The Shuffle

I held out the hope of hitting MA class tonight right up until about 4pm, when I discovered that I was still hobbling around the office like an old woman.

Stephanie saw me painfully shuffling around the kitchen this morning and said, "Boy, I bet you're sore."

"I hurt like hell."

"Didn't you take any anti-inflammatories?"

"Um... no?"

"Are you drinking a lot of water to rehydrate and help your muscles repair themselves?"

"Um... I'm just drinking the same amount of water."

"Are you doing anything that isn't bad so I don't feel like I have to nag you?"

"Um... look at my bicep, isn't it KEWL???!!!"

Saturday it is.

By the Numbers

So, I got my first paycheck for a full week of work yesterday, and did the math.

With what I'm making a week, after taxes, I'm making a grand total of:

20K a year.

I'm now working 40 hours a week to make $85 a week more than I was getting when I was on unemployment.

20K a year.

Wow.

What's the poverty line again? Half that, maybe. And the only reason I can make it on this is because I don't pay rent or utilities. Also: no health insurance, no benefits.

Boy, I sure am glad I got all that education just for shits and giggles, cause if I was expecting paychecks...

Fuck.

One for the Road

On Becoming a Supah Ninjah

Had my first day of MA class at the new school yesterday. Biked half an hour out there, had class for an hour and a half, and biked a half hour back. Tomorrow, I get to do it all over again!

We opened with kicking drills and then did an hour - an *hour* - of grappling. I'm not using to doing a lot of holds & etc. work, and especially not for an *hour,* and we switched up partners a lot, which was good.

One of the tough parts about starting a new school is that everybody's sort of uncertain about what level of contact their partner is comfortable with, and you have to work it out and get comfortable with it as you go along. Something that made me really happy about my last school was that I partnered with guys a lot; being as tall and heavy as I am, it helps me a lot more to get paired with somebody of equal size.

There was a lot of merry dancing in the beginning as all the women in class had been partnered at least once with all the other women in class, and then the instructor finally prodded everybody into mixed-sex pairs.

Most people were great, but I ended up partnered with a guy who was really nervous - either about partnering with a girl or possibly being beat by a girl or *something,* and when I went to practice the hold, wrapping my hands behind his head, pressing my forearms against his chest and pulling his head forward and down, he exclaimed, "Oh, look, cleavage!"

It was the most bizarrely inappropriate (and inaccurate) thing I think I've ever heard in MA class, and my immediate thought was, "Wow, this guy must be, like, 12." I wasn't, in fact, showing any cleavage, as I'm small breasted and was wearing a sturdy sports bra under a high scooped neck tank top.

Perhaps he thought this was a way of alleviating the tension he experienced while being partnered with a girl, or perhaps he thought this would somehow make me feel more relaxed. Who knows? He went on to knock the glasses off my face and leave a big claw mark on my forehead when we should have just been doing some friendly hold-and-release drills. The behavior drew the attention of the instructor and several classmates, who were just as curious as I was about what he was trying to prove showing that he had better skillz than the New Chick.

Dunno.

Aside from that, it was a really good experience. We finished up with some time with glove and mitts, which felt sofuckingunbelievablygoodyouhavenoidea. It's been awhile since I got to hit things.

I had a lot of anxiety about getting back to class. I usually end up being the fattest person in class, and last night was no exception, so I spent the evening doing just as many pushups as everyone else and muddling through things I should probably have asked for more help with. Always trying to prove things...

What I told myself when I first started MA classes back in 2004 (dear lord was it that long ago?) was that, even if I sucked and got everything wrong and was totally weak and uncoordinated and had the body type of a mushroom that I would never again be totally new and unfamilier with how to hit things, with forms and how to do drills and all that. Sure, you have to relearn things and get back into it and recondition and all that, but it's never totally new. You're only totally new ONCE. That space in your head for all of this stuff has already been pushed out, and your body can get back into it a lot more easily than it did the first time.

That kept me going, and yeah, it payed off. Because starting a new school is a *lot* easier than it was starting my first school. I feel like less of an idiot (and less of a mushroom), and less uncoordinated, and the whole deal. I don't feel incompetent, and I already know some of my biggest strengths and weakneses.

When the class formed up for the night, I realized that the shirts that everybody was wearing read:

When
I
See
Something
I
Kick
It.

Yeah.

Something tells me that me and this MA school will get along just fine...

The Internets is Weird, Yo

Yo, people. Just... you. I work all day and this is what I come back to???

Can't we just all turn into pirates someday?

Or supah ninajahs?

SOPs

Mmmmm SOPs.

There's NOTHING MORE FUN THAN EDITING and FORMATTING SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) ALL DAY.

How To Install Windows XP/Outlook/Office, whatthefuckever:

Now hit Next.

Next, you'll click NEXT.

We'll select "Next."

Choose Next.

Now press "NEXT."

I usually hit NEXT.

NEXT.

NOW HIT NEXT!!!!!!

Delicious!

(and yes, every single one of the SOPs came to me in a different tense and style with wildly different ways of signifying that "Next" was the name of a button and not just a word. This is why they hired me. I did these for eight hours today, and I'm only about halfway done. More are coming)

And you know what?

I still love every minute of it.

Yup, That's the One

Starting tomorrow, this will be my new MA school.


Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!

Suck it Up, Hurley

Well, the collective effort of three moderately active people finally made the old elliptical I carted in from Chicago go kaput. Me and the roomies spent the entirety of Sunday afternoon looking for a similiarly compact and reasonably priced machine, to no avail. We'll eventually get a new one, but not this week.

This means I either need to go jogging or take another bike ride tonight. And, really, I need to bike down to the proposed MA school and sign up for a free trial class for Wednesday.

But! But! But!

Ugh. Exercise. You do it cause you feel better afterwards.

Really, that's the only reason.

OK, and you lift weights cause it makes your arms look cool, and you can hit people.

I mean, in self defense!

Geez!

I Carry A Spoon

Blarg

Just... blarg.

Heartless E-Cards!

Useful for every occasion...

One for the Road

Note To Self:

That oatmeal raisin cookie in the pastry case at Boston Stoker downtown may *look* like the Healthiest, Lowest-Carb option of the lot, but it's going to take a lot more than three units of insulin to cover it...

But boy was it good.

Happy Friday.

It's a Start, Anyway

Workadoo

I don't think I've ever spent eight or ten or whatever hours a day writing so many different things. Writing, sure, but writing resumes, executive bios, editing and formating SOPs, writing and revising company handbooks, and squeezing in some of my own fiction at the coffee shop at lunchtime?

Yeah.

It's good for me.

Yar.

Workadoo

I can't tell you how fucking awesome it feels not to be someone's secretary.

More on Women and Gaming

An interview with my buddy Patrick, a writer at Bioware.

The Search Continues...

... to find a dumbbell squat that doesn't *feel* to me like a dumbbell squat, so I may fool myself into thinking that I LOVE squats.

Tonight's variation looked like this (trendy work-out gear not included):


But with, you know, weights like these:



And it all ended up something like this:

Games I Seriously Need To AVOID

It EATS MY LIFE. EATS MY LIFE I TELL YOU!!!

It's like those fucking claw thingie machines that you just keep feeding quarters into, only it's free! EXCEPT FOR ALL THAT TIME IT EATS FROM YOUR LIFE.

But I did make myself work on Black Desert line edits and do laundry beforehand.

OK, back to line edits and some French exercises, but dear LORD that game just ate another HOUR from my life.

NO MORE!