Hot Times in Moksha Yoga

Kathleen and I went to a Moksha Yoga class on Monday, which was definitely an experience.  Moksha Yoga, for those not in the know, is one of those hot yoga classes, so the yoga studio is about 37 degrees Celsius (or whatever-whatever for people who know Fahrenheit) (OK, fine, 98, but only because I’m looking it up already) (hey that’s, like, body temperature, trippy).  Anyway, unsurprisingly, holy crap it was hot.  I sweat a lot when I work out normally, so hot yoga was insane.  My yoga mat was reaching slip-‘n-slide levels of wet.  They advised you bring a full-sized towel, and I didn’t realize until I got there that it was to cover your yoga mat.  Whoops!  A lady actually did pass out, but the instructor reacted so well it just made me feel better.  I’ve read about some hot yoga instructors being medically fuck-witted when it comes to passing out yoginis, but this guy was just swift and awesome.

I really liked the actual yoga practice.  We did not do a hundred million sun salutations (I’m looking at you, Ashtanga Yoga), plenty of the hip stuff I love because I don’t actually need to do it, and we weirdly did three savasana/corpse poses (this is the “lying on your back chilling” pose).  One at the very beginning, one in the middle, then the usual one at the end.  It was really cool, and probably necessary to keep everyone’s heart rates down in that heat.  Anyway, I would like to keep trying it, but I’m not sure if I can take the heat!  I felt on the edge of dizziness a few times near the end, and my heart rate was getting up.  It might be a matter of acclimation, or it might be a matter of ‘not meant for me’.

Bootcamp on Saturday!  We’re on the SMU football field, which means stairs!  And also, those terrible little bits of ground up tires they put on football fields that heat up in the sun!  I seriously hate those tire bits.  When you’re on your hands and knees, oh, how they burn!  It wasn’t too sunny on Saturday, but near the end it started heating up.  We did piggybacks, which I love.  We also did some strange thing where we had to lie on our backs and hold ourselves in a V shape, with our legs straight up, reaching our arms towards our legs, with our shoulders off the ground, for as long as we could.  If it sounds insane, that’s because it is.  It’s also super-hard, and I totally held it for 3:33 minutes, the third best time!  Whoo!

I must go out and census, soon.  The weather has been so nice and hot, lately, it’s been good for walking around and being charming with people.

Bootcamp’s back, baby!

First day of bootcamp today!  Yay!  I have been such a lazy loaf lately, I am very excited that bootcamp is happening just precisely when I need it most.  So, yes, you all can look forward to me gushing about the terrible things I do outside all summer long, shouldn’t you come too?  Today we were out in the cold, windy rain, which was pretty nice when things started heating up.  It got a little ridiculous when the wind started knocking over all the cones as we were running through them, though.  Usually there’s a penalty for knocking over cones, but about 75% of the time it was the wind, make the damn wind do pushups.  Running around in the mud was entertaining; I came pretty close to one faceplant.  I was more worried about getting unfortunately intimate with a cone, really.  Then there was crawling in the mud, with my old nemesis, the inchworm (this video doesn’t have the 1-5 pushups we enjoyed).  And then a bunch of other stuff.  I’m not here to explain every single thing, I’m  just here to say it was super-fun and awesome and I loved it and missed it so much!  And my hands were basically numb by the end because holy crap it is cold today.  Why, June, why are you doing this to me?

Went out to a birthday bar thing with a bunch of people I haven’t seen in ages/ever last night.  I was determined to a) not get drunk, because hungover bootcamp sucks, and b) eat something ridiculous, because fat bootcamp is completely acceptable.  As such, I wound up with a hamburger with, like, everything on it and then some, including onion rings.  This is a meal that you can enter a bootcamp with, head held high, stomach heavy.

