unconscious mutterings 441

I went in to get my new gym program organised this morning... only the trainer who was supposed to be doing couldn't be bothered showing up, so I ended up with another female trainer instead. It's definitely going to be a bitch of a workout... I just need to get a system working.

I also got a phone call from the optometrist this morning telling me that my glasses had failed their "in-house quality control check", so back to the lab they go, and I have to wait until the end of the week at the earliest. Not really what I wanted to hear.

Unconscious Mutterings...

1. Ceremony :: Wedding... except not for the gays in Australia
2. Thread :: Common
3. Need :: Want
4. Sarcasm :: Like oxygen
5. Domain :: Sydney
6. Take :: That
7. Cast :: Crew
8. Zone :: Twilight
9. Lose control :: Dance
10. Gambling :: Dull

Current Mood:

pelican tuesday

Pelicans... both real and artificial... from the test shoot the weekend before last. Not that today had anything to do with pelicans...

My workout card at the gym was tracked down this morning... I don't know what the hell the girly yesterday did about it, but there was a different girly on the counter this morning so I had to explain it all again. Turns out it was on the opposite side of the drawers...

And of course, because I've now been passed on to a third trainer, she called me this afternoon wanting to arrange a session to review my program... urgh... really? I fobbed her off for now, but I probably should organise something given that my knee has been playing up of late. And I also want to get some redundancies for my arm workout, since people will insist on wanting to use the same equipment that I need.

I also went off to the optometrist at lunchtime... he was very sweet (and a bit cute) and the whole thing was mostly painless. Turns out that while my shortsightedness hasn't gotten any worse, my astigmatism is about 15% worse or something. Essentially it means that my eyes have stretched a little bit vertically. But other than that he said that my eyes were perfectly healthy, which is good.

I'd pretty much decided on the frames I wanted yesterday, chunky black plastic Polo Ralph Lauren frames... the sales dude did show me a couple of other similar pairs, but I just kept gravitating towards the Polo ones. Not quite as fancy as the Versace ones I have now, but they're something different and I've been leaning towards that kind of frame for a while.

Sadly it's supposed to be about a week before I get my hands on them though... so I'm going to be wandering around with this big lump of masking tape on my glasses for a while longer yet.

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photo friday: leftover mr sloppy

Just when you think they're all gone, another Mr Sloppy appears! I'm guessing he's left over from Fringe... but he could be new...

When I'm talking to Pretty Trainer Boy at the gym, it's sometimes very difficult to remember not to just stare into his eyes... he's so pretty and so sweet... urgh... stupid straight boy crush...

For some reason it doesn't actually feel like the Friday before a long weekend... it hasn't all day really... although given that we have a big weekend of Cabaret Festival things, the extra day will be greatly appreciated.

Oh, and I may or may not currently have a bunch of my photos on display/for sale in a gallery... it's just a test run to see how it goes... but you never know.

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photo friday: k1 and k2

Dot pointerly Friday...

• The photo is the Gary Seaman Dunnys I bought from the Paper String Plastic gallery at the beginning of the month... and since they have a lack of name or title, I've taken to calling them K1 and K2 because of the keys on their ears
• I dropped in to pick them up at lunch, ended up staying for ages and ages
• Picked up a couple of the Burger Theory cookies on the way back to work
• Finally met Trainer Boy who took over from Trainer Girl at the gym yesterday... he's too fucking young and pretty and helpful and earnest for words... kill me now
• I predict this is going to be a very "soup" orientated Winter... we haven't even officially hit Winter yet and I've made at least half a dozen batches of soup
• Unfortunately my boredom threshold for batches of soup is about two days... but I think putting dumplings/ravioli in on the second or third day might help
• Also since making soup this week, my house smells of garlic
  
• Since the chocolate goat's milk ice cream from last week was so tasty, I'm trying their green tea flavour
• And just to round out the food theme... I just realised that although I bought all the toppings to make pizza tonight, I neglected to actually get a pizza base... fuckitty... thankfully there's a sheet of puff pastry in the freezer... I'll improvise

Current Mood:

unconscious mutterings 424

So I've managed to do pretty much nothing on my day off... I went to the gym this morning, the pretty boy at the counter wished me a Happy Birthday, I did my workout (and how young is too young for the gym... there was a kid there with his mum who couldn't have been more than about 14), he also said something to the effect of enjoying the rest of my day when I was on my way out ("Well how about you come home with me and I can really make it a birthday to remember")...

I came home, had a shower, swapped the shorts and teeshirt I went to the gym in for the shorts and teeshirt I've worn all day, I didn't bother shaving or doing my hair... then after pootling around on the laptop for a bit, I settled in to watch movies all afternoon...

