Silly men, treadmills go fast

This would be amazing...

Ugh, post-regular work hour work outs are the dumps.  While the television may be better (as previously mentioned) the company increasingly becomes undesirable. I worked during the day today, so I didn't have a chance to work out until about quarter to six this evening.  When I went down to the work out room there was already an older man (on the bike, obviously... dudes love that thing) watching the Flames hockey game.  Despite the fact that I am not a Flames fan, I do enjoy the hockey and I was down with watching the hockey.  Politely, he did offer me the remote when he was leaving - most likely because he mistakenly thought I would have no interest in watching hockey , much like the other day when I was leaving and I passed the remote because I mistakenly thought that the guy that had just come in would not like to watch Dawson's Creek... nope, he kept watching it...  Here's what I love about men: they can be downright stupid sometimes.  So when I was about ten minutes into my workout, this other guy comes into the gym, probably late thirties and he had an accent I couldn't quite distinguish but he was quite friendly when he came in, despite wearing headphones.  I was rocking it on my best friend the elliptical and this guy came in and went for the treadmill.  I have to say straight up, this was one of the most amazing spectacles of male ridiculousness I have ever seen.  Right away, this guy cranks the treadmill up to about 8mph without any warm up, except the thirty seconds he spent hi-kicking behind me... yup, it was awkward.  Anyway, he cranks the treadmill up while standing with his feet planted on either side and when he finally jumped on, I couldn't help but look - he almost flew right off the back.  You know when you see people do that in movies, and you think "Oh my god, this slapstick humour is so Jim Carey, and thus so over", that's exactly what this looked like, except somehow he managed to recover, at which point he looked over to me and tried to explain that the treadmill is unsafe and that it sporadically pauses...  Awesome, you are so manly you can run super fast without warming up and almost fall off the treadmill but no worries, it's a technical error not the fact that you have no idea how to use a treadmill.  I don't mean to suggest that I am some awesome person that all guys try to hit on (even though I am awesome) but I did get the impression that this was what this guy was up to.  He then decided, despite still wearing his headphones, to chat me up about the game.  It started out with the basic stuff like the score, and who actually scored the points thus far... and then he asked me which team was my favourite.  Given the options of Calgary and Detroit, I said neither.  When he asked me who I did like, I took the opportunity to tell him that I like Vancouver which invariably brings about the question of whether or not I am from there.  "No," I answered "but my husband is".  Sure, I lied and said that Dan was my husband - but I enjoy this lie, I feel that it puts men in their place a lot sooner.  It seems that the title of boyfriend means there is still room to maneuver and the title of fiance means that there is still a last chance.  While this may sound silly, as a long term member of the service industry I can assure you that the ring on my finger does not do much to deter attempts, rather it seems like an invitation to be as ridiculous as possible about it because odds are they're going to get turned down anyway.  I feel like the old husband brush off only pushed this guy to try to impress, or perhaps maintain his manhood.  I could tell he was determined to stay at his workout longer than I had, when I was about a half hour in I kept feeling him looking over me, as if he was looking to see how near I was to finishing... While my goodness did this guy ever suffer, he was huffing and puffing on this treadmill that was going far too fast for this guy.  He stopped twice to catch his breath, and when I finally finished my workout on the elliptical I could see the relief in his stature.  Although, he didn't realise that I was going to do my sit-ups.  Finally, I saw this guy's macho persona collapse and he had to rapidly drop his speed down.  I found the entire incident very amusing, I mean this guy just about killed himself hopping onto a treadmill going far too fast than he was prepared to run just to show his manliness.  This is why I love men, they try so very hard, it can be silly or it can be really amazing, but they're always trying.

