Homecoming

Sometimes people donate their bodies to science.

When a school is done with the remains, they are cremated and returned to the family.

Cremains are usually mailed registered mail.  I signed one such package over today, and the elderly woman said he was being returned to her on his birthday.

The package was somewhat hefty and she seemed somewhat frail and I offered to take it to her car.  She accepted and the small girl with her asked what the package was.  She told the child it was hard to explain but it was something special.

I placed the package in the seat behind her and they drove away.

Second Chances

Not getting to do the track weekend put me into a huge funk and when weekends come I haven't been leaving the house.  I wonder if I've become clinically depressed.  I decided not to go to an autocross in my own town but it turned out it wasn't held because there was too much water on the course from the rains.  I'll get another chance to go this weekend. I'll have one on Saturday and one on Sunday.

Unless I decide not to go.

My ex keeps urging me to go to Little Rock.  I wonder if this is a good idea.  I wonder if I should drive some 900 miles with my vision where it is now.  I was covering up my right eye and looking at the time clock today, waiting to clock in.  My left eye seems to have double vision, all by itself.

I wonder if she has allies there who will dump a bucket of pig's blood on me.

I haven't done P90x for a while, either.  Maybe there's no point in exercising at my age.  It's like I can't make endorphins anymore.

weather warning

I have never seen a tornado in real life but I really enjoy weather porn.  When I have a dream about tornadoes, there's not just one, but several advancing on the horizon.

Netflix Streaming

Well, I am not that happy with it.  I am waiting right now for it to load again and hope it makes it.  I read somewhere that one should watch from a computer with a wired connection.  My router is in my basement but I may want to move it upstairs and maybe move the phone to the kitchen.

I was at the eye doctor after work.  The retinal specialist called and I am supposed to go back to see him and I thought I'd get my prescription updated so maybe I could at least see the letters on the wall...

The right eye has had a few idiopathic bleeds for about six years now.  I had them again last year, triggering a series of visits to the retinal specialist and the bleed would seem to improve and I wouldn't get any shots in my eye, since I am not bleeding because of neovascularization. Then the original bleed was over with but a new one started up but was gone by the next appointment and I didn't have to go back for six months.

Tonight during the one-two, three-four, which is better routine, nothing looked good for the left eye, the eye that is not bleeding.  I even asked if we were even looking at letters because they were just spiky shapes.

I have reached the point with that eye where they can't fix it anymore.  So tonight I am going to have a few beers and somehow figure out in the days ahead what the heck people do when they can't drive them selves around anymore.  I have to get to a driving school next spring for sure.  I'd like to do one with Corvettes but I didn't go to Miller Motorsports because it was ridiculously expensive to just drive Mustangs there (race prepped ones for around $5000, and would include a Ford GT for $8000) so once I find out what it costs to rent a Corvette Grand Sport, I might forget about that dream too.

And there Netflix is loading again, glad it's not my favorite episode- I watched that one, last night, the body switching episode on Farscape.

I really shouldn't embrace self pity because there are people who have real problems, horrible diseases that are going to kill them or make them really miserable and I am relatively healthy.   But impending blindness is a bummer and I am going to get a little drunk tonight and not worry about p90x tomorrow.

And I don't think all that much of John Crichton marrying that princess.  You know he loves Aeryn.

Kenpo

Kenpo is punching and kicking.  I am not very coordinated at all.  So a lot of times, what I was doing didn't look all that much like what they were doing.

And you know what?  Screw jumping jacks.  They hurt my knees.

Holiday Aftermath

These long weekends are nice but they are a bitch when I go back to work.  Couple that with some one being on vacation and it means today will be hellish.  So I gave my self the day off from P90X.  And I'm having a beer tonight.

Teetotal-ling is not agreeing with me that much.  I keep waiting for the endorphins from exercise to make me all happy and it's not happening.  I used to love to work out but that seemed to end when I was 35.  Now I am 54 and am trying to not think life is over.  The numbers will never go up again, unless maybe I take testosterone, which I am sure would make me real happy.  But I don't think I like the idea of taking shots for the rest of my life.

