empty vessel

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i'm trying really hard to force myself to go looking for more pilates work and i can't seem to make myself. it's not that i don't want more work because i really do. it's just that i hate marketing myself.

it would be so much easier if i could make cold calls easily and i try to make myself make three a day but i'm lucky if i make three a week. hell returning calls from my existing clients is hard as hell and email is harder.

i just want to go work somewhere where clients come in the door and other people check the messages on the days when i can't bear to talk. or even better somewhere where someone else entirely is responsible for my schedule and for money.

man it almost sounds like i want to work in an industrial studio. one of those places with a receptionist and the like. so strange to think that way when i always wanted to work somewhere small and quiet.

none of it is true anyway, i just hate looking for clients.

i know that's ridiculous and i get that that's a big part of my job but i got spoiled when clients were being sent to me and because that's so much where i want to be and who i want to work with it's hard to pursue regular folks.

i miss the clients the doctor sent me, i'm not sure why he stopped but he did and i miss them. i miss not having to look for work but i miss the clients more. they were FUN.

these were people who hurt and had problems and really needed me. they felt better after they saw me and many of them continue to see me to this day. but i need new ones and regular old healthy clients just are not as much fun.

i got spoiled by the tough ones.

how funny is that.

i also need to find a couple of new group classes, three of the ones i was teaching are dead and one more is dying. so i have to replace them because group and privates feed each other.

gah it's so hard to care when i'm this unmotivated and i can almost afford my life.

i just can't afford school.
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this is how blah i am... i'm so blah i haven't been CLIMBING.

yeah.

i just have nothing to say.. i'm all empty vessel waiting for filling.
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it's okay to be blah right? i mean it's fall, it's prepare to hibernate season, some blah is to be expected...

but what do i do about work?

sex drive

[i will edit this as your comments show me what you don't understand. please send people links or if you're going to print this wait a day or two okay? {so egotistical to assume you'll want to pass it on}]

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hah! got your attention didn't i?

read this please, and think about it for the people in your life because it may apply. BUT please remember that i am not a doctor and this is ANECDOTAL. don't know what anecdotal means? read this (number three is most applicable in this case.)

i have been noticing something in a LOT of my clients and it's starting to really disturb me. almost all of the women who have had children have either lost their sex drives or their urinary control or both.

this often manifests as neck strain causing massive headaches or upper back and shoulder/neck aches. in every case there is a distinct lack of pelvic floor control or strength or action to go along with this. [the neck strain is because your pelvic floor holds up your head, yes i'm willing to elaborate]

now look, even if you don't care about your sex drive the being able to stop your pee thing? big. very, very big. i do not want to wear a diaper when i'm eighty okay?

and boys? don't think you're exempt. i have more than one old man who complains that he can't get things to work anymore AND that the blue pill doesn't work. it doesn't work because they've disconnected from their pelvis and their pelvic floor and because there ain't any muscle tone to be found.

i'm getting really disturbed. i mean i have a pile of women who cannot make their urine stop midstream. now i don't think that that's actually a healthy thing to do as an exercise but as a diagnostic idea for checking it ain't bad. next time you're peeing see if you can stop it mid stream. no more than twice and not frequently, it's a test, you don't need to do it often okay?

what's funny is that you would think pelvic floor was the one thing we would all learn to work. it's basically the basket that contains our organs AND? well you can use those muscles for um internal massage purposes and it facilitates healthy breathing and bladder control. [yes, of course i mean internal massage in a dirty way.]

but no, we're so embarassed to use the word vagina that after a woman gives birth we don't teach her to put her body back together again down there! i mean who in the universe thinks it's a good plan to gain fifty pounds, pop out a ten pound soccer ball from an exit the size of the hole in a sprite can and start carrying said ten pound and growing soccer ball around without rebuilding those muscles?

EVERYONE that's who.

it's ridiculous. one lady has been incontinent for nine years and she isn't fucking forty yet.

another one hasn't wanted her husband since her third kid, her first kid, her second kid, her last kid... so many broken women. women who said 'oh yeah, i used to be a nympho' and now? nothing. it's enough to make you weep.

i ask them, these women, what their doctors and surgeons and caregivers told them to do after their birth and all of them mention an exercise or two that was casually mentioned once and never heard of again. because you know, in that haze of birthing induced hormones women are listening and retaining really well.

a fellow teacher went to a urologist at a respected hospital with a member of her family and while there collected some brochures that contained advice for incontinent women. instead of working their ACTUAL pelvic floors this brochure, which NEVER mentioned the word vagina even though it was about WOMEN who can't stop their pee, advised that they clench their 'try not to fart muscles.'

ask me how those muscles relate to the pee holding in ones. come on, ask me.