Day 23:
40:16
55-65rpm
14km
+
50 sit-ups

Random Memories and Book Poops

Apparently it's a more common phenomenon than I ever thought

Do you ever remember something really obscure and completely unimportant and find yourself why in the world would my brain decide that that was something important to hold on to?  Sometimes (most of the time) I can't remember where my keys are, guys forget their anniversaries, parents forget their children's birthdays and yet people remember the strangest things that have absolutely no relevance to anything at all.  Today on my way home from some errands, I stopped at a bookstore that recently caught my eye.  They have a sign out front that says "Old and Rare Books", given the massive literary nerd that I am, this is right up my alley.  Normally, I forget about it and notice it too late to park so I just keep going, or other times I think of it when I am running short on time.  So, I was quite happy when I remembered that bookstore on my way home with plenty of time to spare.  This book store was like a porn shop for English and history nerds alike; wall to wall books, books with those thick pages that instantly tell you that the book is at least a hundred years old.  Textured pages, I don't know what it is, but I just love those old books with their thick, textured pages.  Clearly, I will never be one for the ereader...  I just love to hold a book, I like to look at them stacked on my shelves, and I especially love the smell of books - this bookstore was all kinds of book smell.  As I roamed around in my literary haven, I had the most random useless memory pop into my head.  It was from when I was in high school, and I was at my best friend Susan's house.  We were in the old computer room (not the music room turned computer room - this info is just for people who know Susan's house) and her older brother, my older brother, and there other friend Dave were on the computers and Susan and I were in there trying (and failing) to coerce them to let us on the computers...  Somehow, a discussion about the library started to happen, I of course said how I love the library, and Dave said how being in the library makes him have to poop.  Susan, then seconded this, she also has to poop when she goes into the library, or at least she did back then.  This is the kind of crap I remember??  Well, I guess it is because there I was in this awesome bookstore filled with amazing old books and I remember a conversation about how the smell of books makes people I know have to poop, and to top it all off, I finally experience this book effect myself and I had to leave the bookstore to poop.  Did you ever think you were going to read about me having to poop?  I apologize for that, but I just found it a very odd thing to remember...  Maybe you laughed, that would be good, I hope you all laughed instead of just finding this incredibly weird. 
I'm sorry.

Day 22:
41 minutes
45-62rpm
13.7km
+
50 sit-ups

The Upside of Mondays and Road Rage

We really are animals...

Happy Monday bloggies (yes, I have nicknamed the collective group of people who read my blog).  Yes, I know Mondays suck for everyone, but they are actually my version of Sunday usually, so I quite enjoy Mondays.  Working a job that is not 9-5 can seem inconvenient sometimes when it comes to making plans with all you normal people, however, for everything else - it's actually kind of great.  This is because while all you normal people are working, I have the ability to do things without having to deal with crowds of people.  For example, the grocery store - living downtown means that the stores that I go to are even busier than most since you have a lot of people living in a tight area with only a couple of grocery store options available.  Despite the immense amount of patience that I have acquired over the years, every once in a while even I can pull a Dan and dump my groceries while waiting in line and just get the hell out of there.  You have to admit, waiting in line to give people your money is a pretty outrageous concept.  Unless there is some massive sale that ends that day, I will walk away from any purchase that I am trying to make if I have to stay in line for too long.  Once, I actually bought a bottle of vodka for a guy in front of me in line at the liquor store because there was some issue with his card and he was going to run home and get his credit card and the clerk didn't know how to suspend the transaction.... yada, yada, yada.  I literally became so annoyed and impatient I just paid for it.  However, thanks to my unusual work schedule these are problems that I rarely have to face.  Traffic too is a big one, seriously, no one in this city knows how to drive.  Getting my errands done during the day on a Thursday means I can drive down roads without having to yell and scream at other people for being complete and utter idiots... I don't always have road rage, but when I do, it's not pretty.  I often pick Dan up from work downtown, despite the fact that it's about a 5 minute drive, this is often the most trying drive that I ever do.  There's this one turn in particular where I just about lose my mind everyday (for those of you familiar with Calgary it's where you turn onto 9 Ave from 3 St), here you have 4 lanes on a one way turning on to 5 lanes (one of which is for street parking).  I always go into the far outside lane, this lane turns into the 4th lane of 9 Ave - yet, without failure, every single time I do this some idiot from the 3rd lane thinks that he can turn into the 4th lane because apparently logic completely fails this individual. Ah, I actually just got mad trying to explain it.  Anyway, the point of all this was that I usually don't have to deal with these kinds of problems since I work weird hours which generally means that the only people I can ever hang out with are other people who also work hours or when things are planned far enough in advance that I can take time off.  Today, however, I literally got none of the things done that I wanted to get done with the exception of my workout and writing this blog.  Instead, I am going to deal with all the ridiculous lines at the grocery store like everyone else after I go and pick Dan up on the most infuriating 5 minute drive of my life - kind of makes me feel like an idiot for somehow wasting my entire day, especially since I have no idea what I actually did.

Day 21:
43 minutes
45-60 rpm
13.6km
+50 sit-ups

The Twilight Zone

Ah... the good old days when E=MC2 answered everything.