I think my mistake this weekend was trying to keep up with them.  I can't do 25 reps on lunges or other weird leg exercises.  I should have just done 5 or ten and then I probably could have lasted the whole workout.  I'm not very sore now.  The next video is "kenpo".  After the massive yoga fail, I dread whatever this is.

I missed the butch-femme mini bash in Minneapolis this weekend.  With my libido gone, I just don't see the reason to be around people.  I wonder if I'll ever feel good (without drinking) again.

More Fail

Crap, when are the warm ups going to stop feeling hard?  I made it through half the back and leg workout before I felt sick and stopped.

Setback

Yoga is brutally hard.  The Yoga dvd is 90 minutes, not the usual hour, so it should have been ok since it is the weekend and I didn't have to be done in an hour to get ready for work.  But I only lasted 20 minutes and I admit my irritation at this workout being so long might have led to me bailing.  Because it is so hard, it really seems like an hour would have been more than enough.  It's also hard to see what they are doing when you are doing it yourself, so next time I'll have to setup sideways or something.

P90X Day 3

With the holiday weekend, I thought I'd sleep as long as I needed to before I got up, which turned out to be about nine hours.  The third dvd is shoulders and arms.  I'm still sore from the first workout, although I can look at my watch without howling in pain.  I also remembered to take my "before" pictures of my flabby thin body.  I did that before when I started at Anytime fitness and couldn't tell any difference with them.

I had dreams, which I don't seem to much anymore, probably because I don't get as much sleep as I need.  There was something about being in a huge house and there were lots of people and someone was going around cutting the fringe off of rugs and place mats.  I knew it was one of the children and I was determined to find out which one.  Everyone else seemed quite indifferent about it.

P90X Day 2

I awoke in pain at four in the morning.  The worst spot is on my elbow, where the tricep inserts into the elbow.  So when I put my wrist up to look at the time- "Yee-ouch!"  I rubbed a little Icy Hot on it and tried to go back to sleep, but couldn't so when five am rolled around, I put in the disc called "Plyometrics" with dread.

The man was accompanied by three different people today, one was a man with an artificial leg.  Plyometrics involves a lot of jumping.  Many of the exercises could be modified to have less impact.  I found it was very painful to squat very deep.  So I didn't go deep.  The exercises have interesting names, like Monster Truck Tires and Mary Katharines. Yep, after Mary Katharine Gallagher and her signature move.

After the workout I fixed a smoothie with blueberries, yogurt and protein powder and some Advil.  Then I had my oatmeal.

Exercise

So at my last physical I was told my cholesterol was elevated and to adjust my diet and exercise and we'd see how it was next year.  I've slowly adjusted the diet to include less fat and my weight has gone down a little and I'm drinking a lot less.  So what to do about exercise?

I had an Anytime Fitness membership that I allowed to lapse.  I went two or three times a week and did the same thing every time and kind of got bored, I guess.  And within a month of not going anymore, I suddenly weighed ten pounds more and the most I've ever weighed in my life.  And some other stuff happened that probably should have sent me to the doctor then but I'm hoping that was cleared up when I had the colonoscopy.

So now I am doing P90X.  It came in the mail yesterday and I did the first dvd this morning at 5 am.  A very fit man led two other men and a woman through a routine for chest and back.  They warm you up and take you through 12 sets of variations of pull ups and push ups and some dumbbell rows.  Sometimes the leader would announce the exercise and ask each participant how many reps they planned to do and they would answer something like "30!"  My answer was usually 5, or three.  I'm 54, ok?  And it's been ages since I've been able to do a pull up or a regular guy's push up.  And I am very sore tonight.

Another thing I have to do is start getting to bed earlier, I can't do this kind of workout and then get by on four or five hour's sleep.  I don't know if I will do the workouts every day, but I will try at first.  I may have to do every other day.