Everything is Fine, Unless You Break My Imaginary Rules

I recently joined another gym after a year-long hiatus so I could throw up, shoot myself up with insulin, and pee every three minutes…I mean, so I could have a baby. It’s a boy! And now I’m pre-diabetic! If I don’t lose 25 pounds by my next follow up doctor’s appointment, they are going to start talking medication. The kind that has side effects. Like total ass-crippling diarrhea. Motivation, if there ever was, I’d say.

So, I joined a more refined (read: more expensive) gym. I love it. I love the women only gym room, the loft area, the smoothie bar, the high wood beam ceilings. However, I don’t always love the strangers I have to share this newfound luxury with.

I never realized it before, but I am a person with a lot of boundary issues. I have a set of rules in my head that all strangers should abide by, even though they don’t know these rules exist and I never inform them of them. But really, I should not need a rule in my head to never see you bent over in nothing but white underwear in the locker room.

So, here it is. Angelique’s Passive Aggressive Rules YOU Need to Follow or Else I Do Something Ferocious, Like Give You the Stink Eye.

1)      No over-the-top exhibition-style nudity. This includes anything more than racing from the shower to your locker with an embarrassed smile and averted eyes, followed by the fastest dressing EVER. DO NOT wander around chatting, sitting, or doing anything you should be doing with your clothes on. This is mostly because I get into Seinfeld lines of thinking, such as “Do I avert my eyes from her completely, or do I smile and say hi like she is wearing clothes?”

2)      Also, don’t just put on half your clothes. Put on ALL of them. I do NOT need to walk into the locker room and have my first sight be your white-underwear-clad ass, all bent over. True story.

3)      Don’t use perfume that smells like men’s cologne in the locker room. Realistically, don’t use perfume AT ALL in the gym. But, if you are on your way to work from working out, don’t confuse me and make me think I accidentally went in the men’s locker room. It’s too early in the morning to shit my pants that way.

…It occurs to me that half my issues could be avoided by never needing to put my coat away or use the only bathroom in the locker room. Moving on.

4)      Do not abuse the machines. If I have headphones blasting, I should not be able to hear your machine thumping from your excessive elliptical-ling (yup, it’s a word, now). You are gonna break it, it’s annoying, and I am already dealing with the shame of secretly working out to the sounds of The Pussycat Dolls. Don’t make me change the words of the song to “don’t cha wish- this jackass would- cut the shit -DON’T CHAAAA”.

5)      The occasional weightlifting grunt is okay, mostly because I avoid that area and go to the women only room to struggle to lift things that should not be heavy to me. Don’t grunt loudly on the cardio machines. Ever. It’s gross. It makes you sound like I need to start watching you in case I need to stop playing on Facebook and call 911. Because I am a good person like that. Now shut the hell up.

6)      Wipe the machines. Moreover, WIPE THE MACHINES USING THE CLEAN PAPER TOWELS PROVIDED ON EVERY WALL. I have to fight my gag reflex every time I watch a person wipe the machine down with the hand towel they draped around their neck to soak up the sweat. *Heave* Make it stop, MAKE IT STOP.

7)      If you are a super skinny athletic person, and there is a row of empty machines, I will find it creepy and mildly passive aggressive if you choose the one right next to me. In my head, you are only there to look better than me doing the same activity, and that cannot happen. If you are chubby, though, come on over. Solidarity and all that.

8)      I learned this one the hard way. Um, ahem, you should point your television’s remote only near your screen at your arc trainer machine or you start messing with other people watching Sports Center or something, and they hate that. And they intentionally work out three machines away from you for eternity. Whoops.

9)      A sports bra is not a shirt. Nothing that makes me feel bad about myself when I look at you is actually considered clothing.

10)   Stop hogging the weight machines by texting your friend and telling me you have “one more rep”. Then do your rep, dammit. Put down your phone. Stop taking five minute breaks for a 30 second rep. I don’t even know how you ended up all muscle-y, since I have seen you wandering around the machine more than using it. I am assuming dope. I cry foul. Now move, I have to switch this thing from 85 pounds to 15.

Okay, so that about does it! I feel these are easy to follow, and while they are subject to change at any time, my new rules you will never know you are supposed to follow will be just as easy! Thanks!

Shady, Shady, Shady...