Kickboxing last night!  We practiced how not to get kicked in the head/what to do when kicked in the head.  This involved a lot of spinning on the kicker’s part, which is always super awkward.  It was a good opportunity to rehearse that awesome spinning backfist with which I am passingly acquainted, because that is the thing you can generally do when spinning anyway.  Also, and more importantly, there was a toddler sitting in on the class who was acting out the moves as we were doing them, and it was the cutest thing in the world.

A Kick in the Face is Better than None

Aw, this is my last update from this particular reference desk you folks will ever get!  It is completely dead here, because exams are over and it’s the long Easter weekend.  Let us hope I get even one question.  But the memories!  The memories of all my lovely questions!  Oh, such cherishing.

I have had some good times in kickboxing this week, let me tell you.  I got kicked in the face!  It was a complete accident on Rosie’s part, of course, just a matter of missing the pad and hitting my jaw, but it was a hard kick and everything.  It was during drills, not sparring, so it’s not like I messed up by not dodging or blocking.  I was supposed to be in the kick’s way, just a foot and a half lower.  Anyway, I am totally stoked over this.  Kicked in the face = officially hardcore.  Poor Rosie kept apologizing, because what else can you do after you kick someone in the face?  I would feel completely horrible if I did that.  But I got kicked, so I’m just aces.  Anyway, my reaction immediately after the kick was strange.  About five seconds of being completely fine, followed by thirty seconds of freaked-out pain, followed by being completely fine again.  I think in a fight, I’d hit back during those immediate “completely fine” five seconds, and the adrenaline would carry me through the painful part.  I know this is probably common knowledge, but it’s the first time it’s happened to me, so I’m all intrigued.

On Friday, we did a whole bunch of kicking.  I don’t know if you know this about me, but I have a simple dream.  That dream is to one day become Anderson Silva.  (IN CASE IT’S NOT CLEAR, SILVA IS THE ONE WHO WINS THE FIGHT.  THAT’S THE ONE I WANT TO BE.)  As such, face-kicking practice on Friday was a crucial part of that goal.  I mean, getting kicked in the face is badass, sure, but at a certain point I would like to win fights in very cool ways.

Bootcamp on Saturday morning!  We did some insane thing called plyometrics.  Wikipedia with it’s fancified letter-words doesn’t get across what plyometrics is, which is jumping.  Jumping a lot, in strange, inhuman ways, while being assured that anyone can do anything for thirty seconds.  A really hard one, but probably my favourite for the “fun factor”, are called rock stars (found as the first workout of this video).  Seriously, you pretend to be a rock star, jumping as high as you can while whaling on your guitar.  The arm motion is completely superfluous, it’s just good goddamned fun, because if you’re already jumping that high, then you might as well air guitar.

Went home for Easter dinner and had Easter dinner times.  It was also part birthday dinner because my birthday is next week.  Whoo!  I got Easter chocolate and birthday chocolate.  Pretty much the best day ever.  I also got cool new sneakers, because working-out people are supposed to get new sneakers every six months and I’ve had mine for almost a year.  And they were falling apart, too, so I guess it’s true.  Anyway, mine are awesome and black and comfy and you guys, I have a confession, every time I get new shoes I imagine myself fighting crime in them.  Cool black sneakers are sort of ideal, and big boots, but it gets a little ridiculous with, say, sandals or high heels.  I started this habit pre-kickboxing, too, so we can’t even blame that.

Extending the lesson

So many exciting shenanigans, I can barely keep up.  (Everyone please remember, I have a very loose definition of “exciting”.)  I went for a cottage weekend with various of The Girls last week, to celebrate our freedom from MLIS-dom.  I ate such a ridiculous amount of food, I am not joking.  If I ever want to become truly skinny, I have to stop being friend with people who are such good cooks, I swear to Christ.  But that would entail losing both wonderful friends and fabulous food, and I’m pretty sure I look awesome anyway, so I’ll just keep everything.