All in all, the perfect birthday so far!

Unconscious Mutterings...

1. Judge :: Judy
2. Safe :: Cracker
3. Boulevard :: Sunset
4. 27 :: Hours or Days Later, but neither is actually correct
5. Next :: Week
6. Ma’am :: Yes
7. Desktop :: Icons
8. Club :: Chocolate
9. Violet :: Crumble
10. Enamel :: Bathtub

Current Mood:

photo friday: best day off ever

These two shots are both from the day we went down to the Brighton sculptures... one is a sculpture, the other was a completely off-the-cuff snap I took just before I got back in the car... but somehow as soon as I saw the two images, they somehow matched up texturally (is that even a word?).

In other news... Best! Day Off! Ever!

I have had the best day! I slept in this morning for a couple of hours, got up, tidied the apartment (for the first time in about a week... damn all these nightly Fringe shows) and then headed out to the gym at about 8:30.

If felt quite strange to be going to the gym when the sun was up, even weirder when there were actual live people in the North Adelaide Village. I just hit about the right time too... all the people who go before work were either gone or just leaving, so the place wasn't too packed. But of course some random dude hogged one of the weights machines I use (fuck off and use something I don't use), so I had to work around him a bit.

Also, 20 minutes on the treadmill at 9% incline... go me!

I may have stretched my neck in a funny way at some point though, it's feeling a little weird at the moment... not painful, just weird.

After all the gymness I headed home, had some breakfast, fiddled around with my laptop and then headed into town for my Pre-Birthday Haircut.

Haircuts are so awesome... well, they are when you have an awesome hairdresser like Tink! She's great at cutting hair, great to chat to, and we've known each other, haircut-wise, for longer than I've been writing this blog... so at least six years. And we had lots to chat about this time because she'd gone to see The Boy with Tape on his Face (at my suggestion) and loved it... and I told her about some of the other Fringe stuff I've seen.

Just after she'd finished putting my colour on she told me she's moving house (she lives in North Adelaide too... but at the other end)... and she's pregnant! Very exciting! But I told her that when she goes on Maternity Leave I'm just going to come and get my hair cut in her kitchen (which she said was totally happening... woohoo).

As far as hair goes... it's the usual... short (although the longer side of short this time, through the top anyway) and blonde (although only blonde through the top, we left the sides au naturel again).

After I left the salon I went straight down to Dymocks in search of a copy of The Velveteen Rabbit (my official Go-To present for new babies, right after a pewter moneybox)... I had a specific edition in mind, but assumed that they probably wouldn't have it in stock, since I haven't seen it there the last couple of times I've looked. Turns out all the stars aligned correctly, and it was there. So now I have about six months to find the perfect rabbit to go with it. Hopefully Easter will help with that.

I stopped off at the car to drop the book off and pick up a folder of photo proofs, then headed down to the Paper String Plastic gallery to chat with the lovely man there about doing something with my photos... and he took all of the proofs and I now just need to work out what it is I want to do with them.

Squeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Me... with real live photos in a real live gallery... who woulda thunk it!

After that I needed to sit down and have a bubble tea... cool off a little... then came home via the supermarket where I bought some stuff for lunch (mmmm pastrami bagel) and dinner.

The one downside to the day was when the man from the electricity company rocked up on my doorstep and was all "putting in new meters, have to turn the power off for an hour"... but at least I got some reading done, so it wasn't a complete waste of time.

And now it's nearly time for So You Think You Can Dance and home-made pizza...

I say again... Best! Day Off! Ever!

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photo friday: shuffle

It's been an exceedingly meeting heavy and Apple orientated day at work today...

We had a meeting at 9:30 which took up most of the morning, then a staff meeting at 2 which took up another hour.

And inbetween there was lots of Apple related discussions... especially because the iPads arrived and I gave a couple of people crash courses in iDevice 101. I'm not sure if it makes me want one more or less though, seeing them really up close and whatnot... I'm still undecided, although I'm interested to see what the iPad 2 has in the way of new features.

H-San, Rockchick and I also got into a discussion about the relative merits of Apple products, which was interesting if only because we were coming from three different positions. H-San is an Apple fan from way back even though he only uses PCs these days... Rockchick isn't a fan at all... and I'm in the middle, I see the upside and the downside, even though my iExperience has been mostly positive.

Other than that, I'm a little tired after the last two days worth of Double Fringe Shows... I will admit, it hasn't really been the shows themselves that tire me out, but the fact that I end up staying up until quite late writing up my reviews.

