whose eyes are looking at me anyway?

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lividviv is sacked out on my couch after failing to resist the best chocolate in the world. okay maybe not in the world but that shit is to skor what skor is to bitter baking chocolate... or some equally useful metaphor like that.

i just came back from an anatomy in clay workshop at the studio i *learn* at (as opposed to the ones that i *teach* at) and an advanced mat class prior to that. it was great! i went in there sore and i came back all happy and stretched out. so some climbing tomorrow and the osteopath on monday and i should be back together nicely.

i hope because damn damm damn i am seriously sore. how do you spell damm? it turns out that climbing with fluidity is really really really fucking hard.

this post is now in hiatus as the arguing people next door have woken lividviv and she's talking again, err wait she's going back to sleep.

so, the neighbours are fighting again. which they do a lot. at the tops of their lungs. occasionally at three am.

i like one of them and the other i have nothing against but i'm either going to have to move or start seriously complaining about the noise. i'm leaning toward move because being the ex super my entire floor feels compelled to come to me with their problems.

and you know what? i don't CARE. I do not CARE what is wrong with your fucking apartment. call the ACTUAL superintendent. i don't care if you don't like them it's not my goddamm job.

*I* got canned. (thank the universe!)

It's their job, it's their headache, don't bug me about it. but more than that? please consider that at 2am on a friday night when your neighbour knocks on your door in her pyjamas that she doesn't think it's funny that y'all are shouting.

she thinks that you're keeping her awake and that you and your immature ass should shut the fuck up.
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ahhh that was great. viv and i just watched like 6 hours of tv mixed with a little junk food and some gossip about boys. dzer in case you're wondering she agrees with you. i think that i'm biasing the story :)
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wow that workshop today was amazing. we did most of the muscles of the hip today and really discussed them. basically we made little sausages and carrots of clay and then stuck them on plastic bones and discussed their actions and repercussions. there were 4 pilates instructors and a yoga instructor (counting myself) tossing questions at the goddess and her fielding them and doing the craziest things with her body to demonstrate.

i am such a neophyte compared to her that i almost feel like a poser or a fake or something. i recognize that i'm just newer but it's hard. i ask her questions and they're so obvious to her somehow that i see how much farther i really have to go. funny because i'm much more confident when i teach than i was but i'm less confident about my body of knowledge.

it's funny because i'm having these feelings about my body lately as well. a few months ago i was delighted with how i was looking. i was wandering the streets in baggy pants and tight shirts and i was strutting my stuff. i was sure i was hot.

also it was summer and i was warm and tanned and fed by the sun.

and yet i am so CLEARLY both a better teacher and a hotter bod than i was then that i wonder where this crisis of confidence is coming from. i know that some of my issues stem from long ago when i was swimming. they used to weigh us and fat pinch us and tell us to go on diets.

i'm pretty sure there were more calories in the diet than the average human voluntarily eats in a day but still. thirteen and fifteen year old girls do not need to have their fat measured when they are training for international competition. they're in shape.

sure weigh them or something but that's it. hell most of us knew we'd gained weight before the scale did because we would menstruate.

and now? well i hang out at a climbing gym and with pilates instructors which isn't helpful in the comparison shopping department but there's more to it than that.

i don't think that i can actually see myself anymore. i'm pretty sure that what i see when i look at my 'problem areas' and reality are falling away from each other somehow. because when i glance in the mirror i can see a slender woman looking back. when i try on new clothes i catch a glimpse of someone i don't expect.

and sometimes i see just what i'm expecting and that makes me down on myself for days.

the other day i tried something on and i was a MEDIUM! [which really, i'm not... that shit was just weird]

so i know that the view is changing and that i may be starting to see myself more realistically. i catch glimpses of muscles from the corner of my eye and can't find them when i look straight on. i know that i shouldn't let my self esteem be tied to how my body looks but it is.

i know that i really really need to recover from that before i get much older because i've seen what it does to women over 50 who can't learn to age gracefully. viv suggests that i learn to love my saddlebags.

this is not an easy thing to do.

they're lumpy and not smooth and don't have firm muscle underneath. i don't mind a bit of padding but i don't want pillows. i don't want wrinkles on my stomach.
i want to look like elizabeth larkam who is nearly fifty years old (or her dance partner valentine who IS in her fifties)

and that's even ON THE WAY for christ's sake.

unless i quit climbing AND pilates tomorrow i'll look like that. [er not exactly, but the my body version of that]

so where is this crisis of confidence coming from?

*shakes head*