The cottage was lovely, even though I had to leave a day early for work, like a big big loser.  But I had some forest shenanigans.  I did nature yoga!  I did my tree pose on a rock by a still lake, then I found a rock in the middle of a running stream, so I did tree again on it!  It was harder in the running stream, because of the movement.  This is science with yoga I am doing, not fucking around in the woods on one leg.

Then I had to part with the most precious thing, my mother’s car.  Yes, strangely, after Mom got back from her Caribbean adventure she seemed to want her car back.  Also, her cat.  Madness.  I tried to make a run for it, me and the cat against the world, but I can only get places via Google Maps, so the cops can find me pretty fast if they just check my search history (“Come, Kitty, to the Amherst liquor store!  Then the New Brunswick border, and freedom!”).  Also, if I got lost (and I would), I would probably call Mom, which makes stealing her car a little unrealistic.

Hanging out in Truro was good times.  I again played board games with six-year-old Tyler, and again lost to him.  This time it was Trouble, so it’s less likely he was cheating, the little sneak.  Next time I go up, he wants to play chess with me.  God, as you may remember from this, I have played chess exactly once and did pretty badly (though eventually won).  And considering how much this kid kicks my ass, he’s probably going to be giving me pity do-overs.  I think I need to start studying my chess moves in time for my Easter chess beat-down from my tiny nephew.  I’ll play against the three-year-old after, to bolster my ego.  (He will eat my king and I will weep.)

Kickboxing on Friday!  We took a trip to Thai-land, as in Muay Thai, which is seriously fun.  The stance is different, with the hands out in front instead of up next to your face.  It feels very natural for punching, but defensively a little exposed, since I’m used to getting smacked for not having my hands next to my face.  Also, we were supposed to have our legs straighter and bouncier, but I’m pretty sure I immediately forgot that, the way I immediately forget my grappling stance in grappling, because apparently my legs only like to do one thing no matter how stupid that is.  So, we were blocking an overhand hook, grabbing the partner in a one-handed side-clinch, then kneeing him in the stomach.  Then, block the punch, push the face, knee the stomach.  Muay Thai apparently involves a lot of kneeing people in the stomach, which is a thing I can get behind.  We ended with a bit of the old spinning back-kick, which is fun to do once but hard to do, like, twelve times in a row.  I think I need to practice spinning without getting dizzy or something, if that’s a thing, Classy Erica probably knows.

Also in kickboxing, we did an exercise where we had five minutes for holding a plank.  You didn’t have to hold it for the whole five minute, but as soon as you dropped out of the plank, you were done.  My plank is so crappy, I usually can’t hold it for more than a minute, but then I go in and out of it.  So for this, I didn’t want to be the first person in the class to drop out, so I just tried and tried, and lost all track of the concept of time and anything else, and when I finally collapsed it was three and a half minutes.  Holy crap!  I thought I had the worst plank in the whole world!  That time isn’t the best by a long shot (a few people kept it for the whole five), but it’s way better than I ever even dreamed I could do, so I was pretty excited.  Apparently, according to the Plank Gods, if you can hold a plank for two minutes you are Officially Fit.  But the Plank Gods are kind of biased.

Saturday three-hour bootcamp!  Whoo!  We couldn’t go to the gym, so we did it at the club.  This just meant a little less weight-lifting, a little more whatever-insanity-Gerald-could-come-up-with.  The best insanity was a balance exercise where you stood on one leg with your other leg extended as high as possible, in front, to the side, to the back, while moving your arms up, to the sides, in front.  For a very long time.  Seriously working those balance muscles that I’m pretty sure just don’t exist on me.  My balance is so bad, I had to stand facing away from everyone else, so everything I was looking at was completely still.  I managed to zebra up my legs because I retarded when it comes to skipping ropes, as it turns out.  We also did piggyback calf-raises, and I actually collapsed when my piggybackee hopped on me the first time.  She was bigger than me, and my piggyback posture is apparently bad.  I’ve always been strong enough to power up from my bent back with partners my own size, but it’s different when they’re heavier than you.  So!  Long-time readers may remember my guide to being a piggybackee.  Now I will impart the lessons on giving a piggyback ride.

