I did my fourth full workout tonight and have now started taking pictures (on a weekly basis) of my upper body to record any possible progress. Looking at pictures of my body is not something I recommend to anyone, really. Not even my cat.
Shoulder presses still make me cry like a little girl. My benchmark is to get through them without tearing up like jackrabbit at the end of Titanic*.
* this is a test to see if anyone — like jackrabbit — reads this thing.
How many weight-related puns can I come up with for post titles? Let’s find out!
After doing my third full weight-lifting workout I’ve decided to go from two workouts per week to three, mixing in jogging as needed. I’ve suddenly become mildly obsessed with shedding the last bit of fat around my gut and it ain’t gonna happen through diet from this point forward, so exercise it shall be.
The bonus side effect is getting into better shape, having more stamina and becoming irresistably sexy. I’m also thinking of going from a full beard to a Vandyke just for a change. And a purple Mohawk. Or something.
A little over a week ago I finally did a full dumbbell exercise workout — 11 different exercises working all major muscle groups. I am using a pair of 10 pound dumbbells and so far they seem to be about the right weight. The workout takes about 40 minutes or so with the breaks between sets eating up a good chunk of that time. I expected to feel sore afterward and I did but whoops, I completely forgot to warm-up beforehand and ended up paying the proverbial big price for it. I pulled a muscle in my right arm hard enough that fully stretching the arm out hurt a fair bit. The pain persisted for about four days before subsiding. On Thursday I finally decided to do another full workout and this time all went well — I was again left sore but avoided self-injury. Hooray for common sense.
I’ll probably do another workout tomorrow (to celebrate Easter, y’ know) then work in my jogging program through the week. I expect to feel sore, tired and cranky but in the best shape of the past 25 years.
Two more writing exercises to add to ye olde pile:
Three Parts (scenes). I may spin one or two of these scenes into a full-fledged story some day. You get zombies, the search for love and space drama. Variety!
Follow the Tracks. This one is unprecedented for me. I took an unfinished story that was abandoned 17 (!) years ago and finished it.
They can also be found on the Writing exercises page.
A photo I took today of myself. The flash on my camera is silly and badly washed out half my face, so I had to do some tweaking and ended up deciding it looked better in grayscale.
UPDATE October 29, 2021: These links no longer work. They may in the future, in which case this post will be updated again. Apologies for any inconvenience.
Two more writing exercises. The first one is a scene told from two different perspectives and frankly, it’s kind of crappy. The second is a complete short story based on three items produced by a plot generator:
Spring is only six days away. It is time for the trees to bud, the flowers to bloom, the Greater Vancouver area to receive another official snow warning (damn snow) and for me to ponder activities of an outdoor nature that involve more than walking to the store and back.
I went to Forerunners this afternoon. It’s a specialty running store with an impressively large wall of running shoes. The staff is friendly and appears to know their stuff which is helpful because every pair of runners I have bought in the past has been based on looks alone. Most of the time that got me by but a few pairs back I bought some where the left shoe absolutely murdered my foot. I stubbornly kept wearing them instead of doing the sensible thing and taking them back for a refund. I think it’s just one of those guy issues. That shoe was going to bend to my will. Except it never did.
This time, since I’d be getting shoes specifically for jogging and since I’m not…ah, as young and flexible as I once was, I thought it might be a good plan to put aside cost and looks and just get shoes that wouldn’t kill my feet. The young woman who assisted me measured my feet, made me crouch up and down, stand with my feet apart and cough twice. Okay, the coughing I did on my own. She brought out four different pairs of shoes of various brands and widths and I tried them on, often wearing one of each brand per foot. I’d walk around the store then go out and jog in them for about a half block. I did this enough to actually work up a very light sweat. Embarrassing.
In the end we both agreed on the New Balance MR769STs or as I call them, my pair of lemons. You can see them here (Flash required). They come in silver/blue or white/yellow. I got the white/yellow hence my clever nickname. I have never spent over $100 for a pair of running shoes before. In fact, I scoffed at those who did. My current pair cost $30 and have lasted weeks. Weeks! But I have to admit, the new runners feel really nice. They fit like a glove (as recommended) and have the kind of support and spring that you get when you invest $70 more.
I’m hoping they last till I’m 80.
I have a jogging plan to start out with — the Couch to 5K Running Plan — and now a nice pair of shoes. I just need a place to jog! I could create a route in my neighborhood but this area is kind of hilly and I’m not too keen on running on sidewalks or roads. It’s going to be hard enough on my body without making it even moreso. On the plus side, a route through the neighborhood would keep things interesting, especially if I mixed it up a bit. But for now I think I will stick to dedicated running paths. The closest I could find is about 12 blocks away at China Creek Park (North). I checked it out a few days ago and the jogging path there is dirt but covered with bark so it doesn’t turn to mud when it rains. It had a nice springiness to it, firm but yielding, like a nice girl on a second date. While there I watched someone jogging around the path. And I mean around it — he stayed just off the path all the way around the park. People are weird.
