Temps are backing down...they never back down.

Go ahead and make your jokes, Mr. Jokey...

I've been feeling good.  I've been hitting the gym regularly.  Tracking my Cal on myfitnesspal is keeping me honest and I'm pretty sure I've dropped (maaaybe) 5 lbs?  (Amazing.  And all this time my frustration with working out was that I wasn't really losing weight when all along I was eating too much?!?  Fancy the f#ck that?!?)  I'm hitting karate 2-3 days a week and fixing to test for my brown belt.  And my cross-training elliptical/treadmill stuff has made the few times I can run outside in the winter...nice.  I've covered 5-6 miles and wasn't even laid up.

However...

I've re-established that it's approximately February 17th is my "Officially Done with this Winter Bullshit"...date.  At that point my mood is adversely affected and I stop wondering when I'll get to go sledding or skating and actively want to punch Jack Frost in the fleshy patch.   One year ago I was on a brunch date and we were able to traipse up and down Selby avenue in light jackets and sat in a sun-puddle while drinking coffee and getting to know each other.

Now?  Hey look...I'm still all for getting a few more inches of powder on the ground.  Gods know we need the precipitation.  But when I get home and my roommate is cackling that we're hitting another sub-zero deep freeze for a few days?  Something...something very deep inside me snaps and cries and dies a little.   Hope relents, and even little joys like the fact that my early-ass commute is now tinged with light blue sun versus bleak black cannot alleviate my misery.

This might sound melodramatic if you're a non-Minnesotan...and you may question my heartiness as a resident or (gasp) knee-jerk-off the old comment "It's Winter in Minnesota! <smack>  Whaddya exPECT?!?!".    Well eat a groomed wang.   I'm being robbed of my motivation.  Because right now, the only thing the cold has done for me is want to sleep...

...and skip the stupid gym...
...and order take-out...
...and drink an entire bottle of sweet Shiraz...
...and watch "The Running Man" before going BACK to bed...

Fuck you, sub-zero temps.  Back to the shadows, with you.  I'm tired of this abusive cold.

I'm not on your lawn, Old Man Winter.  And I'm about to send you to an assisted living facility.

Adventures in Gymfail

(This is a new-ish segment.  I'm hoping that I'll experience interesting kerfluffles at my loving neighborhood gym that I can share with you...like today.)

1st off, I'm notorious about over-packing for trips and OCD about checking my gym bag the night before I leave for work in the a.m. not because I'm an Over-prepared Oliver Billy-Boy Scout.  It's because, gawdammit, I'm a Forgetful Francis.   And this is true, because over the last 5 years I've belonged to my gym I've forgotten a fresh pair of underwear no less than...a lot.  Okay?  I've just plum forgotten.

                                              (No, Sweet Brown.  Nobody does.  Fo Sho.)

Today, I had the luxury of the morning off and so I was able to piece my ensemble (always tastefully matching my bandana, shorts, AND wrist bands) prior to the gym- and in a moment of divine inspiration I decided to toss my work clothes in my bag and under-dress my ensemble.

Except...except except someone with two thumbs and half a brain didn't pack a work shirt.  That's right.  Mikey gets to the gym and realizes that he just has his tank top...which will eventually become sodden and soggy in the upcoming 75 minute workout.

Now...you might be thinking "So what?  You forget your man-ties and now you've forgotten a shirt.  Where's the headsmack graphic?"  Oh.  That's because I was waiting to tell you that squirreled away in the bottom of my gym bag next to my shaving kit in a veritable nest is the following:

• 2 extra pair of boxer briefs.
• 3 extra pair of socks.
• 1 pair of long underwear.
• 1 extra bandana/wrist guards wrapped together.

So...I have back up.  And I cleverly wonder if I can cobble together some Tom Hanks/Castaway refugee garment from the above.  I quickly realize...I can't.  Natch.

Now, lest you think I Weismuller'd out of there to make a beeline for my jacket I want to remind you that we are in Minnesota in February- which affords me the luxury of wearing my zippered hoodie 80% of the time.  You know?  Without a shirt?  Which, I'll be honest, feels weird.  The zipper.  On bare skin.  Like wearing shoes without socks or going commando.  Not "awful", per se.  Just unnatural.  I couldn't even pull off the "Wolverine in the basement of the X-Mansion" scene from the 1st X-Men movie?  Remember?

(There is a very legitmate fear of losing chest hair on the zipper.  Don't pretend this isn't a real thing.)

So...less like Wolverine, and more like an embarrassed Terminator.  Which nearly happened the time I almost bolted out of the Men's Locker Room bare-ass because I'd forgotten a script I was working on and my Ipod in the fitness area.

                                     (Nothing clean...riiiiiight.  Also, hello anorexic Geef.)


We can now add that one to the current list of gymfails that includes forgotten skivvies, too-small or disintegrating t-shirts, gassy treadmill runs, "sweating out toxins" the day after a gin-fueled bachelor party by sitting in the sauna and smelling like a liquor store, and forcing the staff to move the floor fans from the weight room to the Men's Locker Room bathroom suspiciously minutes after I used it and noticed a fellow gym member come in after me- do an about face with a stink eye- and then make them re-circulate the air.*

I'm surprised that with all of these stupid gymfails I haven't actually, you know, had an actual accident on a piece of equipment.  (Knocks on wood)

*I'm only slightly mortified that I shared that.  I could have been being paranoid, but no.  I own that.