We’re so hot.

A bit of back story: A few days ago I was putting on my sports bra and Neil made a comment about how unsexy he thinks that particular garment is. I responded by calling him Mr. Patriarchy and telling him that not everything I do is for the benefit of the male gaze, which he thought was funny, which is one of the many reasons I love him.

Last night I was sitting on his lap and we were kissing, but I stopped things because it was time for me to work out.

Me, lustfully: But I’ll be back after that. All hot and sweaty and wearing my black sports bra. And maybe even those blue nylon shorts I’ve had since high school. And maybe you can put on your black leggings and red t-shirt that make you look like some kind of weird interpretive dancer for UofL.

Neil: Or maybe I’ll put on my yoga pants and Alrenco long-sleeved t-shirt.

Me: Oh, yeah!

It could be time for new workout wear and pajamas.

 

Getting strong now…

Because I occasionally enjoy throwing my feminism to the wind and becoming the biggest cliche ever, I decided that I wanted to try to lose some weight before the wedding. My previous attempts at weight loss have gone a little something like this:

1. Make sure that I track everything I eat and am within my target calorie range.
2. Plan to do a bunch of exercise I hate and then not do it regularly because I hate it.
3. Get really sick of counting calories and discouraged when I inevitably fall off the wagon.
4. Gain back the 5-7 pounds I have managed to lose.
5. Wait 6-12 months, repeat.

I didn’t really have a different plan in place this time around, I just thought that perhaps the wedding would provide the motivation I need to keep torturing myself long enough to reach my goal. But then something crazy happened: I discovered SparkPeople’s New YOU Bootcamp Workouts.

I have used SparkPeople before and I think it’s a great resource, but I’d never tried any of their videos. I liked the idea of having something different to do each day of the week and, more importantly, the fact that the videos are only 10 minutes long. How hard is it to get in 10 minutes of exercise a day? So I started doing them, along with 30 minutes of cardio almost every day (usually either walking to the grocery store for dinner or riding the stationary bike while listening to American Wife on audiobook). And this is how the weight loss has gone:

Week 1: Down 2.5 pounds
Week 2: Up 1.5 pounds
Week 3: Down 1 pound

So yes. After three weeks I have lost 2 pounds. This is not good progress by most people’s standards, and after week two I felt pretty discouraged. I told myself that I was probably just gaining muscle, but that was a small consolation. I needed that number on the scale to move! I needed to get from 183 to 160 by January so I could order my wedding dress! I was eating right and exercising and my body wasn’t holding up its end of the bargain!

Or was it?

Last week I was doing some honeymoon planning and I found out that you can rent bikes and ride across the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito. And I started thinking “Hey, if I’m in good enough shape to bike across the Golden Gate Bridge, maybe it doesn’t matter what I weigh or even what size dress I’m wearing.”

And then I started noticing:

- My calves have gotten quite muscular.
- My thighs, though still flabby, are becoming toned.
- My biceps have become, well, kind of awesome (a fact that did not go unnoticed at the Halloween party).
- I’ve stopped having so many random upper back pains.
- There are tiny hints of definition on the sides of my otherwise flabby tummy.
- I can do a lot more crunches before I get fatigued.
- Cardio workouts are getting increasingly easier.
- My jeans are just the tiniest bit looser.

Today is Day 23 of the 28-day bootcamp. I have not missed a workout yet. This is totally unprecedented for me. I know that doing a 10-minute workout every day for a month may not seem like a big deal, but I’ve never been consistently physically active in any way, so this is significant. Not only is it establishing a great habit (I really love doing these workouts!), it’s getting me in better shape for more strenuous activity. (I think that’s where previous attempts at exercise always fell apart; I’d try to do too much too quickly, I’d hate the way it made me feel, I’d dread doing it, and then I’d just stop.) I find myself thinking not so much about being thin, but about being strong and in good cardiovascular health. I am still watching what I eat, because I could stand to develop some healthier habits in that area too. But I really feel like I’m doing something good for my body instead of just trying to get skinny for its own sake.

 

Rosie

I swear I will write a real entry soon, but right now I just want to share my Halloween costume. I think it’s my favorite ever.

My dad asked me “Did you get that muscle from working out or is your other hand pushing it up?” I am proud to say that that is all me, thankyouverymuch!

 

Meow!

Look at this hot man I’m marrying!