Here’s a satellite view of the park courtesy of Google maps. I have embellished the image slightly for your edification. I am tentatively planning on starting the jogging regime next week and will have my first report then.
You start playing old games you’ve already completed, of course.
Have games become my new comfort food now that I can’t rely on Snickers bars and pizza? Probably. Instead of playing Fallout 3 or Left 4 Dead or even Spore, I find my current line-up of games is:
Someday I’ll start and finish a game when it still counts as “new”. Someday.
Here’s the opening monologue from an unfinished play I wrote back in June 1993. I ended up tossing the monologue entirely in favor for something else, but it was an interesting exercise for me to try to get into the mind of an obviously disturbed character. I can’t say it was exactly fun, which I suppose is a good thing.
WEIRDSMITH OPENING MONOLOGUE
REVISION #1WEIRDSMITH: It was an accident. I know that sounds ridiculous. How do you accidentally stab a person thirty times? Actually, thirty six. I counted. I don’t know why, exactly, except that I have this thing for details. So I counted. But it was still an accident. When we met today, things were a little tense between us, but I wasn’t planning on stabbing him three dozen times. You don’t do that to a friend. An ex friend, maybe.
(He laughs, if hesitantly, at his feeble and ghoulish joke.)
WEIRDSMITH: We got into a fight, and I was twiddling the butcher knife in my hands and…we were in the kitchen. I should point that out. I do not normally go around twiddling butcher knives. I was getting ready to carve the roast. It’s cold now, of course. Uh, we got in a fight. I made like the menacing figure, and he really started freaking out. Told me to drop the knife. Told me to, “Drop that fuckin’ knife! Are you fucking crazy?!” He had a pretty dirty mouth. Anyway, I guess there’s something about being really mad – well, maybe I don’t mean mad. Maybe I mean angry. There’s something about being angry and waving a knife around, and then someone calls you crazy and tells you to drop it. That’s like telling a kid the paint on the fence is wet and he better not touch it. It’s like telling the kid, “You can’t have that toy.” Of course, the only thing he wants now is that toy. He wants to do just the opposite of what you’ve told him. Just plain old childish rebellion. No one ever completely outgrows it, I don’t think. But the accident. Yes. He tells me to drop the knife, so, being the idiot, being the child I am, I say no and wave it around in his face. He starts backing away, really scared. I hate to admit this, but I got off on it. Him being scared like that. I don’t usually scare people. I’m kind of skinny and quiet. Not psycho type quiet, like I might one day decide to take a shotgun to the mall and start hunting people, but just regular quiet. So he was backing away, practically crapping his drawers. And then he backed against the counter, the roast is right behind him. I see it poking around him and for a second I thought that it must be getting cold. I was going to say that, actually. I think if I had, I would have dropped the knife and we would have laughed and then had dinner and that’d be that. Argument over. But I didn’t say anything. I think I may have been laughing, but I’m not sure. Inside I was definitely laughing, it was all so stupid. So I continue waving the knife. Oh, I was saying something, something like, “You scared?” Pretty original, huh? And he said, “Yeah, I’m scared. Put down the fucking knife!” And then I actually got kind of mad, and this time that’s the right word. He was telling me what to do and I had the knife. It didn’t click. You know, I was the dominant one here. That was obvious. But I think it was the way he said it. He was scared, but he was, as he would say, really pissed off, too. So I just kept moving forward and I started darting the knife at him and he actually put out his hand and tried to bat it away. That was pretty stupid. He could have cut himself, the idiot. Well, not that it matters now, I guess.
(He pauses.)
