Deconstructing the Meme

I’m such a bad blogger. I say I’m going to write about something and then I get lost over at You Tube watching Melissa Etheridge videos. I seriously at one point loved her so much I thought I might be gay.

Anyhoo, regarding my current motivation for (lately given this damn plateau) my working out 2-3 hours a day and dedication to this “healthy lifestyle”, whatever that is - now I just do it because it feels a whole lot better than feeling like crap - which is exactly how I felt when I started this journey. I felt like I wanted to die. I don’t feel that way anymore. At all.

I quit smoking in September 2005. I gained 20lbs the first two months. 40lbs by Christmas. That was on top of the however many I had to lose at the time, say 25lbs.

I bought a gym membership, jeez, before I quit smoking, maybe February of 2005. In March of 2007 I decided to actually use it. By that time, I’d lost enough weight that I could actually bring myself to spend significant amounts of times in public without feeling totally embarrassed and humiliated by my appearance. Should I have felt that way? Absolutely not. But I did.

Sometime in May I started noticing this guy at my gym. He has what I consider to be a perfect body - not too bulky and pristinely proportioned is the only way I can describe him. That and he just looks healthy. Oh and those eyes. He has killer eyes. And the way he carries himself. He is the quintessential alpha male. He’s not out to prove anything, he just *is* alpha male. That or he’s a helluva faker.

I call him “The walking pheremone”. It’s like I have this sixth sense when he’s around. I can be mindlessly doing cardio just looking around the gym at nothing, see a part of his body, say a bicep or forearm and I know it’s him. Several times, for seemingly no reason, I’ve looked toward the gym entrance to see him walking in. I’ve been doing bench presses, instinctively turned my head during a rep, and my eyes lock on him. I don’t normally look around when I’m doing a set of anything - but if he’s around? I’m looking at him.

So, for nearly a year now I’ve been lusting after this guy. I was 30lbs heavier when I first started noticing him and his perfection. There was no way I would ever have a chance with him looking, much less feeling the way I did.

I decided that I was going to look like him. Well, the girl version of him. I wanted to at least feel like I might be attractive to him. I couldn’t know for sure because you never know someone’s “type”. But, I could at least in my own mind measure up to what I assumed were his standards of beauty. My goal was to be what what I assume he would find attractive - that is, not fat, in shape, someone similar to him in terms of fitness and physical appearance. I wanted to “get naked” with him. Back then I couldn’t let him see me naked because I couldn’t stand to see me naked.

So, my prime motivation, aside from feeling good and not wanting to kill myself(!), has been sex. Did I mention I’m a Scorpio?

You follow Scorpio Adam Ant’s views on sex. He said, “I like sex. My songs are about sex … sex is my life. I just find it the most exhilarating experience, and I think it should be done on stage.” You’d join his band if you could.

Around September or so I started noticing him noticing me. Finally. Though I can’t be sure if that’s because he noticed me noticing him first. I remember once when we were walking past each other I looked him right in the face. Ordinarily my head went down when he was anywhere near me. He didn’t look directly at me but did this kinda of side glance thing at me, our eyes met, and he quick looked away. He looked scared. He looked like he’d just been caught doing something he shouldn’t have been. It was quite funny. Was he afraid because I scared him with my incessant staring? I dunno. I wasn’t like gawking at him.

Recently he and I have started talking a bit. Oh, and he keeps touching me. Actually the first time we talked was when we were walking past each other and he literally grabbed my arm and pulled me to him. He complimented me on how hard I work. I think he likes sweaty, smelly, out of breath women! Yay!

Just recently we were talking about how sucky boring cardio is. I’d just done 40 minutes and for some odd reason he asked me if I was going to go do more. Then he said something to me. I don’t remember his exact words because I can barley focus on anything but my wobbly knees when he’s near me. First he said “I hope you don’t mind my saying…” then he said something about how all the work I do “works” for me. In other words, he was telling me he thought I looked good. It was so cute. He was clearly not at all comfortable saying that to me. He must know what my ordinary response to men is who act like I should be honored that they find me attractive. He didn’t act like that. He knew exactly how to work me. omg lol.

I wanted to say, “Well, maybe, but I’m a master illusionist. You haven’t seen me naked. Yet.”

I didn’t say that though. I just laughed and thanked him. What little ability I had to communicate was drowning in his pheromones at that point and I kinda hung out for a minute and then just smiled and said, “OK well, see ya later.” Had we been anywhere else I might have thrown myself on top of him. I don’t know if he took that as me turning him down or something? He’s been kinda cool towards me since then. I just had NO clue what to do or say after that besides rip my damn clothes off.

Apparently, drugs and alcohol, caffeine or whatever makes you feel good, is well, not so bad! Well, for some of us anyway.

Martin says that in the last weekend, he’s completed a 13-mile half marathon that took him a little more than five hours. It would have been faster, he says, but he says he stopped for a beer and a cigarette.

Stress on the other hand? I hear it kills.

I smoked cigarettes for over 20 years. I never got a wrinkle until I quit. I’m starting more and more to look my age. Up until I quit I was still sometimes asked for ID when I bought cigarettes. I quit when I was 40 years old.

Nicotine is a definite stress reliever for me. I still crave when I get stress, even good stress. And yes, it still works. Yes, I’ve relapsed a few times in the past 2.5 years.

After I’d quit, so many people would ask, “Don’t you feel so much better now?” Uhm, nope. I didn’t. I felt like killing myself for the first three months after I quit. Was that supposed to be a good thing?

I’m not exaggerating. I remember sitting on the toilet one day wishing I had the nerve to kill myself. I literally felt trapped here - here, in hell. That’s the worst feeling. I can’t even explain it. I wanted to die but I couldn’t die and that made me feel even worse.

I’ve since read that the effects of nicotine can mask depression. Who knew?

The only thing that kept me here was the thought of my kids and the fact that some stranger would find me in my hadn’t been cleaned in four months bathroom surrounded by my dirty underwear. My damn ego gets in the way all the time. It’s kind of funny now. It was so totally not funny then.

I remember what set me off too. It was getting on the scale and seeing I’d gained 20lbs in about a month. 20lbs on top of the 20-30lbs I already needed to lose. Of course I didn’t stop there. I added 20 more pounds so that I ended up being the heaviest I’d ever been (outside of pregnancy).

I remembered back to how I felt while losing that weight back in the ’90s. I realized I was either going to have to do all that work again, work I swore I’d never have to do again, or stay miserable.

I’d replaced my nicotine addiction with sugar. I was going to have to give that up too? That was going to leave me “feeling”. God, give me numb. Numb is soooo much better.

Trapped again.

Oh, and the title of this post is a line from Queens of the Stone Age’s “Feel Good Hit of the Summer”.

Once upon a time I wanted to be a rockstar. Once upon at time I thought I might be gay. When I see things like this, I wish I were. My hero: