The Junk Drawer

There’s always one idiot at the gym who you avoid like the plague once you get a sense they’re not quite right. You’re afraid their weirdness might rub off on you and then you’ll have to take an extra long shower afterward.

You resent the fact that you pay all this good money to work out in a nice quiet place all alone in your thoughts until she shows up and gets on a machine next to you.

I am that idiot.

Yesterday on Facebook, I posted a note that I was resisting the urge to put this song on my iPod because according to the Frederick Statute of Singing Songs Out Loud, Article 5.34.1, I am only allowed to play songs where I don’t disturb others with my high-decibel, off-key singing to songs I don’t know all the words to.

Did I listen to my own advice?

I did not. It got downloaded.

Which is why when the song played on my iPod this morning, I couldn’t shut up. It’s the one song that I must sing out loud and with gusto.

There was a guy on an elliptical machine two over and a couple people in front of me.

It was a disaster. The guy to my left was not listening to his own music. So that left him listening to me and mine.

The words slipped out involuntarily. No turning back.

I know he heard me. Had to.

Hit it, Kathy!

Why do you build me up, build me up… buttercup, baby….

He didn’t look over.

…and mess me around….

Quiet voice, quiet voice….

…you never call, baby, when you say you will….

Still not looking, but he’s pumping his legs harder. Is it me?

…. hey, hey, HEY!!!!!….

I’m on fire now.

….I-I-I-need you-ooo-ooo more than anyone baby….

I am now flipping my head back and forth, rockin’ out in Crazytown. I can’t be stopped. I no longer care, but I know he must be cursing me.

It happened. I’m cool with it. I just don’t think elliptical guy wants to see me again and he very well may want his money back, at least for today.

I’m sorry. I’ll take it off my iPod.

Maybe.

Hey, peeps! Been a while since I posted. Sorry, bit of writer’s block. Hate that.

Until I get my act together, I thought I’d give you an update on my weight loss progress.

In the seven weeks since I started working out at a gym and eating better, I’ve lost 10.5 lbs (4.8 kg).

It’s not as much as I’d hoped for by now, but I’ll take it. Besides, all the trainers at the gym tell me that losing 1.0 – 1.5 lbs. a week is perfect and helps ensure I can keep it off for the long term.

I won’t bore you with all the different exercises I’ve been doing, but it’s far more than I ever did in the few years prior.

What I will tell you is that on the day I joined the gym, I took an elevator to the third floor, where the gym is located.

An elevator.

Now I dart up the stairs at 5:30AM every day, excited and eager. I tackle the machines and leave sweaty and triumphant.

My mother always says “Eat to live. Don’t live to eat.” I look differently at food now. It’s fuel, not the “go to” when I’m stressed, tired or bored. Is it difficult sometimes? Hell, yeah.

But then I ask myself do I want to ruin the morning’s workout for junk food? Hell, no.

At the store today, I eyed up some of the things I used to overindulge in. I left with two one-ounce chocolate Easter bunnies. And you know what? That really is enough. Didn’t need the cookies or the ice cream or the potato chips or the Nutella. Self-control tastes better than all of that.

I’m down a size in my jeans.

I’m up a notch in my happiness.

I’m doing it. And anyone who thinks they’re too busy, too old or too out of shape to even care anymore, please, please think again.

I’m proof that a person who spent more time eating than moving can silence the excuses and bring change to her life.

Thanks go to the friends, family and co-workers who tolerate all my excitement when I have even the smallest successes. Your encouragement, tips and feedback mean the world to me.

The trainers at the gym chat with me daily to make sure I’m on track and challenging myself enough. I’m lucky to have such an amazing support system.

OK, enough Dr. Phil. Hope to be back to a more frequent posting schedule soon. Have a great weekend!

Got a call at work from my husband.

Dave: Are you going to the store later?

Me: Yeah.

Dave: Can you pick up a couple things?

Me: Sure. Go ahead.

Dave: Cat food, paper plates, cheese and light bulbs for the bathroom.

Me: I can’t get that.

Dave: Can’t get what?

Me: Light bulbs. I don’t do light bulbs.

Dave: Huh?

Me: I don’t do light bulbs. Remember when I tried to replace the kitchen one without measuring and I was so sure I had it right, but I was wrong and it cost like twelve bucks and you had to take it back and get the right one?

Dave: Oh, yeah.

Me: They have so many stupid bulbs now! The corkscrew kind, what are those? Are those the new eco ones we’re supposed to buy now? I hate those. I can’t even find the three-ways anymore. So don’t ask me to try the sphere ones. I won’t get it right. God, I hate light bulbs.

Dave: Are you gonna have problems like this with the cheese? Because if you are, I’ll just go myself.

Me: What? Don’t you trust me?

Dave:

Me: Dave?

So we have a leak that found its way to our master bathroom and roofers are coming to check it out next week.

The worst thing about that is not that we may find we need a new roof.

No.

The worst thing is that strangers will see my bathroom and so I was forced to clean it, because we all know roofers care deeply about how many hair tumbleweeds are hugging the toilet.

After my mad, spastic cleaning frenzy, I discovered:

1. I would rather be locked in a room for 72 hours with a coke-jacked, no-sleep, machete-wielding Charlie Sheen than clean a toilet again. I hold a lot of respect for people who do this as their day job.

I want to give a medal to the person who had to clean the ladies room where I work when I saw a Tootsie Roll (not the kind you eat) resting on the back of a toilet seat. Some filthy woman either doesn’t know how to sit on a toilet or a key opening on her anatomy is in the completely wrong place. How do you get that on the seat???

2. All those months I collected not-quite-empty shampoo and conditioner bottles and threw them in a pile in the corner was a bad idea. They drained completely. Scrubbing a floor that’s already soapy just makes it soapier and takes hella long to finish. Also, I’m a slob or a bottle hoarder. There were four on the floor.

3. Scrubbing a tub hurts every cell in my body. I will not be able to do this when I’m 80. I’m just going to stop showering. People forgive 80-year-olds who don’t bathe, right? Wait. Would they forgive a 45-year-old, too?

4. I found something unidentifiable stuck to the shower wall. It was bright orange. I don’t use orange products in the shower. I may need to see a doctor.

5. The Dyson doesn’t like it when you suck up half a plush bath mat and then try to pull it out when it’s still turned on. I groaned. It groaned. Also, I dumb.

6. Curious cats who investigate when a bathroom’s getting cleaned, and get in the annoyed cleaner’s way, are wet when they leave. But they take a good lesson with them.

7. Shampooing the carpets in three rooms after cleaning a bathroom, when your body is already cracked in half, is completely moronic, unreasoned and possibly dangerous, but damn if the upstairs doesn’t look like The Ritz.

Let’s see Charlie Sheen do that. Who’s the winner now?