First off, thank you for all your kind and supportive comments, emails and Facebook messages in the past couple of days. You guys are amazing and you help keep me going through the hard times. I continue to find it incredible the way that people can connect on the Internet, the ways in which they can share and help one another. Then again, everyone is currently announcing their bra color in their Facebook status, which is a literally marvelous but otherwise entirely un-marvelous application of these trillions of interconnected fibers. The Internet is hit or miss.
I went to Jazzercise today. My month-long membership at the CrossFit out here had expired, and I needed to fucking exercise, and I have been wanting to go to Jazzercise ever since I realized that it not only still existed, but existed in the form of a full-fledged studio around the corner from my mother’s house. It was $15 for a drop-in, and worth every penny.
First off: They really do have a giant stage at the far end of the studio where the instructor stands with a head-strapped microphone and shouts out instructions over pulsing music. My mind was blown. And I don’t know that the moves have changed at all since the ’80s. You’re still doing a bunch of step-step-point while throwing your arms around in the air. It’s everything you imagined it would be.
That said, it’s actually a really tough workout. It’s not, like, CrossFit tough (at no point did I truly think I was going to vomit and/or pass out, which is my barometer of workout toughness since I started doing CrossFit), but it’s challenging aerobic activity. They really keep you moving for the full hour, without any breaks, and I was surprised at how quickly my muscles and my cardiovascular system started to “feel the burn.” Plus, when you’re learning all the moves for the first time, you just look like a total moron. I found myself wishing I’d taken more dance classes as a kid.
The most notable thing, I think, was the age of the other women in the class and their comparative fitness level. And by “comparative fitness level” what I mean is “totally comparable to mine despite the fact that they were 30 years older.” Man, I am a slacker. These chicks were buff and bouncing around and probably have 18 grandchildren apiece. They were totally inspiring in addition to being totally depressing. I mean, you’d think that I’d have a better body than most of the 60-year-olds in the room, but no. I am a pudgy, lazy, out-of-shape slob in comparison to the Jazzercisers. I kept telling myself that older women have a harder time maintaining fat mass, but the truth is that they also have a harder time retaining muscle mass, and quite a few of these ladies had totally ripped arms. No, it turns out my fitness level is just utterly reprehensible compared to that of women twice my age. Must get my butt in gear.
Anyway. I still didn’t sleep last night. I talked to Wiggles and he was like, “Dude, you need to sleep. We can’t work with any of this until you sleep.” (Wiggles did not actually say “dude,” but that was the gist of it.) So I called the doc begging for an Ambien prescription and she obliged. EVERYBODY PLEASE CROSS YOUR FINGERS THAT I SLEEP TONIGHT. I really, really want to get back to Seattle, but I have to sleep first. SLEEP PLEASE.