Last night I had to go to the bookstore to see if I could find a copy of a book for my women's bible study group. I picked up "Fifty Shades of Grey" instead. Yeah, I don't know what happened either...

I started out heading upstairs to "Christian Inspiration" via "New Bestsellers". I saw "Fifty" and really wanted to see what all the fuss was about--for research purposes only. As a writer, I would love to someday have a career that involves the phrase "book advance". I kind of needed to see what a #1 NYT Bestseller that has been banned in three states actually looks like. I picked up a copy while Phill muttered, "I have to read that thing, too."

So I finally made my way up to the Christian books (all the while holding "Fifty Shades of Grey". Nice...). Phill was over in "Fiction" looking for more Stephen King books while I unsuccessfully searched for "A Confident Heart". While I was there, a woman in the same aisle beckoned her friend over to look at a book she picked up. I hid the cover of my own book while I eavesdropped on their conversation. It was a book about what is essentially praying for weight loss. The first woman, who was overweight, exclaimed, "It spoke to me!"

I am all for God speaking to people, and totally believe in it. However, I don't think this was the case. Anything with the words "weight loss" is going to "speak to you". Paying $700 last year on personal training "spoke to me". Paid programming for "SENSA" has been speaking to me lately, and I may try it after the baby is born in October. That's not God, that is a natural instinct to want to look like a Victoria's Secret Model.

It occurs to me that these thoughts are not the ones to have in the "Christian Inspiration" section, so I gave up and paid for my very dirty, very non-Christian erotic romance novel. Yes, I still have a long, long way to go.

But it also got me thinking. Of all the crap I have done in my life, is buying a book on the top of my naughty list with God? Like, say we all had to have a little sit down with Jesus after we die...I'm pretty sure He would have other things to address with me:

Jesus: So, about that time you banged your fists on an SUV passenger window, screaming, "The fatter to kick your ass with"...?

Me: She started it! She hit my car door with hers ON PURPOSE and then called me fat and suggested a wheat grass cleanse!

Jesus: *SIGH* And the time you tripped a child at a Burger King Playland?

Me: He started it! He pushed my kid and her little friends around! She was only three and he was a giant in comparison! He was on his eighteenth unsupervised lap of terror when I "accidentally" stuck my foot out while chatting with some mommies!

...Yeah. The book is small potatoes in comparison. And I realize I need church. It's why I go there every week. ;-) I would like to think I am improving though. I haven't unleashed my malice on any vehicles or tiny terrors since I got saved. PROGRESS, I'd say!

P.S. I still need to find that book. I had to search Route 28 for the Christian bookstore only to find it had already closed. That I can find "Fifty Shades of Grey" in four minutes but can't recall what part of town DeColores Christian Books is in speaks volumes. Working on it!

If I were still Catholic, I would be on my 800th Hail Mary right about now.

--Angie

Perhaps I Didn't Make My Point by Mauling Your SUV Like a Grizzly

Oh, boy. I know I bring things on myself. But I don't know if these things escalate this way with other people in quite the same way as they do with me...

I went shopping last week at The Loop with Natalie and my mom. So far, we had a great day finding Natalie a red shirt for "Red Day" at school, a book for me at Border's closeout sale, and a quick latte at Starbucks. When we were ready to head home, we all got in the car and I began pulling out of my parking spot in the lot in front of Starbucks.

I was halfway out of my spot when a huge white SUV started pulling into the empty spot next to me. However, the driver, a teenage girl, was pulling in too wide and was swinging her car in to mine as I was pulling out. She beeped her horn, and I thought, "Ummm, what the fuck, wait five more seconds and you can have two spots to angle your car in, hmmmkay, Driver's Ed?"

I beeped back and kept backing out, which was when she decided to keep going further so her mother could give me the double finger as they continued to pull in. I gave her the finger back, which was when the mother OPENED HER CAR DOOR AND HIT MY CAR WITH HER DOOR WHILE HER SUV WAS STILL IN MOTION!

Oh. Oh, HELL NO!

I pulled my car directly behind hers to block the SUV into its parking spot and got out of my car to assess the damage. There was none, but rather than just get back into my car and drive off, this hag was gonna have to hear my "shouty voice" first.

"UM, REALLY? YOU'RE GONNA HIT MY CAR NOW?!?!"

