Gym time today: 2.5 hours.
Total this week: 2.5 hours.

Cycle and Bosu Blast today. Esther went with me again, and we ran a bit in the half hour break in between classes. I tried to run a mile at a 7:03 minute pace, level 1 incline, but only got about halfway through before deciding to take a break. Maybe I'll try again some other time when I haven't just taken an hour long cycle class right before.

I had a crisis line shift today, the first in a few weeks. It was pretty uneventful; mostly only regulars called, and I finished Fun Home. There was something comforting about being back in that little office though, just waiting for the phone to ring. I think I missed it more than I realized.

Good things:
-Someone new messaged me on OKC, and we've been talking a little about games, which is nice. So far he seems like an interesting person, but we'll see how it goes. His profile says he's only looking for people to date...

-This made me smile. Life goals?


-I found this collection of parrot gifs on Imgur and am very pleased.

When I went with Esther to Santana Row on Saturday, we saw a few different parakeet-themed items in a Japanese stationery store there, and it made me want to have all the parakeet things. There's a parakeet-shaped void in my life that I sadly cannot fill because of grad school plans.

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Gym time today: 2.5 hours.
Total this week: 17 hours.

A new record. My friend Esther came with me to the gym today, and we did Cycle Fusion and Body Blast together. Also walked a bit on the treadmill afterwards. A woman came up to me when I went to the locker room between the two classes and asked if I was taking another class right after Cycle Fusion. When I said yes, she was like "Wow! You're really good!" and asked me what the class was like. I told her it wasn't really too bad, and that there were some weights and squats and things like that.

It was raining pretty hard today, but Esther and I went to Santana Row a bit after the gym. She didn't stay very long, though. I ended up looking at a couple more things by myself, and got a new shirt from Loft. Apparently I'm a middle aged lady now, going to spin class and shopping at Loft. Welp.

The power went out for a few hours tonight because of the storm, so I ended up just... sleeping, pretty much, for like three hours. When I woke up, my parents were sitting in the dining room with separate candles and like... reading or something. I think my mom was on her iPad. The lights came back on shortly after. Didn't end up eating dinner until like 9 pm because of that.

Last night was really fun. We decorated cookies, played Dix It, and hung out, and overall it was a great time. I got to catch up with Becka one on one, which was nice. The group wasn't actually that big, though. It was me, Becka, Sean, Alex, and Becka's husband. Fairly intimate! While we played Dix It, we were chatting, and... well, I won't post it here exactly, because inside jokes are always "you had to be there" things, but I guess the phrase "You use the little one to catch the bigger one" will live on in infamy now within the group of people who were there. We were crying with laughter at some points, and Sean pretty much lost it. He was lying on the couch, kicking his feet, and cackling uncontrollably.

Good things for today:
-On my way home from Santana Row I stopped at a different mall and picked up Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel. It cost more than it would have if I got it from Amazon, but buying it at the store supports local business, so I don't mind the tradeoff. Anyway, there's also a different feel when you buy stuff in person. I started reading it tonight and am roughly halfway through, so I might just finish it. It's pretty rare that I ever take more than one day to finish a graphic novel anyway. The book is really good, though, and I'd definitely recommend it.

-I also got a smoothie from this place in the mall where I've gotten a lot of smoothies before. I don't know how much longer that mall will be there, and it's kind of strange to think about, because it's been there my whole life and I have a lot of memories from there, but at least it won't catch me by surprise. I walked around the mall, looking at the empty storefronts and the "STORE CLOSING SALES" in the windows, just thinking about how much it's changed. It would be kind of wrong to say I felt happy from doing that, but I guess I felt like... a sense of peace about it. Like, at least I made the trip there and sort of got to say farewell, if this ends up being the last time I ever see it.

-I watched a few videos from BAHfest and was pretty entertained by them. Here's one:


Things in my life aren't perfect, but overall I feel like I'm in a pretty good place right now. I haven't had a seemingly random depressive episode in a pretty long time, and the times I have gotten depressed in the recent past, I had a very clear, traceable reason for it. I guess I don't know if that's really much better, because my strategies for dealing with depression evolved to suit the no-clear-cause kind, but well, at least I kind of know what's going on with me. I feel... pretty stable. And healthy, I guess. I want to be careful not to let this state slip into self-satisfied personal stagnation, though. Really disgusted with people who do that.

