Warhead On Legs

Content Notice: This entire post (or the bulk of it) is going to talk about weight and fitness and clothes things. Less food, more exercise, but still, you may (or you may not) want to scroll past.





For future reference: barre exercises

Pliés, 8 each in first, second, third left, third right. Two sets, broken by a language. Four tendus front side back side, port de bras side, up, barre, extend and hold for four front, side, back, side, relevé, other side. Repeat twice both sides, broken by a language. 1 set push-ups, 60 seconds or more balance in... whatever that damn resting knees forward balls of feet position is, look that up. Heels down as far as they'll go. 1 set push-ups. Repeat. Negativa-rabo de raia combination, no traveling, the bed's in the way. Repeat till time for shower. Or until dizzy and falling over on your butt.

Also ALSO. Fucking also. So, ages ago I got my Stitch Fix box (I really am loving these) and I got a pair of black skinny jeans that were the same size as the khaki green ones I'd gotten a while back, but they inexplicably didn't fit me so well around the waist. Serious muffin top, uncomfortable compression around my guts. So fine, I put them in a drawer to sulk for later because goddammit black skinny jeans are my aesthetic, but then when I took them out again a few months ago, still didn't fit.

Took them out today? Fit smooth.

This is doubly awesome because it confirms that the jeans I have now, my usual bootcut, aren't just falling off my hips because they've stretched out to that point, they're also falling because I am, in fact, toning up/shrinking/whatever. Fuck the scale, because it says I'm 2 pounds heavier than my latest average, which is 2 pounds heavier than my last average, I have no idea what the fuck is going on there except maybe PMS bloat/water weight/the mug brownie I had in celebration last night. No idea? But the scale can say what it wants because if I'm heavier but skinnier, I'm 99% sure that means I'm packing on healthy muscle, not extra fat. And Fuck. Yeah. To. That.

Inexplicably I still have a hard time with the one shirt that was tight around the arms, so evidently I haven't lost much of the extra arm flab, the hell's up with that. But the fact that finding that out and being sad and annoyed with myself was immediately followed by oh hey fuck these jeans fit perfectly now, that helped loads. And if I manage to get better about not eating so much pastry and keep doing my push-ups (UGH) and do some general capoeira cardio, I should manage that in maybe another six months? Let's try that for a goal. Let's mark it down in a calendar so I don't forget. Or try ahead of time.

I like capoeira cardio, it's not as fast paced as regular cardio, it builds muscle as well as makes you pant, and I can do it and it takes a hell of a lot longer to start panting and getting dizzy and I don't actually have a full on asthma attack. I also... mmph. Let's face it, my tits are not going to get much smaller than they are, and part of why this shirt fits awkwardly is because of my chest. I mean, if I lose an inch around the arms and chest, maybe two inches around which is both boob and back padding, It should fit fine, but that's going to take a good long while. The last 15-20 pounds are the fucking worst. Still, it feels like regular capoeira was both the physical and the psychological push I needed there to start the downward acceleration, so. Or not! FuckifIknow, given what the scales doing. I'll still take it. It was never about the numbers on the scale anyway, it was always about feeling better and looking better, which is definitely being accomplished.

So. Yep. Jeans. Which is good because a) stitch fix box coming soon and b) most of my main pairs of jeans by now are falling off my ass. I'll probably keep those but the rest of them can definitely get donated now, because if my size 12s are falling off my ass? My size 14s, which have been worn and probably have stretched an inch, are definitely going to be swimming.

I AM SWIMMING IN MY CLOTHES given that my clothes have only gone up since, oh, college, this is fucking amazing. My goal may be to hit a size 10 by Christmas. Maybe. We'll see how this goes and how fast it goes, that was only my third week of capoeira. Also in the plus column, though possibly less to do with fitness and more to do with being smart and taking painkillers: less sore. More able to exercise the next morning. I am a fucking badass.

Also, due to reasons, I have decided that any time my scale shows me a higher result on a day when I'm fitting into clothes I didn't used to, or I have other reasons to think the scale is lying to me or at least deceiving me, I will shout SPIDERS GEORG at it and go about my day. Because that number on the scale is an outlier and should not have been counted. Fuck Spiders Georg.

If stress caused ulcers I would have so many of them right now, let me tell you. (No, stress doesn't cause ulcers. From what I vaguely remember stress causes shitty eating habits which exacerbate ulcers. Bacteria causes ulcers. I think.) Work Shenanigans still have not resolved, I remain ready to throw up at a moment's notice and resisting both comfort buying of comfort foods and comfort eating of what things I have available. I still hate everything.

