had read through the whole thing on Monday. Since my first two drafts are done longhand, I bring them to work with me and write when I have a lull between patients. Tuesday and yesterday I brought my current notebook to work and used some writing prompts to keep me busy, but then I finished the list of prompts, too. Ugh.

I am going back and working on Novel One based on a critique I got on it, but I need my computer to do that and I can't (won't) bring that to work. Me standing and writing in a notebook generates the occasional question. Me pounding away on my laptop makes it look like I'm playing on Facebook or something unless they're actually looking at the screen. I don't care if they think I'm writing. I don't want them thinking I'm completely goofing off.

Anyway, I feel out of sorts and I'm not sure where to go now. I do have a couple sections of Novel One I want to redo on a large scale, but I still need my computer to do that. I guess today Novel Three is coming to work with me again and I'll have to maybe print the chapters that I want to work on from Novel One and bring them with me to scratch away at in my current notebook. Probably could have done that today, but I'm blogging instead so...

The Long View

Things just endlessly repeat themselves. We think that what we're going through is unique, but if you've been around long enough you start to see that it's all just clothes in the dryer, spinning around. They take different shapes as they go around and they disappear and come back into view, but it's all the same stuff.

Personal health issues brought this up. Currently, my biggest problems have been insomnia, GI issues and migraines. When I sit here and look backwards, I can see that these have always been my biggest issues.

Dad passed away in 1976. I have a few memories before that, but the bulk of what's floating around in my brain starts after that. I had GI issues before he died. I remember him teaching me some yoga to do to try to help with that. I was an insomniac before he died. I remember him coming out to the living room to pick me up off the couch or his easy chair to carry me back to bed. As far as the migraines, I always thought my first one was in 1980, but the truth is that not long after he died, I had my first one. I was down for three days. I remember, after I got better, Mom telling me that if I had gone one more day, the doctor wanted me to go in and have a spinal tap done. So that's 1976 or possibly '77. (Happily, I only had 4 before 1992-ish when they became a regular thing.)

Then I started thinking about other things. For example, my parents slept in two twin beds mashed together. I don't know why. Maybe that's what they could afford. Maybe that's the way they wanted it. In any case, Brad and I have always slept in the same bed, but we each have our own set of blankets and always have.

The offspring seems to be taking a completely different course than his parents, but it won't surprise me if twenty years from now I look back and see the same cycles repeating in his life that went around in ours. The clothes might look a little different, but it's all still shirts and pants and underwear that get worn, washed, and dried and worn again.

PR's

The nice thing about starting a new workout program is that unless you really screw up, you're going to make gains. Gains in size, strength, endurance, flexibility, whatever. Every three weeks or so, you get to celebrate a new personal record (PR). Yeah, you're sore as hell, tired, hungry, and sitting on the toilet can be a challenge, but whatever numbers you're tracking are going the right way and it's exciting.

I pulled 145 in my deadlift this morning. The most I've ever deadlifted (not counting lifting old folks off the floor when they have fallen) and I did it for two sets of five reps. When I ran Tuesday, I beat my previous PR by over a minute. Tomorrow morning my run/walk split will be 3 minutes/2 minutes. I can't remember the last time I ran longer than I walked. Maybe high school in gym class? I should make another PR unless running three minutes cashes me out so bad I can't hardly move for the two minutes I'm walking.

Yeah, I'm sore. But I also feel like a stud. You probably shouldn't mess with me today. I might whip out one of my PR's and bitchslap you with it.

I write because:

• no one can tell me "shut up" or "don't say that". Not 'til it's too late, anyway.
• I am my best self when I'm writing consistently.
• I can edit myself before anyone reads it.
• when I'm not writing, I feel dull.
• it keeps me from doing things I probably shouldn't.
• I can make my characters do the things I want to do and probably shouldn't.
• I can speak my truth without pissing anyone off.
• sometimes there's not enough alcohol.
• it helps me process the things I don't understand.
• I like the shit I write better than the shit that's on TV.
• sometimes my soul gets too heavy to carry and needs emptying out.

Gray Hair Fascination

I am fascinated by my gray hair. In a good way. I know some people pull theirs out or look for roots so they can dye it back to whatever color they think looks good. Not me. I'm looking for it and getting excited every time I find a new one.

For a long time, I just had a couple that I could keep track of. Recently, I've found what feels like a bunch more. Sadly, they're spread out all over my head. It would be kinda cool if a bunch of them would migrate together so I could have a stripe. Preferably at my temple. I don't really want to look like a skunk, but I guess I'd take that, too.

I'd eventually like to have a full head of naturally gray hair. I wonder when it will happen. I'm 45 now and just have a few. Will I be 60 or 65 when it finally gives up the ghost and goes all gray? Will it happen suddenly or will it go one strand at a time like it is now until I'm mostly gray with a few brown stripes? The ladies in the nursing home with white hair would always tell me that for a long time their hair was ugly while it was changing over.

Change is rarely pretty. You don't get to pretty until you've reached the other side.

Hair and the End of a Relationship

It's my studied opinion that when a female in a long-term relationship makes a big change in her hairstyle, she is getting ready to get out of the relationship. I can personally point to three different occasions when I have seen this happen. Two with co-workers and one with a family member.

I don't know what it is about our hair, but when we want things to change, that's the first thing to go. Maybe it's a test. If we can handle a drastic change in hairdo, we can then make the bigger jump to make a drastic change in our lives. Maybe we think if we change our hair and feel good about it, we'll feel better about our lives, too. Maybe we have decided we are a different person now and we want to show that change through our hair so when we jump off the relationship boat, no one will be surprised.

Whatever it is, it's a tell as far as I'm concerned. It's almost to the point now where when I see it happen, my first thought is "Oh, no".