risky fitness

I had a powerful urge to reach my credit limit recently, so I bought a road bike. Actually the thought process went something like "I'd like to start riding my commuter bike to work more often, so what will make that easier for me to do?" So I went to a website and started looking at gloves n thangs and clicked around and lost my mind and found a decent road bike for about 45% off. Whoo hoo. This is a bike that I can't ride to work -that is hard to ride ANYWHERE just-for-fun in the city, really, so... yeah... what was I thinking again?

Anyway, so I got this bike. The Idea is to Ride It and Get Fit. To this end, I registered for Bike The Drive, where they shut down Lake Shore Drive on one Sunday morning a year and open it up to about 15,000 cyclists/tourists/fat guys on mountain bikes. It was really fun! It was 30 miles and I finished and felt good afterwards and I went with my friend Beth who has a really nice bike she never gets to ride either. We both wore cycling skorts (like bike shorts with the padded dirty-diaper-looking butt, but with a cute skirt wrapped around it so you look cuter than everyone else). We plan to ride together again an call ourselves the "Dorks in Skorts".

Today, on a semi-calculated whim, I went out and caught up with another cycling group. Their website (attached) looks all friendly and happy-go-lucky, and they organize rides all over and people come out and ride and whatnot. It sounded fun, just like Bike The Drive. On Wednesday night, they have a training group, and the description of the ride goes like this:

Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Training Ride: Wednesday Evening Training
REMOTE START: Roadies Dunkin' Donuts, Lincoln & California
6:30 PM
25-35 miles, 19 to 25 mph
Take your cycling skills and performance to a higher level. Join us for a fast paced training ride aimed at increasing your speed and improving your group riding skills. Practice rotating pace lines, close proximity riding and advanced bike handling while building fitness at a riding pace in excess of 18 m.p.h. Due to the need to ride in a tight pack, the fast pace and training specific nature of this ride, use of traditional style road bikes is strongly recommended. Recumbent, hybrid and mountain bikes are discouraged. A certain level of experience and fitness is expected. The actual pace of the ride will be determined by the ride participants.

I CAN DO THAT, I think. Granted, I have no idea how fast I can go, have no experience, and know nothing of riding in a group (I learned that there's this intricate set of hand motions that goes with the whole thing -not just your grandma's "right turn, left turn, stop" bullshit either. You're supposed to watch the riders ahead of you? and they, like, wiggle their fingers down by their butts when there's a crack in the pavement, or make the "alakazam!" snap at gravel, and kinda do a spank type thing when you have to move for a car...very odd.)

Anyway, I'm wearing my skort and my pink Nike workout top (like I imagine they wear in my sister's Yoga Booty Ballet video) and a windbreaker and a little red backpack with my lock and wallet and whatnot inside. La de da, I'm so cute. I pull into the Dunkin Donuts parking lot and its a pack of 20 boys in full spandex and bike jerseys, interchangeable lenses in their sunglasses (wearing yellow for dusk, of course) and, y'know, one bottle of water, one of electrolyte replacement fluid, blah blah blah.

"TRAINING rides will be faster (generally over 16 mph pace), and no attempt will be made to keep the group together. It is assumed that participants on a training ride are there to be motivated to push their performance to the next level. Riders are expected to be skilled and confident enough to be on their own if necessary."

Yeah, I didn't read that part until I got back.

One of the organizers was hanging behind me to help keep the pack together, I thought. A few miles into the ride, we were all stopped at a light and I kinda scooted ahead. A few of the guys went back to where he was and I heard them saying "what do you think?..." "can she keep up?.." "if it's all downhill she'll be fine..." etc. After that he stopped being polite and let me be last on my own.

We were in these neighborhoods where all the kids came running out and waved to us. I was clearly "the girl at the end because she's slower than all the boys."

It was like one of those after school movies about the girl who tries to join the boys' baseball/wrestling/soccer teams and struggles at first, but then becomes friends with the outcast of the team (in this case, the two fat guys who took the optional short cut) and then realizes she can do great things (make it home without a broken leg) through hard work, sweat, and perseverance. I made sure that one of the fat guys knew this was my SECOND TIME out on my bike. After that, they were really nice, all "if you keep this up, you'll be riding with the fast boys in no time!" and "whoo man, you're killing me!" if (IF!) I got in front of them.

HOORAY FOR FAT BOYS! I never thought I'd cheer fat guys in spandex, but there ya go. The underdogs have to stick together. Now for some dinner and plenty of Aleve. And yes, I'm going again.

OMO, The Legend

I was going to write about poop? But there’s not much going on there (seriously, I’m a little worried). So instead I’m going to write about Oprah.

