Speaking of 30

September 10th, 2009

Were we?  I know I’m starting to think about it more.  I guess it isn’t the number that matters at all, but the fact that I feel more and more discouraged about the limitations on how fantastic I can look and how novel I can feel.

For one thing, I’ve succumbed to the Freshman Four.  They’re the freshman, the four are popping the buttons on me trousers.  Forgive me if it isn’t fifteen, since I’m not built for that, but still.  It’s hard to feel good when you can see the carbs you ate this week in your gut.

And I heard if you say sunburn backwards nine hundred and ninety-nine times, your the skin around your eyes will look young again and all that nasty damage from baking in sweat and chlorine will wash off in the shower.

I don’t know what I have to do (besides live in the gym and spend my whole day eating raw superfoods) to look right in a bathing suit, but the basics just don’t cut it anymore for this working girl.  I take the stairs.  I ran four miles on Tuesday.  Without stopping.  And it only took me forty minutes, but I haven’t done shit since except work twenty hours and assemble five separate meals.  It’s only forty minutes that it takes to do it, but that doesn’t count driving there, changing, driving to day care and picking up the last solitary kid ten minutes befor they close, then going home to cook dinner, wash dishes (no dishwasher), was self, do bedtime with Babykin, and so on, then get up at 5:40 in the morning.

Fourteen and fifteen hour days are tiring.  I heard that in France they get free healthcare (through high taxes, I am sure), five weeks of paid vacation every year, naps at lunchtime, and wine with dinner.  Oh, and the streets are made of cheese.

Holy mackerel.  I just remembered a book I saw everywhere last year.

French Women Don’t Get Fat.

Au reviour!

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Something is Missing

September 2nd, 2009

Don’t you just love the first day of school?  The new school supplies, the excitement of a new schedule, new people, and, of course, new clothes.  When I was a kid, my mom never did a major shop for me to kick off the new school year.  We were broke and upwardly mobile, so a new wardroe bought on credit or with the rent money was out of the question. 

But now that I’m grown and have my own money, I usually do a big shop for clothes, shoes, and handbags twice a year–once in fall and once in spring.  Last year, my fall shop came to about $700 dollars, none of which went on a credit card.  Like I said, I don’t have a shopping problem, per se.  I budget for these things.  This year was different, of course.

This year, the night before the first day of school, I felt a little uneasy, and I couldn’t figure out why.  Something felt absent; out of place.  It dawned on me right around the time I should have been going to bed.  It wasn’t first day anxiety; it was the fact that I hadn’t given a thought to what I would wear.  In past years, I would have been looking forward not only to the new students and the new year, but also to the new outfit I’d planned just for this day.  I stared into the closet.  The same old stuff stared back at me.

By old, I have to admit, for most of this stuff, I only mean a year old.  The chartreuse/mustardy top with the blue flowered embroidery and boatneck collar that I ended up wearing was purchased last year from anthropologie, and in fact, I wore it to school on the first day last year, too.  It was a pretty blah feeling to be sporting the same gear for the same occasion two years in a row.  I tried to come up with some new combinations, but my work wardrobe is not as flexible as my going out or my casual one, and I’ve more or less exhausted all the possibilities already.

People who know me and know about this blog still playfully scrutinize me occasionally and ask if what I’m wearing is new.  I appreciate it, since it shows that they take an interest in me and what I’m doing.  Those are good friends.  Another thing I think it shows is that how we look is important to others, but maybe not as important as we think it is, and that they’re not looking at us thinking that we wear the same thing all the time.  To the people who love us and care about us most, it’s likely that what makes us look fresh is enthusiasm for what we are doing, joy, and the interest we show in them.

I really do want a new handbag, though.  And my workout wardrobe is pretty tired, and since I’m in desperate need of reshaping, that could be a bit of a challenge.  I’m not one of those women who goes to the gym, or even wants to, in full makeup, jewelry, and a coordinated outfit down to the socks.  I don’t go to the gym so I can look good at the gym; I go to the gym so I can look good when I’m not at the gym, i.e., living my life.  Exercise is part of my life, but it’s not a part I feel like I need to dress up for.  I’m there to get sweaty and feel gritty, not to get pretty and feel girly. 

My friend Sarah and I are thinking of training for a half-marathon in January, so I feel motivated to build my stamina on the treadmill.  I love the treadmill; it’s the only time  I watch t.v.  I have to admit, though, I feel a little like a hamster, since I think of it as a cable subscription that only works when I run.  Same $70 a month, waaaaaay better result.

