Can't I just take a pill?

I dragged my ass to the gym today. I've been slacking off because of the move, vacation and just general summer mayhem, so it was time.

I decided to take it easy and not take the class I would have normally taken on a Wednesday. It involves a lot of cardio, and I wasn't really in the mood to have a heart attack today.

I was making my way around the weight machine curcuit when one of the gym's personal trainer guys walks right up to me and starts saying something. I couldn't hear him at first because I had Ira Glass blaring in my ears, and frankly I was a little confused.

I don't talk to anyone around me at the gym unless we are in a class together. I feel weird even making eye contact with anyone while I am on the weight machines, and here's this guy I don't even know striking up a conversation with me.

"Would you like me to show you a better way to work out your chest?"

"Excuse me?" A thousand snarky and/or pervy retorts immediately flooded my brain.

I think the gym is trying to drum up business for their personal trainers so they are sending them out on what essentially boils down to "cold calls".

I can just hear their morning meetings:

"Well guys and gals, no one wants to pay the ridiculous personal trainer fees we have so why don't you get out there and try to get some of our memebers hooked by giving out a few freebies. Try the "mom types" first. They're desperate for attention."

I figured it wouldn't kill me to see what this personal training thing was all about even if I'll never have the extra funds to actually hire one.

He was nice and seemed to know what he was talking about. He was sort of cute in a clean cut way, but...he was wearing cologne. Why cover up the very thing you are trying to be while at the gym?

Sweaty can be sexy, though for the record, there are different kinds of sweaty. Sweaty from exercise, mowing the lawn, sex or fixing shit is hot. Sweaty from the anticipation of getting to the next level of a video is not.

So this cologne-wearing pretty boy is showing me some free weight stuff and some stability ball exercises I can do and offers me a free session. Free is good.

Then he asks for my name and phone number, "I'll call you tonight if I have any kind of scheduling conflict."

Part of me hopes that he does have some sort of conflict. It feels really strange to have someone standing there, watching me do exercises and now I have to do it for a whole hour.

What have I gotten myself into?

Salad! Po-ta-to Salad!

If the Andrews Sisters did yoga:

A gorgeous day to play outside

Good ideas for games to play at the park with your kids:

1. Tag
2. Ball
3. Hide and Seek
4. Slide and swings

Bad ideas for games to play at the park with your kids:

1. Parking lot tag
2. Stick fight
3. Hansel and Gretel
4. Poke the whino

One time I dated someone really dumb

In between sluttin' it up in college, I had an actual honest-to-goodness boyfriend for a good stretch.

He was sweet when I first met him. I almost didn't go out with him, he was so sweet. I just wasn't into nice guys. As it turned out, he wasn't a total anklebiter so I gave it a go.

We were together a few months when Christmas break came around. I visited him at his parent's house (a good three hours from mine) over the two week vacation, and had a nice time. His parents, little brother and sister left for church for a few hours at one point. Later, his dog brought the condom wrapper he had fished out from under the bed to the dinner table. I got a rockin' glare from Boyfriend's Mom and a wink from Dad.

A few months later, Boyfriend decided to get two pet mice for his dorm room. I questioned his judgement, but since I wasn't going to have anything to do with them, I passed it off as another of his stupid ideas. I was tiring of him by this point, but he was cute and fun and had certain talents a smart girl doesn't pass up lightly.

Then Spring Break rolled around.

When one lives in a college dorm, one is required to vacate the premises over any school break. They don't want you hanging around causing trouble (until moving off campus anyway) while no one "official" is on post.

I spoke with Boyfriend over break on the phone (as I wasn't exactly welcome to visit anymore...).

"How are your little pets doing? Did you Mom freak out when you walked in the door with a couple of rodents?"

Silence.

"You brought them home with you, didn't you?"

"Uh...no."

He left two mice in his dorm room for a week.

Having pets in the dorms was obviously strictly forbidden, but having some janitor find them wasn't really the point. We did a lot of things we weren't supposed to be doing in the dorms.

What kind of fucktard thinks leaving living things that need to eat food and drink water alone for seven days (nine if he left on the Friday before) is a good idea?

I had never held him up as a brainiac, but this took the cake.

When we got back to school I asked him what happened. Turns out these mice had a showdown that ended with them both getting out of their cage and one of them pulling an Alive worthy cannibalistic smackdown--on Boyfriend's bed. He came back to one and a fourth dead mice nestled on his pillow.

I refused to even enter his dorm room until he threw all his bedding in the dumpster and requested (and received) a new mattress. It wasn't long after that that I had to be done with him.

Some things you just can't overlook.

Is it any wonder why I'm so obsessed?

I've decided that I finally feel like an successful adult. Why? Because I now have a "beer fridge" in the garage.

I remember growing up, going to my friends' houses (which was jealousy inducing in the first place as we always lived in tiny apartments), and seeing a second refrigerator in the garage.

"My GOD!" I thought to myself, "It's not enough that these people don't have to share a bedroom with their brother, and now THIS?!" The humanity.

It all seemed so decadent, like the time I found out my friend's Mom had a phone in her car. A PHONE...in her CAR. The year was 1984 (I was 10 years old for those playing at home). We wouldn't get a cordless phone at my house for another 3 years, and here was this woman, able to yak it up while driving around. I was amazed.

Dishwashers were another obsession of mine. Every time I went over to a new friend's house to play, I would find myself wandering into the kitchen to check for one. To me, having a dishwasher was a sign of prosperity.

At my house, we had a small black and white TV that my Dad threatened to throw away at least once a week, much to my brother and I's deafening disapproval.

At my friends' houses, they had giant color televisions in several rooms of the house including, something quite foreign to me, the "den". I never understood why people needed a whole room to sit and watch TV (wasn't that what the living room was for?), but I wanted one just the same.

Then there was cable. My parents finally relented just last year and got themselves signed up for cable television. Only after they spent some time at my house and saw that there was more to it than boobs and crap. My Dad is now a Discovery channel junkie and my Mom can watch Columbo at just about any hour of the day.

I don't fault my parents for the way they raised me. It wasn't like they didn't want to enjoy the conveniences of life. We just couldn't afford it. I certainly appreciate what I have now more than I think I would had I grown up with privilege.

It's funny now the way my Mom showers my girls with more clothes and gifts than is humanly necessary. At first I thought she was just excited to have grandchildren (and that is part of it), but it finally dawned on me that she is trying to make up for what she couldn't give my brother and I.

I've tried to reason with her. My kids don't need all this stuff. No one does.

While it's great that I almost never have to buy clothes for my girls, I still get an uncomfortable feeling in my stomach when she brings over a pile of new outfits or toys. I don't want her to feel like she has anything to prove. She and my Dad made do with what they had, and did it very well in my opinion.

The fact that I can get excited about having a "beer fridge" is proof of that.

Three

Happy Birthday Little Bean.

Purty Shit

I got the coolest hairclip at Sugar Creek Arts Festival yesterday.

They didn't have anything with bacon on it (yet, but I did request it). However, I did pick up this rockin' bowling pin hairclip.

Methinks I'll be shopping from her a bit more in the days to come.