put this one in the same category as “Candy Shop” by 50 Cent. Seriously great stuff, but do we need to be exposed to this much explicit language? Jason Derulo?)
Day 12, April 10, 2014
“This is how I roll.”
—LMFAO, “Sexy and I Know It”
It was probably only for a second, but I felt myself shrug when I stepped off the scale.
I’m fine just the way I am.
Adorable and I decided to put off getting me back on the scale, at least for this week.
“We can do that when you feel absolutely great,” he said. Reuel is adorable, but he’s also a genius.
This morning, I arrived at the gym a little earlier than usual. Because I knew I had training after work, I wanted to be more thoughtful about how much time I would spend on the treadmill, the arm bike, and maybe the recumbent bike, which my orthopedic surgeon had said would be good for my knees.
At 2.25 miles in, walking at a brisk 3.7 MPH, I decided I wanted more time on the arm bike, and I was feeling healthy—I had no issues with my shins, knees, or lower back, and I did not feel out of breath. It was during—of all songs—“Sexy and I Know It”—that I decided to increase my speed to 3.9 MPH and then 4.0 MPH, at which point the only way I could keep up was to start jogging.
I am not exaggerating when I tell you I fully expected my skeleton to begin crumbling to the floor.
I stayed with it, and there I was, running at a very acceptable pace for the next three quarters of a mile. No issues or problems—crazy! I started to crack up and nearly rolled off the back of the treadmill when I caught one of Adorable’s clients I saw every morning out of the corner of my eye doing a double take as he was coming up from a bench press, not to mention the guy running next to me, who fed me a side-glance or two. Once I fell into a rhythm, I took a video selfie to ensure I was actually jogging and not simply thinking about jogging. I know I was listening to “No Church in the Wild” at that point because the music paused when the camera was recording, and I instantly thought, that’s an Apple bug that needs a fix. Why can’t the camera operate while the phone is playing music?
I did my five minutes on the arm bike, maintaining 60 RPM, but I never made it to the recumbent bike, since I forgot it. The last time I ran anywhere in sneakers and not heels catching a bus was between the bases during a high school softball game. What a sense of euphoria! It has been with me all day, and I can’t wait to see where this takes me.
***
This was a great selection this morning, particularly in this order.
Switch – Will Smith
Don’t Stop the Party – Pitbull (Adorable Shazamed this for me when it was playing in the training room during a set of straight-leg lifts a few nights ago. This is old, where’ve I been?)
Where Is the Love – Black Eyed Peas
My Humps – Black Eyed Peas (Always makes me smile, especially when I remember my niece singing this one from her booster seat in my car.)
We Be Burning – Sean Paul
Lose Yourself – Eminem (Nearly bought a Chrysler because of how great this song is.)
Dry Your Eyes – The Streets
Temperature – Sean Paul
The Boogie That Be – Black Eyed Peas (Kind of heavy on Fergie this morning.)
Club Can’t Handle Me – Flo Rida
Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Version) – Jay Z
(I’m a huge fan and loved his memoir.)
Sexy and I Know It – LMFAO (I know, I know.)
Stronger – Kanye
Touch the Sky – Kanye and Lupe Fiasco
No Church in the Wild – Kanye and Jay Z
Sunshine – Mos Def
Crazy Kids – Kesha
The Way I Are – Timbaland
Hey Ya! – OutKast
Day 20, April 18, 2014
“La drogue agit sur moi lentement.”
—Yelle, “Comme Un Enfant”
Here is the thing about endorphins: OMG they are for real.
Yesterday I had lunch with my colleague Jill, and in the cab back to the office, I had landed in her lap as her foot and bottom wedged under the front passenger seat and on the floor of the taxi. Neither of us was wearing a seat belt, as we had been deep in conversation from the time we hailed the cab until the moment it suddenly stopped within inches of plowing into a car that was trying to sneak a left turn. I saw the other car—if the cab driver had not slammed on the brakes at that very moment, we would have been sitting on that driver’s lap.
Jill’s ankle hurt, but she was okay walking back into our building. Later that evening as I was riding to the garage in the elevator, two other colleagues commented that I seemed to be okay after the accident in the cab.
“Is Jill okay?”
“She’s limping pretty badly and probably going to the ER tonight.”
Really?
I started to tell them what had happened, but when I described sitting on Jill’s lap on the floor of the cab, I burst into the most ridiculous and uncontrollably hysterical laughter. One of the other colleagues smiled, too, but more in reaction to my face than to the situation, which was not funny. We had almost had a car accident, and now Jill, who’s about to take leave and have down time with her family for Easter, was headed to the emergency room.
I’m chuckling right now as I’m writing this. It’s like I’m high on morphine. And, yes, I know what that’s like, because I delivered Mia in a Philadelphia city hospital while the patient in the room next to mine coded and died of preeclampsia. There was so much chaos in and around my hospital room, with men and women in white coats and scrubs racing around, trying to forget about me, that for a minute I imagined I was in an episode of St. Elsewhere. No one was available to perform an epidural, so the resident decided morphine would put everything on pause. I don’t remember a lot about my labor experiences with either of my children, but I do remember the morphine that day.
Apparently, endorphins are considered endogenous morphine. And I think the effect must be cumulative, because as I’m adding running to my daily cardio and upping my speed a bit, I am seriously high all day. I can barely keep a straight face, even in a training session with Adorable when my shoulders are obviously on fire.
I just can’t help myself.
He’s watching me, concentrating deeply.
And