NOT AT FUCKING ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

oh it's enough to make you weep with rage it's so stupid.

so. without further ado. some pelvic floor muscles for you. please ask if any of this doesn't make sense.

yes, you really do have to put your hand on your pubic bone.

lay on your back on the floor with your feet flat on the ground about a foot and a half from your hips and your knees bent. breathe at least ten breaths before you start to let your body settle. think a little about your breath and inhale with your nose, long and slow and feel it pooling into the bottom back of your lungs as your ribs expand out to the side like an accordion.

exhale with your mouth in a long slow sigh and feel your breastbone, that bone between your ribs that runs from your collarbone down to where your ribs meet in the middle at the bottom, melt like molasses toward your waistband where it crosses your spine.

ten times.

then put the soles of your feet together and let your legs fall open to the sides. if this hurts stop and do the next exercise instead.

place the heel of your hand on your hip bone and your fingers on your pubic bone. yes it's a bone, it's where your legs meet and it's actually two bones with thick crap in between. poke it, it's bone. good hands go there, not low on your tummy somewhere near your pubic bone.

that triangle you've formed with your hands should be relatively level. if it isn't think about your pelvis reaching genty into the distance (away from your head) but don't force your back down flat on the floor, there should be a little space.

inhale for nothing.
exhale squeeze the soles of your feet together.

if your pubic bone lifts into your fingers you're using your bum. no bum allowed.

inhale release.
exhale squeeze the soles of your feet together and then gently squeeze your knees like you're squeezing a giant exercise ball.

if your pubic bone lifts into your fingers you're using your bum. no bum allowed. all you can do is tell your bum not to help and keep trying. if it keeps insisting on helping work less hard.

inhale release.
exhale squeeze the soles of your feet together and then your knees and then the tops of your inner thighs.

did i mention no bum? cause i really really mean it.

inhale release.
exhale squeeze the soles of your feet together and then your knees and then the tops of your inner thighs and pull up on your pelvic floor.

keep doing that for at least fifteen repetitions.

here's some metaphors that help.

women think of an elevator at your entrance that you are drawing up inside you to behind your bellybutton.

men think of walking into a very very cold lake. yup that's it, genitals run screaming to the lungs.

alternately think of testicles and pulling them in.

you should feel a column of muscle running up behind your bellybutton. you can get it to work even higher but if you can hit your belly button you're doing pretty well.

tell your partner i said 'you're welcome' :)


okay for those of you that can't lie in that position or can't feel their pelvic floor in that exercise. get a kitchen chair. sit on it and splay your legs pretty wide. put your hands on your inner knees and press out against them, they resist against your hands and you should feel work in your inner thighs.

pitch forward at your hips, keep your back straight, and then pull up.

seriously just think of pulling up and you should feel some lovely work in your pelvic floor and lower abs. if that doesn't work then the metaphors in the above exercise apply equally well to this one.
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ahh, feels nice to get that off my chest.

checking out

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y'all may have noticed from careful perusal of my comments section or my latest post that i'm talking about dating in a slightly different way. or maybe that i'm not really talking about it. or even just a little crack about killing my okcupid profile.

which i did, it's now about eight lines long and is simply there to hold my nick until such time as i no longer care or re-activate my profile. this is only the outward manifestation of something that's been happening inside for a while.

i am checking out of the dating pool.

i'm just tired of it and exhausted, it's time to sit on the bank and watch the clouds go by instead of this constant treading water and getting nowhere.

i will no longer be:
.paying attention to matchmaking websites
.caring if the gorgeous man i'm ogling is single
.bothering to meet the nice looking man's eyes as we pass in the street (as in looks like a nice man not as in looks hot)
.introducing myself to that guy at the gym
.wondering 'if he likes me' because if he does? he'll fucking ask me out won't he?
.worrying about dating.

i can't. i have to let it go. i have somehow allowed my own self esteem to become tied up in the eyes of the men around me. the eyes of the men who are utterly disinterested in me. let me tell you how well that works from a self esteem persepective.

yeah ten points to the lady in the back who said 'it fucking doesn't' because dudes? it fucking doesn't. it sucks total and complete ass is what it does. somehow in spite of the fact that the body feels great and the brain is finally lifting the stupid fog it's been in after all that time not exercising, being fat and eating bad food and just generally not keeping myself healthy?

somehow in spite of all that, in spite of having a healthier body than i did when i was twenty?

i've been feeling fat and unnattractive and uncool or lame or boring or not interesting or whatever word you care to throw in there. and this isn't a call for compliments okay? i mean i love the compliments but that's not what this post is about.

it's about my self esteem and how i let it get all tied up in my dating life instead of leaving it tied to what it SHOULD be about. my *SELF*

i don't really know how it happened but slowly, over the course of the last year, i've lost my confidence somehow, well not really confidence but something. and some of it started with a little emotional maelstorm that i allowed into my life and tore through me like a hurricane.

hrm hurricane is a bad analogy because this started slow and ended slower and is not healing as it should. regardless, when this little storm happened i was already in recovery from the shattering of my self and my life following my car accident and break-up with tr. consequently i allowed things to get far more ridiculous than any adult woman should and ended up leaving myself ridiculously open and emotionally vulnerable.

and when i asked then, for some respect and some nice treatment? yeah i got the emotional sucker punch to the solar plexus instead and i broke. i didn't know that i broke but i did. a whole new set of fracture lines to add to the stained glass mess that is my self. it's still beautiful stained glass but it needs a lot of repair work again and i'm only just finding the tools to do it.

i guess when i say 'i was broken' it's physically true but it's an emotional lie. i *was* physically broken but i *am* still emotionally broken. a lot of old wounds have healed of course but i am only now starting to realise that this road may be even longer than the physical one and even the physical road is endless.

you think you are healthy in your heart and mind and then one day you wake up and realise that no, you aren't, in fact you've been quietly shattering for well over a year even as you repaired a ton of old damage.

please don't take this post to mean that i am depressed or feeling bad because i am NOT!

in fact i feel really good because i am taking positive steps to make changes that will allow me to grow whole and happy.... which, i know, i thought i was doing already. but yeah, not so much.

in fact i was growing whole and happy in most of my life but i just had this lingering malaise or unhappiness or melancholy or emptiness or whatever word suits you. professionally and socially and even in my 'activities' i was growing happier and healthier and more together with each passing day.

but in terms of that sense of yourself that comes from flirting and interacting with the opposite sex etc? i was feeling so empty there that it was colouring all of the things that i DO love about my life. all of the things that make me happy to be alive and bound out of bed with a smile every morning (okay AFTER i hit snooze like 4 times but... ;)

and that shit is just not on so i've decided to check out. that's it. no more crushes (stop laughing princess valium) and no more worrying and no more match making sites. no more.

if some guy wants to ask me out? i'll go. but that's IT.

and you know what? i feel better already and it's only been a week or two. for serious.

and you? that guy i wrote a letter to a while back? that guy that isn't in my life anymore and will probably never read this? you. the imaginary friend i still miss every single day in spite of myself?

i forgive you.

inward spiral

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it's not just the blog.

these days i get to my friends houses to hang out and i just sit there and smile a little and don't say much at all. i just don't have anything to say. we cover the usual topics in a few minutes and then we sit around and smile.

often there is food.

i feel sometimes like i'm not fulfilling my duty as a good friend, like i should be more witty or scintillating or entertaining. and i just don't feel like it. i just sit there and look at them and we don't talk much.

don't, for the record, think that either of us aren't enjoying our faces off because we totally are, we're having a nice time, we just aren't talking.

i've not done that with that much in my life so i guess i was due.

excuse me, i have to go kill my okcupid profile right now.
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ahh that's better.

i don't really know what's up with me i have to say, i still go to work and enjoy my life and i'm having a nice time and all but i've been feeling foggy. a little extra this week due to hormones but whatever.

for some unknown reason i just don't feel like i have anything to say... i can sit there with my clients and talk because i see them for an hour. i ask them relevant questions, we make nice a little and i make them work most of the time. that's easy.

but after an hour with my real life friends? nothing.

and it's not like i'm off in thoughtland either, i'm just kind of blank inside. i'm hoping i'm a canvas waiting for paint and not just about to fall into a massive depression. it doesn't feel depressing though, just quiet.

i just don't have anything to say... and how weird is that?

dear blog

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i'm sorry.

i've been neglecting you.

and don't think i'm not aware of it, i know that i haven't been visiting the blogs of my regular folks and that i haven't been wandering by my favourite corners of the blogverse quite so often. i know that i'm still reading everything but that i'm for whatever reason not really commenting.

and you, i've been not posting to you and not responding to comments as much as i wish to. and i'm sorry.

i'm sorry blog, i haven't meant to neglect you but i'm having an incredibly introspective patch you see, and last time i had one of these i was driven to write and write and write. but this time?

yeah, not so much. i'm actually reading books and watching television instead and i'm really, really enjoying it. i've watched the entire last season of grey's anatomy and i've watched the new episodes of several shows and i've read more fantasy novels in the last month than in the last year.

basically? i've been hanging out with my brain and myself and it's been really good... but i haven't felt like hanging out with my blog.

i don't really know why really, i just haven't felt like it. it's kind of like when you have a best friend and you happen to not see them very often for a while. it's kind of like that.

it's not that i'm not in love with you dear blog it's just that well, i've been in the mood to lie on the couch and since i don't have a laptop and you're stuck being attached to the desktop means you've been being sorely neglected.

and it's not that i'm not reading all the comments and all the posts on all of the blogs that i usually read because i have. all of them. but i'm not commenting.

or if i am it's short and sort of obligatory.

anyway y'all and blog, i guess the point is that i really and truly love all of you and i'm okay and everything but i'm on a bit of a hiatus okay? i'll be around just a bit less.... around.

hopefully y'all will still be here when my brain returns. and who knows that could be two hours or two weeks or two... well who knows. but trust that i feel as attached to this place as ever and that i will absolutely be posting and commenting but that for a while i'll seem a little distant or somehow less here.

it's okay, i'm just in a little cocoon and letting my brain percolate.