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Gym time today: 1 hour.
Total this week: 14.5 hours.

So I took it easy today and only did Bootcamp. I'll just add a half hour tomorrow to round things out.

I'm going to see friends tonight! It's been a long time since I've seen Becka, and I need to give her the Christmas gift I got her... >.> It's terrible that I haven't seen her in months. Looking forward to fixing that!

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Gym time today: 3 hours.
Total this week: 13.5 hours.

Bosu Blast, Pilates Fit, Turbo Kick.

Three hours in the sauna classroom, because they still haven't fixed the air conditioning.

---Edit---

Good things:
-Got to hang out with Alex and watch terrible tv.

I normally drive over to his apartment to hang out, and when I got there, there were no visitor spaces, so I ended up parking in a lot about a block away. When I walked over to the apartment complex though, a spot had just opened up. I waited a little bit, debating whether I should go and repark, and then decided to get my car, so I sprinted back to the other lot and drove towards the closer parking... but then a car turned into the lot right ahead of me and parked in the spot I was hoping to get. Was not happy about that at all. I was seriously just staring at the other car in shock and nearly yelled "ARE YOU KIDDING ME" in my car. BUT, I decided to look in the other visitor parking lot there, and a spot was free, so it worked out anyway.

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Be it extremely emotional, controversial, messed up, or whatever, this entry has been password protected.

If you know it, enter it; or, ask me for it.

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Gym time today: 2.5 hours.
Total this week: 8.5 hours.

Bootcamp, treadmill (3mph, level 10/11 incline), Cycle tonight.

Good things today:
-I got the baby to sleep for about an hour while I was babysitting. She hasn't been napping lately when I've been there, so today was a relief.
-"Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen came on when I was driving home from the gym and I had fun singing along to it in the car. The things you can do when you're alone!
-I rediscovered the Dunning-Kruger effect and had a nice laugh about its existence. This part especially made me giggle:

They were famously inspired by McArthur Wheeler, a Pittsburgh man who attempted to rob a bank while his face was covered in lemon juice. Wheeler had learned that lemon juice could be used as "invisible ink" (that is, the old childhood experiment of making the juice appear when heated); he therefore got the idea that unheated lemon juice would render his facial features unrecognizable or "invisible."

-SL replied to me and said he had his fingers crossed for me in my grad school application wait. ^__^ So far I have mentally categorized him as a Cool Dude. I wish he had more time to respond to me, but he works seven days a week and just said he hasn't had a vacation in four years, so I appreciate that he replies when he can.

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Gym time today: 3.5 hours.
Total this week: 6 hours.

Mat Pilates, then ran a mile (mostly 7:30 minute pace; I dropped my iPod halfway through the run and had to stop the treadmill to retrieve it, and I pushed the speed to 7:24 to sort of compensate) and walked... like half a mile? Then had CSI and Total Dance. The air conditioning still wasn't fixed, so it was very hot and humid. >_>

The interviewer for SU told me I should probably fill out the FAFSA (Maybe a good sign? Suggests she thinks I'll get in?), so I was doing that tonight... also filed real taxes for the first time ever, so uh... that was a thing. It was kind of tedious, but I guess not really hard. I wouldn't pay someone to do this for me. Luckily I had my dad helping me figure stuff out, though. Yay for parental support!

Good things for today:
-Noah linked me to a Youtube mix from that Vitas song, and it's... really something. So many silly meme videos. So good. He also told me a neat story about a homeless guy he met whose name was Jeff.
-Went grocery shopping with my mom and got a bunch of things on sale. She also got some really yummy chocolate with candied ginger in it from somewhere else, and I had some of that earlier. Num num. When I go shopping with my mom she often will buy me stuff, so I got some dried tart cherries and other yummy things and am pretty pleased.
-I heard "Flight of the Navigator" by Childish Gambino on the radio and had a moment outside myself on the way to the gym.