I live in Chicago. I don’t know if it’s because of the proximity to Harpo Studios or potential run-ins outside of her classy-tacky high-rise-condo-perched-atop-an-8-story-mall or what, but she secretly fascinates me. This may have started when my mom told me that her boss knows Oprah and Stedman, and he HATES Stedman, but says, “with Oprah, what you see is what you get.” Good lord, really? That must be overwhelming. How do you have brunch with that? Do you have to emphasize the ENDS OF YOUR SENTENCEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSS? Take on an affected voice every once in awhile and start Sca-REAM-innnnNNG? Whenever a discussion about race comes up do you have to start talkin like a BLACK gurrl and pointing out the differences between the “cultures”?

This is a direct quote from Oprah on show I caught a few weeks ago:
“WHITE people WHITEN dey TEETH so dey LOOK like dey got MONEY.”

WHAT? Oprah, have you looked at your teeth or your bank account lately? SHUT UP!

So I catch her show when it replays at 11pm, and basically I want to put her in a cage and poke her and see what happens. Poke poke poke the bear.

Over the last several weeks, Oprah has been telling the ladies who watch her show to throw little parties tonight so they could watch her special on ABC about the Legends Ball she threw a year ago. “Call up the BABYsitta, and shake up some martinis, gurrls, cuz you GOTTA be watchin my show.” WHAT? She even had a show with Rachael Ray (she of inexplicable fame and the “EVOO, baby!” battle cry) where they created all kinds of appetizers and party foods –of course, you might consider serving these dishes at your Oprah’s Legends Ball Special on ABC Watching Party.

The premise of the Legends Ball was to thank the women who influenced Oprah and all women of color and inspired greatness. The catch phrase, I think, was “we stand on the shoulders of giants,” and Oprah’s justification was “I wanted to thank these women while we’re all still alive. Don’t spend the money on flowers for the casket, tell them how much you appreciate them now.” That’s really nice, right? Brava, Oprah, brava.

I think her hour-long special was meant to inspire us to Thank the Legends in Our Own Lives. Whatever. Outside of her studio and into prime time, Oprah has revealed herself to me a little more. The show consisted of clips of tape from her planning The Ball, from The Ball itself (and luncheon and WORSHIP SERVICE too), some sit-down interviews, and then some steady cam intros and outtros and whatnot.

Here are my very scientific conclusions based on these various scenarios (remember that I have no control group):
*Even after all these years and all those book club books, Oprah is illiterate. Every day on her show is like a bad presenter at the Oscars: she stumbles over words, and can’t emote or inflect in the right place. Haven’t her producers given her note cards before the show so she could practice her betweentros?
*Oprah on stage and tape has mastered the art of repeating the phrase after a pause. Repeating a phrase, after a pause…. After a pause… repeating a phrase. Repeating a phrase. YES!
(It’s how she makes a point, comes up with titles for articles in her magazine, and covers up for the illiteracy.)
*Oprah off stage is like a high school sophomore on the “regular English class” (as opposed to AP) track. She needs to study up on those vocabulary words if she wants to do well on her SATs and get into a good college!
*Oprah unscripted and uninterviewing has NO CONTROL OVER THE FLOODGATES. I swear, that woman is like a holy font. The shit keeps falling out of her eyes, and of course when people see HER crying, they’re either like “I gotta cry too!” or they’re reaching for the nearest cup so they can gather up those little jewels right off Oprah’s blubbering cheeks.
*Gayle? Total whore. And you can’t spell Gayle without the G-A-Y. Oprah’s little carpet munching friend is so fucking useless; I don’t understand why they bother slapping faux lashes on her and putting her on camera. I mean, they actually took a minute or two out of this hour-long special to put that woman on screen saying “I have so much respect and reverence for people who do seating charts for big events. ItÂ’s HARD!”
You REVERE people who do seating charts, Gayle? REALLY? I think Oprah, and by extension Gayle, needs an expanded vocabulary.
*Oprah does nice things, and there’s no arguing that. But she doesn’t need to JUSTIFY it all with a TV special. What the hell? Against her intentions, publicizing her efforts in order to inspire us just cheapens it all and waters down the message.
Duh.

And now that I’ve made this ranty, petty little list, I see that most of my problems with Oprah come from her not being in my English classes in high school and not reading the same source material I have. Who's being sophomoric now? I’m sorry, OprAAAAAAHHHHH! If it makes you feel better, I’m drinking WINE and eating CHOC-O-LATE! alone RIGHT! NOOOOOWWWWWW!, all because your Legends Ball Special on ABC inspired me to do right by myself tonight, gurrl.

And the audience goes "awwwwwww!"
And Karin takes a sip of her Smooth Move tea. ...tomorrow's show might be about poop after all! About poop. After all.

bleek

I “subscribe” or whatever to an organic produce delivery service. BECAUSE I LIVE IN THE CITY WITHOUT A CAR AND IT’S SURPRISINGLY CHEAP, DAMMIT. (Just defending my lifestyle. So SHUT UP.) Once every two weeks, under the cover of darkness, a man with a truck pulls by and tosses a cardboard box full of randomly selected fruits and veggies into my apartment building’s mailroom. I wake up on everyotherThursday morning feeling like it’s Christmas.

