The month of December in brief

Heavens to Betsy! A 31 day lag. I tried to write approximately 12 Christmas posts which all sounded trite. The gist of them: give back to others during the holiday season (and all throughout the year, really). I have a lot to be grateful for, when many others are struggling and that is never more noticeable than during the holidays.

Since my last post, my sister turned 29 + 1 and that brought me back to the east coast for the first time since I left. Now, I have never lived in NYC, but lots of friends (and one sister) have, and I have been there many times. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I had chosen NYC like all the other VC grads, instead of Boston after college, but we will never know... So I have really been enjoying Cincinnati and not been too east-coast-homesick, but when I flew into NYC, it pulled at my heartstrings and I felt a pang of jealousy for all those people who got to stay on the coast. We toured NBC Studios and the page told us some tales about Dr. Oz and his talk show, including the swab he did of the bottom of a lady's purse that was germier than a NYC toilet and had 2 different strains of Hepatitis on it. Later that night/early the next morning I was strolling down the sidewalk and slipped on a laminated menu on the sidewalk. All I thought as my bum hit the sidewalk was, eww, I wonder if I am as a germy as the purse now. And then I was kind of ready to leave the big city and head back to my Midwestern semi-suburban life...

Christmas came and went, my brother and I sustained a well-deserved loss in the annual gingerbread house decorating contest. The Christmas craft project was successful, and the sweatshop was much more productive and efficient than in years prior. Keep an eye out for the link to the Etsy shop! We saw the house where The Christmas Story was filmed, on a street full of houses with leg lamps in the window. We had a snowball fight, and made a snow lady, and went for a lovely, if not freezing cold walk in the Metroparks.

And then I tore myself away from my home (the DSM-V is rumored to have adult separation anxiety as a diagnosis and I will proudly be first in line for that one), made the drive back to Cincinnati, slept for 3 hours, and made a 6 am flight to Albuquerque (which I have practiced spelling) to see a friend from grad school and celebrate the New Year.

I love green chiles. I have always loved green chiles. I should move to New Mexico because they have a lot of them there. We had breakfast at Frontier, famous for many things including their green chile hash browns. I literally could have eaten a bucket full of them but was trying not to appear to be a huge fatty, and because I knew I would eat well over the next few days. My friend and her boyfriend have an impeccably well stocked kitchen. She has traded out her Kitchen Aid mixer (over which we bonded when I stayed with her during grad school interviews) for a Cuisinart stand mixer, which I will forgive, but what I cannot forgive is the assertion that Thomas Keller's chocolate chip cookies are better than my Rolo Chocolate Chip Cookies. Thomas Keller should stick to French Bistro cooking and leave the lowly chocolate chip cookie to me. We had a spa day, visited the Albuquerque Costco, ate grilled pizza, went to Sante Fe, ate blue corn enchiladas at Maria's, stopped in the heroin capital of the US for a bathroom break, and arrived in Taos at twilight on New Year's Eve. My friend made me sleep in the garage. We woke up at 7.30 am to go skiing at Angel Fire. I had not been skiing since my very early 20s. I am not sporty. I worry about injury on a daily basis. I asked the ski technicians if they had a padded suit I could wear. I jokingly complained about skiing and head injuries and broken legs. One guy, who looked like he hadn't showered or slept in days, said, "Are you familiar with the power of the mind?" I said, "I am," and wondered what piece of stoner wisdom was coming my way, and he said, "It's really powerful." Why yes, sir, yes it is. I donned my helmet and rode the chair lift up, got off the lift, stood on the precipice, and skied down the mountain. And loved it.

And so, with the mountains of New Mexico as my inspiration, 2012 will be a year without complaints and fear. I will do the things I think I cannot do, I will learn from them, and I will confront the voice in my head that tells me it will be okay to put it off til tomorrow. The irony of the fact that I was supposed to take a Pure Barre class at 12 and it is 12.31 and I am typing this does not escape my notice. I will totally go to a class tomorrow.

