Reading: Lois Lowry, The Giver, not that my opinion became new or improved this time.

Viewing: snow!

Moving: 30' on the elliptical trainer, level 15 "fat burner," with 2 2-lb. handweights, average heart rate 149, plus a full weight circuit and 100 crunches.

Learning: a couple of new abdominal exercise.

26 January 2000: Back in the Rut

Coming outside after work today, I was dismayed to feel rain on my face. It's Colorado: its' not supposed to rain in the winter! This is in fact the first winter rain I've felt in almost five years, except in Connecticut of course. And in Florida, which doesn't count.

So it was a good thing I wore contacts today.

But even if I had had to wear glasses, I wouldn't've been blinded by sun--if there'd been any--because I found my sunglasses in my glasses case in an obscure pocket of my knapsack.

So there.

And working out is much more comfortable in contacts than glasses.

When I was finishing up on the elliptical, my fitness counselor Greg came in. He stayed in one corner of the room playing with a toned-looking woman using the big exercise balls. When he left, I was sitting in the leg extension machine and he asked, walking by, how my work-out plan was going. And I got a little miffed: "So he was just pretending to be nice to me but was really being judgmental in his head (though not at all in his words, tone, or posture) because here he's talking to Buff Woman for ages but barely gives me the time of day, even though he's seen over the past two weeks that I've been in every day, seen me in the halls or the lobby." Color me paranoid.

After I finished my weight circuit--was I having an out-of-body experience Monday when I wrote that I used 35 pounds on the arm extension machine Monday? I did my first set at 30 and the second at 25 pounds today--I threw myself on a mat in the corner with the exercise balls and did 100 quick crunches. Also I watched Buff Woman do her abdominal exercises on her ball. She looked like me, only fit(ter): not incredibly toned, not repellently skinny, not loose of skin or flesh, just solid and complete and of a regular size and shape. I don't scope men at the gym, but I do women: either I'm glad I don't look like that one or I wish I felt on the inside like that other one looks on the outside. Buff Woman looked neither too fat nor too scrawny nor too buff for me, but Just Right like Baby Bear's porridge chair and bed. Like I want to look.

She had her shins on the ball and her hands on the floor under her shoulders, with her body mostly parallel to the floor. She pulled the ball under her body by drawing up her legs. That looked impossible. That looked like a killer abdominal exercise. I exclaimed, "That's amazing! Do you have the most fantastic abs ever? How do you do that?"

And so we got into a conversation as she showed me the exercises that Greg had just been teaching her. So I was wrong, and paranoid, as if I didn't know that already--he spent a lot of friendly time with this woman, who's taking the Health Back classes, teaching her how to strengthen her abs without injuring her back, just as he spent a lot of friendly time with me when it was my turn. I tried the exercise myself and I could tell I was doing it right by how it felt. I want one of those balls. I want it as a desk chair because I couldn't slouch while sitting on it (as I am now).

What I really liked about Buff Woman is that we're both in the same place, body-wise. She used to remain reasonably fit if she skied and biked and swam, and now she has to work out to be strong enough to mountain-bike thoroughly and ski competently. Okay, we're not in the same place because the one time I biked on Keystone Mountain, I rode my brakes the whole way, and I don't ski even competently, but she is obviously not the Buff Woman with Attitude to Match that I, in my self-loathing self-consciousness, assumed. She was just really nice.

But I had to go back to work. "I have to go back to work," I said, emptying my right hand. She reached up (she was lying on the floor) and shook my hand.
"I'm Lisa. I'm in almost every day." Now that I liked her, I wanted to call her something other than Buff Woman.
"I'm Beth. I'll see you tomorrow, maybe?"
I noticed the book lying next to her water bottle: Best American Short Stories of 1999. "That'd be great."
And I headed for the locker room with a grin on my face. Beth. That's a good sign.

I miss EKH. Her daughter is 2.5 now and the last I heard from her was Christmas last year--I mean 1998--a card with a picture of TEHW, all long and slender and blonde and blue-eyed like her mother. EKH moves around a lot and never had a reliable ISP, let alone an email address that stayed the same two months running, and I never know if she's getting along with her parents so I haven't written to them. But I'd guess I'd better try there before she's lost forever.

And this woman's name isn't necessarily a Sign. Her name might actually be Beth, not Elizabeth.

---

I cooked my own supper. Sun-dried tomato tortellini with broccoli that I steamed all by myself and sautéed garlic. Tomatoes. Strawberries. I had to cut open the package of tortellini and boil them, steam the broccoli, sauté the garlic, slice the tomatoes, and eat the strawberries. Not too hard, but I don't think I've ever steamed anything before, ever, and this time I didn't burn the garlic. So there.

---

At Dot Org over the past two days has been a conference. One of the attendees used to work for Dot Org, and today I was in a coworker's office when the fellow heard the coworker's voice and came in to say hi. The fellow was all happy to see my coworker because the last time he saw him, seven years ago, my coworker was battling cancer. I turned to my coworker, startled--I'd never known that--and he shook his head, dismissing the topic. Then he introduced me to the fellow, singing my praises, which was nice of him, and by this time another coworker, from my own department, had joined us in the hallway because she'd heard the fellow's voice too. Now the fellow, having heard what a wonder I am, said something about my coming to work for him, and my department-mate said, "Oh no, she can't leave" or something like that, which was also very very nice.

I felt kind of glowy.

---

I found out this afternoon that Sarah Weddington, the lawyer who argued Roe v. Wade at 23, is going to be at the CU School of Law Friday the 28th at 2:00, speaking on the anniversary of the decision. I heard her speak in 1992 but would love to hear her again, of course, but I just realized, six hours later, that I can't go because on Friday the 28th at 2:00 I have a gynecologist appointment, and if I don't make that appointment and get my prescription I might need to exercise the right she secured for me. So I think I'll see the gynecologist.