Passing the Time Away

I just don't feel like writing. I feel like holding my breath instead, as though if I held it and my words, the time would go by faster or something. I'm all still inside.

But regular life is going on, just like always. Regular life for me lately consists of a lot of exercise. Really, either exercise is as good as sex or I've forgotten how good sex is. I suspect that latter. However, what I've forgotten can't hurt me and in the meantime, I'm floating in a sea of endorphins released by good old fashioned push ups.

Not to mention the pride that comes from being able to do push ups. Two weeks ago I was all excited because I could do five lady style push ups. A week later I did two regular push ups and I looked and sounded as though I were giving birth to an elephant. (Great visual, huh?)

This morning I did ten easy, did some other stuff and then did ten more. Hooha! Of course, my husband can do over eighty in a minute, but you know, I'm not in the Army. And anyway, I'm not looking to have upper arms the size of Easter hams. Muscle definition though? Hell, yeah, I'll take some of that.

I never thought I'd be one of those girls. You know, the athletic kind. I was the kind that scored points for my volley ball team by the ball hitting my forehead while I stood day dreaming, causing it then to soar unimpeded back up and over the net, where the opposing team was too flummoxed to defend themselves. I call that my secret ninja forehead attack. (I keep feeling like I've talked about that story before, but it's such a good one! And I don't feel like going back over all my blogs to check.)

Now, though! Now I have exercising outfits. I went to Target and bought some essentials after I realized that I really shouldn't go jogging in leather sandals, even if they were very comfortable. I now have cute little jogging shorts disguised as a skirt and sleeveless rayon tops with a little mesh stripe that runs down the back, making me feel faster and more fit than I really am.

The first night I worked out with my friend, I watched open mouthed as she calmly and quickly did a whole bunch of Russian twists, which is a variation on the lazy V, which is the biggest misnomer ever. The lazy V is being able to sit up only on one's butt, with legs and arms tucked up. Basically, the abbs are holding the entire body up in a v position. There is absolutely nothing lazy about it.

Russian twists are where one is in this position and then twists the upper body from side to side for as long as one can hold out. I am not afraid to state that my very first lazy v was much more like the drunken, upside down tortoise. While I flailed around, my very toes curling up in my desperation to stay upright, let alone go side to side, my friend was steady as a rock, whipping out twists and talking at the same time. Dude.

This morning, however, I was able to go from side to side one hundred times. Unless I missed my count. To put it another way, I was able to do Russian twists for most of the entire time Kenney Chesney was singing about how he went out last night, (even though he'd sworn he wouldn't) and met girls from, among other places, Maine. Naturally, a lot of beer was consumed.

Anyway, because of all this working out, my body is like unfamiliar terrain. I have muscle definition on places I didn't even think muscle existed. I actually, for one fleeting moment, glimpsed my abbs. Yes. They are not mythological after all. Like the Lochness Monster, they then dived right back under, but I swear I really saw them. I could probably produce blurry photographs if pressed.

At the dentist office, I was mistaken for an athlete. This delighted me to no end.

"I'm not really," I confessed, gleeful but honest. But there were my legs, looking damn good in shorts, tanned and muscled, on my feet sleek little running sneakers. It was as though someone had pasted a Nike advertisement over my usual self.

If it weren't for all this working out, I just don't know how I would be handling all the nerves and energy of being this close to seeing Keith. If there were somewhere written "A Girl's Guide to Deployment," exercising, preferably out of doors, would be listed in Chapter Three: Passable Substitutions for Sex. Also listed would be chocolate and French Martinis.

(Chapter One would be devoted to long distance communication techniques and Chapter Two to the absolute necessity for a community of the other deploymentally challenged.

Yep, I just made up a word, and I think it's a darn good one. Very PC. I could have used it at work many times this past year, on the phone.

"I'm sorry, sir, could you repeat that? I'm having a very deploymentally challenging day today. Month eleven, you know." He wouldn't know, of course. But still.

By the way, thank you all so much for your comments on my last post. I don't know what I would have done had I not been so fortunate as to stumble across this corner of the blogosphere.

Now, time to head off for some quickie walking lunges before bed...if only there were the exercise equivalent for snuggling...