The first date that almost happened

Yesterday, after a delicious, healthy, farm-raised, organic brunch with my friend, I decided to go with her to look at the gym she was joining. This was after she'd asked if I belonged to a gym, and I responded with wild suspicion and paranoia that she had overheard conversations I had with my sister about how I should join a gym. Let me just get this out there: I hate exercise. I don't get a runner's high. I don't like competing with myself on the treadmill. I am not driven by the pure, unadulterated joy of endorphins, and I don't believe everyone can run a marathon. I mean if you're training for a marathon, I believe you can do it, just not that I can or should. This might be because I am not from an intensely athletic family and was not raised to enjoy the spirit of competition... It might be because I'm kind of nerdy, and did better at the brain-based competitions like math contests than I did at the sports-based competitions. I don't know. It might be just that I'm lazy and I don't like being sweaty. Anyway, so I went to this gym with my friend, and it's pretty cheap. And I need a gym, you know, so I can go work out and be healthy and not be lazy. So I toured the gym, which had a lady's workout area for "religious reasons or something," said the salesman. Hmm okay. And a fancy free weight room, with weights up to 125. The five pound ones make my arms quake in terror. The selling point for me was the cinema workout room: movie on the big screen, lots of cardio machines, and it's too dark for me to see the other people running faster and/or looking more coordinated than me. I have often compared my running gait to a wounded water buffalo so the fewer people that can see that the better. So then all of a sudden we're sitting at the tables being presented with price packages; $59.99 with the "all you can tan" option. Perfect! Or $24.99 for the bare bones membership... sounds good to me; not so expensive that I can't convince myself it's okay to skip a day here and there. So I'm all ready to say, great, I'll think about it (i.e., stall another two months) and it happened so fast and it was a deal that was only occurring that day and if I didn't do that it was going to be one million dollars a month and so here, sign here, on the dotted line. I read the fine print of the contract: I am in violation of gym rules if I (a) have body odor or (b) do anabolic steroids. Good to know. So then they try to schedule me for a personal trainer consultation. At this point I'm so far outside of my comfort zone. I haven't gotten to ruminate on the gym membership at all, I just impetuously signed up. And now I have to meet a personal trainer?? I took his card and promised I'd call... in a month, when I worked through my motivational issues and decided the gym would be a good place to meet a man friend (I mean get in really good shape so I can lead a long and healthy life). And so now it's today, and there were four missed calls on my phone from an unknown number. So I answer it, finally, and it's the personal trainer from the gym. He says, "Oh, hi, I'm just giving you a call to see if you want to schedule your initial consultation." I say, "Umm, sure. Let me just check my very important and busy schedule." He says, "I am here tonight. What time do you want to come in?" Stop! Too fast! Slow down buddy! I get so flustered and randomly pick 7 pm. He tells me, ok, make sure you don't eat for an hour before and we'll do your orientation session. Which sounds suspiciously like a trick. I'm not ready to work out. Don't these people understand joining their crazy gym was a big step?? I 100% bailed out on my personal training session tonight. But I at least called to cancel, and told him I got stuck at work which was a big fat lie. But I totally promise I will consider going to the gym tomorrow. Maybe.

On the grid

Ohio driving law written test? Passed for the second time in my life. Drivers license with a photo twelve shades of orange? Check. Registration? Check. Title transfer? Check. Bucolic farm scene license plates? Check. Mildly frustrating day dealing with state government and driving all over the place to get these things accomplished? Check! I rewarded myself with an afternoon nap (delicious), a sweaty power yoga class, and a taste test of Cincinnati ice creams: Will Graeter's or United Dairy Farmers win the Mint Chocolate Chip Challenge? Only time will tell. I can't eat and type at the same time.

My love of yoga

I am not athletic. I have tried many times to be athletic to no avail. I throw like a girl, I sprain things easily, I have bad aim, and I am just not motivated by being sporty, despite my best efforts. Each athletic endeavor I have attempted has ended in some tragic yet predictable way.

Ballet (had an emergency bathroom break in the middle of the recital), Gymnastics (the uneven bars still strike fear in my heart), Softball (was in far right field behind three other people who were in actual right field), Basketball (was on "B" team, and scored one basket the whole season... for the other team), Winter soccer (I liked the rugby shirts because they looked sporty but it was far too cold for running around outside), Lacrosse (all the cool girls played it! I don't think I successfully caught or threw the ball, and the rules were confusing), Field Hockey (I think I had a brief flirtation here around the time I had the tryst with lacrosse... neither went far), Tennis (I have a wickedly dangerous and unpredictable backhand), Biking (a guaranteed fainting spell and day long wooziness), Adult kickball (it turns out not even I can kick a giant red ball right in front of me but the drinks were good), Running (think wounded three-legged hippopotamus... I did get a varsity letter in track statisticianing though), Rollerblading (I don't do well with wheels for feet), Horseback riding (let's not go there), Cheerleading/Dancing/Aerobics (let's also not go there, there, or there), Walking (most of the time okay but I have more skinned knees post-early elementary school than I would like to admit).

Swimming is about the only actual sport I am even remotely good at, although more from a distance perspective than a speed perspective. Why my high school swim coach insisted upon having me be the anchor leg (that's the last one, right?) of the relay team is beyond me. Tragic with a capital T. The nice thing was that in an empty pool you can really hear your teammates cheering you on! But yoga, oh yoga, how I love you. I am actually good at yoga. Now you may say yoga is not a competitive sport, and I would agree. But I totally don't care. Because I can do it. I don't get flustered because I'm losing, or messing up a team, and I don't lose track of what the instructor is doing. I am proudly in the front row. I wonder if when I move to Cincinnati and join the Cincinnati Sport and Social Club, I can respectfully decline the Sport portion?