:)

love always
-sass

up an down

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i'm sorry, i've been watching season two of grey's anatomy and i have thirteen more episodes to go before i start paying attention to this blog again... and god damm is that show ever awesome. and by the way? if you've SEEN season two? shut the bloody hell up! i am currently unspoiled and hoping to remain so.
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there is something about dating that is soul suckingly wearying. you meet people, be it at parties or online or whatever and you feel yourself well up with this strangely despairing hope.

that maybe this time will be different.

that maybe this time you'll meet someone where both of you feel that little sparky magical thingy at the same time.

where maybe one of you won't think the other is a total putz.

hell that you'll both be inspired to boink even...

yeah i know, total wishful thinking. it's just what's the alternative to the wishful thinking? if you just accept that you're never going to date you have to then deal with your remaining lifespan with no dates. that's really kind of unfriendly and lonely sounding.

so you go to the parties or the blind dates and somehow you keep this little spark of hope alive, the cruel kind, the kind that gets you living off chips and ice cream for three days because some guy didn't call but hope nonetheless...

so to combat this ongoing dating misery i've decided to finally finish a post that i started a long time ago, a post that la belle natalia inspired when she wrote a really wonderful list one day.

fuck this post was finished and my browser crashed...

regardless this list was like the anti-dating-rant rant, it was a lovely list of things all of her exes had done which endeared them to her forever... and nary a complaint was seen. so without further ado, my list of unidentifiable exes and the things i loved them for.
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x used to always make sure that i had a fresh glass of water at my bedside. or really anywhere i was.

x used to patiently walk me through jumper settings on my modem so we could 'talk' over the net. this was in 14400 days so you know we were talking with text AND that i knew a lot less about computers then.

x used to kiss my shoulder just before we went to sleep. he'd be all wrapped around me and then he'd just *kiss* me on my shoulder... and i used to melt.

x never 'let me win' at pool and god it pissed me off that i never beat him. but i loved him for not pulling any punches.

he told me that i would see a shooting star and i never had. so he took me outside and sat me down and said pick a spot over yonder and stare. and i did. and i saw one. finally. irony, i've since learned that there's a meteor shower ON my birthday every year.

he used to love toys... you know those nerd toys like the sphere that shrinks and expands because it's all triangles. or anything glow in the dark. or silly putty. or computers. or whatever. x took such joy in life that it was a pleasure to be around.

x once said 'you're so cute when you're being defensive' and i hadn't even noticed i was being defensive.

x would ski like the wind and laugh like a child.

x was unfailingly generous with treats and cash.

x taught me to understand the guts of my car.

x had the best abs (what i'm allowed to be shallow too!)

x showed me that waiting before boinking led to significantly better sex when we finally did it... and how much fun a shower stall that liked to fill up with water could be...

x taught me the difference between having sex and making love.

x always had a ready quip and it was rarely at anyone's expense.

x showed up with dufflet's pastries the first time he took me for a walk. i didn't realise that i would one day consider that our first date.

x took great glee in wonderful food.

x always worried about my pleasure before his, and i don't just mean in bed.

he gave me the first valentine's day i ever had... with streamers and everything. he done did it up right and it was lovely. (and i was almost thirty at the time by the way)

he also introduced me to the joys of a king size bed... it's so much easier to thrash in your sleep if you have the equivalent of a double bed of your own and so does he.

x toured me around the back roads and the goat trails for miles in any direction from our home...

x would make me food whenever he was cooking without me having to ask... even before we were dating.

x described me as wind and loved me for it... and other than otters i've heard no better comparison.

x was the first person i loved romantically and will hold a special corner of my heart forever because of it.

x was one of the kindest people i ever knew... would that i met him when i was thirty instead of fifteen.

x showed me that it can be a turn on for a man if a woman 'helps herself out' while you're playing together... until then i thought men would find that insulting.

x was endlessly patient with me when i lost it with him... man would not fight. not a bad quality in a sass mate *grin*
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okay there you have it... things i loved about the men of my past... and a reminder that just because dating sucks and there are a lot of players out there? doesn't mean there aren't some stellar men to be had as well.

too bad it's so hard to sort them from the users and the players... but i guess it's because we women want to trust so much that we shut our eyes... or that the players are so much smoother than the actual nice guys...

or whatever.. just remember, not all the boys you meet will prove to be assholes. yes even the ones who break your heart aren't necessarily assholes... i mean are you an asshole for dumping that guy that time?