• Keep your back up straight.  You’ll want to lean forward, to equalize the weight.  This will actually throw off your balance!
• Have your legs bent and shoulder-width apart, with one in front of the other for balance.
• You are strong enough!  Booyah!

Today I finally got back to grappling.  I missed it for the past few weeks because of crazy homework and the like.  But I’m back!  We learned a really cool take-down called the head-snap.  Basically, you just grab the back of your opponent’s head and shove it down quickly, and then they’re on the ground!  And if they only go halfway down, then you choke them.  If they don’t go down at all, then I don’t know what to tell you, my algorithm has failed.  Then we did the Fireman’s Carry Takedown, which is fun as hell but really not something I plan on busting out until I practice it a little more.  You wind up in a weird position after the person flips.  At the end, rolling!  I used the head-snap, which is so simple and effective, so much love.

Last night I went with various (former) classmates to watch some archival footage from the thirties in a church.  It was strangely engaging.  There were home movies of someone’s honeymoon from 1932, documentaries about porpoise hunters, and also the greatest short, ever.  It was about burglars and mushroom casserole and it seriously needs to be remade by Jerry Bruckheimer as a summer blockbuster stat.  No one else in the church seemed to find it as hilarious as us, though, which is weird, because it had the most bizarre plot, but everything hung together perfectly.  Like a perfect short story, that ends with a pile of burglar corpses strewn merrily across your livingroom while everyone laughs.

Stick a fork in me, I’m done!

Oh man, oh man, the homework is finished, the classes are done, the exams don’t exist, my degree is finished!  All I need is to actually get handed the piece of paper in May, and I’ll be a big-person librarian.  I finished up my work on Wednesday.  Cut to me, on Thursday, completely lost and confused.  Seriously, it’s been so long since I didn’t have anything to do, I’m pretty sure I can’t function like that.  Apparently I need a job and nine million hobbies and parties to go to or I go batty, wandering around downtown, caressing bowls and produce.  Luckily, Friday had plenty of activities lined up!  I think two days of nothing to do would be the end of me.

Friday kickboxing was good times.  We worked on chest and abs, whoo!  I’m looking forward to being in some pain tomorrow.  For one exercise, you laid on your back with your legs straight up above you, and reached up to touch your toes.  Then you did a sit-up.  Then you touched your toes twice, and two sit-ups.  Then three times.  All the way up to fifteen.  I just did the math, and that’s 120 all together.  Urg.  But I did it!  We also did pushups, where your partner does a plank, and you do a pushup on one side of her (facing her), then walk your hands over her shoulders, two pushups on the other side, walk over her shoulders again, three pushups, up to ten.  I remember doing this at the bootcamp last summer and sucking at it so hard, so I was really pleased that I did it, if not elegantly (never elegantly), at least properly and finishing.

Then, kicking things!  We practiced countering a Thai kick with a kick to the inner thigh, which was fun even if I apparently missed that I was supposed to the throwing Thai kicks.  We had to keep our hands down to counter the kicks, which was OK because we were out of range of any punches, but it still felt counter-intuitive to have both hands down.  I now have a pretty nasty bruise inside my knee.  Bruise watch alert!  It’s been so long since I had a really satisfying bruise, I am excited.  I also got punched in the nose because I wasn’t paying attention while I was supposed to be picking jabs to the face.  This happens sometimes, but what was weirdly embarrassing about this time was that my nose started running like crazy!  I was actually worried it might be bleeding or something, even though I knew I hadn’t been hit very hard, it was just so runny!  And gross!  Anyway, that’s my completely necessary story about things that might happen if you get hit in the face.  The more you learn~

I went straight from kickboxing to the MLIS year-end party.  (I’m always entertained by getting dressed up fancy at the club, because usually I dash out in my sweaty clothes without even redoing my ponytail.)  Very nice event, but I would’ve killed for some munchies.  I tried to start a ridiculous dance party with Leah, Naomi and Monica, but by the time the real dance party started I’d apparently lost interest.  I have a very small window of dance-party, it would seem.  Anatoliy gave me very good job search advice, because he is the sweetest.  And generally I caroused and chatted with people.  No drinking, though, because I am poor and sometimes I just don’t feel like drinking.  (Often when I’m poor.)

Having a car is going well.  I am offering rides all over the place, because I feel I have been given a lot of rides and I’ve built up ride-karma or something like that.  And in three days I’ll be back to being carless, so there’s that.  But I’ve come up with a new slogan for myself, based on my driving abilities in a new city, being inexperienced.  You see, I’m not a jerk.  I signal when I switch lanes, I shoulder-check, I don’t tailgate.  My problem, you see, is that I’m profoundly stupid.  I just wind up in the wrong lane sometimes, or I don’t know the rules of turning in this intersection.  So I feel I need a bumper sticker that sums me up: “Rarely an asshole, but often an idiot”  And really, couldn’t this apply to so many of us?  It’s the human condition.  Sometimes, yes, we are assholes, but mostly we’re just rock-stupid.  I am onto something here.

MOTHER OF CHRIST MY ARMS!!!

I attended one of Gerald’s three-hour bootcamps on Saturday, for the first time in months.  So much fun, but holy mother of crap on a hockey stick my arms hurt.  I really got familiar with weights for the first time, this is the reason for my lovely pain.  We did a lot of weight-lifting “to failure”, which just means you keep lifting the weights until you can’t possibly lift them anymore.  Then other things, like doing sit-ups while holding a 20-lb weight above your head.  Now, I can pound out sit-ups like a champ, but ohmygod they are hard with the weight up there.  Go try it, I’ll wait.  I was tired by 12, and we had to do 50.  I was worried about dropping the weight and breaking my glasses, but then I was kind of, like, oh yeah, my face is right under my glasses.  Don’t smash my face, that’s my money-maker!

We also ran some laps around the Dal track, and I have no idea how far it is but I got almost all the way around four times (with craziness on the steps in between) before I had to switch to walking for a minute.  I figure that’s not too terrible considering I haven’t run since the last bootcamp.

Later that night, went out for drinks with kickboxers/bootcampers/fun people.  It was a Goodbye Maggie thing, as Maggie is leaving and won’t be punching me in the stomach anymore.  I discovered that ginger beer is an awesome mix, because you can’t taste anything over the power of ginger beer.  I also learned that, if you drink with Gerald, there is a good chance he will dare you to do pushups on the dance floor.  And, being as I’m me, there’s also a good chance I’ll do it!  Oh, there are pictures.  Maggie and I did it together, and in our defense, no one was dancing at the time.

Yoga was really interesting this morning.  Apparently, in addition to hips, another place I’m weirdly flexible is shoulders, so that was fun to learn.  Also annoying, because I was trying to stretch my damn shoulders and my stupid face was getting in the way.  My stupid, stupid face.  Anyway, where was I?  Oh yes!  We’re doing a 40-day yoga thingy, now.  We each pick a particular yoga position, preferable something we’re crap at, and do it every day for 40 days.  So, at home, we take out our mats and do the position, throw in a sun salutation, and the idea is that if you already have the mat out you’ll do some more positions because it’s there and yoga goddamned rules is what it does.  I picked tree pose, because it’s a balance pose and it’s become increasingly clear to me that I probably need three legs, my balance is so terrible.

My mother is away to exotic locales, and she’s left her cat and her car with me, which is very exciting.  The cat was pretty displeased with the arrangement yesterday, alternately hiding under my bed or wedged behind my stove somehow.  He’s calmed down now, though!  I swear to God, purring occurred.  Now to get used to have cat hairs wedged into every crevasse, ah, I had forgotten that irritation.  The car is exciting, though I haven’t used it much.  I hate parking!  Parking in Halifax is a pain in so much of my butt, seriously.  So, yeah, I could drive forever, I just never want to stop, is pretty much my problem.