And then getting up quite early to go to the gym!

Contrary to my prediction earlier in the week, I can actually raise my arms over my head, although I officially hate the step/summit machine... poxy fucking thing. I still haven't been able to complete one of the sets of weights exercises in my program though... I manage the first two sets just fine, but I can't make it through the third set.

I'm also really bad at present at remembering the number of reps I'm supposed to do on things. Partly that's because it's 12/11/12 on three different machines, and I keep forgetting or just doing 10 or something. Possibly I need to just pick a number for all three and go with that, or drop them all down to 10 or something, trainer be damned.

Current Mood:

unconscious mutterings 421

I'm going to be so sore come Friday... sore and tired... and sore. Did I mention sore? Turns out that while my Mon/Wed/Fri arms workout isn't that arduous while I'm doing it, between that and sit ups, I'm a sore little puppy at present.

And I got a bit of a surprise at work this morning... a strange text message from an unknown number saying "good to see you in and working hard"... I had no idea who it could be from, thinking that it was somehow work related... turns out it was from the trainer who did my program for me yesterday (I need a nickname for her, but nothing seems quite right yet)... I saw her on the way out today (enough to wave at as we went our separate ways) and I'm supposed to leave my workout card thing in her tray so she can keep tabs...

Not really sure what the hell that's all about... but I appreciated the text message, even if it was totally out of the blue...

Unconscious Mutterings...

1. Maroon :: Five (shoot me for this one, somebody, please...)
2. Save :: Cash
3. Smithereens :: Smashed
4. Conversation :: One-sided
5. Visual :: Art
6. Experience :: Sexual
7. Steady :: Ready
8. Wives :: Stepford
9. Glass :: Menagerie
10. String :: Ball

Current Mood:

now i have a workout plan

Oddly enough, it's easy to forget when stuff is supposed to be difficult, especially when you haven't done it for a big chunk of time.

And so it was today when I went in to get my "induction" at the gym. I also realised that if given the opportunity, I will just chatter on about myself for a good chunk of time! Possibly because I don't really get that opportunity in a face-to-face kind of way that often... plus the female trainer was very nice.

Once we'd gone through all the induction part, she took me through to devise a workout...

That's when I forgot that that shit is supposed to be hard work! And of course she commanded that I must use the one machine I told her I found it really hard to use. Evil wench!

But come Monday I now have to remember to switch between cardio and weights... and various machines... and crunches... I forgot how much I hate crunches... especially ones that are done using a medicine ball!

Surely there should be an iPhone app for this shit though... not the actual doing of the exercises, but to keep track of shit so I know what I'm supposed to be doing.

Any suggestions?

Current Mood:

spheres

Two spheres... one open at the beach, the other is polished stainless steel and an Adelaide institution... taken a week apart but with surprisingly similar composition.

It's shaping up to be something of an intense week... there's work piling up on top of work at The Nut House, I have stuff to prepare for that currently terrifies me (and I imagine will continue to do so right up to the point where it's all over)... and the end of this week marks the beginning of Adventures At The Fringe... when you add that all up, it looks like it's not going to get any easier before my birthday in the middle of March. So, a month's worth of insanity... this could get messy.

April can't come soon enough to be honest!

I had a phone call from the Fringe people yesterday thought telling me that one of the shows has been cancelled... not just that particular show, but the entire run! I have no idea why, but it's a trifle disappointing. I need to work out now whether or not to try and book something else for the same day, a different day, or just get my money back.

The gymming continues... this morning I rocked up just before the doors opened and waited around with a handful of other people... only to find once I stepped onto the treadmill that I'd managed to put my teeshirt on inside out. Embarrassment! Still sweating like a pig... but I'm assuming that's a good thing.

I'm also starting to feel it through my legs and thighs... but this morning was a solid 45 minutes on the treadmill, so I'd kind of expect that. I was very slow when I headed off to the bus stop this morning though. Still haven't sorted myself out as far as a schedule goes... I'm just kind of playing it by ear for this week anyway until I have my "induction" on Sunday.

I've also passed on chocolate twice this week... only at work you understand... there's such a thing as too much self control!

Current Mood:

unconscious mutterings 420

I realised this morning that I spend $800 to walk inside for 30 minutes instead of walking outside for an hour for free...

But I don't think I've ever worked up a sweat doing my own walk like I did this morning... and who knew I could walk at 6.7km/h (essentially jogging speed).

Unconscious Mutterings...