Good morning!  That's right, morning.  I am not a morning person, I never have been and I am sure that I never will be.  However, for some strange reason this morning I woke up at 6:45 and could not get back to sleep.  So instead of just lying there for two hours waiting for my alarm to go off to get up for work, I decided that I would make use of this time and do my workout in the morning.  I actually was not planning on working out at all today, I thought I would give myself a little break but what else are you going to do when you can't sleep and such an ungodly hour?  I have always been much more of a night person, usually the only time that I see the morning is when I have yet to see my bed.  Even before the days of going out and partying, this is what I predisposed to.  I am sure my dad has images of waking up for work to find me in the computer room still playing video games or chatting on line, or even on the phone.  While I rarely stay up quite late these days, I still probably average a 2am to 3am bedtime.  It doesn't seem as odd when you consider the fact that I typically work in the evening, but also I just like the night time better.  If you're out somewhere there is next to no one out and about, sure you can't get in anywhere, but everything just seems much more peaceful late at night.  I also like the darkness - I know what you're thinking, "What!?  You, crazy pale, bordering translucent... You prefer darkness over sunlight???"  Don't get me wrong, I am not one of these weirdo vampire wannabes - I do enjoy the sun, but it can get to be a bit much for me.  This is probably why I never go South, and when I do (like the time we had a family trip to North Carolina) I squirm around, complain, and whine about the brightness and the heat.  Seriously, I have memories of being in the car and over-dramatically thinking I was going to suffocate.  So given my distaste for the morning, you can imagine how ususual it is to finally wake up and experience one only to end up watching the traffic report filled with backed up cars on the highways with their lights on because.... drumroll, it's dark!  Sure, sure I knew that this happened, but it's still strange to wake up to darkness.  Dan has a tendency to complain about this, although not so much recently, but I totally understand it - if I had to wake up at 6am to go to work for 7am, I would want to walk to work in the sunlight, not the dreary darkness that indicates that you should still be in bed, asleep, where it's warm.  Having said all that, it feels kind of good looking at the clock and seeing that it's 9am and instead of just waking up I have already had breakfast, gotten in a workout, sat in the hot tub, and now I have completed my daily blog. 

Day 20:
40 minutes
45-55rpm
12.3km
+
50 sit ups

Welcome to my Brain

I wish I could edit this cartoon... change know to known

I had to hit up the gym a bit early today because I had an appointment to get a rock chip in my windshield repaired (I have fallen victim to those threatening commercials where the whole windshield breaks while scraping of snow).  The downfall to this was that there was someone working out when I went down, and of all the things in the world to watch, he was watching business channel.  Nothing like watching a ticker on the bottom of the screen showing how just about everything is down while people sit there and just talk about companies...  Do people actually find this interesting, or is this one of those things that people pretend to be interested in just to look smart or sophisticated??  Can you imagine filling out a form of some sort and actually writing down financials as an interest?  I don't know what kind of form you would fill out where you would have to werite your interests - maybe an eharmony application...  In which case, if you are writing financials on your eharmony application, you are probably a lost cause or gold-digger bait.  I started out just doing my own thing and ignoring the television, however I couldn't stop myself from listenning when the VP of communications for the oilsands came on for an interview and tried to explain how the oilsands are awesome...  I'm not a huge environmental activist, there's nothing that I actively participate in to justify me saying so; however, I still have beliefs about the subject manner.   Quite frankly, one of the hardest things about living in Alberta has been listenning to all the pro-oil industry bullshit that continually is being shoved down your throat.  It's bad enough that a lot of people here actually think that the oil sands are beneficial - yes, they are economically, but sometimes I feel like the entire province is acting like a five year old plugging its ears and going "lalalalalalala".   So, as my anger slowly boiled up inside me while listenning to this woman talk about how greatthe oil sands are, I decided to take that same five year old approach myself - I threw on my headphones and cranked up my music.  Peace.  I was working out, once again, on my new found friend the elliptical.  I say my new found friend because this piece of mahcinery has actually made its way into my dreams - how sad is that?  I had a dream last night that Dan and I were moving into a house of our own ( I knew it was a dream because the size of the house clearly indicated that it was completely out of our price range).  The down side to moving into the new house was that I was no longer going to have the gym, but in a twist of good fate the gym in my building was closing (I guess I was the only one using it in dream land).  So, all the exercise equipment was being auctionned off, but since no one in the building was interested in using the gym, no one wanted to by the equipment so my bid of $1 on my beloved elliptical won.  Ah, everything was falling so perfectly into place.  On moving day, I went down to the gym to get my elliptical, but it was gone!  DUN, DUN, DUNNNNN.  It turned out someone had made an offer after the auction and I was stabbed in the back; my elliptical was sold out from underneath me.  Torn away from each other too soon...  the saddest story that eve co-starred a piece of exercise equipment.  Have I not mentionned that I have seriously messed up dreams??  Well, now you know.

