Category Archives: Just for Fun

Diving. Scheduling. And Ginsberg.

Posted on 22 January 2009 | 1 comment

Tonight I am going to watch high school diving. My brother coaches. I love diving and I hate it. The beauty of it intrigues me. The danger of it undoes me. And, I despise those few second between the leap and the landing: reverses are the worst.

Even Greg Louganis, the world’s best diver at the time, cracked his head doing a reverse. Of course, he went on to win both the spring board and the platform competition that year. The dive that actually won the platform competition for him was a reverse dive. Irony.

I think I have an aversion to reverse dives because I saw someone land on the board trying to complete one. She didn’t get hurt, but I was afraid in that split-second that she would break her neck. Possibly I was afraid she would fall from the board into the pool and drown, surrounded by life guards too stunned to move.

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Last semester, I didn’t have room to breathe. This semester, I can’t seem to get on a schedule. I read next week’s assignment this week, and didn’t remember to do this week’s assignment. Having too much time is sometimes worse than not having enough.

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Finally, I will leave you with this, some of my favorite Ginsberg from Howl:

who lost their loveboys to the three old shrews of fate the one eyed shrew of the heterosexual dollar the one eyed shrew that winks out of the womb and the one eyed shrew that does nothing but sit on her ass and snip the intellectual golden threads of the craftsman’s loom,

who copulated ecstatic and insatiate with a bottle of beer a sweetheart a package of cigarettes a candle and fell off the bed, and continued along the floor and down the hall and ended fainting on the wall with a vision of ultimate cunt and some eluding the last gyzym of consciousness,

who sweetened the snatches of a million girls trembling in the sunset, and were red eyed in the morning but prepared to sweeten the snatch of the the sunrise, flashing buttocks under barns and naked in the lake, …

1 Comment

Posted in Just for Fun, Queer, Relationships, Swimming

Is this really necessary?

Posted on 17 January 2009 | 2 comments

This may not be.

This definitely is.

2 Comments

Posted in Feminism, Just for Fun, PBJ, Pedagogy, Politics, Rhetoric, Teaching

Ice: My Kryptonite

Posted on 10 January 2009 | 2 comments

I got up this morning ready to go. I had put my shoes, sweatpants, watch, headband, and new Smartwool running socks (I recommend these heartily by the way) next to the bed. My plan was to get up, get dressed, walk the dogs, take my first “long run” of three miles. I call it a long run because that is what the plan calls it. Three miles in my mind is not a long run.

I got up, got dressed, and came down stairs only to find a layer of ice covering the entire world. If you know me, you know I cannot walk on ice so there is no way I could run on it. For those of you who say that running on ice is easier than walking, I am in agreement. I have tried that, and while it is easier, it is still not beneficial nor elegant. I slide just as easily moving faster.

I am hoping that it will warm up enough for some of the ice to melt, so that I can go out this afternoon. I thought about going to Ball Gym to use the track, and I thought about using an eliptical or treadmill at Irving, but there is something incredibly unsatisfactory about the jogging experience when it is done indoors. I feel like a hamster.

Until then, here I sit: typing instead of jogging. I have spent the last half-hour surfing the Net, checking up on old friends, and Stumbling through a couple of websites.

Last night, I spent almost half and hour looking for some new running shoes. I want a website that is a collective of fat runners doing shoe reviews. I usually prefer Asics because they seem to have better support and a stronger, longer-lasting upper. Last spring, when I first started jogging again, I went to Indianapolis to a specialty running store to have my gait analyzed and to find “the perfect shoe” for my foot.

I hate the shoes I bought. Over a hundred dollars for a pair of Brooks GTS 8s. They do support well for the slight pronation I have, but the sole and the padding that prohibit the turning of my ankles makes the ball of my foot slide to the outside of the toe box.

They only have about six months or about 360 miles of walking/jogging and they are already shredded. They are in worse shape than the pair of Asics TN 724s I bought them to replace. And, I reiterate that they are NOT comfortable.

For the first month or so, they were heavenly. The workers at the Indy Running Company were right about that part, but they are not made for a heavy runner. My friend Sarah wears them. They are her favorite shoes. She probably weighs a hundred pounds wet—half my weight! She can have them. I will take my Asics.

fat-girl-running-fh-outlineAll this brings me around to my point: can someone start a Clydesdale or Athena website that is helpful to those of us who are a little larger but still like the feel of a good jog? There are plenty of blogs, personal webpages, and the like, but you would think some company like Asics or New Balance or Saucony would create a webpage for their fat clientel. Every fat runner I know wears one of the three above types of shoes. I’m just saying they could make a fortune!