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Back in the Saddle

June 17th, 2009

In light of the fact that I am going to be the big 3-0 in a few short weeks, I am trying to get back into hitting the gym.  In light of that, and in light of the fact that I hate wasting money, and it costs fifty bucks a month.  If I actually go, I won’t feel bad about the cost.  If I sit on my arse at home, it seems like a lot of money.

I’d like to look good in a bathing suit on my 30th birthday, so yesterday I did 50 minutes on the treadmill at a very reasonable pace.  It was a slow jog, but I haven’t done a damn thing in a month, so I didn’t want to start by kicking my own butt so I’d hate it and not go back.  Fifty minutes, though, and on the “Alpine Pass” setting.  That’s not so bad.  And I’ll do something else today–I think maybe some weights and abs.  The key for me, I think, will be to not get too ambitious and just try to maintain.  As it is, lots of people compliment how I look, then after that they say they hate me.  So that’s fun.  It’s okay to hate people if they are thin, just not if they are fat.

Another thing that is apparently okay is to insult people openly as long as what you are insulting is their personality and not their body (unless they are thin).  I am finding it difficult to get into specifics here, but I have a lot of “friends” to whom my general way of being is a joke.  Maybe I am too sensitive.  I think people don’t realize that I might be sensitive even though I do not outwardly display it.  Recently at work, discussing the harsh treatment I sometimes incur from students, I said to a colleague, “That hurt my feelings.  I want to be liked as much as anyone.”

He actually snerted and then looked at me with shocked disbelief when he realized I was not joking.  I guess it is hard to believe that I might actually be a regular human.  I don’t know why that is. 

I have at least one friend that understands that, and I can think of at least one more who should understand, since she’s the same way.  We were talking about being single, and she said, “You know I’m too much of a bitch to be in a relationship.”  It’s sad that there are women who feel this way about themselves, and I can garauntee she had some help coming to that conclusion.  I know I did.

I’m not a huge believer in the grand mystery of the Zodiac, but I believe this is characteristic of us Cancerians–tough and pinchy on the outside, drenched with butter on the inside, wait, I think I’m mixing my metaphors here. 

I keep waiting and trying but I never seems to wake up with a new and highly appealing personality.  I always have 1.5 real friends who might be tired of me but for some reason persist, and then a handful that I have not yet annoyed to the point that they don’t return my calls.  I can’t think of one relationship in my entire life where the other person has been the one to make the effort to maintain the relationship.  Not one.  There are a few, a precious few, where there’s been mutual effort, but for the most part, I maintain contact with people because I’ll go completely insane if I spend too much time alone.

Nonetheless, I’m going to be looking at least mediocre for a chick that bore a nine pound baby in the near future, which should be great consolation to me when I’m sitting around waiting for the phone to ring, or am enjoying the company of people who are standing around talking about what a pain in the ass I am.

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When your pants get too tight, head to the gym; not the mall–and other rules

April 21st, 2009

I was at a training for work today sitting with a friend and talking about this blog.  She asked if my weight stayed pretty consistent, and I said that it did.  Rule number 1, of no particular order, was born. What are the rest of the rules?  Well, it’s like this:

I love this skirt. JCrew, circa 2001.

I love this skirt. JCrew, circa 2001.

 

1.  See above–gaining or losing weight will not be cause to buy clothes.

2.  No new clothes, shoes, or handbags for me.

3.  No requesting gifts of same–and the people who know me best and also buy me gifts will know that those three categories are off limits.

4.  If a critical item becomes lost or irreparably damaged, it can be replaced with used clothing of as similar as possible style, color, and quality at the minimum possible cost.

5.  Borrowing and trading is allowed–I’ll be hosting a clothes swap & pot luck sometime, I’m sure.

6.  I’m not sure what to do about accessories.  I don’t really buy many of them anyway, but should they, too, be off limits?

That’s pretty much it.  What do you think?  Could you do it?  Already I notice subtle changes in my thinking.  For example, a woman came into the training I was in today wearing a green shirt that I really liked.  Right away, I put it out of my mind because there was no real point in thinking more about it.  But some corner of my mind began to panic.  On the way home, I thought about the recent trend toward “boyfriend jeans”–boxy, boy cut jeans worn faded, belted, raggedy, and rolled.  Since I don’t already have some, I guess I won’t be following this one.  And the harem pants I saw three years ago in India that are now in fashion magazines will not be mine, either!

Next:  Inventory, or What Exactly Are We Working With, Here?

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