You are not alone....*

Last night I was at the gym, natch, because that is where I plan to be for the next 12 days in light of the great Santa Speedo Run unveiling. While attending to business on the Stairmaster, I was also reading the November issue of SELF magazine, primarily because of the tempting headline:

Sculpt Sexy Curves (Look Like You Lost 5 Pounds!): The 7 New Moves for Incredible Abs, Show-off Shoulders, Lean Legs and More!

It was only secondarily that I noticed a sub headline:

SEX SPECIAL: Flirting, Fantasies & Facebook. What Women Are REALLY Doing Online.

Since I spent substantially more time this weekend flirting online than I did on working on lean legs and since I, on the Stairmaster, was already working on my lean legs, I immediately flipped there ("Click Here For a Good Time") for affirmation of my extracurricular activities.

"Sexting. Emailing a naked photo. Flirting on Facebook. In a groundbreaking survey, SELF polled more than 1,100 women ranging in age from 18 to 50-plus to see how the Internet is changing the way we're mating, dating and relating. The results are now in, and the overwhelming response to whether women are pursuing virtual action is "Oh, God, yesss!"

Some of our surprising findings: Sixty percent of women say the Internet helps them explore their sensuality without embarrassment...."

Other things I learned from the article and the many sub-articles there-in:

* 61% of women surveyed have viewed porn on their computer
* 21% of 36-to-50-y-olds have used the web to find a real-life booty call
* 24% say they have "faked it" during cybersex
* 18% have stripped for a web cam

Just saying, y'all.

Not everyone has to agree with the practice. But can we admit that me and my IM proclivities are hardly out of the ordinary....?

*(.... one of my least favorite Michael Jackson videos, BTW, especially the part where he's naked in a pool wearing angel wings ....)

Deep Thought: Make Your Own

The best part of spending Thanksgiving alone is giving yourself permission to pull off as much crispy skin as you want, whenever you want.

No platter required.

Philippians 4:6-9

The wisdom of Paul, from tonight's Epistle:

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your request be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

"Finally, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me--practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you."

Liked it.

Damn. I'm not THAT old.

About 6 months ago I followed the lead of my fine, Bible-scholar buddy Joshua (and his fine, Bible-centric blog), in experimenting to see if there were any God-given reason that, at this point in time, I could make a few bucks off this blog.

Well, truly, I never expected to actually make money. I think I know my audience, who doesn't come here on their way to somewhere else. The number of daily visitors is not enough to generate any substantial number of clicks. Even the occasional pick-up by match.com or boston.com, causing a massive spike in readership for one day, does not produce necessary traffic.

But I was temporarily seduced. Google makes it sound easy:

"AdSense for feeds places relevant ads into your feed's items. Google automatically chooses which ads to show based on your blog's content, and you earn money when visitors view or click on these ads."

So ... I just checked my "account", and my theory has been borne out. Ads here have generated 3 clicks in 6 months. Three. Earning me $2.77 that I won't see, anyway, anytime soon, since Google won't send the check until the balance exceeds $10....which at this rate, will be when I have grandchildren.

Meanwhile, I came on to post this morning and, paying attention for the first time, noticed the four ads "based on your blog's content" that Google's algorithms chose today (ostensibly based on either this or this entry?):

Meet Older Singles
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Senior dating (2 chances!). And, natch, dateacougar.com. Follwed by instructions on how to create an identity-management software application. So I clicked onto the arrow at the top of the box to see what the second set of ideas might be and was even more impressed:

Find a Date
Sign Up to Meet Local Singles.

Search 1000s of Profiles For Free !

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You never knew y'all were only being asked to visit here to find your Filipino Dream Woman?Folks. This perhaps is what Google thinks of y'all. Be afraid. Be very afraid. (Or, be very afraid of my writing.)

Hmm. It's a no-brainer. After you've had a chance to browse them today, I'm going to jettison the ad routine ... unless I am one day featured on "Good Morning, America."

At which point I'll add it back and retire to my Florida vacation home.

Chillaxin

So I was on Facebook a few moments ago to change my status update:

"Karin will be doing nothing this week. Nothing."

Three friends clicked on the "like" button for this.

