It's not going so poorly, actually, the making contacts part. I am just out of practice at quantifying my skills and experience because I've just been dawdling along doing a whole bunch of things with no pressure for the past five years and now here we are. Well, except for that whole journalism school thing where I had to justify every fact of my existence every single day for almost two years. Hey, yeah, come to think of it that was pretty stressful. And also I've been on deadline for something real or imaginary in my brain pretty much every minute of every day since 2002. I am not so much about the mental vacations.
So, okay. Scratch the no pressure. But, really, what can I say when people ask me what I can do? I can write things, a lot of things, effectively. I can speak coherently. I can help you figure things out, tell you what looks good where on your website or where all of your typos are, really quickly. I can take pretty pictures.
That is not specific enough, I'm afraid. And so I re-learn how to package this package that is me, and that makes me nervous because I'm constantly red-penning everything, especially myself, and I'm out of practice with resumes. I have watched some really terrible television. I go for the occasional walk. I try really hard not to spend money, which, in the summer? Ugh. So I've been staying home a lot, in a house in a city that decided to skip May and head straight for August and our air conditioner is broken.
I did go to New York for a few days, on the Bolt Bus. That was really fun. I saw a really good, old friend who let me stay with her at her conference hotel and some newer blog friends and spent time kicking around the city. It felt good. I have pictures for months backed up or I'd show you some of the better ones, but here's my new favorite bar near Union Square from my phone.
The bartender was standard issue no-nonsense New York pub but he talked about the oil spill and made me cry.
I can't really look at many of the pictures of that, speaking of which. I feel like I'm not witnessing but I have to really limit myself. I found myself calling up some of the images in my head while I was driving yesterday and it is hard to drive when I'm crying. I am unsettled by the state of the world in general. I don't know how you can't be. I want to write something for the Love the Gulf project (via DebontheRocks) but I'm having trouble finding the words.
I want a new blog. I need to carve out a few days to understand SquareSpace.
Speaking of walking, which I believe I did up there somewhere, the exercise is going so-so and that has been the big come-to-Jesus this week. When my routine changes things tend to fall apart in that department. I had been going to kickboxing at L.A. Boxing three times a week for over a month. The scale wasn't really moving, although in either direction so that was almost okay, because I was loving it. It wasn't boring and I felt like I was getting back in some kind of shape, then I stopped working and one excuse led to another and there I was on Thursday night, blocked and afraid to go back because I knew it would be so difficult. I cursed myself because for the thousand-millionth time in my life I'd done it, I'd fallen off of an exercise schedule that was really working, that was making at least one part of my life feel in good, stable shape, and I'd blown it.
Stupid schedules. Stupid brain. Stupid stuff that I can't break through sometimes no matter how hard I try when the inertia takes over.
So I went back to the gym, doing the thing I know I need to do in this mind over matter situation and got in the car in spite of the fact that I didn't want to and didn't feel like it. It was hotter than it is in my house in there but I got my favorite bag in the corner and kicked out a lot of the stress and frustration and anxiety of the week. And I didn't die. I felt a little less stressed, even.
Look, face all sunshiny like the hand of HEAVEN blesses exercise.
Not really. Just flare.
I felt a lot weaker during and after class than I had felt even two weeks ago. I need to go back regularly. I need to recommit. The instructor looked at me quizzically but didn't ask me where I'd been and I still felt compelled to babble an excuse at the end, anyway, like he was my platoon leader or something. I take things too damned seriously. But how many times have I said that I can't stop because then it's so hard to start again, unlike other things that I can't stop if I tried forever? How many times has this happened? I know I'm strong. I know I have endurance. I know this isn't even entirely about my body, that my mind is so much better off when I'm burning off all of the nervous energy and feeling good about meeting physical challenges.
And yes, it is a kick to see my arms have some definition.
I am mad, I am so MAD that I've gained back 23 pounds, even though I know how hard it is for me to lose, I know how much harder it is, even, for me to maintain, no matter what the motivational police say. This is a difficult, difficult process for me. I know it. I know it. I know I can't get all negative and crazy about it or I'll stay on the downward spiral. The shame diet, as some idiot broadcaster said on the news the other night, does not work for me in any way. But still? Mad mad mad.
And then my sister and my mother reminded me of a race we'd been planning to do for awhile. It's tomorrow in Annapolis, with a bunch of our friends. It is a 10k that my mother and I -- at least -- will mostly walk, but it's a 10k anyway. My nurse practitioner (who is way better than any doctor I've ever had besides the one who fixed my face, by the way) said a few weeks ago that I should walk every day for 15 minutes just to remind myself that I was moving forward, or maybe just so I could say that I was. I haven't been following that direction either and I'm not sure I can make it all up in one day, though.
Ha. Ha. Ha. Ten kilometers. Tomorrow. I don't even know how many miles that is.
But you're reading some ramblings of a sucker who's about to get into her car and drive to Annapolis, yeah you are.
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