The woman, who was getting out of the car, jumped back in and locked the doors.

Oh. Oh, this will be fun. I love when people have the balls to do something from the safety of their car and forget they eventually have to, you know, leave the safety of it.

I stare down the woman sitting in the passenger seat. The daughter begins honking her horn in a loud stream of noise to attract the attention of other people (who will do nothing...seriously, when's the last time you got involved with a 300- pound woman screaming at some fitness skank in an SUV?)

"Get out of the car!"

Instead she makes the "International Sign For Fat". In case you haven't experienced it, a thin person sticks their arms out, Stay-Puff Marshmallow Man-style, puffs out their cheeks, and squints their eyes (the eye thing- is it an homage to Sumo wrestlers, also? In which case I call RACIST!). Honestly, the person doing the "ISFF" looks way more ridiculous than someone with 100 extra pounds on them. Which doesn't help their case.

"You need a smoothie", she continues. She pulls out a recyclable water bottle filled with brown sludge and begins talking about how you drink that instead of a meal and lose tons of weight. Only, she has to yell it because she is still too afraid to get out of the car and be my nutritionist.

Ooooh, it's time to get all chemical imbalance-y on her ass! I smile and give her two thumbs up.

"Hey, thanks for the advice!" I stop smiling and get closer to the car. "NOW. GET. OUT. OF. THE. FUCKING. CAR!!!!"

The daughter begins her "blare the horn" routine, and I wait for that to die down before I realize I am getting nowhere. It is time for me to get this bitch to make her own smoothie in her pants...

Once the horn stops I start slamming on the passenger side windows, palms open so my platinum wedding band bangs loudly on the glass.

As I am slamming my hands on the window I am screaming, "THE BIGGER TO KICK YOUR ASS WITH! THE BIGGER TO KICK YOUR ASS WITH!"

So, naturally the horn starts going again, and it has finally attracted the attention of The Loop rent-a-cop vehicle. Sadly, it's time to go.

I hop back in my car and drive away, but not before circling her car a couple times every time she tried to get out of her car, just so I could watch her scatter like a cockroach back inside her car. I'm an asshole. It makes me giggle.

As I drive away, I think about what I now call my "Kathy Bates in Fried Green Tomatoes" moment. I'm sure most people would be horrified. It looked like the people on the patio at Starbucks were! But I kind of felt, in a strange way, more powerful. I started gaining this weight 12 years ago from an anti-anxiety medication I was on. I have been off it for years, but the weight stayed on. I have spent so much time hating myself that it took some hilarious antic like this one to realize that other people may not like me, but I LOVE me. I think I am a HOOT! I thought I was a pretty cool chick for sticking up for myself and not just driving away. If it makes me look crazy, so be it. There are worse things to be than crazy. Like a doormat who takes it all without so much as mauling an SUV...

Are You There, God? It's Me, Moron

I just wanted to have not-hairy legs for church...

Sunday morning, I woke up extra early to get a shower in before the hour-long drive to my friend Shane's house. We were heading to church together later that morning.

As I have said before, I want to work on my spirituality and learn more about God in a way that is more meaningful than when I joke about how I am His favorite sitcom when I join a gym with donut frosting still on my mouth. Shane has offered to help me by taking me to church and answering any questions I have, and also by explaining the bible when I get lost reading it (I assume that will happen often).

However, even with the extra effort, I am still His favorite sitcom...

I cut myself shaving in the shower pretty badly, on the back of my calf. The blood was running down my leg but I assumed, like all the shaving nicks I have gotten, that it would stop bleeding by the time I got out of the shower. And after I hopped out of the tub and dried off, my leg stopped bleeding. Yay!

I quickly got dressed in khaki capris and a blue teeshirt. I brushed my hair, gathered my things, and headed out the door for the loooong drive up to what I consider the Boonies of New Hampshire (Seriously, if you can hit the Kittery Outlets instead of the mall to do a bit of shopping, you are freakin' faaaar away in my world).

When I finally got to Shane's place, coffees in hand, he met me at the security door and followed me up the stairs to his apartment. Which is when he asked me, alarmed, "What is all over your pants?!?"

"What? What do you mean? Where?"
"The back of your pant leg...is that...blood?"

