A bit over a week ago, I intentionally skipped my first workout in 4 years. There were a couple of times during that time when I was forced to not work out - I had my wisdom teeth out once, went on two trips, but that accounted for few and far between misses of my every-other-day schedule. In fact, I do not think I missed one workout in the past 18 months. Don’t mistake that statement as laced with any notes of pride - I learned hard lessons throughout that time, hurt people, alienated others, and battled in general to balance all parts of my life. My brain was in such a rut that it thought there would be some collapse if it didn’t get a a bi-daily endorphine rush associated with 1.5-2 hours of intense weightlifting.
This recent step of missing a day was meant to show me that my body wouldn’t end if I did miss one day. The physical effects I experienced were interesting: my appetite decreased less than anticipated, while I had an unanticipated increase in nervous energy. I think when the time does come to make an unplanned change to my workout schedule (eg: something comes up that is obviously more important than working out), I will have to try to mentally steel myself to these effects.
Maybe you’ve been addicted to something, this is a first for me. Just as the smoker who asks “how is this hurting me right now,” I spent many months growing in my understanding of why having one’s priorities straight is important. Not that I am entirely there, but I feel like I am moving in the right direction.
Unfortunately, the physical effects of working out are rather positive, it’s the social ones that can be subtly damaging; can cause you to wake up one morning and realize your once firm foundations of loved ones have been eroded by your absence and over scheduling.
So no, this is not some paradigm shift where I begin eating McDonald’s everyday and not moving from my chair. Just as the damage is subtle, so is the fix. There will be, for that reason, more posts on the topic.
My advice to anyone who is addicted? Just don’t do it. Take all the energy you devote to feeding your addiction and channel it into turning things around. You didn’t take no for an answer when you were addicted, don’t take no for an answer when you are quitting.
You may or may not remember that one person in high school who was so involved with a single topic that any social interaction was painfully difficult. So it is with one person I know, who is in fact not in high school, but is St. Thomas’ chemistry stockroom manager. Problem is, she is not just antisocial, but extraordinarily passive aggressive. Her ability to wilt a freshman chemistry student after they request a reflux condenser without knowing the joint size is only rivalled by her ability to aggravate someone who knows what they want but is cut off by her ridiculous superiority complex.
Research, Day 2:
I walk up to the stockroom counter and ask, “Can I have one of those metal stirring rods?” I’m met with the immediate retort, “They’re called magnetic stir bars and you have to check them out.”
Research, Day 8:
I’m second in line and watch as a senior tries to obtain some water hoses.
Senior: “Can I get some water hoses?”
Melva Cain: “There is no such thing as a water hose.”
S: “Ok, the yellow rubber hoses?” MC: “You mean the nitrile hose?”
S: “Yes, that.” MC: “Oh, well someone waltzed out of here with those boxes earlier, didn’t you look for them?”
S: “I thought they returned them …” MC: “…”
S: “So, I mean, all I have to do is hook up some hose to run water through.” MC: (Gets a box on the floor) “So this will work?”
S: “Yeah … thanks.”
Me: ?!
Research, Day 12:
Me: “Can I have a magnetic stir bar about so long?” MC: “You mean the one inch stir bar, that’s what you mean, right?”
Research, Day 14:
Me: “Can I get an eighth inch magnetic stir bar?” MC: “Those don’t exist, here’s a one quarter inch one.”
Somewhere between those dates, our lab manager (not to be confused with Melva, who is the stockroom manager) came to talk to the professor who is leading the research,
Nate: “Uh, Melva says she won’t buy any more ethanol.”
Doc: “What?”
N: “Yeah, she says we’re using too much and we can’t afford it, which is completely untrue.”
D: sigh
So continues the saga with Citizen Cain, stockroom manager sitting atop some well organized yet impossible to gain access to heap of chemicals and equipment.