Day 19:
40 minutes
45-55rpm
12.5km
+
50 sit-ups

When I grow up....

Alright, so I think I have found the ideal time to workout - at noon everyday the comedy network plays two back to back episiodes of Seinfeld!  You can't argue with watching an hour of Seinfeld while working out.  I think I have seen ever single episodes and the majority of them I have seen numerous times.  Personally, my favourite character was Elaine... not just because she was the only main female character, but I wanted her life.  I wanted to have 3 hilarious guy best friends that I hung out with all the time, I wanted to work for a publishing company in some big city, and attract the eye of professional athletes, politicians, and the head of NBC... well, maybe not actually that last part, but the first two for sure.  It's funny though, when I think back to watching it originally, I thought that they were much younger than they ever are in the show.  Perhaps it was just one of those things that when you're a kid you make ridiculously strange assumptions about people's ages - like how a friend of mine's daughter thought that I was a kid and Dan was my father because I play with her whenever we see her while Dan and her dad talk: super cute.  Well, I put this off pretty late so I am going to cut the blogging short today - I will be back tomorrow to regal with you with moderately interesting stories...

Day 18:
40 minutes
45-55rpm
12.6km
+
50 sit-ups

Born to Write

Inside joke/reference for my parents...

Today is a day to rejoice my blog readers; today I got my computer back!  Very exciting news, at least for me, I took it to get it fixed because the power cord would no longer connect and I have been forced to use Dan’s Mac.  Don’t get me wrong, I love my iphone and my ipod and I am sure I would like the ipad as well, however, when it comes to computers “I’m a PC”.  I, like a lot of people of my generation, grew up using PCs with the exception of those beige skinny Macs they had at school that we played Yukon Trail on...  damn, that was a great game.  Yukon Trail aside, here’s the reason why I don’t like Mac’s: where the hell is everything on them??  So if there’s something wrong with a program or something on my computer than I know exactly how to go in behind the scenes and look at all the files and whatnot.  On a Mac, I can’t seem to find anything.  I installed Microsoft Word on Dan’s computer and when I go to open files it gives me an option of programs to open it – Microsoft Word isn’t on it, apparently it’s not considered an application... I don’t get it, I just find it frustrating how there does not appear to just be a “My Computer” location on a Mac where you can just go in and do whatever you want – I could go in and delete some completely essential file if I wanted to.  I don’t know why I would want to, but I like knowing that I can do it.  Maybe I just don’t have a clue how to use a Mac, that’s a distinct possibility...  And I do love how their laptops seem to run forever, and they are about a third of the weight.  Damn, Mac’s are good, but I love my overweight, short-battery life PC, I really do.  That random little rant reminded me of when I was a kid and I desperately wanted a laptop.  I had beautiful images in my mind of taking my laptop and sitting on top of this hill in the park and writing stories and poems to my heart’s content while being surrounded by trees and a playground...  So I asked for a laptop constantly: birthdays, Christmas, Easter, Labour Day, any occasion at all, I wanted a laptop!  So my parents decided to get creative with this one, one Christmas there sat a present for me and I had the feeling this was my laptop...  I was ecstatic, I don’t think I had ever held one or seen one in person before, and here I was about to have one of my very own.  I tried to pick it up, I was amazed at how heavy it was, so I sat down right there, ripped off (or maybe I meticulously removed the paper without ripping anything at all.... I liked to do that, it stretched the presents out longer) the paper, to expose this hard metal suitcase – weird, I didn’t know that laptops came inside metal suitcases.  So I opened up the case; shocked, this was no laptop.... I stared it, selfishly disappointed – it was a typewriter, a very, very heavy typewriter.  At the time, as a self-centered child, I didn’t realize that my parents couldn’t afford to buy me a laptop and it was because they loved me so much that they got creative and found something similar instead of just ignoring my constant requests.  I know that now, if you’re reading this, thanks.  Ironically, I bought myself a typewriter just a few months ago...  Anyhow, I had this massive, heavy typewriter and this idyllic dream of sitting on a hill in the park down the road from my house.  So, one day I climbed onto my bike while holding the massive, heavy typewriter in its metal suitcase in one hand and had a lope-sided bike ride down to the park and I dragged that typewriter up the hill and I sat there and wrote some poorly conceived poem about nature because I had no real life experiences to write about yet.  I may have been heart-broken when I opened that typewriter on Christmas, but now I love that story because I think it illustrates the fact that I am a writer and I always have been even if I don’t always have something to write about.
Oh ya, I worked out today.

Day 17:
40 minutes
45-55 rpm
12km
+
50 sit-ups