I wish this status wasn't so nebulous. I do still have to go to work. I do still have to find a Christmas ticket to Minneapolis under $500. I do need to do 3 weeks-worth of laundry. I do have to kick the softness out of my running legs and abdominal muscles because I told everyone and my mother I plan to wear a Speedo in public in 19 days.

And there are a hundred other things I probably could do. Christmas letter. Christmas cookies. Volunteer on turkey day. Clean the dead impatiens off my patio. Buy a dresser. Put away the summer clothes. Vow to not talk online with any man under 30 because as I find time and time again .... and seem to never remember .... it all just circles back to what's in their pants.

Most importantly, I could probably learn to relax again.

That's probably a "should," actually. So I'll stop being so uptight about all of the rest.

Just because I can

I'm up.

It's precisely 4:12 a.m.

I'm in my parka.

I'm in the Adirondack chair on the patio.

I've got a vodka cranberry buzz, but not one buzzy enough to regret.

So blog?

Why not.

I might still be on the high from today's matinee and then the night show with its extra adrenaline from the 20 seconds of wrong-synthesizer-setting panic in the middle of song #12 followed by even more extra adrenaline from it being the last show followed by the ripping apart of the set and then the cast party and the serious post-show love and the aforementioned vodka cranberry buzz and the sense of relief and gratitude that, amazingly and thankfully, always materializes at such moments when you almost can't believe that 6 months ago all this was was an idea and some publicity posters and 3 months ago you didn't know 2/3 of these people and that even 2 weeks ago you couldn't imagine feeling this satisfied and even as of last night, you didn't think you were going to miss any of them.

But you will. And I will.

Thanks, good folk of The Longwood Players and YAGMCB, for taking the leap.

Confidence (a.k.a 28)

It's a confidence kind of day when,
heading out to grab a late lunch,
a girl steps into an elevator with a man
in a button-down and top-siders who looks,
oh,
about 28 and well put-together
(but not too much so),
and rides down with him
while checking out his reflection in the mirrored doors,
not saying anything
in those 28 seconds it takes to go 28 floors
(in part because he really isn't her type),
(in part because who really ever talks to strangers in elevators
but in erotic literature or Aerosmith videos),
but believing that
if she had had a few more ounces of confidence and
he was indeed her type,
she indeed might have said something as easy as
"plans for the weekend?", and,
in part because
he was also checking out her reflection
(she could see),
he might have at least smiled at her chutzpah
before he stepped out.

Chatting (a.k.a, rank curiosity)

Someday, dear reader, please insist you are tired of hearing about various random IM chats I get into on OKC.

Until then ....

There's a small chance that a chat might turn into something. But I hold no hope. My willingness to get into most chats arises from a combination of boredom, curiosity and a smidgen of chutzpah. Most guys with whom I chat feel the same, driven also by the desire, no matter how futile and random, to get sex out of it. Which in turn drives my curiosity and chutzpah to participate in their efforts to get sex, no matter how futile and random.

It's a game, really. I don't want to play it forever. But when in my current middle ground of no serious prospects and no chance of a serious prospect until at least after this weekend, when I exhale from musical commitments, it's a distraction during a late supper eaten alone.

The hours of 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. seem to be the most highly-populated trolling hour, and last night didn't disappoint. I got requests from an Irish Bostonian, a burly man in central Ohio, and a gentleman from San Francisco whom I chatted with last weekend and like, but haven't decided how to handle yet.. All 3 that I didn't follow through on because I was in the midst of 2 others -- the first a 22-y-old musician who had messaged me earlier in the day:

"Kissable and Fiesty? i hope you like younger guys. Hi there how are you doing? I looked your profile you seem like a very cool girl and if you dont mind me saying so you are also very beautiful xoxo =) So far from what I've read we seem to have a quite bit in common. I hope you like what you read about me in my profile Im told Im a very sweet and passionate guy I hope that wins me some points hehe. Anyway I was juat wondering if you would like to chat? I hope my words have at least made you smile and I also hope to hear from you soon if you like what you hear I am all yours xoxo"

As soon as I logged on last night at 11, there he was. As always, when someone who could conceivably be my son wants to flirt, I delve for motive. Trying to, perhaps, educate him on what he would be getting into.