I had a dream
I had a dream I was flying over all of us
There were so many pretty people
So many pretty faces
I talked to some birds
I fell in love again
And none of this ever ended
Everything just kept going, and going and going
And even when you laughed, when you cried
And even when you were sad you were really happy
Because you were here
And I got to meet every star, every planet
Everything that made me
And we all kissed
And became the same

The voice in the intro reminds me of Commander Powell from Dark Star.

This movie makes me nostalgic. I also just love this scene.

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Gym time today: 2.5 hours.
Total this week: 2.5 hours.

I was super tired this morning, but managed to drag myself to Cycle at 8:30. Today we had a "show tunes spin" class, so all the music was from musicals. It was the instructor's last day, too, and some people brought flowers for her. I guess she's going to go back to working in theatre. After class, I went on the treadmill... didn't really feel up to running today, so I just walked at 3mph at a level 10/11/12 incline during my half hour break. Maybe it was for the best, because my knee felt a little weird during Bosu Blast. I guess I tend to associate high impact stuff with intensity though, so I didn't feel like I really worked out much today.

When I got home, I pretty much just... slept. For hours. Five hours, in fact. I did wake up at some point during that, but... yeah, five hours. I guess I was tired.

Haven't done too much since I woke up except take a shower and eat. I ended up reading some stuff on Wikipedia about psychological mindedness, metacognition, and mentalization (and here's another interesting one on mentalization) though. I guess... I tend to assume that these are things that everyone is intrinsically capable of, but maybe that's expecting too much. Probably because of the way I was raised, I view high expectations as an optimistic thing. My parents never gave me much direction (or much structure), and I got criticized a fair amount when I screwed up, because I was the oldest and was supposed to be more responsible and know better. This felt frustrating and unfair a lot, but at the same time, it meant that they assumed I was competent and could figure stuff out on my own. I had some rough patches growing up, but overall, I feel like I have risen to meet those expectations. Maybe it was a self-fulfilling prophecy at work in the long term.

I don't know if the way my parents raised me is right for everyone (and they did make some mistakes), but it certainly seems better than being babied and endlessly coddled. I feel some mild distaste for parenting styles that produce emotionally fragile and incompetent people who need constant validation for... doing nothing but "being themselves." Honestly, I don't think that freely expressing yourself is necessarily anything to be proud of in itself. Not getting anxious over other people's opinions of you is one thing, but I feel like some people take it way overboard and get defensive at the slightest criticism.

Good things for today:
-I had the free time to take that ridiculously long nap. I mean, there are things I could have been doing, but nothing urgent.
-My mom got some fish juk for me, and it was yummy. There's not much to explain about that beyond I was pleased that she got something I like for me.
-After Cycle this morning, since it was the instructor's last day, some of the women in the class wanted to take a group photo with her, and they kept gesturing for me to get in the picture too. I don't know how the picture came out, but it was nice to feel included, and I felt like I was able to smile with sincerity instead of just feeling self-conscious and awkward about it.
-Sean put a picture from New Year's up on his OKC, and I was in it. I don't remember seeing it before, but I felt like my smile was pretty decent in it too. Maybe I just look happier in general. I also felt good about having these pictures of myself with friends. They remind me that I have people in my life who care about me, and that's important.
-Noah has been showing me different versions of a song he's working on, to ask if I think things are better or worse in each. I'm happy that he values my opinion enough to share his song with me in this way, and I also think it's super cool that he's making music at all.

I heard this song on the radio the other day and love the sentiments in it:

"My Girls" by Animal Collective.

There isn't much that I feel I need
A solid soul and the blood I bleed
But with a little girl, and by my spouse
I only want a proper house
I don't care for fancy things
Or to take part in the freshest wave
But to provide for mine who ask
I will, with heart, on my father's grave
On my father's grave (on your father's grave)
I don't mean to seem like I care about material things
Like a social status
I just want four walls and adobe slabs
For my girls

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