Yellow Mustard Blog

Birthdays always put me in a contemplative mood; once the buzz I get from cupcake frosting wears off, I tend to fall into meditative trance. I think about my life, the past year and what I want to do differently now that I'm a year older. Sometimes I make large goals ("I'm going to run a triathalon this year!") and sometimes I make small goals ("I am going use a fork for at least one meal a day!") but no matter what, I always want to change.
I'd like to think of myself as an continuously evolving entity; every day getting a little smarter, a little better, a little more efficient. Unfortunately that's pretty much a complete lie. I was lucky enough to get through puberty relatively unscathed and I think that took all the effort my body could muster. Now it's on a permanent hiatus... or screen saver, if you will. But you won't. You never do, you bastard.
Luckily, I've never been one to heed the call of reality, so once again, I'm setting some goals for my 24th year:

1. Read a book a week.
Oh god, I couldn't even type that with a straight face. Is it wrong to make a goal that you know is pretty much physically impossible for you to achieve? Oh well. I figure if I aim really really high, when I inevitably fail I might end up settling at something more reasonable, like say, a book a month. But truly, I have so many wonderful books backlogged that I owe it to myself to freaking read them. I'll just have to replace one regular activity in my life with reading, so no time is lost. How long can a human go with out peeing?

2. Get back in shape
You can't tell, but I'm mentally doing quotation fingers as I type "back in shape". I'd physically do them but then I couldn't type, could I, wise guy?? You see, what I regarded as being in shape previously would probably make some of you scoff. "Scoff!" you'd say, "Scoff scoff scoff!" To which I would reply, "Do you need a throat lozenge? You are coughing a lot."
But seriously. There was a time, many months ago, when I was running five miles every day. Where I was lifting weights on a semi-regular basis. Where I was taking 60 minute spinning classes and could still use my legs the next day!!! At some point before the wedding, however, I decided I would look way better if my muscles atrophied themselves into a shapeless goo loosely held together by my skin. And that brings us to today, where I am so out of shape that I gave myself an asthma attack after playing fifteen minutes of soccer. I don't have asthma, people. I am ashamed. But enough dwelling on the past. Today is the future. Er, yeah.

Jen has become so desperate for females to play in a co-ed soccer league with her she actually asked ME if I'd play. Counting the time I played a few weeks ago, I have played a grand total of ONE game of soccer in my life. D'oh! It's not that I don't want to play, it's just that I do not yet grasp any concept of the game (I just figured out the other day that when you teammate gets the ball, you do not run up and hover around them while shouting) and maaaaan, you do a lot of sprinting during a game. But anyway, the point of this paragraph is that I actually swallowed my fear and anxiety and committed to playing soccer. Oy.
Pretty much everyone of my friends out here is athletic; I think that everyone played on organized sports teams in high school, some even in college. So they all easily and eagerly play sport after sport: football, basketball, soccer, full-contact origami, you name it, they'll do it. Except, it seems, for me. Now, I love doing active stuff: hiking, biking, canoeing and kayaking, rock climbing, even just tossing a football around. But the thought of taking an activity and putting together a team of people and competing always brings back memories of gym class shame. I have this complex about stuff, including sports: I feel like if I don't pick up a new skill quickly and then excel at it, I am a failure. Which is pretty hilarious considering I don't really excel at anything at all. Oh man, that isn't hilarious, that's rather depressing. But anyway, if you compound that feeling of personal failure with the additional stress of feeling like you let your teammates down...well, it's too much for my fragile psyche to bear.
Have I waxed on enough about my insecurities and lack of ability in soccer? Have I completely buried my point, which is that I'm joining a soccer league in order to get in shape, no matter how painfully humiliating it is? Good. (You see dear reader, I like to do a lot of smoke and mirror tricks when I play sports; I talk so much about how horrible I am that people don't notice that I'm even more terrible than I claim to be. Or at the very least, I've set the bar so low for myself that people are impressed that I can even walk upright.)
Thus endeth goal number 2.

3. Write...and think more!!
For heaven's sake, I like writing a lot. I'm not really that good, but it brings me pleasure so I should at least try to do it more often. That includes putting more stuff into this-here blog and possibly dipping my toe into the icy waters of creative writing. Now that I'm enrolled back in college, I could probably even take a class. Assuming they can find a way to pry the $200 tuition fee from my miserly claw. I also want to talk with more people about writing and reading books and in general just get some more intellectual stimulation. I'll be getting my brain in shape too! I suspect it has also turned to a mass of goo. (Man, I love the word goo.) Don't get me wrong, I will never shake my love of Simpson's episodes and classic movies, like Super Troopers and Billy Madison. But I fear that I'm using the majority of my brain's capacity to constantly recite lines from Family Guy or Space Balls. Speaking of,

Dark Helmet: Before you die there is something you should know about us, Lone Starr.
Lone Starr: What?
Dark Helmet: I am your father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate.
Lone Starr: What's that make us?
Dark Helmet: Absolutely nothing! Which is what you are about to become.

Oh man, I love that movie. But now I'm going to want to watch the DVD instead of read. Maybe I can find an illustrated book version of the movie at a comic book store. Ooh! Comic books!





Thanks to any of you that read through this entire post. Even I kind of drifted off in the middle there...