22-y-old: How are you my dear?
Karin: Late dinner. Slow wireless.
22: that sux. so u get my message to you?
K: Yes. Curious. There's quite an age gap here.
22: i know but honestly I am mature for my age and very respectful
K: Oh, I don't doubt it. What is appealing to you about an older woman?
22: well olderwomen seem to really know what they want and know what pleases them and im not just speaking in a sexual way any time I've ever been asked out by a woman she has always been at least a little older lol I guess its some kind of pattern
K: interesting.
22: do you like younger guys?
K: Well, I do. But it isn't always ideal, actually.
22: how so?
K: It's kind of fun, but can be difficult to find common ground.
22: how do you mean?
K: A man who is 22 is at a totally different place in his life.
22: very true but that doesnt mean we couldn't have fun
K: True, of course. What is fun, as you suggest it?
22: well you tell me. what do yu imagine us doing for fun?

That actually took a lot longer to get to the sex reveal than I expected. I was not inspired to go further but, surprisingly, could not figure out how to say that. I also could have just logged off, but that felt mean.

K: Well, there are possibilities. I have to confess I'm not quite in the mood to discuss it tonight.
22: well can you give me an idea?
K: No, actually I'm on my last legs and falling asleep. We'll have to chat later.
22: oh of course I didnt know Im sorry
K: Cool. Later, then.
22: sweet dreams. just nice there is hope xoxo

I didn't really mean to give him hope, which means I'll just have to deflate it later. Bad Karin.

Meanwhile, I had already responded to a request from a 40-something with a fantastic smile. Definitely more promising:

Nice Smile: happy wednesday... at least for a little while. What are you up to?
Karin: Eating a late supper. Working on some cereal from the box right now... Yourself?
NS: similar... I'm on to oatmeal with cranberries
NS: and scotch... woo!
K: Excellent.
NS: agree... I'm in that lovely transition phase
K: Is the scotch a necessity or an indulgence?
NS: certainly an indulgence. one bottle lasts months around here

Ah. A conversation more my style. At least a modicum of banter.

K: I'm sure oatmeal goes faster, yes.
NS: ha! you are so right. how did you spend your day?
K: Well, I dropped my parents off -- here for a long weekend - at the airport.
K: Then very busy at work. Then the gym. & voila.
NS: sounds like quite a day. how was the long weekend with the parents?
K: .... visiting for the first time in 4 years. So generally, it was fun.

This went on for a bit. I asked him what he does; he's busy with job, etc. Inspired to check out his profile for more details, I discovered the following.

K: Hmm. Interesting that you're married. What's the scoop on that?
NS: married for many years. long and sordid story...

(substantial pause)

K: They usually are.
NS: we have both started sort of openly dating recently
NS: which has been interesting to say the least

(more substantial pause)

K: I would guess.
NS: yea... I have saved you the part how we get from point a to point b

So, finished as a date prospect, obviously. But, still a curiosity. This man has chutzpah of his own. Delve.

K: Have you gone out much?
NS: I have met some very interesting women
K: Mostly through here?
NS: here... starbucks... the supermarket
K: must live in a promising neighborhood to meet folks at Whole Foods, etc. That's challenging...
NS: I have some interesting Whole Foods stories
K: Naturally.
NS: exactly!
K: Interesting concept, this dating while married. How's it working out for you?
NS: well, it is challenging. I seem to handle her dates better than she handles mine
K: Women do take these things harder, yes. That seems perhaps a general gender trait.
NS: that could be
K: I suppose neither of you bring dates back to the house, eh...?
NS: never
K: Hmm. You must get asked these questions a lot.
NS: I do, in differing tones
NS: some are curious (like you). many judgemental.
NS: some like that I am married
K: Well, it is something that differentiates you from the crowd...
NS: interesting... I never thought of it that way
K: Depends on if that way is advantageous or otherwise, I guess.
NS: I do not work from a plan
K: Of course. Does this, then, become your main topic of conversations or, generally, do the women get past it and go on?
NS: no. I would get bored
K: Naturally.
NS: If I have a connection with someone, then we chat about everything
K: As the woman, I wouldn't want to linger, either.
NS: there you go
NS: you obviously have a lot going on. there is a lot to explore in your life
K: Sometimes, yes.
NS: well, yes. but you seem open to experiences

Ah. The moment where I had to decide if I was going to be open to this experience.