Sometimes the box is awesome –like in the middle of winter when I got some citrus fruits and kiwis and bananas (the organic ones aren’t as pornographic as the conventional ones) and huge wads of fresh dill and cilantro. Other times it totally sucks: it’s all Swiss chard and already-wilted Romaine lettuce, BAGS of apples, and WAAAAAY too many avocados. I live alone, Produce Man! If you make me eat 6 avocados before they get overripe I’ll ALWAYS live alone! “Good fat,” my ass!

So the trick is to prioritize: eat the strawberries first –and don’t leave them out for a day cause they’ll get really moldy and rot really fast (those went in the trash); cut the tops off the beets and store them properly (the tops went in the trash too, cause I don’t know what to do with BEET TOPS, I’m SORRY, Martha Stewart); Romaine is cheap, so if you can’t eat it fast enough, don’t worry about it –just throw it in the trash; potatoes? I don’t eat those. Toss ‘em out. Apples don’t really go bad, but they DO take up a lot of room. Chuck ‘em. I think once garlic grows those little green buds you’re supposed to throw it out too.

Really, it’s a good service. I’m eating SOOOO well!

Anyway my last box had a single leek in it. One leek. What do I do with ONE LEEK? –Oh, I forgot to mention that I’m trying a raw vegan detox type thing, so that means no cream of leek soup, and no recipes with pancetta (that really hurts when I have chard, too. Chard tastes like ASS without animal fat, yo). Anyhoo, I tried the recipe above, but without the pancetta. I tried it on a hungover stomach (after my WTF? date… more on that… maybe…), and took one bite and my stomach was like WHAT THE HELL, BITCH? The leek leaves are like big, wet, fibrous tongues dangling down my throat (just like my first kiss!), and the Dijon mustard pretty much made the acid in my stomach ferment into angry little curds of evil. I took a single bite and put the rest in the fridge for another, less bile-y day.

I ate the leftover leek for dinner tonight. The only good parts were the tender inner leaves. That means I had about 5 good bites of dinner. I’ve had my hand in a plastic bag full of raw pumpkin and sunflower seeds, raw almonds, and apple juice-sweetened cranberries ever since.

Tomorrow my blog will be about poop.

[sic]

Did you ever hide under your covers in the morning so that you wouldn't have to go to school?
I did.
I remember getting as far under the covers as I could, then twisting my limbs around in an attempt to look like rumpled sheets. When my mom walked in and said "KARIN, it's time to get uuuuupppp!" I thought she had x-ray vision or something. I mean there was NO WAY she could have known I was under there.

Anyway, I've been thinking about sick days lately. I'm an intern with no real job description and no career goals, so what's the point of showing up to work in the morning? Hiding under the sheets is no longer a dilemma --no one notices when I'm gone anyway. The question is, how many ways can you fake being sick, and how do you make it convincing?

Last Thursday I turned off my alarm in my sleep, so my eyes fluttered open at exactly the time I should be rushing out the door. (An aside: it doesn't matter how much I rush, really. I find ways to be 20 minutes late anyway: sometimes I decide to go after that sticky dust bunny in the bathroom (shedded hair + leaky products = maddening), or to send an e-mail to my friend in Sweden, or I try to do 45 push-ups (like Dr. Oz --Oprah's scrub-wearing, colon-poking friend told me to do every day, being nearly 30)). Instead of doing that "OH SHIT I'M LATE!" dance --skipping a shower, getting dressed as quickly as possible, slapping on makeup, and bolting for the train-- I just waited 20 minutes. I got up and made breakfast, turned on the TV, washed my face.... Then I called the front desk at work, and with a weak, scratchy voice I asked Nikki the receptionist to tell my boss that I wouldn't be in that day. I don't work on Fridays either, so it was a FUCKING FOUR-DAY WEEKEND YEAH!

When I showed up to work this Monday morning, one of the first things I said was "oh man, I still don't feel well..." just in case I wanted to leave early. I legitimately didn't feel good: I was STILL hung-over from my WTF? date on Saturday night (more on that later). Every once in awhile I'd put my head down on my desk or grab my stomach and go "uuuuugggh! man...." JUST IN CASE I wanted to leave early. After lunch, I considered sprinting down the hall to the bathroom, then walking back a few minutes later all slloooooowwwww, and with cold water splashed on my forehead.
"I just puked," I'd say to anyone who noticed. "I better go home."

NO ONE would argue with that. No one. And I'd guess that even if you aren't as lucky as I --even if YOU have a full time job with a salary and benefits and sick vs. personal vs. vacation days-- you could do the same thing and get yourself a free afternoon.