WEIRDSMITH: Then he suddenly flies into the living room, past me just like a rocket. I take off after him and he wheels around, facing me. I keep walking forward and he’s telling me to stop, but I’m having none of it. Then he backed into the coat rack. He just backed right into it and his feet got tangled and he slipped, and I reached out to grab him, but…this sounds so stupid. I hear it now and it sounds stupid. Yes, that’s right: he slipped and I went to help him and the knife just accidentally plunged clear into his chest, right between two ribs, just clean as can be. But that was it. I was holding the knife so tight that by the time I realized it was going into him, he was probably already dead. And he just screamed like I’ve never heard before. Not like on TV. It was like when you’re lying awake in bed at three in the morning and you hear this horrible scream outside, and you don’t know if someone’s being killed or just screwing around. He screamed like that and I think I screamed, too. Or I said, “Oh, shoot” or something like that. I was gonna help him even though it was probably too late, but he just kept screaming, so when I pulled the knife out, I stabbed him again. I wasn’t thinking, of course. I just wanted him to shut up, because I was right there and I was going to help him, but he didn’t need to alert the whole neighborhood and get us in really serious trouble. So I stabbed him again and that was going to be it, but he still kept screaming and I thought, “Am I gonna have to kill this guy to shut him up?” Well, I don’t know if I really thought that or not. By that time I think I was on auto pilot. He dropped, well, slid onto the floor and I went down with him, and started to stab him like a…machine. And I counted. I started at one, even though I’d already stabbed him twice. And I kept stabbing, and I almost stopped because the blood was spraying into my face, but I had my glasses on, so it didn’t get into my eyes. I moved the knife all over, like it was important to spread the holes around. Like I said, I’m kind of fixed on little details like that. And when I reached thirty four, I couldn’t see anymore white on his shirt, so I stopped and sat down for a while. Then I figured out two plus the thirty four, and I had stabbed him thirty six times. But the first time probably killed him, and that was an accident. So I don’t really think I deliberately killed him. Like anyone in the world will believe that. It’s not as if I have a spotless past. But it’s funny, when I met him, it was the start of things going good for me again. And they did. Things were good again, and for a while, I could forget about everything that had already happened. You know, in the business world, they say don’t think about how much money you’ve spent on something, cause that money’s gone. Think about how much more you have to spend and whether it’s worth it. He told me that not too long after we met. He said to think of my life like that. Don’t think about the past, cause it’s already gone. Think about the future instead, and see if it’s worth it. Actually, at the time, I thought it was pretty stupid. I mean, making philosophy out of something from a first year economics class. But even if I thought it was stupid, I did let go of things. I tried to start over. He helped me a lot.
(He kneels next to the body.)
WEIRDSMITH: I know this is pretty silly, since you’re not just dead, but very dead, but I want to thank you for helping me. Jeez, this is dumb.
(He stands.)
WEIRDSMITH: Thank you for sticking with me just long enough for my entire life to go to hell again, thank you for sticking around just long enough for me to end up stabbing you thirty six times!
(He drops the knife and again kneels next to the body.)
WEIRDSMITH: I’m going to treat your words with respect. It’s not too late. Well, it is too late, but I’m doing it anyway. I’m doing it because I agree with what you said. Everything’s in the past now and I think the future’s worth it, so I hope you don’t mind if I find somewhere to just kind of dispose of you.
(He begins to drag the body to the back of the stage.)
WEIRDSMITH: Like maybe in a bog or something. Death is crazy, my friend, but life is crazier than hell.
Last year I did the ol’ diet switcheroo, dumping fast food and junk food in favor of lean meat, veggies and low-fat snacks. The chief aim was to reduce my slightly-elevated blood sugar so I was no longer pre-diabetic. The diet has had side benefits, chiefly in terms of reducing me from a porky 187.5 pounds to a more svelte 150ish pounds. I then decided that the next step was to exercise more so that my skinny muscles would become toned and I’d have more energy and all that.
After mulling some choices, I settled on dumbbell exercises for a few reasons:
1. A set of dumbbells is fairly cheap.
2. I can work with them at home — no need for trips to a gym.
It turned out I pretty much also needed:
3. An exercise bench.
I never really committed to the exercises much despite getting the dumbbells and bench. Initial motivation in any new activity, especially one that requires, you know, actual physical exertion (and isn’t sex) is difficult to manage. But eventually I laid out a routine based on a book I had purchased and that’s when I discovered the bench I bought is too short and cannot be lowered quite enough for someone of my height. Crap. While I have found another bench that might work, it got me thinking that maybe I ought to consider other forms of exercise.
I have my bike and will probably ride it a few times a week. While not as good an exercise as some, it has the benefit of not being too hard on the joints. There is swimming but my lessons in January convinced me it will be a good while before I am comfortable enough in the water to consider swimming as an exercise instead of “not drowning”. And then there is jogging.
I was a decent runner back in junior and senior high. I was also about 16 years old. I’m now at the “consult your doctor before exercising” age and face the prospect of injuring myself if I don’t do things right. But I have been investigating running — looking at programs that ease you into it, scouting jogging trails (to avoid the pain of running on pavement or concrete) and looking into getting fitted for a good pair of running shoes. I even bought the current issue of Runner’s World and not just because the model on the cover is smoking hot (that was only 50% of the reason at best). So I think I may try this jogging thing out and see if my knees suffer a thousand agonies or if it goes a bit better than that. More to come!
Which is not to say these are stories about exercising but rather stories written as exercises. These are the latest I have written, numbers 7-11 (not to be confused with the convenience store of the same name).
7. The Downside — Second draft (this will be cleaned up and eventually relinked without being a “second draft”)
8. The Dogfish (unfinished and sadly will likely remain unfinished)
9. The Invisible Weekend
10. Lily Tries to Go Shopping
11. Hello?
One of my 1982 high school grad photos. The photographer told me to look serious. As you can see, I took his request to heart. There is so much to admire here — the cold “when the hell do I get out of here?” look in my eyes, the mountain of hair that echoes the recently passed 70s, the coolio aviator-style glasses and the thin smudge of hair pretending to be a mustache.
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More photos being added to the scary School Photos gallery.