Photo by the wonderfully talented Lisa J. Huber, who will also be shooting our engagement photos in a few weeks (but who can’t shoot our wedding because she’s in it!).

 

This stuff is magic!

Otis is pretty much the perfect dog; he rarely barks, he doesn’t (usually) chew things up, and he charms the pants off of just about everyone he meets. But sometimes he pees in the house. This actually hasn’t happened in a long time, but there was a place on the carpet where it had happened twice. And we tried to clean it up. We tried Nature’s Miracle, which works great on hard surfaces, but didn’t do much on the carpet. And then we just sort of resigned ourselves to having a stain there, figuring that eventually we’d have to rent a steam cleaner or something in order to get our damage deposit back.

But then we met RugDoctor’s Urine Eliminator.

I read the reviews and I was skeptical. But I was also intrigued. People gushed over it. “THIS IS THE FIRST CARPET CLEANER THAT ACTUALLY MADE ME SMILE AND BROUGHT A TEAR TO MY EYE!” reads one Amazon review. They sell it at Kroger, so I figured I’d give a shot.

Oh my god, people. I don’t know how it works, but it does. Like whoa.

I followed the directions, soaking the stain with Urine Eliminator and then covering it with a damp towel. 24 hours later, the stain was on the towel and the carpet was pristine. There was no scrubbing or blotting or anything. Spray, cover, blam.

If you have pet stains – even old ones – you need this product. Nothing has knocked my socks off like this in a long time.

 

Style Rookie

I don’t consider myself a particularly fashionable person, but I do have a sort of passing interest in fashion, as I have an interest in pretty much all forms of art and design. Several years ago Neil got me started reading The Sartorialist, which is always interesting, even when it gives me a big WTF (and even though I wish it featured more folks who weren’t skinny and white).

I recently added another fashion blog to my Google Reader, and people, I am totally crazy about it. It’s Style Rookie. This self-described “tiny 13 year old dork” is passionate and hilarious and wonderful. I wish I’d been even half as self-possessed and awesome when I was that age (or, you know, now). I mean, go read her recent post about meeting Marc Jacobs. Isn’t she just the best thing ever?

 

Why I will not go to shows at the 930 Listening Room

The 930 Listening Room hosts a lot of good shows. Among the acts that I would have liked to have seen there have been Over the Rhine, Grizzly Bear, Laura Veirs, and Yo La Tengo. Neil just informed me that Joe Henry will be playing there in October. I don’t love Joe Henry as much as Neil does, so it’s not really a big deal to me that I can’t go. But our conversation about it reminded me all over again why I can’t go.

I refuse to see shows at the 930 Listening Room because it’s owned by Sojourn Community Church, which believes (among other objectionable things) that homosexuality is a sin.

As is thoroughly explained in this (poorly formatted) LEO feature, the church belongs to the Southern Baptist Convention and, despite its young, hip, progressive image, is actually quite conservative.

I asked a group of four Sojourn pastors — Montgomery, Cosper, Ivey and Kevin Janes, who handles booking for the listening room — how they square the idea that their church is open and community-centric with their belief that homosexuality is a sin and gay people can be “changed.” That is, whether they think they can have it both ways: Gays are free to come to Sojourn, but only after they acknowledge that they need to be saved from the sinfulness of being gay. “We don’t see them as antithetical to one another,” Montgomery said. “It’s all people walking the earth — gay people, people who are gay are welcome at our services, are welcome to partner with us on urban renewal initiatives. There’s no barrier in any of the ministries we offer and so forth.” At the same time, he said, they also believe humanity has been marred by sin, “and one of the expressions of that fallenness, of what is shattered, is intimate relations in same-sex relationships.”

Uh, yeah. Fuck that. Even if my beloved A.C. Newman were to play there, I would not go. I could not in good conscience give those people my money. It looks like they do a lot of good works in the neighborhood, and that’s great, but I cannot support them and their homophobic beliefs.

I know that I am but a tiny voice in the blogosphere, but if you are reading this and you are a Louisvillian, please think twice about going to the 930 Listening Room. And if any of your favorite acts are planning to come to the Listening Room, please email them and let them know the truth, whether you plan to go to the show or not.

Edited to add: In case you need something a little more clear-cut about Sojourn’s stance on homosexuality, check out their “support groups.” The first thing on the list of issues? “Sexual Addiction (from lust to homosexuality).” Sure, they welcome gays, if you’re a gay-who-wants-to-be-straight.

