I'm no Superman (Day 60)

Today I was walking home from the library past some apartment complexes when I smelled a strong concentration of natural gas. "That's odd," I thought. I waited for the smell to dissipate but it instead increased in intensity and spread up the street. I began debating what to do. Should I tell someone? Should I ignore it? Then I remembered an old Zen is Stupid episode that suggested that we look at the motivation behind our first thoughts in these situations. "O.k," I reasoned, "maybe I am just being lazy. What if there is a gas leak? I could save children!" Spider senses tingling, I raced home and dialed the gas company. They arrived an hour later and asked me to point them to the area of the "leak". I gestured vaguely at the apartment complexes. The smell was gone.

"Do you know what that is across the street?" they asked. "Uh...an electrical building?" I guessed. One of the technicians chuckled. "Yes... and behind that is a sewage treatment plant!" My little brother isn't here so I'll say it for him: "IDIOT." Natural gas indeed.

Meditation, Japanese learning, and PCP continue apace. I'm not loving the slow jumpropes. I like to spaz out and jump as fast as I can, so I save that for the last minute or two of jumping. I almost reached muscle failure with my legs the other day. One of them was shaking so badly I had trouble standing on the band for Da Vinci's. I tried to reach it with my Katanas last night. It's strange. I would get a good burn and then not be able to lift the band all the way up and continue with half reps. Then I would do my pause, get a few full reps in, then have to continue at half reps. I guess next time I'll keep half-repping it until my muscles won't move anymore...

I would like to pass the curse of the Banana Boat song on to some other beginning meditator.

Japanese people, please kindly remove the characters "oh," "nu," and "nay" from your alphabet as they are difficult to write and I dislike them.

I've been flossing every day to keep away the nano particles. I haven't seen the article about this particular benefit of flossing, but Patrick explains things well and by this point I trust him enough that if he said that vigorously picking your nose for five minutes a day was healthful for your spleen I would probably do it. Don't worry Pat, I've got that one covered. Finger guns, wink.

I bring the crazy (Day 56)

I went to the unemployment office today. I walked in the door and they were like, "wow! A sarcastic English major! There's been a shortage, and we just love your bad attitude! You're just what we're looking for." And then the whole office stood up and applauded.

I also went to the playground today for a more thorough check for small pull-up bars and there are now 10 little holes in our door frame where the screw hit the concrete and an unused Gold's Gym pull-up bar in my closet. I jumped up on the big pull-up bar and flailed around for a few seconds before concluding, "nope, still too fat." I also snapped my jumprope a few days back. The leather was worn through. Yeah, PCP tradition and all that. Where's the jumprope fairy?


Tonight I might put an extra dollop of honey in my yogurt. I'll foil you yet, Reynolds! BWAHAHAHAHAH!!!!

Embracing the suck (day 55)

Curses, pants, cursing pants (day 54)

Re: today’s educational Patrick e-mail: I thought up a good pickup line for a health store: “hey baby, how 'bout I be the anti-oxidant to your free radical?”

Tiny frustrations abound these days. Today I was tugging at my pant leg with a little tear in my eye. “Pants,” I bemoaned, “why do you hate me, Pants?” One of the indicators of fitness on the PCP litmus test is how our pants fit. I started a size 14, and I am still…size 14. Curse my pants.

I have also developed the worrying habit of lifting up my shirt when I pass a mirror. It used to be to check for ab definition, but now it’s more compulsive. What if I’m in a shopping mall post-PCP and catch my reflection and then I’m flashing the mannequins at Nordstrom?

Speaking of curses, it occurred to me that Patrick seems to want to be cursed. He’s always saying things like “bring it on” or “I can take it.” I would never curse Patrick. But I do curse my lousy lousy form (yes I look in a mirror)(with my shirt on), curse my inability to do a pushup right, curse the Perfect Pushup bars, curse the pullup, curse failing muscle failure, and triple curse the pistol squat, which seems to change form and intensity every time I try to get it right. If you would like to curse these things, I give you:

Useful Curses in a Minor Arabic Dialect:

Gssar amarak: May god shorten your life.
(This a catchall phrase, used for children, animals, cab drivers, inanimate objects, and annoying people.)
Yah-hrek…: May god burn (insert phrase)
Wirk: Ass
Eeyatiik hnesh: May god give you a snake.
Ane nithammen nte yejbar (hnesh) vi sirwaltak: I hope you find a snake in your pants. (haha)

But why stop at snake (hnesh)? How about goat (anz), cat (moosh), or sheep (kebsh?) If you want an antidote to the curse, just say “mahu vali” or, “may it not be so, it was just a joke, I'm kidding.” Want a blessing? Say "salaamu-alleykum" or "peace be upon you."