I begged off, at least for that moment. We might connect again; I liked our energy. But it seems not worth the energy. Mostly, my brain is too tired to find out more. Minutely, because of the frustration, again, of wanting to encounter a man I like talking to who a) comes without debilitating baggage; b) lives in my age range; c) is not exclusively looking to get off; d) who employs punctuation in e-mails; and e) not married.

When I come down off the musical high after this weekend, even though I know OKC is not the ideal forum to find any of these things, I'll rewrite my profile to include these parameters. See what happens. Maybe get some chats worth staying up late for.

Vermont Fun Fact

Even lakeside cities in socially liberal states (even on sunny off-season Tuesdays) will give your (rental) car an orange ticket when you stay 5 minutes past your meter limit.

Burlington = Boston? (who knew!)

Blowing the pop stand (a brief diary)

Hey folks.

Hi from Vermont. The north side. Waterbury in the off-season, to be exact. 190 miles northwest of the city of noise and chaos.

The great non-peopled open. Yes.

I've got my Mom & Dad in tow. They've been with me since Saturday afternoon, actually. Seeing the show. Getting me up for early church. Serving as chronic dining companions. All good. I've not been to Vermont in 7 years, but they've never been here. And they like it. It's leafless and cold but the sky is blue and I'm driving a sweet Toyota Camry rental with working shocks that corners with a kick and I-89 through the Green Mountains is as good as empty on Monday afternoon, BTW, and did I mention it's the off-season here? We are the only guests in a 20-room inn. The caretaker built a log fire and is making us omelets in the morning.

Beautiful.

Early this evening, just after 2 Triple Caramel Chunk samples from the Ben & Jerry's factory tour and just before my parents took me out for a bison burger and Otter Creek Copper Ale at the local pub, I stretched out on the sofa in our room and took a power nap while Dad watched ESPN SportsCenter. Best nap ever. For the first time in 2 months, after 2 months of every day trying to force my shoulders to demagnetize from my earlobes and wildly failing, they relaxed of their own accord.

And we had only been in Vermont for 5 hours.

It was something in the quiet. Maybe, after 3 years of not having a television, it was the ESPN (excoriating the Pats, BTW), too.

Tomorrow we'll have 18 hours here.

It's all good.

D-Night

Tonight, we open.

It's just in the nick of time. My fatigue has chronic fatigue.

But the show came together, as it should have, 8 months from the day the producer first approached me. It sounds good. It looks good. It runs like a machine. It still has moments that make me laugh, even on the 41st viewing. I've become comfortable with both conducting musicans and wearing a pale yellow unitard and a can-can feather on my head.

It feels like a wedding day. Or a bar mitzvah, except cheaper.

I've done a whole lot of these kinds of shows in my life and, always, when we reach this point I kind of don't believe how much creative and organizational energy must flow from everyone involved in order to reach this point. Kind of take it for granted, really.

It's crucial to remember to be grateful at moments like this. For talent. For connections. For opportunities. For wit. For visions. For passions. For willingness. For human kindness. For grand rallentandos with kick lines.

It'll be a grand night.

Flaky in the city

Yesterday afternoon, I began arguing over e-mail with one of my FWABs re: hatred of the City of Boston's parking rules and the resulting crimp it has put on my checkbook and sanity.

My friend is known to have strong, no-nonsense opinions, I know this, and know how he feels about my war with the meter maids, but was surprised at the vehemence of his practicality: why don't you just pay the tickets and get a sticker and quit blaming others.

When I suggested that I got tired of having to deal with the bureaucratic issues like parking stickers and inconsistency of enforcement, he said: so move, then.

I was furious at both his failure to agree with me and equal lack of empathy. But it was at that moment that I realized, of course, that he is right. Even while I still couldn't disagree more.

