Mostly an exercise rant

I did pilates for the second time yesterday, this time in a standard class rather than that super boring intro class. You know what? Still boring. I like yoga way better. I can't figure out quite what pilates is about, but I certainly don't feel euphoric afterwards the way I do after some good yoga. Maybe the class is bad, but it's all about matching breaths exactly with movements, and the pacing doesn't match my natural breathing at all, plus you're supposed to breath out through the mouth which is just irritating. There were a couple difficult poses (ones on our sides where both legs were rigidly held out straight) but for the most part I couldn't figure out what was challenging. I'll give it one more shot and pick a harder resistance thingy because it would be awesome to have a pilates body, but if that doesn't work my relaxing class time is all going towards yoga and tai chi. Sure, yoga has some breathing techniques, but it's all about deep slow breathing, not too-fast breathing where I have to completely contract my stomach muscles. And what's the deal with that pivoting pelvis stuff? She was like, "good, you're doing great." Yeah, thanks, I'm fucking rotating my pelvis. Of course I'm doing great. My pelvis was DESIGNED for this sort of action. Some sort of sex thing.

Today I get re-assessed at the gym to find out what all this effort has been going towards. Christopher forwarded us all this article yesterday claiming exercise has been proven not to help you lose weight, and people only think it does because of like 2 biased experiments 50 years ago and because most people going to the gym to lose weight also significantly alter their diets. Ugh. So depressing, especially since my mantra the past 2 months has been all, "Yay, I don't have to feel guilty about pigging out anymore because the gym is cancelling it out." Well you know what article? Suck it. What about the fact that I feel so much more energetic and happy now that I'm not as likely to stress-eat, huh? I feel good, I think I look better, isn't that really all that matters? I think we're gonna have to be careful about how we represent this article and focus more on, as Taisuke said, the fact that we eat so much processed crap when really we should be focusing on natural whole foods. Regardless of whether it's organic. God, I'm so sick of this organics debate, Australian papers are going nuts over the fact that organic food might not be better in any healthwise or environmental way. Can we please just worry about how we're treating our land and animals first, without throwing that pesky organic label around? Maybe some inorganic techniques are great for everyone, but they're certainly not what most of the agricultural industry is practicing.

I'm really in a saving-the-world mood right now. What would the icon for that be, a face with really bright flashing eyes? Maybe the face could be colored in to resemble planet earth. Heh.

Work entry 2

One thing I notice for sure from all the working out is I sweat less the rest of the time. I wonder why that is, maybe my body just gets tired of sweating? I'm certainly not complaining.

African dance was super fun. I hope to make most of the classes so I can get my tribal on at all the african dance events popping up here.

I caught a glimpse of myself accidentally in a window and thought it was one of those fit people heading my way. Now I just have to carry around a copy of that book How to be a Skinny B*tch and I can be just like Posh Spice. Beckham IS coming to town for some soccer event this spring. People are losing their sh*t over that almost as much as the Rugby World Cup stuff. I am oblivious, although it's meant a lot of my favorite places have been fairly empty the past few Saturday nights. The only people out were other foreigners. The cops asked us if we knew the score one night. I halfway thought all their radios would be tuned to the game, but it seems they do their jobs.

My roomate situation is working out really well. She cleaned the whole house for her book club meeting, we like the same kinds of books, eat the same kinds of things...It's hard to enter my tiny room at the moment because every inch of floorspace is covered by suitcases, but I just can't be bothered unpacking right now. I only want to do fun things, and there are a lot of those kinds of things going on at the moment. Even the sky crapping down every day can't bother me, because my house is over there, see it?!?! I could even go home for lunch if I wanted to, although that's a bit of a stretch. The farmer's market and a famous bakery are both within 2 blocks of my house, I got to see all the people out on their weekend routines buying food, and decided to make these my routine too. I might never have to go to New World again if I manage to get up before noon every weekend, and that is a worthwhile goal. Suck it supermarket. Unless I want to make cupcakes. Oh my cupcakes. So round, so much surface area for icing. They always look like they're giggling. I like when the icing is pink or blue or yellow, or when little candy corns or red hots are stuck in it. One of my earliest memories is from pre-school, the first year (I was 3?), when I found a small pile of red hots in the back of the toy stove and ate them without anyone knowing. In another memory I sucked on a lollipop behind my mom's bedside table. I was good at pilfering (or was I? Maybe the adults knew and just didn't bother getting mad. Or maybe they admired my ingenuity :) )

Work entry

Francisco suggested I start blogging via email again, like I did at my last temp job. I had forgotten I did that. Past me is a genius.