(I will sum up Work Shenanigans when it has an end date in the interests of only doing it once, but let's just say it amounts to a threat to financial security.)

(.... OH HEY THAT'S A PHONE CALL ALL RIGHT I will start summing up.)

So, starting about a week ago the boy was told not to come in to work, he's on suspension pending an investigation. Then bits of information start dribbling in, whodunnit (someone in a more individual position of responsibility who he's already fought with) and what the specific accusation is, and what the range of seriousness of consequences are, assuming they find him guilty. The last time this happened, since it has happened once before, they dismissed for lack of evidence and because if I remember this right someone came up and went "Uh, dude fell, and [boyfriend] almost broke his back trying to catch him." If I'm not conflating incidents. This time, though, it lasted for days. And days. And his entire shift is making dire pronouncements about how this is fucking railroading, even the co-workers on his shift who he doesn't get along with say it's railroading, his boss is fucking livid and ready to raise hell on his behalf, and he's pulling his stuff together to see if he can go get hired at the VA or a different place.

Well, they finally told him he can go back to work tonight. Sweet Mother and blood. So we continue to be a two paycheck household, I have no idea if he's still on the same floor or shift or if they're moving him or if all of this was some behind the scenes stuff that has more to do with whodunnit than him and we just got our nerves racked and spitted for nothing. And he's going to continue to look for a job elsewhere because everything about this place says it's going straight to hell. He was talking earlier today about a guy who tried to stick it out and get his retirement pay because he had another year to go till his retirement and his pension and about two years of life expectancy, thanks cancer, and they fucking forced him out early so they wouldn't have to pay his pension to his widow. Yeah. The boy said he should have seen the writing on the wall then, but. I don't know. Anyway. That is the Work Shenanigans that have been going on. And now I will have less imaginary ulcers and real stress fevers and exhaustion, and more comfort food, which is in this case sushi. And capoeira.

Seriously, it's amazing how much better I feel NOT being ridiculously stressed. And it's also kind of funny how the boy texts me with updates, I text back "ok mac and cheese for dinner?" and I get home and am all "Yeah, I need comfort food." and he's all "I figured that when you said mac and cheese for dinner." It's like he knows me well or something. (For the new crowd, we've been together for... thirteen? fourteen? years.)

Okay. So, and in the line of a small victory to go with my big victory, I learned how to bend conditional formatting to my will in Google spreadsheets today. It's a small thing, but as tied up in knots as I've been I'll take it. Capoeira was good (can you tell I'm writing this over the day as I have room to breathe?) and sushi was tasty, and now I'm eyeballing things online and in my budget to see what types of cloth pads I want to get and sizes and things. Because that's coming up way too fast. Meh. On the plus side, still on the drugs that make the periods very light. And short. I can live with light and short.

I'm so tired right now it's amazing I remembered to do my languages, and I don't know if there will be a full day's Nano after all, but we'll see. At least one source of stress will hopefully be off the shoulders for the duration by, oh, I should know by tomorrow morning? Maybe by bed tonight. We'll see. This whole past fucking week, I swear. That's not even touching on what I heard from Mom when I called her to sob on her metaphorical shoulder. Nothing that touches the overall family but she's been having a shitty week, too.

Wednesday Reads: I'm... I may actually abandon this Kevin J Anderson book. I'm going to give it till maybe 20% in (since I'm reading on Kindle lol what am page numbers) but so far I've done three and a half chapters and I have no real attachment to anyone. Artemis Fowl was entertaining, though. And probably a good thing to have during a week of stress.

This week's word count is yet to be determined as I haven't finished writing for the day yet. Superhero training is coming along, I think I may have the one kick who I'm not even trying to spell here down enough to practice on my own! Woo! But oh god I need more upper leg strength. And core strength. I need it yesterday, ideally, but I'll keep working on that.

Weekly Word Count is 10,237 oh god so sleepy.

There's about 1/4 of an ounce of blue felting wool on my desk. Bright blue, like Cookie Monster. I have no idea what it's doing there.