:)

feeling twelve

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man there is something happening with the drivers in toronto that is just getting out of fucking hand. people seem to think that anywhere they are going is far more important than any kind of rules of the road or traffic laws or even lights.

so the light is red, i'm going to turn anyway since i'm in a desperate rush. who cares about all those people who have a green light that are going the other way, let them honk, it's all about me!

god i literally lose it after five minutes in my car these days.
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so last weekend, y'all may have noticed that i wasn't here... well that's because i was at a cottage that a lovely lady (in fact she's been in the blog before as svdw) who happens to be the other drummer in my band has a family share of.

she invited us up and the way she talked implied that this was a small cottage with limited amenities.

well, she couldn't have misled us more. i had my own room with a queen size bed and othercat had a double and we practically had our own wing! and this cottage sits on a little arm of georgian bay so the water is calmer and you're slightly more sheltered from the breeze.

we get there late on friday night and they had been there for maybe ten minutes when we arrived (her father lives there but he was already asleep) so the four of us (her boyfriend was up as well) gathered on the dock and drank little shots of irish whisky and glayva and brandy while enjoying the beautiful weather.

the water was so calm and the sky was covered in a perfect layer of clouds that somehow lit the night and we just sat out there for at least an hour or two and just enjoyed the nature.

saturday we wake up and get fed organic blueberry and peach pancakes and then we go wandering in the woods to see svdw's favourite swamp and we have a little snack there adn then wander off to the end of the 'point' that their cottage shares with about a hundred others. large point, still relatively large lots and isolated cottages. all the cottages are on the water and there's no one 'across the road.'

anyway at the end are all these rocks and this lovely sand and othercat gets inspired to go skinny dipping. off come his clothes down to his tighty whities and svdw and her man m and i just watch the show.

and what a show.

he walked

and he walked

and he walked some more

and still? he was only ankle deep! oh my word watching this man in his tighty whities walking endlessly in this lake that seemed so huge and deep and just getting his ankles wet? it was enough to have us crying tears of laughter.

eventually he managed to get his knees wet but by then he was walking in the rhubarb so he gave up.

never fear, upon our return to the cottage we had a nice drink and then off the dock we went in to the nice deep channel. i think i might have been in there for like half an hour and it was COLD but it was also the 'last swim of the year' AND it was in georgian bay which is cambrian shield and that water feels like home to me.

makes it hard to exit the lake.

anyway another gourmet dinner followed by a jam session with some drums and othercat's sax and some wandering under the light of the full moon and enjoying the road and off i went to bed. turns out that they had a fire but i wanted to curl up in bed more than i wanted to hang with a fire.

anyway sunday... GOURMET OMELETTES! i know, where do i get so lucky?

anyway my knee was collapsing so M did some acupuncture on my knee (othercat has pics but i don't have them yet) and then svdw's brother showed up and offered boat rides. everyone but me jumped up with joy and i sort of went 'but i'm sunbathing' ... and he said 'better grab a jacket' and that was it, i was decided, i wasn't going ANYWHERE.

the sun felt like food and i couldn't bear to put on any clothing.

so, i say half heartedly 'now if you were offering water skiing...' and he says 'sure i'll take you for a ski' and i faint.

seriously, i've been wanting to water ski again for TWENTY TWO years. i was very good at it as a child but that was when i was thirteen, it's been a loooooong time.

anyway so they leave me to sunbathe on the dock and off they go for their ride. an hour later? back they come and off i go.

first? i got up on the FIRST try. off a dock no less. i was pretty proud. anyway oh man you guys picture this.

thirty five year old woman
two water skis
very awkward stance
wavering every time she cuts over or through the wake
shrieking with glee (the ENTIRE TIME)
smile fourteen miles wide on her face

oh yeah. it was fucking awesome.

anyway after a bit (like five minutes or something) i fall and then get back up and ski for a while longer and then? oh yeah baby he drives close in to shore by the dock and i know i have two choices... quit or drop a ski. and i'm TIRED y'all....

i didn't know how hard fucking water skiing was since when i was thirteen i was made of rubber bands and this stuff was easy!

so i drop a ski. i'm like 'hey wtf if i fall i fall'

and i fell, but not before i did two or three turns on a slalom ski!!!!

and then j (boat man) makes me get up on one ski. a thing i'm not even sure i accomplished as a wondrously fit, healthy and strong twelve year old.

and the first time? i totally fuck it up but the second? I DID IT!

i was in shock, i got out of the water on one ski and i was SO proud... and then, thirty seconds later? oh yeah baby... face plant.

and that was it... i was so tired that i could hardly get into the boat... i was so tired that when i ran off the dock and into the lake a few minutes later? my leg buckled as i ran.

i was so tired i had to sun bathe for an hour before i could walk to the house.

man such magic.

and then? oh yeah MORE gourmet food!

