Hark! The mothership comes.

After laughing for ages at how Shauny refers to her mother as The Mothership, I feel the need to steal her reference for the next few days. For lo, the Mothership is preparing to wing her way from the Tulliverse to Huntsvegas, and the Huntsvegas natives may never be the same.

first breath:
joy, laughter, jubilance, tears
photo ops
congratulatory cards
bassinets and sleep deprivation

first love:
nervousness, sweating, jubilance, tears
and everything in between
photo ops
secret letters
stolen kisses and forever promises

first loss:
disbelief, numbness, anger, tears
no photos
just flowers
and wondering how it all went so fast
from that to this

Far be it from me to jump on the bandwagon of the insanity of dress sizes for American women. What is an 8? A 12? A 16? Is a 16 the same as a 16W? Why do women have to just instinctively know that an 8 in one manufacturer is a 12 in another, while men have to remember nothing more than (very concrete) waist and inseam measurements to find a pair of jeans that fit?

That's another rant for another day. Surprisingly enough, I'm not in a ranting mood. Quite the opposite, actually.

Two years, minus eight days, ago:

Comfort care, for the living, is the cell phone that rings at a random hour, with the voice of an old friend on the other end of the line who says, "Look, I know you're up. Walk out of the room and talk to me."
— 'Comfort care,' 18 March 2002

I've been holding off talking about this past week, hoping that I'd have some changes to report. Something worth celebrating - heck, at this point, I'd settle for 'worth writing about.' It's not been a good week. Not by any stretch of the imagination. I think I can safely say that it was worse than the first week I worked out, and that's saying something.Becky's weights regimen is not working well for me. I've suspected this for most of the past week, but wanted to give myself at least through Monday to make sure that it wasn't just me bellyaching over new work. Sure, I am, to some degree, but that's not all it is.

Becky asked me to start all the exercises at three sets (see link in previous paragraph), with no instructions for increasing weight, reps, or sets over the next couple of weeks. It was just, 'do this, and if you can'd do it at this weight, drop down until you're able to finish the reps.'

I hate writing about the bad days here, mostly because my natural urge is to keep them to myself. However, I cannot present this chronicle of workouts as an entirely positive process, because that is not the case. I don't bounce in to the gym every morning, happy and perky to be there. Some mornings find me in workout clothes and shoes more through habit than excitement, and the workout is not an exercise of joy but in, simply, endurance.