So, okay, I did not get as much sleep as I wanted to last night, thanks to a 4 am sneezing fit, but I did manage to roll over and get back to sleep relatively quickly. The end result being while I don't feel as rested as I like, my traitorous brain is not attempting to convince me I'm unwanted, unintelligent, or fat. Which is kind of a feat considering I bolted down two slices of pizza for lunch, which should have made me feel fat but instead made me feel like I could haul around 25lb boxes of basket supplies. (And then again I was hauling around 50lb bags of manure this weekend with surprisingly little difficulty except that they're very big and I am very small. So maybe it's less made me feel and more gave me energy to. Something.)

The upside to this is that even if I didn't get as much sleep, I was still up at about six after some weirdass vivid dream I don't remember but there was action, and I was able to get a good almost 600 words written before I went to work. And then another 400 at work and after a bit of a struggle I'm finishing out the week at 7,040, which is just on target. And then I need to finish out the month at least even, but that's 5k over the next three days, that's way do-able.

I also may have inadvertently started another story in a whole fucking separate world, and I have no idea what that's about. Something to do with an Archer and a Magician who end up in a relationship, both of them men, the Archer was hired to protect the Magician and something else is going on under that that I don't have the energy to untangle tonight. Hell with that.

So, Wednesday Reads is a bit sparse this week, I finished the first Ransome book and am on the second, while someone *cough*lireavue*cough* read ahead of me and devoured the whole thing. Not that I can really blame her, but still! ;) So hopefully over the next week I can finish that and maybe read a couple of these books of folklore that I have. Most of the folklore should hopefully be quick.

Exercise is going well, making me routinely sweaty and achy and exhausted, which is a good sign that I'm working the muscles and not just going through the motions. I do need to put in a couple extra exercises because at least one of the ab exercises I put in wasn't doing so well. And remember my stretches. Better the last night than the last several weeks? But still. Other than that... no, that's pretty much it, I think.

The donuts are definitely fueling it, but I am so gratified to have all the adulting for the immediate future, bar tax filing because no W2s yet, done for the time being. So gratified. I cannot begin to describe. My IRA is all fixed and happy, my general investments account has been reset so I can actually log into it online. With single goddamn word security answers because the last one had a security answer with at least 5 possible permutations and I couldn't remember which one I had entered. Let this be a lesson to me. If at all possible, security questions with one word answers. Or at the very least one possible permutation for a multiple word answer. Jesus. And all of my banking is under one roof, and my credit score is fucking ridiculous, which means I am leaving all of my credit cards open till the ones I'm not using anymore get tired of me and close themselves because I like my credit score at Fucking Absurdly Ridiculous Here Have All The Monies. Even if I don't use All The Monies. I like being credit score-ly virtuous.

I have a clean bill of dental health, I have a clean bill of medical health, I do not have to go back for a thyroid check like I usually do (this has happened at least the last two years, I get my thyroid checked because every other female in my family except my baby sister has low thyroid, it comes back borderline, I get it re-checked, it comes back fine), I have done all my financial shit, I have adulted like a fucking master this week. I even got my minimum 1k words done yesterday! Like a fucking master I tell you.

About the only thing that's a downside to the last few days' worth of productivity is the numbers on the scale are trending upwards rather than downwards. Still down from where I was a year ago, but that is the opposite of a trend I would like to continue, literally. On the other other hand, it's not exactly a mystery why that's happening. A week of migraines and head colds preventing exercise, plus brownies, cookies, and donuts, and crappy mac and cheese will do that to a person. Do better, self.



Oh god, Wednesday Reads:
I read Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China. Fascinating, heartbreaking in a lot of places, definitely a good look at China through the Japanese occupation and rise of Mao's Communism. Well written and engaging, too. Also now I want to go read the Communist Manifesto just so I can go "You're doing it wrong. You're doing it wrong. You're doing communism wrong." But I want to do that a lot of the time. I also read and finished The Raven Boys which I absolutely fucking loved. I have many thoughts on it, but nothing immediate or urgent, if anyone wants to discuss in comments. Except NOAH. Oh Noah. Nobody listened to you, did they. And I re-read Children of the Night, which I discussed yesterday.

Up next: Women of the Pleasure Quarters and a book called The Last Madam about a madam in New Orleans that, what the hell, it looked good. No idea how either of them are going to be, but they look like relatively quick reads for non-fiction. And currently I am working my way through Sanctum by Sarah Fine. I'm on balance enjoying it so far (Kindle says I'm only 12% in) but I cannot actually recommend this book. If only because of what it says about people who commit suicide, whether deliberately or inadvertently. So... take that for what you will.