Yup. Apparently, somewhere along the drive up, the cut re-opened and I had a hundred blood spots in various sizes on the bottom of my pant leg. Awesome.

I scooted into his apartment quickly and decided to try to spot-clean the dried blood off my pants before church. I headed to the bathroom, shut the door, and took my pants off to try to scrub at the spots on my pant leg with hand soap.

Yet another absurd occurance I will never share with my husband: I am standing in my ex-boyfriend's bathroom...without pants on!!!

Shane knocks on the door and just his hand appears in the bathroom, holding a small bottle of stain remover. "Shout it out, Angie!"

The Shout works well enough. The stains are now a light pink...they might even dry lighter! YAY! Crisis averted!!!

Until I realize all that thorough scrubbing and washing has made the trail of water rise all the way up to the back pocket of my khakis! DAMMIT! I can't have a wet ass in church!!!

...Which is how I came to have a wet ass in church. I managed to dry the pants about 60% of the way using my car's air conditioner on the drive to church...but still. I sat down in church to forge a relationship with God with one wet, slightly blood-stained pant leg. That really SHOULD score me some "Jesus Points" or something...

At the end of the service, as the band was playing while people were leaving, Shane looked at me thoughtfully and said, "You know, you should relax. You really dont look very relaxed."

Haha, nope, I didn't feel very relaxed or peaceful at that moment, nooooo.

On the way out, Shane had me fill out a new member card so I could get a welcome bag that featured a bible. Since Sophie Kinsella or Jennifer Weiner were not authors of The Bible, nor is it in the "Womens Fiction" section of a bookstore, I never thought to buy one on my own. I filled out my name and contact information, and checked off the box that said, "Today I have accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior". Hey, why not, right?

I brought the card to a man standing behind the table of welcome bags and he said excitedly, "Oh! You are accepting Jesus Christ as your Savior today?"

Wait, does something else happen to me when I check the box? Did I sign up for something? I thought you had to check it off if you were interested in learning more...but now my brain is flashing to that scene in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding when John Corbett gets baptized in a kiddie pool. This church is portable and currently held in a movie theater...surely there's no kiddie pool next to the concession stand, right? OH, whyyyy did I check the box before asking Shane what it even meant?!?!?! Obviously, the morning had already been too taxing on my brain so I cleverly responded, "Uhhhh...YEAH! Wait...Did I check the right box?"

Thankfully, I am pretty sure the guy caught my "deer in headlights" expression and said kindly (um, yet also a little slowly), "Well, when you were sitting there...and the pastor was talking...you felt God talk to you....and he asked you to let him into your heart........riiiight?"

"Uh, YESSSSS." Okay, so we know what checking that box means. Mystery solved.

I then got the welcome bag, containing several informational packets, a bible, a CD, a DVD, and a coupon for a free appetizer or dessert at T.G.I.Fridays. I just got how hilarious that is. Get it? "Thank God it's Friday?" Haha! I wonder if that was intentional...

Since Shane was headed to work after church, we parted ways at the theater. I checked off "Avoid Highways" and "Avoid Tolls" on the way home, so naturally the thing ignored me and took me through every tolled highway and left me scrambling for dimes while trying to drive. I tried to get off the highway, only to have the GPS lead me back to the highway to pay the same toll AGAIN. Once I ran out of change I got off the highway, spotted a CVS, and bought a bag of Combos and a Perrier as an excuse to get cash back in case I hit yet another toll.

I stress-ate the entire bag of Combos rapid fire while I slung a string of swears at the car behind me who wouldn't let me turn around because I was lost. I spent the next half hour on the back roads, blindly heading to my town using only the occasional road sign while the GPS intoned, in her Slavic accent, directions leading me to the nearest tolled highway.

I finally made it home, with one dried-stiff bloody pantleg, bloated from salty Combos and clutching a bible while yelling to Phill, "Your GPS is a total piece of SHIT!"

....Obviously, Shane did not realize the task at hand when he offerred to help me learn about God. He so has his hands full.

We're Gonna do WHAT on That Trail?!?!

I did it. I am pretty sure I was almost serial raped and murdered by an overzealous gentleman in the woods, but I did it.

I walked/jogged the trail at Winnekenni Castle...It was not by choice.

