Don't Feed the Dog

Last week was a bit rough...the last couple of weeks, to be honest. The black dog decided to bark again, and I think that I must have been hormonal on top of that. I suppose you could say that I was volatile, or that I was in an uncertain temper, but the cold hard truth of it was that I was in a high bitch of a mood. I squawked at our housemates, resented my husband and carried on the silliest screaming matches with him in my head, and dissolved into tears on more than one occasion. AND it was, like, 106 degrees most days. 106 degrees, at the end of September. So of course I spent far more time than necessary thinking about life in more normal climates, thinking of regular seasons and their attendant rituals...

Let's just say it. This last ten days or so have been absolute shit...because I let them be. Guess I just decided to embrace my inner grump and run with it.

And yet...yesterday morning, when I woke up, there was a change. Outside I could hear the winds blowing through the trees and tinkling the wind chimes, and my husband was going on about how we could switch over to the swamp coolers because it was cold outside.

It was the low 70s. Most definitely not cold. But certainly pleasant enough for us to open up the house and feel, finally, the relenting of the heat and humidity that have plagued us, as they Always do, during the summer months. It was pleasant enough for me to take on some fairly significant projects--namely, purging old cosmetics, and organizing the kitchen. I was able to do these things without breaking out into a miserable, eczema-inducing sweat.

(Of course, busting out the champagne and undertaking these projects while tippling certainly didn't hurt. Have you ever swilled champagne--even bottom-shelf Cooks--whilst cleaning? If not, I strongly recommend it.)

This temperate tease of fall won't last, I just now realized. We're supposed to be back up in the low 100s by the end of this week. But it was a badly-needed respite for me, and hopefully I've got my head back on straight enough to fight the black dog. He's still scratching at the gate, begging for attention and notice. If I start to pay him the least bit of mind, he'll take the encouragement and start digging a hole under the fence and won't stop until he's on the porch, peering and leering in at me and silently mocking my efforts to strengthen my home's defenses against his poison.

The black dog will always be there at the edge of my mind and spirit. By now, I'm pretty used to it. All of my goals and lists and projects and expectations, and all the Prozac and wine and Cheetos, can only comfort me so much. But I know it can only get worse if I allow it to. So here are the structured ideals that I'm going to strive for this week, as a way to keep me focused on the inner light rather than the outer darkness:


-Go to the gym three times
-No wine or alcohol between Monday and Friday
-Vigilantly take my various vitamins and medicines
-Use my lotions and potions, as it were, to boost my confidence and feel put-together
-At home, work on my core and lunging exercises
-Write in my journal at least once


Here's hoping we all have a successful week, no matter what our goals are...

...Except if your goal involves bank robbing, kidnapping, weapons of mass destruction, or other naughty things. Then I hope you fail epically.

"What Is Your Childhood Trauma?!"

For me, it's gym class.

Are there many people in this world who have fond memories of gym class?

(I suspect, if there are, these people are soulless sociopaths...in other words, they are part of what made gym so goddamned awful for me.)

Anyway. My memories of gym class (P.E., actually) are not fond. They are, in fact, more on the traumatic side. During my elementary school years, I had a solid grounding in all sorts of indignities, starting with the federally-mandated physical fitness tests at the beginning of the school year (remember the excruciating humiliation of dangling on the bars, not being able to do a single chin-up, your classmates mockingly cheering you on? How about the torture of the mile run?) all the way to Field Day at the end of the year--a whole day outside, stuck in the humid heat of late spring in Florida, doing three-legged-races and tugs-of-war and sack races and water-balloon tosses. In between, there was everything from t-ball to badminton to tennis to dodgeball to duck-duck-goosee to oh my god make it stop--kickball. Anyone else remember the hollow thunk-thunk-thunk of the ball as it bumped and rolled along the sandy ground, dreading the moment when you had to haul your foot back and kick?

(There was, to the best of my knowledge, only once in elementary school that I ever got an A in gym class. I have no idea what I did differently. I just know that no matter how I tried, I only ever got Bs.)

In middle school,  however, I only ever got As, because I always, always "dressed out" into my gym uniform, and that was the surefire way to excel. But there were still so many other awful obstacles--handball and dodgeball and softball and volleyball, along with the trashiest, bitchiest bully-girls you ever did see. High school, I only had to deal with two gym classes, early on, and I got that shit done with freshman year. After that, I was home-free.

Except...

Except.

For the next 15 years of my life, I managed to skate by on youth and time being on my side. I was able to be a lump, more or less, and not feel the affects of said lumpage. But now that I'm 34, it's time to face up to some facts: I'm about 35 pounds overweight, I've got me some high cholesterol and blood sugar, I love fried food, and I'm at the point when I have to start making some lifestyle changes if I want to avoid premature dying to death.

Also, I don't want to have to buy any more newer, bigger clothes.

So, once more, it's time to try to set aside my deep, deep, deep aversion no, let's be honest, fear of exercising in front of groups of Beautiful People, and get my ass to a gym. I signed up for one today--the third one in four years. Will it work this time? Will I work this time?

I don't know. The one thing I do know--the second someone shows up with a kickball, I'm outta there.