 Edward Bloom Day |
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It was a good Saturday. I woke up early still weepy from watching Joan of Arcadia while bawling my eyes out. Finding my first ever gray hair while brushing my teeth and staring at myself in the mirror did not help matters. I went for my first training with weights at the gym. I was sore before I even started. Hopefully I can stick with it. The trainer put me on a small number of reps at the highest weight I could stand because she said it's a good way to build muscle (of which I have none), and she said I should not be worried about "bulking up" too much since I don't seem inclined to build muscle fast (ha!) and since I am "tall" (I don't consider 5'6" tall but whatever). I am absolutely not worried about bulking up. I don't think I have ever spontaneously produced a shred of muscle in my entire life other than what I was born with. My body fat is at 27%! I figured it would be much higher, say, 99.9%, but clearly it can stand be much lower. I got "excellent" on flexibility and "poor" -- P-O! -- on cardio! That means my heart rate went up too high too fast as I did the little test on the bike. That was no shock the last time I did anything truly cardiovascular it was having sex and we all know that's been a while. She said my resting heart rate is good at 66 so it should not take me long to get my cardio aspect in a better range, and that I only have six pounds to lose, but that I definitely need to build lean muscle. You log in at each machine and it measures your reps and range of motion and totally doesn't count the rep if you don't take it all the way from 0%-100% and tells you if you let the weights touch at 0 or if you're going too fast. It keeps track of your stuff from workout to workout so it's easy to track what you're doing, and it keeps track of your attendance and if you skip certain machines and stuff so it makes you really accountable. It is high tech! This might be old news in gymland but it's all new to me. That makes it kind of fun. Upon my sister's orders, I ordered an mp3 player to accompany me on my workouts so I don't go mad and quit. I was stunned at how many people were there early on a Saturday morning when normal people are asleep, still in bed watching 90210 on FX, or at Starbucks. Then I met my dad for some hot chocolate mixed with cafe au lait and a 1/2 a banana nut muffin. Then I came home and ate some grits and morningstar veggie sausages, and then I was finally full. I went to the bookstore to buy The Secret Life of Bees for Kaury's birthday and bought The Time Traveler's Wife for myself. I then got a caramel macchiato and drove around town listening to Hedwig and then The Sound of Music. During Big Fish last night, I sat next to my friend's husband, whose father died of cancer last month, and I thought my heart would burst as tears slid down my face and my face ached from smiling, if not for feeling the sadness and emotion emanating from him beside me in the darkness, and if not for feeling every smile and sigh of my own in sync with my sister's or hearing my brother's random guffaws, and if not for the onscreen presence of two of my favorite actors in the entire universe in the same movie plus Daddy Warbucks to boot, and if not for the delight of hearing the tune of the beginning of "Spectacular Spectacular," then for the sheer humor and magic and loveliness of it all. I curled up with my down throw on the couch with Daisy in my lap and watched a behind the scenes special on the movie when I got home. I realized that this is a film that I refuse to overthink, and it does not matter that certain things don't make any sense, because it isn't supposed to make sense in your head, but in your heart. I had to laugh when Ewan McGregor said that he thinks instead of birthdays and holidays, we should celebrate Edward Bloom Day, a day when we get to walk around feeling great. I guess maybe today was an Edward Bloom Day for me.
© Copyright 2004 elb |
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