It's a larger issue of weariness with the necessity (and yes, it is a necessity) of conforming to relatively arcane, and in many cases arbitrary, processes and rules that keep order in a large population center where, if everyone just did what they wanted ..... chaos. Sometimes you don't want to have to attend to the 50 things you have to always attend to when you have car in a city: registration, excise tax, parking signs with different messages every 10 feet, neighborhood stickers for some hoods and not others, visitor permits, moving vans that might appear the next day, street cleaning schedules with varying frequencies, snow emergency routes that may or may not go into effect when it snows, unposted legacy rules about parking in medians....

Sometimes, when you've got other things to think about -- like friends, and money, and coffee, and pets, and trying to find dates, and remembering to sleep, and doing other things you love -- you just want to have a car. And to drive it when you want to. To park it where you need to. Without being penalized.

In short: you want to be able to be the flaky, occasionally irresponsible, personality you are and live in the city you love without going to the poorhouse because of it.

Maybe this desire and the resulting reality are at dire odds.

I mean, really.

City of Boston. Really.

Are you getting back at me for mocking the Southie Christmas tree stand?

I registered my car to Southie nearly 2 years ago. I have a resident parking sticker from the former car owner that is valid through November 2009. I've parked in resident parking in Southie for nearly 2 years.

When you first gave me a parking ticket last March for parking in resident parking when I didn't "technically" have a resident parking sticker, I paid that ticket. And I didn't want to get another, so I went in to get my own sticker.

But I was in the middle of contesting the infamous St. Patrick's Day no parking zone violation. According to the rules of resident parking stickers, you told me, a resident cannot procure a parking sticker with outstanding tickets. It took until October for you to schedule a hearing on the St. Patty's tickets.

So I was unable to get a new parking sticker. In the meantime, in June, you handed out another groundless ticket: for parking in the median of Columbus Ave on a Sunday afternoon, even with no signs that say "no parking". Again, 5 months to get an appeal hearing, which is coming uip on Friday.

Meaning that I still haven't replaced the sticker ....since I have outstanding tickets.

So, since I have been parking in Southie resident parking, with the borrowed sticker, since December 2007 (I'm guessing about 500 days and nights) and only incurred that one March 2009 ticket -- imagine my surprise that, last night, you would see fit to assign me a No Resident Parking Sticker ticket. Even though the car was on the same spot it had been for the last week ... ay, much of the last year ... without a ticket.

I mean, really, City of Boston. Feeling stingy? Needing that $40 pretty badly?

Are you trying to MAKE me not want to live here anymore?

The bare chest hall of fame

So back on one of the first posts of this blog, I vowed to do my damndest not to mock men who wrote me on dating websites. We're all just mortals in the crazy play ....

Nonetheless.

Recently I vowed that if I got one more online message from a man who uses his cell phone to take a picture of his chest in a bathroom mirror, seeming to believe that naked flesh, no matter in what context or lighting or state of fitness presented, will encourage a response from a woman 14 years older than him (even though age has nothing, really, to do with it), without really understanding what would make a younger man attractive to someone my age, or displaying even a hint that he has previously heard of the word subtlety .....

Yeah.

Sorry, dude.

The cliché of a Monday

Having a hard time getting going this morning. Reasons why, at least in theory, although none very compelling, are:

1) Fatigue. (Don't call me predictable for nothing.)

2) A to-do list from the weekend left primarily unaccomplished. Meaning I've doubled the number of items on the list for the week ahead -- such as booking a Christmas plane ticket as prices flow ever upward (today's cheapest = $428), gathering appropriate evidence to appeal yet another 2 parking tickets and think about what reason I can give for appealing a 3rd, emptying the dishwasher, disassembling the (still blooming!) pots of impatiens on the patio before freeze and my parents' arrival on Saturday, and hand-scrubbing-down the hardwood floors to remove the spots left from the occasional regurgitated cat food stain.

(Actually, that last one is left over from a to-do list of about 2 months ago. Although it will get done this week. Having remnants of regurgitated cat food on one's floor when one's mother is visiting is about as viable as leaving condoms in the nightstand drawer in the bedroom where she is to sleep. So even with rehearsal the next 4 nights until 11 p.m., it will get done, even if I'm on hands and knees at 6 a.m. the next 4 mornings.)