Suing Everybody - The headline is “Antor Media sues everybody.” And really, it fits perfectly. “Antor Media is suing a variety of cellphone makers, including Nokia, UTStarcom, Audiovox, Kyocera, Sanyo, Sharp, NEC, RIM, Virgin Mobile, LG, palmOne and Panasonic …”
It’s the times when you don’t have time or space to doubt yourself that your mind steps up and performs to its fullest potential. When I did not have time to consider that both Richard and Steve are taller than me and were intent on removing the ball from my control, I could drive and shoot - and get the ball through the net. If thoughts of doubt came into my head for just a fraction of a second, as they certainly did, things such as Steve stuffing the ball with a resounding “THUMPOING” and me watching it sail behind me occurred instead.
We lost.
But we fought for it; the game tonight was the best this summer. It was to be played to 21 win by 2, but John and I took it from down by 18-20 up to … a loss of 27-29. Discouraging? Not at all. It didn’t really matter - it was so amazing to be outside, sweating around in the warm summer night (fighting off the mosquitos later), feeling alive in an uterally visceral and undeniable way. As long as I keep this journal, I will keep trying to convey what it feels like when 8 months of chilly weather are interrupted by 4 warm months of summer. Everyone is outside, you actually hear the birds singing (I bet people in the south take them for granted), and on and on. I haven’t come close to capturing the atmosphere yet: poetry may be the only way to get across the feeling of waking up on a summery morning, or checking up a ball during a game of pickup, standing on warm concrete and looking at the long rays of sun catch foliage as red light skims across the earth.
I may have been stuck inside for 8 hours today, but summer is the ultimate rejuvenator.
Lifetime Fitness has long been known for a questionable music playlist (Britney Spears and Savage Garden … at the gym?), but today they proved all of that bad music was just a warm up for one unbelievably inappropriate song.
While everyone was straining, grunting, and pounding through workouts, moving weights, running treadmills, and pulling those weird rubber bands in every-which direction, a song drifted over to my ears as I curled dumbells on an incline bench: Eric Clapton’s “Tears in Heaven.”
“Have I gone insane?” I asked myself, struggling through rep 4 … this music was the anti-caffeine, the ultimate non sequitur, almost as if I was trying to break dance to a Dvorak symphony. “Hey Jake, can I get a spot?” asked a guy behind me. I felt like I was watching a movie with this music as the soundtrack and this was the last time the guy would ever ask his friend for a spot, that he was doomed to die in a catastrophic event very soon … that’s what listening to that song does to a person.
Note to self: mandatory for future workouts: alternative music sources.
Indeed, you may not have heard it here first, but tumbledry will be getting a redesign. The redesign, really. This upcoming iteration is projected to take us through the next six years of online presence. Six years. Wow. Why so long? Long college years and dental school (crossing my fingers) lie ahead. Thus, the site will slowly be less and less of a digital design playground and more and more of a workhorse journal for my thoughts, hopes, dreams, and fears. The latter is really what I have always wanted it to be, but it has eluded me because of a desire to change the look. A combination of several factors have made me consider stopping this constant redesigning:
1.) I just got Adobe Photoshop CS2. Combine this with 5 years working on JASC Paintshop Pro, I consider myself competent (only competent, many many people out there can clean my clock with digital imaging, so to speak) with digital image manipulation - it’s time to put those hard-earned lessons out there with understated elegance … and then give myself a rest.
2.) In my job developing a large amount of the code at the St. Thomas CAM, I feel it’s time to write some real code, something elegant, maintainable, and efficient. I’ve learned a lot these past 12 months, and intend to make the code behind this version of tumbledry the best yet.
3.) This is the last time for a while I will have the time to do this.
That said, it is time. I will be working on this for at least one month, and really my projected goal for this to be done is the 4th of July. I may miss this date, but things will be certainly done by the end of the summer. Tumbledry v14.0 will be fast, beautiful, and most of all, durable. I look forward to sharing it with all of you.