Rolling!

TV Character Party was awesome!  I did indeed arrive as Pam from True Blood, but my clothes really weren’t glam enough (Pam is glam-er), so halfway through I decided I was Nan Flanagan from the same show.  Same fangs, more conservative blouses.  My fangs, incidentally, remained in my bag pretty much the whole night.  But they were available, if I needed them.  The far more important prop was the red wine with TruBlood written in permanent marker over the label.  Take that, Gallo Brothers.

After I sit down at a party, I usually avoid standing up again, because then you just never get your seat back.  I made the rookie mistake of sitting before I got a cup, so I was forced, forced (by circumstances), to drink my wine straight out of the bottle.  The important thing is: I still shared.  This means I am a classy lady.  Don’t let the British tabloids tell you different.

I’ve trained myself to wake up every morning at 7.  This is great if, say, the power goes out and I have work that morning.  Less great when I stumble home at 2am, fall into bed, and still wake up at, like, 6:30.  I even tried staying in bed to fall back to sleep.  Nothing!  God damn my disciplined nature.  Damn it straight to hell. In rebellion, I totally did not do my 75 morning sit-ups.  (A hangover and impending grappling may also have been involved in this decision.)

In kickboxing news: during the fitness portion, one of the beginners told me I was her hero because of all the pushups I was doing.  Me!  Four months ago, I could do, like, two pushups, on my knees, and now I’m impressing the new kids.  So I plugged the bootcamp, and Gerald called me his success story, and I think was only half-joking when he asked for before and after pictures.  Then I used my ninja-preparedness when that girl’s friend nicked her leg.  Band-aid and an alcohol swab, I’m the whole package!  Later on I kicked a bunch of stuff.

Grappling was so cool today, you don’t even know, except I’m about to tell you.  OK!  At the end of the class we did rolling!  Rolling (as it turns out) is sparring, only grappling calls it something different because grappling has to be cool like that.  Also, you roll around lot.  Anyway, so I did it!  It was pretty low key for me, because it was my first time, so I rolled with the instructor and she gave me tips at certain points, and let me start in the best position, but I made her tap out a couple times!  It was really cool, taking the moves I learnt on a cooperative partner and making a lame attempt at applying them on the fly to a moving opponent who’s fighting back.  Crazy fun!  It even made me forget my hangover!

The end of an era! (…of bootcamp)

We had our very last bootcamp today!  Does this event warrant an emoticon?  Yes, yes I believe it does.  OK, here it comes… 😦

Anyway, because it was our last bootcamp, Gerald decided it was finally time to get “intense”, because he is a delightful crazy man.  Wheelbarrows were involved, and mine have improved!  Yay!  We ran stairs a little, of course, to warm up.  Some sort of crazy rabbit-jumping thing all over some random pier on the Waterfront.  And what final bootcamp experience would be complete without piggybacks?  Also, plenty of compliments to me and all my increased badassed-ness and delightful weight-loss.  Whee~!

So, my closing thoughts on bootcamp are that is was ridiculously fun.  I seriously recommend it to anyone reading this, whatever your fitness level.  The first day I thought I was going to die, and it’s not like the stuff got easier, because as you get better you have to keep pushing yourself further, but once you realize how great it feels to hit that sweet point, you really want to keep going there.  I’m still a huge schlub compared to everyone else in the bootcamp, but it doesn’t even matter because it’s fun to try.  And a small, tight-knit group like that is really great to be involved with, because they actually care about whether you succeed or not.  If I’m still in Halifax next summer, I’m totally doing it again.

And I’m totally going to see them in kickboxing on Thursday, anyway.  Does this deserve another emoticon?  Two in one post?  Oh, let’s go nuts!  🙂

Dingle! / Pilates!