I woke up insanely early this morning in my brand new room. The window was fogged up from my hotness and far down below I could see moving blurry stars that I finally figured out were headlights, not eye errors. It's fun living so high up. I'm in one of the tallest buildings in the city (a whopping 13 or 14 floors, Wellington isn't know for it's vertical diversity). I contemplated going to the gym, but my body needs a lot of convincing to get serious exercise so early in the day. Instead I walked to work, in the rain. It took about 25 minutes, I think I'll do that every day. Now I'm at work and no one's here yet. Today they've rolled out a new garbage initiative that involves lots of sorting of recyclables and a compost bin in the kitchen. And a really tiny box, maybe 5"x5"x4" for regular garbage, that you have to cart off to the kitchen yourself. Can you imagine, compost in a big corporation?! It's a beautiful day here. My coworker was already complaining about all the sorting but she'll get used to it. We all must. All regular garbage cans have vanished so laziness is not an option.

Tonight is my first African dance class with Jenny, complete with live drumming. I hope it feels like Koyaanisqatsi and my feet get all dusty.

Backlog

Audrey asked me what the deal is with my lack of blog entries. Basically, I've moved into a place with no internet, and my job blocks most of the fun sites, such as yahoo mail and blogger. Sadness! Right now the only time I get to catch up on this stuff is when I pay for internet during my lunch break or at the gym (very strong motivation for working out, I must say). I've been writing a lot of my thoughts in a little notebook I carry around, which I'm noticing right now has one blank page left. This is partly a result of last night. Last night was karaoke night. There was a british dude, Ben, who kept claiming he would be sad to have no memory of me the next day, as he was apologetically extremely drunk. I kept making little notes about myself and sticking them in his pockets, which he kept managing to lose. Finally he just gave me his email address. I'd like to write something to him, but it's hard to know what to say right now, all hungover and migrainous. I'll think of something. Maybe a love song he can give to Francisco. He kept singing about Francisco. Either he likes hearing himself say Francisco De-La-Torre or he's in love with the man.

My singing was, as usual, impeccable. The only part of myself I am on the overly self-confident side about, all other behaviors and physical attributes undergo extreme self-doubt from time to time.

To give you some of my life these past 2 weeks outside of the shameless drunken flirting with people I have no intention of getting into a relationship with that I've been doing, I'll transcribe some of my little-almost-full-notebook entries:

9/17
Riding on the bus sitting next to a clean-cut nice-smelling man in a suit, I fantasized about having a life that included having a bf who wore a suit and road on the bus with me to work. Then I reflected on the fact that anything can be normal. Finally, I realized that just because anything can become commonplace, doesn't mean they are all equal.
I wrote the above in the style of a school paper introductory paragraph. I often felt back then that my introductions were sufficiently profound as to stand alone, and fuck off rest-of-the-paper. I think that is the case here too.
(above written at 8am sitting next to the suit)

9/18

Oh. working.

9/19
I saw this ad for a product you add to lettuce to make a salad. The tagline was something like, what good is a salad without meat (and cheese)? I groaned when I saw it, but sitting in Kapai right now noshing on my honey ginger beef salad, I had the same thought. There's really nothing better for lunch than a super-protein-y salad. South Beach probably agrees.

9/22
Maybe buses digest the changed state of passengers. We enter in at the front and exit out the back, like in an organism. We are slightly different when we leave. Maybe the physical and mental change occurring in passengers gets expelled in a little packet that buses find delicious. How else could they keep morale up when travelling back and forth forever?



It's a bit of a pain writing things down that I found engaging at that moment in time. Most things are kind of boring to reiterate, it's like when you become known for a really good story, and by the 4th time around telling it, you feel nothing but shame and boredom and it's a struggle to get those words out. Maybe some people like telling that one really good story, but I think it's a pain in the butt. Especially listening to someone you hang around a lot telling that story to some new people, and they're all laughing and laughing.

Man my little notebook sure has a lot of numbers in it from this week. Hmmmm. It's amazing being single. I am way cooler when no one around me knows how much I fart. I finished painting and rearranging my new room. I was cursing myself for doing it halfway through, with wall paper scraps covering the floor and my new roomate running away to escape sealant fumes, and not having any time to chill out or go to the gym or read a book or call my mom, but now I'm so glad I did it. The bed is 1.5" shorter than the dimension of the room I wanted it to be lining, and I won't get into what I went through to move it, but that too was a fantastic move. My roomate is really messy, in a clutter way not in a frat boy way, but as long as the kitchen and bathroom remain reasonable, I won't care about the rest because of my amazing blue and red room.

