All the Horrible Girliness

I always wanted to be able to do this. There's something about bellies.

One of my mini goals is to be able to go through class without a shirt. It's cumbersome to adjust a tank top every few minutes.

Whenever I start cutting some weight, the first thing I look at is my belly. In the morning, the light is just right in my bedroom to shadow correctly and make my belly look nice. I lift my arms up, stretch back, twist, and it almost looks good.

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I've been running sprints at the gym once or twice a week to mimic the kind of cardio I need for sparring. Last time, I really pushed it. Knocked out a better time than I have in years. It required Static X and Slipknot, and I had to talk to myself the entire time. People start sliding away from me when I do it: "C'mon girl, you got this, push, thirty seconds, c'mon!" But it works. I also mouth the lyrics to those songs, so if anyone cared to watch me, it would look pretty scary. Beet-red face, tendrils of hair flying, ass bouncing, talking to myself and occasionally lip syncing, "You can't kill me cause I'm already inside you." And those are the nice lyrics.

I reward myself mid-workout with things. Sips of water, the fan on the cardio machine. So last time, I told myself I'd take off my tee-shirt on the last sprint. I did, ripping it off fast during my minute of fast walking, readjusting the headphones just in time to catch (sic) by Slipknot, and I ran my butt off, making better time than I did on the first sprint. I felt utterly ridiculous, but free and cool, and very thirty years old, giving nary one shit about whether people thought I should be shirtless. But it was so contrived and silly. In that picture up there, Brandi just let it fly. I planned it out for ten minutes.

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I almost don't want to give the P.S. to my last blog entry because it was so ridiculous, but I believe in writing it down, I put something out into the universe that created a solution. But it wasn't the solution I was looking for. It reminded me of Bedazzled, when the guy finally was witty, charming, successful and gorgeous, with a huge penis. The girl was interested in him, but he was gay.

I told Mister Aran about how I am in class. Shy, my head down, not talking to people, always the last kid picked for dodgeball. He straight up told me I should quit. I figured that might not be a bad idea, that I'd wait a month.

So I got to class, head down, there's one of the big instructors against the wall chatting some guy. I jumprope and we pair off and I'm last. Instructor barks out, "Everyone get down and do pushups," which means we've done something wrong. I start getting down and he amends: "Everyone except her."

I looked around in horror. My tactic was to be as small as possible in that class, humble but harder working than anyone. Invisible would have been better. But the guy goes on, "Every time she's here, she's the last one without a partner. She's here to train just like the rest of you, and she's better than fricking ninety percent of you. So every time she's the last one without a partner, you all do pushups. And I'm sending [Mister Aran] in to kick all your asses."

I held my glove up against my face and hid. I could feel the tears in my throat.

Yes, it worked, and the guys were very chill about it. I always had a partner. It wasn't brought up again. Some people have asked me what I would have done in his position instead to fix the problem and I don't know. Just not that.

posted by Samus @ 8:31 AM