 

My Creepy Mind

I admit to being a nervous flyer, not so much so that I won’t fly (I actually sort of love to fly), but enough to have sweaty palms and a bit of anxiety about it. This time around I noticed a really morbid tendency in myself; I kept thinking about how after plane crashes, the news media always refer to “the doomed flight,” which to me has a certain sense of dramatic irony to it, a sort of cosmic – if not human – foreknowing. I thought about this every time I was at the gate waiting to board, looking around at all the perfectly average people getting ready to embark on what would almost undoubtedly be a perfectly uneventful flight. Unless it wasn’t. Unless it was The Doomed Flight. I couldn’t help but think about how it’s always like that, people standing around looking bored or tired, laden with carry-ons, ready to be where they’re going. No one ever knows they’re about to board The Doomed Flight. But every once in a while, people do. I’d think about the utter obliviousness of these people and give myself a surge of anxiety, sort of like pressing on a bruise to feel its ache. Because, well, I’m morbid and a bit masochistic. Fortunately, none of my flights were doomed (although I had concerns about my flight from Louisville to Atlanta, which had to be “powered down and powered back up,” like a damned router, before we could take off).

Anyway, I am home. Neil met me at the airport with a bouquet of flowers (awww!) and then we had lunch and the best snuggly nap ever. Snuggles are so good when you haven’t had them for a week!

 

Last day in Texas

Howdy! Today is my last day visiting my BFF Tab in Greenville. I’ve had a great visit, and I’m surprised that I’m not more eager to go home. (Of course, it’s hard to be excited about going home when I have to get up at 5:00 am for my flight, but that’s something else.)

Things I have done in Texas:

- Been interviewed by Tab’s students about being a freelance writer, which was a lot of fun.
- Had some very good sushi.
- Gone to a crazy fancy-pants mall. Didn’t buy anything, but I am totally going to take Neil to the Art of Shaving Barber Spa when we’re San Francisco next year.
- Walked out of District 9. We were all expecting social commentary, but what we got was gore. Terrible movie.
- Had an amazing dinner at Local.
- Seen several high school football stadiums befitting small colleges.
- Gone to a normal middle class mall where I actually bought things. (JCPenney and Payless FTW!)
- Eaten a lot of Tab’s wonderful cooking.
- Experienced a lot of obsequiousness on the part of service personnel, including grocery store employees who practically would not let us carry our own groceries to the car and restaurant staff who opened doors for us.
- Finished a short story! (More on that momentarily.)

Things I have not done in Texas:

- Sung the first few lines of “Deep in the Heart of Texas” in public to see how people would respond.
- Worked very much. (Oops.)
- Talked to Neil very much. In fact, although we’ve texted, emailed, and chatted, we haven’t talked on the phone at all. This is the longest we’ve been apart since we met almost 5 years ago, which is kind of crazy. Does it sound shitty to say that I haven’t missed him as much as I thought I would? I’m definitely looking forward to seeing him tomorrow, and I really missed him when we ate at Local, but it hasn’t been an on-going nagging sadness the way I expected it to be. Since I’ve initiated almost all the contact we’ve had since I’ve been here, I suspect he doesn’t miss me that much, either.

Overall I’ve had a lovely time, and it’s been great spending time with Tab and Bill again. As you may recall, Tab and I lived within walking distance of one another for several years, so it has been a big (and crappy) change having her gone. I’m looking forward to lots more visits!

Okay, so, the short story! I started it several weeks ago, and while I was here, I actually finished it! It’s “finished” in the sense that it has a beginning, middle, and end, but it still needs lots and lots of revision. But there are parts of it that I really love. It started off as kind of an idle (or idol) fantasy/writing exercise, but it’s turned into something kind of okay. I have this funny sense that the story already exists, perfectly, and I am like an archeologist, carefully excavating it with picks and brushes. Or that it is a blurry image that I am slowly bringing into focus. It has been a thrilling process. I am looking forward to getting it revised enough to let a few people read it, and then hopefully workshopping it.

In other short story news, I have been reading Best New American Voices 2008, a collection of short stories from new writers. I’ve really been enjoying it and I’m looking forward to getting the 2009 edition, which is already out. (I’m not sure why B&N only had 2008.) You should pick it up!

