Year Without Shopping

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.