:)

the doors of perception

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so, in case you haven't figured it out i have finished losing my accident weight. in fact i'm probably sitting about two pounds lighter than i was after my accident... which puts me about ten pounds away from my original, pre-accident goal.

do i give a shit if i ever lose that ten pounds? not really.

do i expect to lose it if i continue as i've started? absolutely.

is that what this post is about? of fucking course not.

i was talking with a fellow instructor recently about one of the people who regularly comes to some of the classes that we teach. this particular person complained about me every time they took one of my classes.

they bitched me out.
they left half way.
they invented their own moves.
they wrote complaint cards.
they walked in half way.
they would correct my exercises to their fellow students.
they would 'explain' what i really meant to the rest of the class.
they told us all they were better than us....

this person walked into my class the other day, did everything i said, listened to my corrections AND laughed at my jokes.

the entire time i was staring at them, no seriously regardless of where my eyes were i was staring at this person in shock.

so after class i say to one of the ladies who has been coming to my class for a couple of years 'um was that really x in my class AND having a good time???'

and she says 'yeah' and then she goes on to tell me that she's convinced it's because i'm thin now. i *look* like a pilates teacher now... i fit the expected image of my job.

this pisses me off actually because i liked being overweight when i taught, i thought it was really good for my clients and students to see an overweight pilates instructor... but i digress.

so i was talking with my fellow instructor and telling her this story and also how i've noticed that it's a LOT easier to get work now and a lot easier to get my clients to hear me. they have to be hearing me because they're finally starting to do what i tell them.

she, my fellow instructor, is currently having some thyroid problems so she's gaining weight at about the rate that i'm losing it. not too much, not too fast, but a steady and visible weight gain.

actually that's a lie, she's peaked and is now starting to treat her thyroid and i think she's actually getting thinner now... but that's not the point.

the point is that she's noticed the exact opposite reaction in her classes.

sure the students that she's had for years are aware that something isn't right and that she knows what she's doing so she has no trouble with them. but she does have trouble with the new ones.

they take one look at her and figure she can't possibly know what she's talking about because she doesn't *look* like a pilates instructor. not that a pilates instructor looks like anything in particular.

hell a lot of the older ones are a little chubby...

but she's probably thirty so they're assuming she doesn't exercise and she eats badly and then they project that since she doesn't work out or eat right she therefore can't possibly know what she's doing.

the irony is that for both of us (me a couple of years ago and her now) all you EVER had to do was hear what we were saying and it was clear we knew what was going on.

if you just listened when we told you what to do and did it you would get a great class... but people are so busy expecting their trainers to look like greek goddesses that they're missing the real message.

a fit and healthy body isn't necessarily a skinny one.

do you want me to say that again?

just because you can grab an inch or ten worth of chub on your tummy doesn't make you unhealthy, out of shape OR incapable of teaching others to use their bodies better.

being skinny doesn't make you in shape, it just makes you skinny.

being in shape doesn't make you skinny but it tends to lead to weight loss and reshaping of your body.

your eyes don't know shit about what does and doesn't make a good instructor, your ears and your body do.

i'm almost tempted to gain a bunch of weight just out of spite but i can't, the back and knees can't take it.

it would be a nice excuse to eat mcdonald's again though...

regardless, the real message should be about how you feel and not about how you look and i just cannot seem to find a way to get the majority of people walking through the doors of any studio i'm in to hear that.

when i was fatter it was a lot easier to get them to hear me, it was just harder to get them in the doors... now they look at me and wish for my body and come to my class to get it...

it's funny how things swing from one direction to another... just like fashion and 'healthy weight' perceptions do.

if any of you learn anything from me let it be this... fitness is about how you FEEL and not about how you look. worry more about climbing stairs without losing your wind than about how many inches are around your waist...

trust me, if you do that the waist will take care of itself and put itself at your body's healthy and happy weight...

your homework today is to say something nice about your body to yourself :)

1(2-4)10

1. Things that scare me.
death
love
losing an immediate family member

2. People who make me laugh.
othercat
most of my commenters
dr. house and characters like him
tanya huff

3. Things I hate most.
i don't hate anything... but i'm intensely antipathic to warmongering and hatred

4. Things I don't understand.
war
lack of courtesy or consideration
dating

5. Things I'm doing right now.
this tag
listening to us3

6. Things I want to do before I die.
learn to surf
live!

7. Things I can do.
teach
see around corners
state the obvious

8. Ways to describe my personality.
mercurial
fun loving
sensitive

9. Things I can't do.
sit still
restrain myself

10. Things I think you should listen to.
your heart your head and your gut in equal measure, but your heart breaks the tie.

11. Things you should never listen to.
people who put you down
anyone who refuses to see more than one side of a story
the little voice inside that says bad things about you

12. Things I'd like to learn.
to listen
pilates

13. Favorite foods.
garlic
parmesan cheese

14. Beverages I drink regularly.
water
water
water
water
tea/coffee

15. Shows I watched as a kid.
hogan's heroes
g-force
romper room
sesame street
mr. dressup
doctor who
disney movie (whatever that sunday at 6pm thing was actually called)

===

2 moments in your life you'd like to erase
.the night that i said yes, but i meant no.
.all of the times that i didn't say i was sorry.