1. Excitedly :: Waiting for the Fringe Festival to start
2. Rolls :: Royce
3. Owls :: Wise Old
4. Cover :: Vesion
5. Jubilee :: Queen's
6. Heartthrob :: Teen
7. Pizza :: Home-made
8. Constipation :: Fibre
9. Weightless :: Space
10. Truck :: Driver

Current Mood:

i joined a gym

Sometimes you know when something is the right time, the right place, the right person, the right idea...

And sometimes the universe sends you an adorkably sweet American in his early 20's as if to say "just fucking do it already"!

Honestly, today was a little of both.

After all my thinking and ranting in Friday's post about joining the gym... and the fact that I put a pair of jeans yesterday that used to fit just fine but which I could no longer do up... I headed over there when I went out to get my newpaper this morning, just to get the whole "look around" thing over with.

And the guy on the counter was very cute and said he'd show me around... so right there, that's a bonus... it's like when I went to look around the Renaissance Club gym during my lunchbreak many, many, many moons ago and there was a hot naked guy in the changerooms... essentially it just sometimes take a little bit of pretty to make me pay attention.

I did wonder how many times I have going to have to fill in my name and contact details. First the visitor register, then the pre-tour/consultation document, then finally the membership application. A touch of overkill there guys.

Anyway, I filled out the consultation thing and then ASA (Adorkably Sweet American) came over and we had the "why are you here, what do you want to get out of this" chat... during which I had to consciously think to myself "don't flirt"...

So after we'd done the chat, he took me on the tour... the gym itself isn't really that big so it didn't take long... it was kinda weird though that I've stood in a few of those spots back before it was a gym, when I was taking photos of a couple of models up there.

Then we discussed the sordid topic of coin... turns out though that I'd gone in on the "right" weekend... there's normally the joining fee and the admin fee if you pay month by month, but if you pay all at once there's no admin fee and if you join up after the first time you look around, they drop the joining fee.

So essentially, that's about $250 savings right there.

And I'm cheap and impulsive and occasionally decisive... so I just said to ASA "let's do it"... and I was talking about me signing up, obviously...

It was all a bit of a whirlwind after that... I filled out my details for the third time... my card was swiped through the EFTPOS machine... I was given a tiny little membership card that's supposed to go on my keyring... so I'm sure that the photo of me (via webcam no less) they took for their database probably features me with a slightly gormless expression on my face...

And I have an induction session next Sunday...

So that's going to probably be a week of me making shit up as I go along until then.

I'm freaking out a little bit... partially because I always freak out when something new is about to happen, but also because I have no idea how this is going to fit into my timetable. I want to go before work (so that I can't come up with as many excuses... because that worked well for my walking routine for four years), and they open at 6am, which is useful.

There are also classes at 6:15am, also useful... but I'd probably go to the gym and then come home and shower and get dressed... in fact, I can't see me really needing the full sized lockers at any point... except maybe in Winter when it's cold and I want to take a jacket and umbrella. But I don't know how long the classes go and if I'll make it back in time to do everything I need to do here in order to still get to work at the same time. I know that I probably won't have time to sit down with the laptop in the mornings like I do currently... and I'll need to do breakfast before I go too...

Or maybe I just readjust my working hours... which I don't really want to do... but if needs must...

Sorry... that was a bunch of stuff that I hadn't necessarily thought all the way through.

I just need to keep in mind that unlike my morning walk, I've actually paid for this... and if it turns out I need additional motivation via a personal trainer, I can pay for that too.

This time next week I should be better though... I'll have a vague idea what the hell is going on, and I'll have some sort of plan from the induction thing.

Until then, pray to your appropriate deity or demigod for me...

Current Mood:

gym journal ramblings

The stuff that inspires me to act is so freakin strange...

I mentioned the other day that I'd grabbed my old gym journals from Ma's place and I was going to do a post on them once I'd finished reading them... I finished them, and was thinking about the post... and went looking for a suitable picture to add to it (okay, I'm not sure Barbie's Workout Center was the RIGHT picture... but I thought it was funny)...

Which then lead me to looking at the websites for two Adelaide gyms... the (secretly) gay one (check the gay Telly Tubby on the contact page), and the one near my house... neither of which have the same number of classes that my original gym had many years ago... but I don't think I could ever go back there... too many ghosts...

Anyway... while looking at the site for the gym near my house I really started to want to do something about going... which I can't do without working full time... which I can't do without getting off my butt and contacting all the agencies, since my agency isn't getting me diddlysquat at the moment (and what I am getting is because I'm fabulous and have working in the same building for about four years and people know me)...

Which led me emailing my resume to seven recruitment companies not two minutes ago...

