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| Photo by Judy Breck via Flickr |
Do you remember aerobics? Bouncing around, kicking, lifting the knee again and again and again, grapevines and jumping jacks? It was set to some pretty good, constant-tempo music. Boring as hell, wasn’t it? It was like, god I don’t want to keep lifting my knee, how many times are we going to do it? Is she even counting?
I hated aerobics. I remember doing it almost daily before I got married so I’d be really skinny for my wedding. I also remember standing behind the cash wrap at Waldenbooks (remember Waldenbooks?) with my assistant manager, my hand traveling from my two-pound bag of M&Ms to my mouth repeatedly. I’ll never forget the look Dottie gave me. It said, “Do you even know you’re eating those?”
Didn’t matter. I was skinny for my wedding and I’m skinny now; no need to think about all those up and down years in between. Not right now, anyway. The point is, I hate exercise. With. A. Passion.
I’ve always hated it. I was the girl in school who failed P.E.–the one who had to walk the track three times a week because she wouldn’t “dress out.” I hated it all: softball (god no), volleyball (shit no), basketball (eh…no), track (fuck no), and the President’s Physical Fitness Test (screw you and the horse you rode in on, fella, although I was pretty good at that chin thing where you hold yourself up on the bar forever…no idea what that’s called–found it! Flexed arm hang).
I’m the girl who told her P.E. teacher she couldn’t do calisthenics that day because they gave her a headache and she had to dance with the T-ettes at the football game that night. You don’t want me to have to perform with a headache, do you? Hey! I even had a NOTE from my mom. I was such a princess, you have no idea. [Uh, yeah, I linked calisthenics because who the hell uses that word anymore, right?]
How many times have I told the story about my mother and I popping the Jane Fonda tape in the old VCR and sitting back with a few cold ones and watching the skinny women work out? Are you bored with that story yet? I guess I never am. But that’s what I think of exercise and sports. Fun to watch, but I’m not doing that.
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| That’s the one |
Then along came Zumba. Zumba changed my life. Zumba isn’t exercise at all. It’s dancing! And I love dancing. I do. I really do. So, now there’s this whole revolution of dance fitness where you dance routines to actual music. Great instructors choreograph fabulous moves to fit that music. I’m the kind of girl who thinks sweating is unnatural, but I love me some dance fitness sweat!
So why can’t I seem to get myself to class lately? Holy cow (probably shouldn’t use that word in this post), what happened?
I’ll tell you what happened. I got an office.
How do you worker bees do it? How do you go to your office all day, then go home and change into your fitness clothes, and go off to the gym? When I go home each evening, you know what I want to put on? My pajamas! I’m like, I just got home…I don’t want to go out again. I’m too tired to work out and then have to take another shower. No. I don’t want to.
But I do want to! I really do want to dance, especially with Heather or Alyce. Why can’t I get my butt to go? It’s driving me a little nuts.
Exercise (read: dance fitness) is, like, divine. I don’t exercise to lose weight, anymore. Truth be told, I’ve always lost weight better while not exercising (recent use of miracle drug not included), probably because 1. exercise makes me hungry as all get out and 2. when I exercise, I convince myself that I deserve chocolate.
What exercise does for me is make my entire life better. I sleep better, eat better, think better, and my heart loves me when I exercise. My depression is better…sometimes gone completely for years, when I exercise.
But here’s thing about exercising…you have to do it to get the benefits. Dang it. So, I’m going to have to recommit here. I’ve worked out everything else: the grocery shopping, the cooking of meals, the house cleaning (bwahaha), the goofing off and television watching. I’ve managed to schedule everything around my new office habit, so why not exercise? I’m just going to have to do it…ugh, it’s the Nike commercial all over again.
Other than my exercise problem, the first month in my office has been fabulous! There are two manuscripts on my desk percolating, having endured their penultimate edits (a misnomer really as they’ll go through at least two more read-throughs before they’re ready for the world, but I’m claiming penultimate anyway).
These were the novels that were supposed to have been finished by the end of 2014 and now I’m wondering how long it would have taken me to finish if I hadn’t rented the office. I mean, as fast as I’m working, as much as I feel like I’m getting done, I still feel as if I’m not working hard enough or fast enough. So many novels to write and so little time!
Anyway, here’s something I found on the ground in the parking lot. What do you suppose it is?
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