I am busy, energetic, and beautiful. Francisco is being lovely. Every day is a great day.

Your Prepaid Account is Less Than $10

Seriously phone, stop ringing. All these "No Number" calls are starting to bug me.

It's Pronounced Mori

Tomorrow I start my new job in the Ministry of Health, Maori Health Division. They were very "keen" to have me. Apparently there's a serious shortage of labor in New Zealand, an excellent time to enter the contract work force.

So, I'm going to have money and not live on the street again. It's a lot more difficult to become homeless than I had thought in years past. I used to stake out good homeless spots and make contingency plans, because I was so confident it would happen. Walk past a little sheltered alley and think, "Yeah, that would be a good spot. I could sleep there." Figure out all the schemes for getting free food, internet, and comfy seats. I tell ya, if I were homeless I'd spend so much time in the library. You'll notice I'm not the only one to think that way if you ever visit the central San Francisco Public Library.

This all feels good today. Things are coming together, and I'm already excitedly anticipating budgeting on my meager temp salary. I know, I'm crazy, but I really enjoy scrimping and saving and planning and making financial charts. I haven't gotten to do this stuff in quite a while, because Francisco was in charge of finances here. And before that, I was making a little bit too much money to really have a challenge. I would try to mix it up by sending an entire 2 week salary to my student loans, but it felt like I was faking it. I'd just start using my credit card like crazy until my salary caught up again the following month. What a poor poser!

Now I know, next time I'm making a reasonable salary, I should get pregnant to mix things up. Or start a wicked cocaine habit. Or fall in with a bad guy. The only real downside I can think of being poor again is not being able to travel. We had all these plans to go to Vanuatu or Fiji, and even Japan again, and now it seems almost certain none of this is possible for me. I'm not even sure about that extravagant hike we all booked for December.

Oh my god, Hudson, my temp agency, just called me again for the third time this morning. Previously I had been called for a 2 day temp roll starting today (I declined, I'm still wearing a towel at 10:30 this morning and loving it), and the longer term MOH job (I accepted). This phone call was to ask whether I know anyone interested in temping right now. They sounded desperate to fill that 2 day roll. Holy crap this is insane! The guy I talked to yesterday promised me that whenever I am between longer assignments, if there is a day or two off they will start calling me at 7:30 am every day to find out what they can do for me. I'm gonna have to start turning my phone off. One of the biggest draws for me with temping is the random couple of days off. Even if it means giving up sushi for a while I don't want to give those up!

I'm going to get dressed now. I'll wear my sexiest underwear and no one will get to see.

Bin Chilly

Brr, my soul is cold. I remembered Kallie roasting garlic in San Francisco, and how happy that made all of us when we were unsolvable-y cold, so I tried it today. I cooked the shit out of it so the outside pieces were dark brown and chewy on the outside. I feel so much better now, I spread it on some thin pieces of toasted multi-grain bread with olive oil. It's raining today. I have resumes to distribute and apartments to see and the gym to go to but I'm tired and cold. I've been running around on the-sort-of-high-you-get-when-everything-in-your-life-suddenly-changes for the past 3 days, but today the steam is gone. I want to curl up and forget about everything. And eat things with the shit roasted out of them. I've been exercising like mad this week (yesterday I went to the gym for an hour and a half, and then later went to an hour swim class with Kris. Crazy energy!) It made me feel better. Today I'm tired though. The hospital keeps calling about me volunteering, but now that I'm getting full time work I don't think I can do it. So tired. I was really excited to do that too. Damn.

It's not all bad. Things are only going to get better, the sun will start to stick around later, Jenny's African dance class will begin soon, and maybe I'll be living downtown. On my own and free! Maybe I shouldn't write about this stuff on the blog yet. Maybe I should delete this. I'm too tired to talk to everyone individually though, the only thing I want to talk to is this blog because it won't talk back to me. I save thousands on therapy with this thing.

I should just...run away from everything. Go on a wind-swept adventure. Ignore my debt and career for a while. Maybe Friday if it's not so cold. I wonder how Burningman was this year. We had our own burn. I said goodbye to many things while my little straw man fell over.