3) Overwhelming guilt at the realization that despite being busy and allowing undone tasks to pile up, I'm hardly busier than almost anyone else I know (i.e. friends that are composing symphonies, running restaurants, raising children) and they aren't griping to me about it, and I want to know why my act is so hard to get together.

So, speaking of getting its act together on a Monday morning, I must shout-out to the City of Boston, no matter the number of parking tickets they foist upon my vehicle. Seems November 9 is the ideal day to pull the neighborhood Christmas tree stand out of storage, pictured here as I stood waiting for the #9 near Perkins Square.

It makes me feel better, despite the proactive get-aheadness of this action, that last year's tree stump is still screwed in place, and that to get rid of it has probably been on someone's to-do list since last December 26.

Scarfing

So I was looking down and assessing today's outfit:

Sleeveless knee-length dress of a fabric covered in navy blue circles

Grey, cropped cardigan sweater

Black Mary Jane pumps

Rust, brown & cream-colored scarf, natch.

I'm not trying to denigrate my sense of style, but rather to point out that it is November and therefore the opening of scarf season. You know, when you walk in from outside and take off your coat, hat and gloves .... but leave the scarf on. Whether it goes with your clothes or not. Ideal for someone like me who frequently hangs in drafty church basements for rehearsals and meetings, or in 52-story office towers that take awhile to efficiently change the HVAC over from AC to heat in transition weather.

I like the one I've got on, because its made of soft, oft-washed yarn and is skinny enough to wrap around several times and a) not have its tails catch in the wheels of my chair; or b) intrude up over my chin.

This scarf has origin of some interest -- an impromptu gift during a date some time ago with a match.com man I called The Editor, at Davio's on a frigid Sunday night. Recalled thusly last summer:

"Perhaps the most polite gentleman alive. Recently relocated from New Jersey, edits reading curriculum textbooks. We made 2 dates in January---both Sunday nights at swanky Davio's for wine and pizza, both three-hour conversations on politics, family, our jobs. There was minimal spark, but it was agreeable talk. During the course of Date #2 the temperature outside dropped 30 degrees and I shivered as we prepared to leave. The Editor took off his lengthy multi-colored scarf and handed it over:

"My mother has made me a dozen of these. Use it. Keep it."

The Editor's bad luck was timing. Those of you in the single world know: dating success comes in waves and droughts. I was under a tsunami.

The same day as Date #1, I had met Another Man in the flesh....who could not have been more different... with whom there was noticeable romantic spark. We e-mailed every day between my dates with The Editor. The same day as Date #2, I had spent the afternoon flirting over lunch and coffee with Another Man. I really wanted to date Another Man.

So after several unsuccessful attempts to get him in person, I broke things off with The Editor via e-mail. He responded, again, with utmost politeness. He rebuffed my offer to return his scarf. "

It's less about remembering The Editor with any great fondness than evaluating that incident of choices. When faced, I took spark instead of the gentility, and where did it get me? Another Man and I eventually crashed and burned and he left without a trace. But I still have the scarf of the man I ditched. It's a favorite possession.

I don't even really know why it feels symbolic. Or what it would symbolize. Why does it seem like it should?

Need for Speed(o) III: Abs of Evil.

Musical ramping up. Work ramping up. And despite the complete lack of a love life, it's been a hectic couple of weeks in Karin-land.

In the manner of an exercise addict, I have not forgotten the inevitable Speedo & Sports Bra & Bare Stomach & Bare Thighs look that I have committed to on Saturday, Dec. 12. Which means that despite the work chaos and rehearsal chaos and never, ever having a free evening between now and Thanksgiving, you'd better believe I am still making sure I get to the gym during the day. Even if a nap would be preferred.

So on Monday I ran 3.75 miles on my lunch hour. No sweat. (Literally, no sweat. It was cold out.)

On Tuesday, noticing that despite the run my midsection drooped gelatinously in a post-Halloween-candy way, I forewent cardio and instead attended this class at the gym:

Body Defined Strength training class that may feature a variety of equipment including free weights, bands or Body Bars. Balance work may also be included in the class. Instructor: Jakki.

On my gym's website, Jakki's bio states that she enjoys challenging participants with a safe but intense workout. "My favorite part of teaching isn’t the music or the exercises, it’s the smile I see when people leave class feeling better about themselves and more confident to take on a new challenge…maybe another class!”