4 moments you'd like to relive:
.hanging with my grandfather... any one of those moments, i don't care which. or just one day with him as a grown woman... just one.
.gardening with my ex husband
.making nationals
.the first time the edges of our pinky fingers touched... and stayed.
[this entire category is really about the first one. it's all about the papa... the rest of them i remember well enough, he died before i was ten]

2 places you wouldn't want to go to/go to again:
.jail
.a mental institution

4 places you can't wait to visit/visit again
.italy
.greece
.new zealand
.north of the arctic circle

2 foods you can't stand:
.eggplant
.did i mention the egg plant? cause yeah...

4 foods you love:
.fresh, well cooked and nicely spiced vegetables... nearly any ethnicity.
.dark chocolate
.plain chips, especially ruffles
.ice cream

2 current songs that make you change the station:
.the news... especially from the middle east. gets me to pop in a mixed tape every time
.uh.. what's current?

4 current songs you play over and over:
i do no such thing... albums in heavy rotation at the moment are:
us3 - an ordinary day in an unusual place
xavier rudd - food in the belly
neville brothers - walkin' in the shadow of life
uh...
fiona apple - extraordinary machine

2 books you'd never finish/read again:
.zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance *snooore*
.the one tree series by stephen r donaldson. eeccchhh

4 books you have read more than once, and/or will read again:
.friday - heinlein
.fire rose - mercedes lackey
.anatomy of movement - blandine, st. germain
.anatomy trains - thomas myers

Tag 2-4 people:
hubris
othercat
sweet lil gal

okay seriously this 2-4 tag is brutally hard, i mean some of those ones at the beginning with the never go again and stuff? geeze. that's tough shit. the 1-10 one isn't bad though...

i ain't missin' you at all...

.
do you ever find yourself just viscerally missing something?

wishing it was there and knowing that there was no way on earth that it could be there? that it wasn't really ever there in the first place? that nothing you could do would render it there?

it doesn't matter what it is... a lost love, a lost dog, a lost life, job, friend, cat, wife, object, thought... it doesn't matter.

something that was never yours but for a while there you could pretend.

these things hurt in the same places in yourself that the flinch memories hurt. you know, those things that you did that you really wish you hadn't. i could list examples but they would hurt everyone they touched whether i was thinking of that person or not.

suffice to say that these are memories that even dulled by distance? cut you just a little. the ones that make you flinch even in retrospect. yeah, the flinch memories. you're welcome to share yours and i'm willing to share a couple of mine if y'all ask but no one needs to.

they make us flinch. that's really all that we need to know.

but some things acquire that same power without all the intervening trauma. well okay they have trauma but it isn't as sharp. it isn't as easy as remembering a single incident.

instead these are things that just hurt you. the things that maybe you can't understand, that you can't quite reconcile no matter how many times you prod at them.

less like a stab wound and more like being beaten with bats through a phone book... the trauma is deeper but harder to see...

the scabs that won't heal if you will. just places in your memory that you don't let go of easily and that you try never to visit.

the ones where you shake your head or you sigh.

okay so there's a place inside of us right? that feels things that it doesn't put into words very well... that place that understands with a stab that brings tears to the eyes... the one that wells up at long distance commercials because of the losses they imply.

sometimes, things get under our skin or into our hearts and even while we know that we shouldn't or that we aren't being wise we let it happen anyway... and sometimes, remembering those times is enough to run the tears down your cheeks. [well i'm projecting since i don't know how to cry]

and you might think i'm talking about men or jobs or family but ask kathi about itty bitty and she'll tell you that she hurts inside for her too. i'm not talking about anything specific at all.

although i will admit that something specific motivated this post.

i miss something. i miss it viscerally and i miss it all the time... and i can't ever have it ... no, not ever.

and it hurts in the same place as a bunch of really shitty things that happened to me hurt. that place where i sort of recognize that i haven't really dealt with it but that i shove everything anyway.

the junk drawer of my brain if you will. (although i call it the black hole)

except that lately mine has popped open and been spewing things at me...

unexpected things, things from the distant past and the near past and even a couple from the future. yes you can mourn losses in the future, i'm mourning my life as a single mom right now... and ever so slightly the life i didn't get to live with my ex husband... but that's old and well mourned that one.

i have very few regrets about the life that i'm living and the choices that i've made. were i given my life to live over again i would act differently because i *know* how to deal with bullies now... but would i change a lot of my fundamental choices?

no.

i really wouldn't, those choices have turned me into the person that i am now, warts and all i like who i'm becoming. would i erase those flinch memories?

maybe one or two... the ones that didn't really make any appreciable difference to my growth or that one... that one that still just stabs perfectly when i think of it... the one that stole my innocent exploration of the sexual universe [no, i wasn't raped]... i might change that.