Anyway, this is supposed to be a working vacation, so now we work.

 

Stumbling Blocks

I’ve been spending a lot of time the last few days thinking about this big writing project I have in mind, the one I’ve written about 25 pages of so far. I find myself running up against multiple problems, many of which I’ve encountered in other projects. Some are really minor, and some threaten to ruin the whole thing. In no particular order:

How do I write autobiographical fiction? Actually, this question is more “Is it okay to write autobiographical fiction?” Early in my writing career (which is to say, as a teenager), some trusted and well-meaning friends criticized the fact that my fiction was always, at least to begin with, based on something that had happened to me. At some point I came to the conclusion that the only reason I felt compelled to write this way was that I wasn’t creative enough to come up with anything else. Even though I now realize that there is a long and illustrious literary tradition in this vein, I still have a lot of doubts about it. And not the sort of doubts you would expect, like “Would people end up hating me if this were ever actually published?” But more like “Am I cheating by basing this story so much on things that actually happened?”

How do I write characters that are more intelligent than I am? If I assume, reasonably, that my protagonist is approximately as intelligent as I am, what happens when she encounters another character who is smarter than she is? I’m sure there are ways around this, but I haven’t figured out what they are yet, and the part of the story that involves two characters discussing literary theory is currently represented as {stuff I’ll write later}.

How do I choose books for my characters to read without sounding pretentious? I can’t believe how hard this is! Books and reading frequently turn up in my fiction because it’s something that I and people I know do all the time; it’s a natural part of life. And I swear I am not trying to send a message or impress anyone with the books I select; I just want it to be something realistic and interesting. I mean, of course the book is going to send a message; whether a character is reading Janet Evanovich or Borges is going to tell you something about that character. But I’m not trying to personally send a message or name-drop. Nabokov is the author closest to my heart but I refuse to reference him directly because it feels like a personal cliche. Right now I have a character reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being, which is a book I love, but it also seems kind of cliche. But maybe that’s okay because my two main characters are English majors, and when better to read cliched fiction than when you’re a self-involved undergrad?

Related somewhat to the previous question, how do I write characters in their early 20s who are actually reasonable and likable? I was a total idiot in my early 20s. I think a lot of people are confused about things at that age and make stupid mistakes, but I don’t know how to write these characters and make them, at a bare minimum, tolerable. If people ever read this book, I want them to think “Oh, I remember that time in my life,” not “This story and these characters are utterly immature.”

Which also leads me to the question of perspective. I started the story in first person, present tense. I am not at all convinced that that’s the best way to approach it. Should my protagonist tell the story in the past tense, perhaps in a memoir-type style? Or should I just ditch the first person entirely embrace the third person? I think this will require some experimentation.

What responsibility do I have to keep the secrets of the dead? And, perhaps more importantly, what responsibility do I have to keep those secrets true, as opposed to mucking them up with fictionalization? As Jim White says, “It’s a sin putting words in the mouths of the dead… It’s a crime to weave your wishes into what they said.” I think that the reason that this bothers me is that in the case of other fictionalized characters in the story, there is still a real person who is alive and knows the truth of what happened, and that makes me feel okay about creating a kind of revisionist history. But this person is no longer here to serve as a vessel for her portion of this reality, and that bothers me. (She’s also no longer here to serve as an incredibly intelligent, talented, creative, hilarious friend, but that’s another issue entirely.)

How do I write about unrequited love and make it poignant and not pathetic? How do I justify my protagonist’s decision to remain involved with a person who is not treating her as well as he should? That’s a very realistic and human thing to do, but I still doesn’t make sense, and I feel I have to make it make sense to my readers somehow. I know I have to make my readers fall in love with my protagonist’s love interest in some way, but I’m not sure how to accomplish that.

I’m finding that I really love writing about the writing process in my blog. Hopefully it’s not painfully boring to read! But it really helps me to work on stuff this way, and it’s also validating in a way to discuss the writing process publicly and not make creative writing a secret hobby that I feel ashamed to be attempting.

To balance the preceding list of writing woes, here are a couple things I really love about this story:

The sex. It’s central to the story, and it’s so fun to write. I’m also pretty good at it, if I say so myself.
The various themes it deals with, including the concept of being intimate with someone through another person (this has always fascinated me), flexible sexualities, mental illness, and class distinctions.

Doesn’t that sound fascinating? Now if only I can do it justice.