What Jakki's bio didn't say: "I like to stride around the room when you're on the 13th minute of the 15-minute non-stop abdominal workout and shout out, 'I know what I'm asking you to do is evil. Who thinks I'm evil?! I don't hear you! Who thinks I'm evil! You will thank me later! You will!"

I have a propensity to eat candy and full loaves of Iggy's Cranberry Pecan Rolls in one sitting. And full boxes of Kashi Go Lean. It's possible there are parts of me that are not as firm as they could be.

Nonetheless, I consider myself to be relatively in-shape. (You know. That marathon and yoga thing, etc.)

Folks, if I'm going to make a habit of Body Defined, "relatively" will not cut it. After my Tuesday time with Jakki, the muscles of my torso hurt so badly two days later I cannot, literally, stand up straight, and the inner-thigh ache causes me to walk bow-legged as if I'm squeezing an exercise ball between my knees.

The overall effect is that I look and feel like a pecking hen. An old pecking hen, at that. Still deciding if I'll feel like smiling, if I'll feel more confident about myself, and if I feel like I ever want to take on a new challenge, ever again.

Onward! (she whispers)

Damn Yankees

You'd think a man of a certain age would not cancel a date in order to stay in and watch the World Series with his roommate.

Especially when the Red Sox aren't even in it.

Evidently I have met the one who would.

**Update, 11:27 pm: the comments this post inspired via the link on universal hub today are more amusing than the post itself and offer lots of helpful advice. I'm honored.

(And, btw, Pedro got knocked out in the fourth. Just saying.)

Deep Thought: Clean out the Nightstand

Today's math!

(brought to you by pragmatism)

In 12 days, my parents are visiting.

They are staying for 4 nights.

For the first time in 4 years.

(In 4 years I've had a lot of dates.)

With the money I have spent on iced black eyes at Starbucks, Dunkin' and the Diesel Cafe since Labor Day, had I not spent it, I could afford to treat my parents to the comforts of a hotel.

Alas.

So my parents are coming, and we will share my 1-bedroom apartment. I am sleeping on the sofa. They will sleep in my bedroom. With the litter box. And the contents of my nightstand.

Sometime in the next 12 days I need to clean out the contents of my nightstand.

(Please don't let me forget.)

Diesel diary

Welcome to another Sunday night, sports fans, when we're on hour 3 of 6 of Karin's weekly post-rehearsal shift at Diesel Cafe in Davis Square, bonding with the laptop over busy work:

Iced (you'd better believe it!) Decaf Americano and peanut butter cookie? Check.

College-aged couple next to me, deep in symbiosis with a "Transport Modeling for Environmental Engineers and Scientists" textbook? Check.

College-aged lanky male youth behind me, in zipper-front sweater with cappuccino, lounging on a couch, pontificating about Wes Anderson movies loudly enough for entire cafe clientele, perhaps to impress his pretty young date, also with cappuccino, who to her credit is giving him encouraging glances? Check.

(There are about 20 more such couples around me. It is Tufts-land up here, after all.)

Checklist of tasks I came here with the supposed fortitude to complete that is not getting completed because I'm weary and my coffee is decaf and already gone and I would instead rather check Facebook every 7 minutes or be distracted by the most excellent Salon Sex column (today: "How Not to Make Love Like a Porn Star") or go onto OKC and see if the guy (37, actually single, a socially-conscious writer whose "most private thing I’m willing to admit here" is that he "walked away from a fight in the fourth grade, and missed my chance to be in the popular crowd") who I favorited on Friday will re-view my profile a third time, and generally acting like a procrastinating college student when, damn damn damn, I should be more responsible and stop leaning on these endless run-on sentences to fill out blog entries and instead finish my list of church council and music director and parents-are-coming-to-visit-in-2-weeks-and-I-must-find-a-B&B-in-Vermont duties so I can go grocery shopping and make chicken and lentil soup and fold the laundry and still get to bed by midnight so that I can stay rested and on-task this week, much unlike last week's meltdown, and because wow, I am getting way sick of Wes Anderson-pontificating college student's pontificating and it's already after 9....

Check.