It all started at Saturday's bootcamp. I walked into the aerobic room, ready to do countless squats and lunges with an 18-pound bar on my back (to warm up!). I got my little mat out and sat down while I heard rumblings of an outing for this bootcamp.

"Are we really going to Winnekenni?"
"Chris said we were running some trail."
"Are we running there?"

I maaaay have freaked out and started on my litany of excuses.

"Ummm, does Chris have a MEDIC on site? Is an ambulance going to follow my ass the entire time? Because otherwise, I AM NOT GOING. Also, mosquito season is unusually high this year...just sayin'."

I planned my escape with my friend Michaela. I told her if we drove there, I would just KEEP DRIVING. Michaela said, "Well, I need a ride there." Dammit! Now I had to go.

The trainer Chris walked in, and I am pretty sure I had on my "are you out of your damned mind" face on. I think I may give it to him a lot. Obviously, I have reason.

Before I could just agree to meeting and fleeing the scene, some older woman ran up to Chris and TOLD ON ME! TOLD! ON! ME! She literally pointed to me and told Chris I was gonna leave. Oh, I will GET her for that!!!

Chris came up to me and threatened to hunt me down and drag me to the woods, sooo I was persuaded to meet them at the trail.

We started off with a couple of warm-up circuits, and then hit the trail. Tim, another trainer, was apparently assigned to the, ahem, slow kids in the group. He tried to encourage me to run, but I was still in high-defense mode.

"After the first 300 feet, we are gonna start a jog, okay?"
"Ummm, how about this. If Chris looks back to check on me I will bounce my boobs a lot to make it look like I am running and we will call it even?"
"What's your name?"
"Angie. Or, Pain in the Ass."

So, as much as I didn't want to, I started a small jog when Tim told us to. And I walked. And I jogged. And I walked. And I felt a foreign presence behind me...

An older man was walking up behind us and started in on me THE ENTIRE JOG.

"Don't give up on yourself, I have seen 400 POUND PEOPLE do this, and the weight falls right off of them, you just gotta believe, don't quit! Believe in yourself! Get up every morning at 6:30 and do this! I am 67 years old and I am here every day!"

Sometimes God brings people into our lives to inspire us, to motivate us. Personally, I find God to have a love of dinner theater and wanted a little show to go with His heavenly hash ice cream on this sweltering day.

I quickly eyed Tim and thanked God that while he threw this old creepy guy at me, he also blessed me with the presence of a giant muscled dude no one would mess with. All I have to do is jog to keep up with him and thus will avoid getting murdered in the woods by this fat chick fetishist!

RUN ANGIE!!!!! RUNNNNN!!!!

Tim made sure there was enough distance between me and Creepy Guy. I think he got the hint when Creepy Guy was ahead of me and I pointed an imaginary gun to my head while looking at Tim. However, Creepy Guy PERSISTED.

At one point he was ahead of me too much and stopped to PRETEND TO TIE HIS SHOE while I caught up to him and then he kept at it: "You just gotta believe! You can do it! Don't quit! Do this all the time and it gets easier!"

Oh. My. GOD!!!! Make it stop!

Tim kept steering me away from Creepy Guy (by this point it should be evident that Tim's my new favorite!) but he would not go away. He finally left us alone when we were out of the woods (literally and figuratively) and joined the rest of the bootcamp group.

I told Chris about Creepy Guy, but all he said was, "Awww, that's so sweet how he was cheering you on."

"Um, really? NO. The only reason I jogged at all was to stay near Tim and not get murdered. Hey, did you guys hire him to chase me around?"

Allegedly, no. But it did get my ass in gear.

Angie's valuable life lesson #1: Until your fat ass loses a shit-ton of weight and looks normal enough to not attract the attention of the mentally ill, perform all outdoor exercise in a group led by a "Six Foot Muscled Wall of Trainer".

Don't Call it a Bucket List- I am not Jumping out of a Plane with Morgan Freeman

If I take after my mother's genes, someday I am going to be old and blind with arthritis. Apparently, that is the short list, if I get off easy. I really need to make a list of shit I would like to accomplish before I can't see what I am doing or move in order to do it...