Yesterday I failed at muscle failure. Does failing at failing mean you succeed? Or does it just take you out to another special level of failure, like an F-? And is that a form of success in itself? I think the lesson we all learned here today is AAAAAAAGGGGHHHH CURSE PATRICK CURSE PATRICK!!!!!!!!!!!

(Mahu vali).

To give you a reference I'm somewhere between a snake and a mongoose and...a panther! (Day 53)

Today's hiragana letter: Ah, written as a T and a squiggle fish, one of the letters in one of the Japanese alphabets. Only 47 more letters to go in this alphabet. And I studied "i" which looks like a nose and the line beside your mouth when you smile.

Meditating in the morning was ok, probably better than meditating at night. I hope I'm doing it right; I read about one guy who closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep to 'meditate,' every day for 10 years until he met a teacher.

I tried to go for muscle failure today with my legs. I squatted, pistol squatted, crept, and even threw in a few floor jumps. Those suckers wouldn't fail! I mean, they couldn't complete some of my pistol squats, but afterward I could still floor jump. I did fall forward a lot. It was very intense the whole workout, closer to what I'm looking for. I think I'm losing some weight... down to 157. I hope it maintains and keeps dropping. This is good, since I feel like having a lower body weight could help me do cool things with it.

Bhava tanha (Day 52)

Hey look, it's Patrick on that peak over there! No wait, it's just a Nene bird.

These next few days I am going to be embracing the suck big time. (Not that that sounds like a karma sutra term or anything, ahem.) First, I'm learning how to drive. This is something that most kids learn when they are sixteen and not, uh...shut up. I nearly hyperventilate every time I change lanes.

Next, I'm going to try to learn to read and write a few Japanese characters every day. My parents, and hopefully me might be moving there for different reasons. They have like, three different alphabets. Lots of room for suck.

I want to try out a real pullup again at the playground, not just a modified table one.

I'm going to go for muscle failure, even if this means doing extra sets.

I'm going to start meditating in the morning for ten minutes instead of five minutes at night. And re-learn the basics of Buddhism. Anyone have a good Buddhism basics book they can point me to?

I'm going to try to get a job.

Show me a Jessica trying to learn something and I'll show you this cat trying to get a drink of water (ok, I just wanted an excuse to post this.):




Hang loose. Or ten. Or something.


P.S. added new week 7 photo

She acts like she's the queen, and we're the sorry people! (day 51)

Here's a few interesting things:

1.) The "Bacon is Good for You" downloadable remix, see Mike's blog for reference.

2.) The anti-PCP, the Darth to our Luke, also known as the Fat Project This project has been taken off the web since its creation, but you can read about it at Salon.com. "The Fat Project challenged [two people] to gain 30 pounds in 30 days for $3,000. Site visitors could read project updates, consider "scientific" weight-gain charts, check out progressive photos of the contestants and chat on lively message boards."


Yesterday I managed to eat some unbearably salty airport turkey for my meat grams, as well as some late yogurt and a cheese sandwich. Not the greatest, but the best I could manage at the time. I ended up waking up at noon today. Repercussions from vacation include: missing eggs, missing breakfast and snack, and sunburn as well as a toll on my body clock. I'm a little worried 'cause behind my ear is swollen. I'd like to think it's from snorkel mask irritation. The internet says I need surgery for mastondonitis or something. Thanks, internet.


Realizations of the last few days:

-I'm trying to work down to the point that some PCPeeps were when they started, then I'll go from there.
-The PCP is not just 90 days, or even 125.
-After getting into a few big arguments over somebody close to me's personal habits, I realized that I can't change somebody by lecturing them. It's up to them if they want to or not.

Oh, and E? I thought of you a lot in Hawaii cause of that funny comic you posted... There was a bird called the Nene bird. Oh nay nay!