Which in turn has kind of left me a little shellshocked...

*blink* *blink*

I'm so weird sometimes...

Anyway... this is supposed to be a post about my gym journals... and I'm not going to let a little thing like ongoing mental trauma stop me *grin*...

Oh, before I begin... On a related note, Ma and I went shopping on Friday and it's actually the first time since I started this whole walking/health kick that I have eaten anything after 8:30pm... completely due to the fact we didn't finish shopping, etc until about 8:15pm... and to make matters worse, we had pizza... it was my suggestion though... it actually felt very wicked... I ended up just shifting the cut off time (and the time I would go to bed) back by half an hour to compensate...

Anyway...

The journals start on 16 August 1994 (yep, 11 years ago, when I was a springchicken of 20, still living at home... and technically a virgin to boot)... but the story actually starts a little before that.

The first job I had was at a business college that I'd done an office skills course at, and the woman running the college was so impressed with myself, another girl from my class and a girl from another class, she gave us all jobs. The girl from the other class, Kirsty, started going to the gym just after we all started working there, and she went from rather chunky to quite sleek and fab in a short space of time (she did it partially by not eating, which is never the answer). Never one to be outdone, her transformation was enough to spur me to check out the gym across the street from where we worked and take a tour one lunchtime.

See... the weirdest things inspire me to act...

During the portion of the tour when we went through the men's changeroom there was this very hot, shaven-headed and tattooed guy walking from the shower area to the lockers, stark naked. Suffice to say, this was enough to make me go "This would be the gym for me!" and I decided to join up on the spot. Well, actually I went in to do a complimentary session on 16 August... but I was pretty much committed on the strength of hot naked guy.

I'm so shallow sometimes... *grin*

Anyway... for reasons that are now lost in the mists of time, I thought it would be a plan to keep a journal of my adventures... and those journals and now this blog are one of only three attempts I have ever made to keep that kind of record of my thoughts and feelings (the other being a "journal" of parties that I went to when I was in Year 11).

My first gym journal was a half used Marvin the Martian spiral bound notebook, which by the time I was finished had become six spiral bound notebooks... at 200 pages each (well, except the first one), adding up to over 1000 pages of my ramblings (bit like this post is turning into really). And I'm sure there should be a seventh journal, since the last one actually ends right at the end of a notebook, but it might be that I just stopped keeping it when I finished the sixth one.

They would never win any awards for the quality or content of my writing, but they were an interesting read... a whole bunch of things that I had forgotten, events not connected to the actual workouts that happened in my life around the time too, that kind of thing. And references to people I'd forgotten about.

The entries end up being fairly formulaic after a while... what class, workout or cardio session I did, how it went, anybody that I knew who I happened to run into, then a discussion of any cute boys who happened to be around the gym at the time... and how naked or lack of same I saw them...

Some of the comments about the interesting and/or naked guys in the changerooms get to be sort of comical after a while... I was obviously obsessed with naked guys (not something that has really changed since) and made some really odd comments...

• "I saw what seemed to be my first uncut guy, and he was seriously hung, or seemed to be anyway (maybe it was just lots of hot water on his "dragon")"
• "I think I saw the cute guy from Friday, but as he was dressed, and I never really paid all that much attention to his face, I can't be completely sure"
• "The really narcissistic guy with the tattoos and the great, if short, body was in the changerooms again today, and once again he was admiring himself"
• "When I went into the changerooms I was greeted with something I wish I was greeted with every time I walked in, the back view of a rather attractive blonde, clad in nothing but a white g-string"
• "He was uncut and substantial and looked great wet"

And it goes on in much the same vein... lots of thinly veiled euphemisms for penis size and dimensions... *rolls eyes*

In the later journals there's this whole obsession with some a guy called Cameron, who I described as "interesting and somewhat cute... a strawberry blonde guy with jaw length hair and purple shorts..." I go on and on about him for ages... at least six months or more on and off... the really weird thing is that I can't place him in my memory... there doesn't seem to be any mental picture to dredge up whatsoever. Other guys I didn't have the vaguest interest in I can kind of dredge up an image for... him... nothing.

So weird...

It's also odd the things you say about people when you have no idea they will become big and (supposedly) permanent fixtures in your life...

"I did, however, full-on-flirt with another woman there, who although she looked kind of strangely familiar, I'm sure I don't know."

Yeah, I know... flirting with women... *rolls eyes*... well, I had to practice on SOMEBODY... plus there was a guy in the classes who annoyed me and was friendly with her...

That "strangely familiar" woman became my best friend on the entire planet...

So weird...

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