Stop at Dairy Queen on the way home, man. I hear cookie dough blizzards help calm your stomach.

CAUSE TO BLOG

Wow, I'm already hooked.

I guess I'll write in/on (? Seriously, I need help with the terminology here) my blog instead of hitting the "refresh" button over and over again in my gmail account hoping for another sad sad single gal friend to write... or for an e-newsletter I forgot I subscribed to in an effort to win $1,000 and a free LouisV handbag... or for some interesting spam I can read and then satisfyingly delete. Yes, cleaning out my junk mail box is what I do instead of dishes.

ANYWAY, I have a bonafide WTF? moment to write about. It's more of a WTF social octagon, and I barely know where to begin.
I'll begin with the most recent past:

I just received a phone call from a cute boy I met at a birthday party 2 weeks ago. This is good.
The call came tonight (Friday) at 11:15pm. This is what I call "WTF?".
The boy wants to hang out sometime. Good.
He asked if I wanted to meet him at the recording studio he's at RIGHT NOW. WTF?
He will wait until tomorrow night. Good.
After tomorrow, however, he says he is working 16 hour days, will be traveling, and doesn't know when he'll be able to call or hang out ever again. This is why it took him 2 weeks to call me in the first place. WTF?

Oh, did I mention a friend of his also asked me for my number at the same party? OtherGuy seems a little more mentally stable and supercool (he designs objects. I've seen his portfolio. It's fucking sweet.), but am I outright attracted to that type? Of course not. WTF?
Also, I should mention that the co-host of the party where I met these boys the very nice and cute barista at my local chain coffee place. I thought he was hitting on me as well, but now I'm not so sure. What I DO know is that his twin brother --the HOT twin and the other co-host of the birthday party, of course-- once chased me down 2 blocks in a rainstorm to ask me out. Did I follow through with him? Of course not.
Point being, accepting this date for tomorrow night comes with many strings.

People, I'm not trying to brag or anything. It isn't like every time I walk out the door I am hit on. *IFF* I ever get out of my house, I realize there ARE men out there, and thankfully a few of them have the balls to ask a girl out. Whether the girl has the mellons to accept his advances is another question. I am an overflowing 'C' cup, and yet I do not have the mellons necessary most of the time.

Anyway, I'm desperate for a date. I haven't been taken out in ages. Moreover, I'm desperate for a good make-out session. I don't know if I should be making out with this guy --especially because if I do, it might ruin possibilities with 4 other fellows.

I feel like a ho, and I haven't even done anything yet, other than tell this guy "yeah, let's hang out."

Then again, WTF? Why do all these guys, these friends, have the same taste in women? Aren't they supposed to roam in smaller, rogue packs where they pose no threat to one another's breeding prospects?

Will "blog" the results.

OMG...

So, I never thought I'd partake in this whole BLOGGING thing. Does everyone say that? Blogging sounds dirty.
BLOG.
BLOG.
Buh-loooooggggg.
Blogblogblooobloo bloo bloooo.
:::flusssssh:::

I never heard of blogging before the... what was it? The 2000 or the 2004 presidential election? The one that sucked, whichever one that was. Anyway, I hear it's cleansing and therapeutic and that NO ONE WILL EVER READ THIS, therefore is a waste of time and a totally self-indulgent exercise. Oh, but wait! There is the false promise that one day some publisher/editor/columnist/humorist with connections and money to burn might read my private stash of inner monologue and say "let's sell some paperbacks and t-shirts! You're the next mediocre thing, baby!" Ohhh yeeeah, I can smell the sweet sweet revenue.

OKEE, let's get this dog n' pony show on the road. Here's a preview of things I'm most likely to talk about in/on (?) my "blog":
*Food and my issues with it.
*Poop and the frequency thereof.
*Boys and WTF is up with them?
*Shoes, clothes, and my lack of closet space and taste.
*Acne and my shiny, almost iridescent forehead: why, after 14 years, am I still dealing with this?
*The Magic-8-Ball: friend or foe?
*What's on TV?: I don't know, although mine is blaring in the background at least 6 hours a day.
*Odd things I spend my money on, then never use: used furniture, new sports equipment, organic produce that rots in my fridge because I don't know what to do with it, shirts that would look good on someone else...
*FAMILY ISSUES. FAMILY. ISSUES. We all have them, mine are nothing special, I just figure I might need to vent from time to time (especially in the late fall and through the holiday season), and thought I'd warn you ahead of time, dear reader.
*Politics (Dear Mr. O'Reilly: I said "holiday season" instead of "Christmas." SUCK IT.), current events, pop culture, music that makes me weep.
*Miscellaneous category: rare bursts of synaptic activity might cause me to have an *idea* about something or another.

And now, I will post my first blog on my "dark dots" template.
HURRAH! HURRAH FOR ME!
My first blog entry. Awwwwww....