1. Get a tattoo. Small one.
2. Shoot a gun. Small one?
3. See London.
4. See Paris.
5. Get over fear of flying in order to see London and Paris.
6. Visit Cape Cod and Nantucket, because it's really freakin' close and I never seem to get around to it.
7. Develop some sort of retirement plan, other than "Phill works until the day he drops dead".
8. Write a book.
9. Lose a shit-ton of weight.
10. Do a tough mudder or warrior dash event.
11. Learn to wear heels without limping after 15 minutes.
12. Get in a fistfight.
13. Win fistfight.
14. Learn to speak French all over again. I lost it.
15. Master "smokey eye" makeup.
16. Learn about investing...see also "Develop some sort of retirement plan..."
17. ROCK. CLIMBING. WALL.
18. Sex on the beach. Ssshhh.
19. Dress like Joan from Mad Men. And look like Betty Draper from the neck up.
20. Take Phill to China to see the Great Wall I told him he was an idiot for thinking still existed because they tore it down in '83 with David Hasselhoff present. Ooops.

...Soooo there it is. Some may never happen (See numbers 13, 20, and 18 because Phill is too chicken shit), others may happen this year (no fistfight no fistfight no fistfight). But one by one I want to check off as many as possible. Then I can can go blindly rub Ben-Gay on my arthritic joints with a smile.

Oh, Chimpy, Where Have Your Dirty Paws Been?

Natalie has a visitor for the long weekend-- her preschool's classroom mascot, Chimpy. Chimpy is a stuffed animal monkey. He is dirty, worn out, and his stuffing is so old he cannot sit up on his own. Natalie is supposed to dictate to me in a journal what she did with Chimpy over the weekend, and include a drawing and perhaps some pictures.

When Natalie showed Chimpy to her "Meme", the WASP in my mom deemed both Chimpy and his toothbrush, "Dirty...can I at least wash the toothbrush? And you are not sleeping with that thing, either, Natalie." So far, no welcome wagon for poor Chimpy.

The first evening, I was trying to get to sleep but had to come up with cool shit to do with this monkey. I didn't want this to be the lame visit of the class. We had been to a pool party that afternoon, and we were going to a birthday party and a cookout over the weekend, so at least we had places to drag this filthy monkey. I thought of the pictures I would be taking of Chimpy and started to giggle as I nudged Phill.

"Hey, you know what would be EPIC? If I posed Chimpy inappropriately for fun. You know, those pics wouldn't go in the journal, but I would love to pose him at a bar with a cocktail or something...HA, orrr surround him with a batch of Nat's stuffed animals, having an orgy! How hilarious would that be?!"

Phill replied, "Um, no. You are not going to do that. It is a children's monkey and that's wicked immature to do."

Whatever. His point may have been made better if he wasn't watching "Futurama" at the time.

"What if I pose him in Nat's doll bathtub, with rubber ducks over his little monkey private parts?"

"NO. Good night."

The next day, Nat and I were headed to her classmate's birthday party. It was a princess-themed party, complete with a "real princess" and pizza/tea party. The hostess of the party was a hilarious mom who served wine for the grown-ups, a birthday party first for me. It was officially the best party I had been to.

I dressed up Chimpy in a Build-a-Bear princess gown and had Nat take a few pictures holding a drag queen'ed up stuffed monkey at the party. And that was totally before the Reisling!

Once I had a glass of wine in my hand, I decided to feel out a couple of the other moms about Chimpy. Was I the only one who had childish thoughts about posing Chimpy in compromising photos? I decided to dip a toe in the water and mentioned to a couple of the moms that I would love to pose Chimpy with a banana daquiri, just for fun. One mom, while very friendly, is a little on the conservative side and more reserved in conversation. However, she told me the story of how she ended up at an Irish pub with some friends who posed Chimpy with a beer! HOLY SHIT! If the quietest mom in the class got Chimpy fake-drunk, what were the other moms doing?!

The other mom laughed at the story and told a story of her own about a stuffed animal in her family that had been posed in naughty positions with a Barbie. YAY! I'm not a total weirdo, this is just what moms do to let off steam over things like 26-year old stuffed animal houseguests that smell musty!

At the cookout the next day, I totally took a picture of Chimpy huddled up to my husband's Smirnoff Ice. That one is not making it into the journal. I also took a picture of Chimpy in Natalie's toy bathtub, complete with rubber ducks. That one just might make it...