Fatty Fatty Fat Fat Fatty

I just came back from Boston... I've been there for four days. For the two days prior to my visit, I skipped the gym for convenience reasons. So really it's been almost a whole week since I've gone and I am just looking down at my middle section right now and seeing how much of a terrible fatty I am. And no matter what anyone says, no amount of wild sweaty lovin' is equal to the caloric expenditure of an hour on the eliptical followed by mat exercises and weight training.

With that said, I'm off.

Sweet Lord

This is what Craig emailed me in honor of my 2000th hit. I don't think any more of an explanation is necessary. Thanks Craig, I love you, too!

Caution-- Keep Back 50 Feet

Is it just me, or does running make other people gassy, too? I don't know if it has something to do with my highly fermentable diet, the fact that I guzzle my fluids and swallow my food without chewing it that well, or what, but every time I do cardio on the elliptical machines (which makes up the vast majority of my workouts thus far) I seem to be inundated with excess gas.

And it's not always the slightly more socially acceptable upper-GI eructations that I grace my fellow-gym-goers with (though I do surprise myself with how often I burp while running). Unfortunately I often grace the exercising arena with terrible, stinky, sweaty-butt, loud as anything farts.

Jeez I'm classy.

You know what else? I always try to be sneaky about it. Like, when I'm burping, I just kind of keep my mouth closed and excuse myself. But when I'm farting, I don't want anyone else to know it was me, so there's clearly no admission of guilt or excuse for the little slip. That would be terrible. No-- instead, after the blessed event, I look around first to see if everyone has their headphones placed firmly in ears and plugged into iPods and TV monitors to at least lessen the chance that anyone heard. Then I check again to make sure nobody was walking behind me at the very moment I let one rip... either that, or was unfortunate enough to walk through my apparent death-cloud status post dispersion of stank air. Yeah, really sneaky....

So far I've only stunk out a couple of people... I could tell because pretty soon after the third or fourth, um, eruption, they got off of the elliptical machines next to me and went elsewhere to work out.

Sigh. I'm so weird.

Hot 2000!

Sniff sniff sniff...

You love me... you really love me!

Thanks, Noodle fans. Hitting two thousand feels great! Keep coming back (or else).

Buff As Can Be

I think it's been about a month now that I've belonged to the gym. When the guy questioned me on my first visit about why I wanted to join and how often I thought I'd be going, I answered that I'm a fatty, my cholesterol is through the roof and I have high blood pressure (which are all atrocious for a 24 year old vegan), and that I'd be really happy with myself if I got to the gym twice a week. And though I'd love to get to the gym more often, I was pretty realistic when I said that two times weekly would probably be what I'd aim for. Not terrible for a beginner, I thought.

In the last couple of weeks though I've surprised myself. Not only have I been going upwards of four or five times a week (including after work, even when I have to go back to the hospital the next day), but I've also noticed my eating habits have changed a little bit, too. I feel better about myself and can see a noticeable difference in my flubbery body. My legs don't jiggle when I walk (well, except for my inner thighs that is) and my belly, though still made of jelly and not jam (it still shakes!), is a touch smaller. And when I squint my eyes and look sideways, I sometimes can see a shadow of what might soon become cut lines where my obliques are hiding under all the padding.

This summer I have plans to hike a portion of the Appalachian Trail with some friends and I really want to be fit enough to be able to do it with minimal complaining. I mean, come on, carrying my life (weighing in at approximately 50lbs) on my back is going to be tough, especially paired with uneven terrain and I don't know how many miles of hiking every day. It's going to be hard. But if I keep up with what I'm doing, I think I'll be just fine.

Anyway, so that's it. I've been off this weekend through Monday and instead of running around to visit friends, I've just taken it easy and gotten some errands and home crap done. And, of course, I've gone to the gym. I'm so proud of myself!

Multiplex Cinema Alone?

Is it really a turdy thing to go see a movie by yourself? I'm not sure... I see other people at the movies by themselves all the time and never think a thing about it. And Kate told me she goes by herself a lot, and that it's the best thing ever. But am I secure with myself enough to go and do that? Maybe on a week night I might consider it, but alone on a Saturday night at the Cineplex? I'm just not sure.

I mean, I'm secure enough to go to a restaurant or cafeteria by myself to eat a meal... even without that "security book" or "security newspaper" to give me the appearance of being busy and having a purpose. I love eating by myself-- gives me another opportunity to slow things down and people watch, one of my favorite down-time activities. But the movies? Oooooh-- that's a tough one.

So that's where I was last night. Jason came down for a visit and we had dinner out, and I wanted to go to a movie, but I wasn't sure if he'd be up to it since he had an hour long drive home and it would have maybe been too late... so I contemplated going by myself. And the verdict?? I didn't have to. Jason was (thank the lord) up for it.

But I'm still wondering... would I have gone? Who knows. Perhaps it'll come up again soon and I'll be able to tell at that point whether or not I've got any balls. Until then though, I guess we'll never know!

Home (Away From) Sweet Home

I was off from work Monday through Wednesday so I decided to go up to Bing to visit some of my old haunts on Tuesday. When I arrived in town, my first stop was to see Andrew, Matt's old roommate and one of my remaining non-RA friends up there. We hung out for a little bit but I was so exhausted from having driven a whole three hours that I stretched out on his bed and took a nap, instructing him to wake me at 5pm-- I was going to attend a class led by my favorite teacher from last year. 5 o'clock came faster than I'd have cared for and I put on my sneakers and was off driving down to campus. When I walked into the classroom in the Decker building, Maureen did a double take and screamed out "My Emily!" with arms open, clearly ignoring and abandoning the student she'd just been meeting with. I got a giant hug and some quick instructions to wash fruit that she'd bought for the class that night.