but i might not too... and because we aren't given to live our lives again i can't ever know if i would make that decision differently a second time.

but the missing. that visceral feeling of being punched in the solar plexus?

i don't think there's any way you can change that part. i think you're stuck with it. i don't think you ever get that feeling unless you opened yourself up to something and took a chance.

that act of faith where you leap and hope that the net appears below you, and it often does. of course, just as often?

yeah not so much and you go splat on the hard concrete floor.

i don't even mind that i'm missing what i'm missing, i'm okay with it and all. it does speak to a significantly higher level of boredom than i had realised though which implies that i need to do some work on what i do with my time.

or that it was summer and i wasn't working enough.

i just wonder why it has to hurt so much. why some things just don't feel better with time. sure they get less sharp or they get smaller or the flinch isn't as big but they're still there living inside of you.

and i don't mean the bullshit from school, that fades by the wayside one day when you aren't looking and then it's gone forever. it's not the same as what happens to you when you're an adult and you're the one guiding the ship you're sailing on.

then you're responsible and you hold on to things for a lot longer.

good for lessons, not so good for healing.


missing sucks.

words?

.
one of the things that happens to me when i get away from my life for any length of time in a non work way is that i start forgetting how to talk. ask anyone who has spent any time in the bush with me and they'll tell you that by day three i'm a smiling moron who can hardly string four words together.

this doesn't only happen in the bush, i'm minded of a canada day weekend i passed a little over a year ago and i never went more than ten blocks from my home but by the end of it i was speechless with bliss.

i don't really get it per se i just know that somehow i end up incapable of speech the happier i get.

it's often extremely hard for me to reenter my life when the time comes to get back to it.

it won't be so bad this time because i got home in time to go climbing and do some laundry and watch a little television so i've sort of started to dial back into my life. but sometimes i do something like walk out of hillside and try to teach three hours later.

it's almost impossible.

fortunately my clients are used to their teacher being insane, but that's still no reason to wander back into town mumbling under my breath and waving my hands around instead of talking. sure the nice waitress at the breakfast joint comprehends pointing and smiling but try getting six people over forty who are trying to do pilates to get what you're saying if you're refusing to use words.

yeah, it's hard and strange.

all i want to do is wander around and smile and use maybe fourteen words and it's all good and there i am in my car when bam. yeah dudes, we hit TRAFFIC heading back into town at two o'clock in the afternoon on a holiday.

what's strange is that i think i may have needed it, in fact, i think without the traffic that i might not have been able to make words today at all. i would have gone to the climbing gym and smiled at a few people and fallen off a problem or two and that would have been that.

instead i went and talked to a couple of poeple while running off to hide in the corners that didn't have people in them.

works for me.
.

okay so harriet.

that little bitch.

er can she be a bitch if she's a cat? is there a rule? i mean dogs can be bitches but can cats...?

hrm is there an arbiter or this stuff we can ask?

anyway yeah so harriet takes off on thursday afternoon, like she somehow just knows that i'm about to go on a lovely camping weekend with my best friend. like she's figured out that i will be distracted enough by her missingness that i will actually worry when i should be camping.

hell, she's thinking to herself that if *i* can go on an adventure then so can she. yes she is.

i know this because if she hadn't been thinking that way she would have been whining outside the window of the home we share within a couple of hours of her departure.

but was she?

fuck no, she was off gallavanting about the universe at that point. in fact, being smart she didn't even try to get home until after i had left to go camping. left with messages scattered about that suggested things to the people left behind.

actions they might take if she were to show up magically when they were here to feed mouse.

but i was so sure she wasn't coming back that i even asked mouse how long she wanted me to wait before i got her another kitten. mouse, needless to say, just looked at me like i was high.

i can't explain it but it just felt like she left. so you can imagine my surprise when i got a call in a campground on othercat's phone to tell me that she was home.

and how was she home?

did she get found and taken to a shelter?
did one of my neighbours find her and stuff her back in her house? (as has happened several times before)
did she come to the window and climb back in?
did she meow outside someone's apartment?

oh no, none of that. instead she broke in to the kitchen window of the apartment next door.

broke in, walked down their wall with her muddy little paws and basically informed them that they were taking care of her until such time as her home was available again.

of course, because they've met her?

they bowed down to her wishes.

in due course the neighbour with a key to her home arrived and let her in here whereupon she promptly stalked around demanding food. covered in mud and happy to be home.

smart little bitch. she knew if i was here when she walked in all stinky and covered in mud that she was having a bath so she came home in time for me to hear about it and calm down before i saw her.

she still isn't getting any fuss made about her. little bitch.

yes, of course i'm glad she's home, that's a stupid question. i'm just furious with her for taking off like that and i *know* damm well she's going to do it again.

oh yeah, campy pics... here's one:

the rest, and the post, are on othercat's blog.