Yes, both those titles deserve a goddamned exclamation point.  I’m an exclamatory person, OK?  You wanna fight about?!

Erica and I went to this trial Pilates class this morning, and we got to use the reformer machine, which was huge and complicated and definitely fun.  It was a lot of, like, OK, do this, do this, are you still doing the first thing, are you remembering to engage your abs at the same time, is the small of your back raised FOR THE LOVE OF GOD RAISE THE SMALL OF YOUR BACK also put your heels together, now put them apart.  Anyway, I was certainly using muscles I haven’t used before, and it’s a really interesting challenge, so I’d like to keep doing it.  I have to say, though, I think bootcamp has ruined me for a lot of other things in certain ways.  The Pilates instructor referred to an exercise as particularly “fatiguing” and I was thinking, like, “Lady, I am nowhere near crying.”  Apparently my only criteria for tiring now is tears.  Lovely!

Anyway, bootcamp at the Dingle was awesome.  We were running up the super-steep hill to the tower, then running up the stairs at the bottom of the tower in various ways.  Gerald was very nice to me!  To get me up the hill at one point, he yelled “Dig deep sweetie, and I’ll tell you a se~cret!”  The secret was, as it turns out, “You may try to hide it, but I can tell there’s less of you under that shirt.”  Aw!  So I got bootcamp props for badass fitness.  I still can’t run up a hill worth crap, of course, but it’s the effort that counts.

To kill a lazy afternoon, I went through my closet and pulled everything that’s too big for me now/just plain ugly.  Four garbage bags worth!  Man, I own way too much crap.

An old but funny story: my friend (the delightful Michelle) sent me a postcard from her European vacation; the postcard had a picture of the Rosetta Stone.  When I opened my mailbox and saw this little Rosetta Stone thing in amongst the flyers, I had this moment of absolute, blind panic.  “This is it,” I thought.  “The junk mail people have hit the perfect advertising algorithm.  They can see my soul.”  Then I turned it over and it was a postcard from Michelle.  Crisis averted!  (… for now)

Library House party soon!  Should I start drinking now?  Or is that just the rule for bars?  Bars and court.

The case of the missing grappling class

Man, so grappling didn’t happen today because I couldn’t find it, or it was cancelled or something, I don’t know.  Man, I was all het up for some wrasslin’ and… nothing.  I got to what I think is the right place, and the door was locked and no one was there.  So I went to the mall instead, which is just such a pathetic use of frustrated grappling energy, one could weep.  I bought a $6.99 brush, because my old brush broke.  This means that, this summer, the grand total I’ve spent on my hair is: $6.99.  I am quite the catch, aren’t I?

Yesterday’s bootcamp was good times.  We spent the first half running laps through this residential area.  At one point a random guy asked me “Why are all you people running?” and I said “I don’t know, man, this guy’s making us.”  Then we started working out in a playground, and this little girl asked her mommy what the people were doing, and she was, like, “I-I don’t know, sweetie.  I couldn’t do that.”  So we’re scaring the locals, and that’s special.

A few of us decided to start a betting pool for bootcamp.  It’s usually a surprise where we’ll be, so we were betting on if we’d be at, say, a playground, or a park, or a hill.  The other bet was what body part would hurt most the next morning.  Shoulders and ass are out, because they’re too easy.  I took arms, and I think I won, because my arms certainly hurt.  Calves and abs are the big winners, because they can take a lot of punishment, but when they finally do hurt, holy crap holy crap holy crap.  I was trying to do odds, but I’m an idiot, so I was failing badly.

Oh yeah, I’ve completely forgotten about the lucid dreaming thing for weeks, so I guess that’s off.  Oh well!  I was starting to get edgy about all that permanent marker ink getting into my bloodstream.  Also, I was starting to dream about writing on my hand, which is just intensely self-defeating.