When I was back from the kitchen, arms laden with apples, oranges, grapes and cheese, she had me come up to the front of the class and tell all of the nursing students where I was working and a little bit about the transition from Decker to Real Life. I was honest and I swear I could see fear in the eyes of some of the students... but I wasn't going to hide the fact that it had been really hard for me. Whatever though, Maureen was just happy I was up for a visit.

Three hours later, I went back up to the apartments to hang out with Andre and some of the other RAs during duty and a Hillside Council meeting. After that, I followed Tim back to the apartment for a little chat, but returned to the Hillside Commons for some more quality time with Dre and surprisingly I got wrangled into attending a self-defense class led by a university police lieutenant. When duty was over, Dre picked up my bags and escorted me back to Tim and Andrew's apartment where I was planning to take over the couch for my nighttime accommodations... but when we got there, there were about a thousand rowdy Turkish kids with statistics textbooks in the living room screaming about equations and word problems. We took one look around and promptly left for Dre's place. He was leaving that night to drive down home, so he gave me his keys and I promised to leave them in his mailbox so he could let himself back in when he returned to school. A big hug later he was on his way down state and I was back at Tim and Andrew's apartment hanging out with Andrew until 2:30am or something.

When Andrew got tired, I went back to Dre's place and hung out with his roommate Rich, watching television programs about racing cars and southern cooking until after 3 in the morning. Sheesh. When I woke up the next day (well, really the same day, but you know) and walked out of Dre's room, his other roommate Jamar did a double take and was like "You're not Dre..." which was highly observant since I'm clearly a chunky white chick and Andre is a tall, skinny, black man. Heh.

Before I went home Wednesday afternoon I hung out with Pat the secretary at the Commons office for a few minutes, and I spent almost two hours chatting with my Telefund boss, Kim, and friend Emily. And of course I stopped at the craft store and Weg's. It wouldn't be a trip to Bing without going to the awesome craft stores and to my most favorite grocery store in the world.

So, it was a good trip. I had a blast and really can't wait to go up again. Hopefully next time I'll have the foresight to tell my girlfriends that I'm coming up... it wasn't so much spur of the moment as I wasn't sure who would be around to hang out, so it ended up being mostly a guy's weekend (plus me, clearly not a guy). Oh well, there really is always next time. Anyway, I'm off this weekend but I don't think I'm going to go anywhere... it'll be the first weekend I'm off in ages where I don't travel to see a friend. Perhaps I'll finally be able to get some cleaning done! We'll just have to see....

Growing Pains

I don't know-- this growing up into an adult thing used to be so difficult for me. I mean, when I left Bing for the last time and had to move out of my apartment after having lived there for six years, I was stunned into oblivion. That is, I was so distraught over all of the changes going on (graduating from my undergraduate studies for the final time, leaving my apartment, leaving my boyfriend, leaving my friends, moving back home, starting a full-time job, etc.), that I could barely function. At the end, Susan had to do the majority of my packing because all I could do was stand back and cry while watching her put my stuff into boxes and into my car.

But I'm past that now. I've been working, and although I miss my friends a lot, I've also tried to work hard to see them every so often. I realize that I don't miss Binghamton as much as I missed the people there, and I really missed living with my girlfriends, but other than that, it's ok that I left.

My parents though-- man, my parents are having a really hard time now that I'm living with them. Don't get me wrong-- they love the company I'm sure (complete with full array of body-function noises), but they're having a really hard time letting go. I think it was easier for them when I didn't live at home because there was less of a grip on me... so when I wanted to go places and do things, I just did them. Now, I have to ask permission like I'm 12 again, and I get a lot of flack for wanting to go on trips to visit my friends. And the more I tell them that I'm growing up and need more adult freedom, it seems the more they want to pull in the reins.

Sigh. Parents are so weird.

Puntabulously Distraught

So Craig and I had a fight the other day... boo. Ok, well, it wasn't really a fight. But I was being really bossy and nursey and lecturey and inadvertently I hurt his feelings and pissed him off... so it's still boo.

But today I sent him a boo-hooey text message of apology, and then he told me to check my email, and sitting there waiting for me was a just-as-sobby email apology from him! We're like twins with this not wanting to screw up the friendship over some dumb stupid crap thing.



Oh Craig, I'm so glad we're not fighting anymore!

Healed

Quite obviously by the grace of God. And by drinking elderberry syrup with echinacea extract and taking zinc lozenges. And from all the sweet, sweet lovin' I've been receiving while in Boston. But whatever it was from, I'm not sick anymore... wahoo!

So, I just got back... went there for a brief visit, got surprised by a spur-of-the-moment trip up by Matt's buddy R.J. (R-jot-Day-jot?) from home... got trashed and had a blast, then cried because my hormones are out of whack (I swear, I'm a happy drunk-- not a crying drunk!), realized with glee that I'm on the rag (really with glee... as in hands-in-the-air-cheering-out-loud glee), took a couple of wrong turns because I wasn't paying attention, drove home in eight thousand hours of traffic, and am now doing the wash so I have some uniforms to wear to work this weekend.

Phew. I love these fast updates. Maybe soon I'll be able to post a funny blog entry soon... if I ever get funny again.

Ok. Peace out.