2 Comments

Posted in Fat, Just for Fun, Running, Winter Weather, Writing

Shrinky-Dinks, Strawberry Shortcake, and ’55 Chevy Trucks

Posted on 7 January 2009 | 6 comments

Sometimes I wish I could be a shrinky-dink. Do you remember those pieces of plastic that we so painstakingly colored, put in the oven, and then spent the next 1 to 3 minutes praying for the damned thing not to curl up on itself? I mean I would love to shrink to twenty percent of my size and have for my only worry the desire not to curl up on myself.

Who was your favorite shrinky-dink? I think mine was Smurfette. I don’t really go for blondes as a rule. Generally, I prefer red heads like Strawberry Shortcake, but Smurfette was an exception. I think I loved her because she was the only woman in the village and had to put up with all those guys. I fantasized about her running away with Papa Smurf and leaving it all behind. Brainy would try to calculate a way to get her back. Vanity would stand there looking at himself in the mirror. Jokey would plant a bomb in their wedding present. Hefty would mis-build their house. But Smurfette would laugh and run her fingers through Papa’s beard. He would smile and they would open a bottle of champagne in celebration.smurfs_shrinky_dinks_unshrunk_pieces

If my favorite wasn’t Smurfette, it was Strawberry Shortcake. I think this is more accurate. I would have given anything to know someone like Strawberry Shortcake when I was little. There was a girl I knew in high school who we called Strawberry, but that was entirely different. That story should be saved for its own entry. With a parental advisory.

Anyway, they have changed Strawberry Shortcake and her friends—not for the better. All their names are different, representing more healthy lifestyle choices, and they took away Plum Pudding. Why? My opinion: Plum Pudding was smart, loved cats and owls, and was possibly a little queer (Plum Pudding started out as a boy!).

I fantasized about her running away with Strawberry Shortcake. I think they would listen to Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car or the Indigo Girls’ Power of Two as they drove away sitting close to each other in a 1955 Chevy Truck.55chevytruck2They would head down Route 66 to Los Angeles without looking back. They would wander up and down Venice Beach looking for shells. Maybe they would sleep on the beach or in the back of their truck in the parking lot under the Jim Morrison painted on the side of that building. Either way, Huckleberry Pie wasn’t part of the plan:

Now the parking lot is empty
Everyone’s gone someplace
I pick you up and in the trunk I’ve packed
A cooler and a two-day suitcase
Cause there’s a place we like to drive
Way out in the country
Five miles out of the city limit we’re singing
And your hand’s upon my knee…

6 Comments

Posted in Fat, Just for Fun, Queer

A New Year: Starting Now

Posted on 5 January 2009 | 1 comment

Most people I have talked to chose to start their New Year’s resolutions today.

Better diet? Begin on Monday. Although, I have heard statistically that Tuesday and Wednesday are the best days to start  new lifestyle trends. We seem to stick to them more if we don’t start them when we start our week. Maybe our minds trick our bodies into submission. Maybe our bodies think that we are serious if we start in the middle of the week.

More exercise? Start today. The training plans for the Indy-Mini even begin today. With a day of rest. What type of training plan begins with a day of rest? I suppose since that is my resolution, I should do what it says. I don’t mind a day of rest. I am taking today as a day of rest to get the plan and my classes entered into my calendar for the semester. I am moving the plan around so that Sunday is my long-run day. I just come home from church and take a nap anyway. Why shouldn’t I use that time to run instead?

Read the bible? Apparently, reading the bible is a pretty popular New Year’s resolution, too. I have at least three bibles that have “Read Through the Bible in a Year” plans in them, and they all begin on January first with Genesis 1:1: “When God began to create heaven and earth…” And, they all end on December 31 with Revalation 22:21: “The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Amen.” I suppose people think what a better way to spend a year than reading the bible from cover to cover.

Some resolutions are so common that you can find lists of the top ten that Americans make each year. Amazon even has their own list, complete with items to purchase to help people achieve those goals. Amazingly, their list includes items for sale under the category: Get your finances in order. The humor in this, I think, is self-explanatory.  The lists seem to jive with the resolutions I hear my friends making. I still wonder why we find it necessary to make the same resolutions year after year. I do it, too. I am not finger pointing.

Today, I am looking at spending the day reading essays and rating them based on their creativity, whatever that means. I am going to have coffee with a friend. I am going to enter my life for the semester into an electronic application called iCal. And, I am going to rest because that is what the plan says to do. I am resting.

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Posted in Fat, Just for Fun, New Year, Personal, Reading, Religion, Running, Writing