Weekly Word Count: 3,966, the best week of the year yet.

Superhero Training: Well, so far I've managed two consecutive days with ballet and yoga exercises? Glad, on the other hand, that I cut things short to go do things like doctor's appointments or contacting investment places. So, tomorrow, will try to add in the bellydancing exercises and maybe a round of one of those superhero exercise things. Maybe. We'll see.

Today is marginally better, except for the fact that I'm consuming way too much processed sugar right now. I suppose as far as stress eating goes it's better than consuming vast quantities of sugar/butter/flour, which is the other thing I tend to do. It won't make me gain five pounds which I then stress over that, but it still needs to fucking stop. Come on, self. (We're also not discussing how much red velvet cake I've eaten over the last week. I mean, it's not been that bad, I've been eating healthy apart from that, but I'm pretty sure I'm not supposed to have a slice of red velvet cake a night.)

(I have two more slices left unless the boy's finally eaten some, so nyah.)

Fucking physics. Which actually wasn't so bad today, but there was one problem where I stared at it and was all "I have not yet learned how to solve this what the fuck are you making me do." Then I got fed up and threw logic at it and it turned out most of those answers were right, which just goes to show you that logic does in fact solve a lot of things. Or maybe just goes to show why physics was always my favorite science. LOGIC. You can tell I never got into advanced levels of physics, either.

Came home, watched Peggy Carter, it is the MOST FUCKING AMAZING AND I WANT MORE. I want so much more, I want more commentary, I want more action, I want more of the massive amounts of meta and Peggy having all the typical male hero events, except for the women in fridges I want less of that. I want more of Jarvis. I wanted more of Frain but he had 'mook of the week' written all over him, alas. I want more of this entire show.

Speaking of fucking physics, not that I was, but good god it's cold today. And the wind makes it worse. And I can't wait for this winter to be over already. Ugh. We've only had a handful of days of proper winter and I'm already ready for it to be over. Definitely ready to get the curtains done, not sure when that's going to happen. Over the weekend? That ought to help any and all draft at the windows quite a bit though, both the lining and the curtain material is really heavy. So that ought to cut down on some heat loss. And we've got the blanket up by the utility room door, and fucking brr anyway.

Ah well. Okay, checking in. We're not discussing the state of my workout routine right now, or the lack of routine in it. I did get a full workout in this morning, inexplicably. It's the first Wednesday of the month, isn't it? Yes. So, house tasks for this month are, again, get the damn curtains up. Though this time it might actually happen. Toss tree and wreath into the back backyard for nature and animals to take care of. The doorknob thing turned into a door replacement thing, which at least solves the sanding down issue too, but after that I'm not sure what other house tasks we have that we can do right now. Maybe replace some outlets.

Oh! But I did get my stuff reset for the investments so I can do all that shit online now, so that's good. And I went back through and dug up my reading list for Courtesan School that we created... god, ages ago. And started mixing those in with some of my other stuff to do. I think I might do that and slow down on the online classes once this current chunk is over.

And the Weekly Word Count is 2,488, because of a slow start on the holidays. Still, not bad.

I am not fucking touching the Eric Garner case, because if I do I will say things that should only be yelled out loud to people physically present in the room. No, I will say one thing: fucking egregious miscarriage of justice and contravention of what is plain and visible for everyone to goddamn see. Grr. Dishonor on the grand jury, their families, and their ancestors unto three generations.

Breathe, Jag. Breathe. You are not in fact queen of the world, nor do you have smiting powers.

Nor are you an evil fairy who can curse people. Stop that.

Happier things. Happier. I'm having some sort of thing whereby instead of writing all the time I need to clean and fix up the house all the time, no, I don't know why. I just got through a 10 item to-do list, maybe more like 12 or 13 items long, over the last couple of days and now I have a brand new to-do list around the house that's only 11 items 'cause I accidentally deleted the last one. I'm sure I'm going to come up with something more. And given that Haven is about to go on hiatus which will free up my weekends from this to maybe late January, I have no idea what the hell's going to happen after that. It's going to be interesting. Very, very interesting.

I also have no idea what prompted this sudden, massive burst of nesting, but it rather amuses me. And hey, if it keeps the house looking good. And encourages the boy to do his part on cleaning things because I'm clearly hard at work cleaning things and things are clean and, really, we're both best motivated when at least one of us is motivated. So, yeah, whatever. Nesting. I'm actually cutting some damn curtains tomorrow. Ugh, which means I do need to set up my sewing machine. Bleh. Now that I have working outlets in my craft room! I need to calm down. I do want to paint. And write. That's the other thing, all this urge to clean and fix and prettify is getting in the way of my other hobbies. Grr.

Okay, there's going to be a yearly check in with my girls at some point, but right now while I'm outlining over the last couple days, I did come up with a list of things I want to check in weekly (or monthly) with.

Weekly Word Count: Zip. Zilch. Or I didn't keep track, I finished Nano over the weekend, that's good enough. Edit count: Also zip.

Monthly House Projects: Get up the freaking curtains, especially since it'll help keep the heat in. Replace the damn doorknob on the bathroom door. Clear out all the dead shit from the garden, which at this point means the things that weren't properly garden to begin with and the flowerpots. This is going to be interesting when it comes time to either plant all the things next spring or put away all the things next fall/winter. Also, put up Christmas decorations.

Weekly Exercise Check-in: (This needs a better name) (Superheroing progress?) (Superhero training, evidently, was already a tag.) So far: arm positions, tendus, plies in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd position. Torso circles for bellydance, hip sway, hip drop, butterfly arms. Cat-Cow, cobra, plank, should add mountain in there, should add downward dog, should add pigeon again, mountain pose.

( Deutsch )

Discovered today that one of my new most fascinating actors IS in fact married, which is a pretty impressive feat to have kept it relatively quiet for this long after he got flung into the spotlight. But apparently he is, and happily married, and I still don't understand the fandom attitude that says omg not available? BLASPHEMY I HATE HIM FOREVER. He's happy, that's a good thing, isn't it? Also, he still looks goofy when he smiles big and real like that.

(Also, suddenly I want to see him as a Daddy because it would be all of the adorable. Ahem.)

I also had one of those weird moments today when I realized that no, this actor is not a little young to be married, he's around my age (less a year) and he's probably been married less time than I've been with the boy. And then that tangented into a discussion about how my best friend is not at all younger than me, we're the same age, one of us is just sort of.. time-delayed. And how no one's going to freak out when we're 40, we'll just freak out when we're suddenly dating/married to 40 year olds. Or something. My mindset regarding time and age is very weird.

Oof. I'm being forced to retool my superhero training again, more fine tune this time since it already got retooled for the shortening days. ( Superhero training ) On the plus side, this ought to hopefully fix some of my current problems. On the minus side, I'm going to have to pay even more attention to getting to bed on time because this means I really, really need to be awake and energized and on top of my game to do all this in the allotted time. And this would be so much easier if I had a wooden studio floor type thing, or even linoleum, but oh well. Superhero training is never easy! Nor dull. Nor quick to see results, oogh.

( Deutsch )

Seriously starting to wonder where my period went. Stupid bodies. On the other hand, if this screaming pounding headache is a sign that my body's finally ready to start doing what it's supposed to, that'd be fabulous.

It's a strange thing. I don't, myself, mind getting older. When I turned thirty there wasn't much discussion of whether or not it was a milestone, there wasn't much celebration. I thought a lot about the scene in the movie version of A Chorus Line where the dancer says she's going to be thirty real soon, and she's real glad. And I thought about that and decided I was, too. I liked where I was at thirty. I like where I am now.

But there's a weird feeling I get when I realize that my friends and family, and a friend in particular I just realized was going to be 32 in about five months, are getting older. He's 32. When we first met and started talking we were in our mid twenties or so, and somehow in my head that's where he's stayed. Never mind that I know how old he is, I know when his birthday is, and I know how old he'll turn this year. He's not allowed to get any older, dammit. He's supposed to stay where he is and be my adorable, wonderful friend.

(Which is really funny because we actually have drifted apart in terms of communication really, but he's still who he is.)

Oh, LJ, how do you work. The answer, in case you didn't already know, is really poorly when there's malice afoot. But I did manage to get on long enough to get my exercise list off my check in post from a week ago, so. For my own porpoises, and so you other finned creatures can see what lunacy is my superhero training. And when I get home I will print the damn thing up

( Superhero training )

And there, too, now I've ported or enabled others to port witchesbigbang to DW, since we hadn't made it a proper mirror before. Now all I have to do is check in with the girls and finish out the day. Which! Reminds me to remind someone else, too. Oof, maybe I'll get more done tonight than I did last night. Probably not. But maybe.