Exercise

I woke up this morning, my back aching and my arms barely able to push me out of bed. Why? Well, that would be because yesterday I had a marathon Wii day.

Yes, I said marathon Wii day. See, I started working out several months ago and then kind of slumped off over the summer months. Once summer was over, I plugged back into my Wii Fit and have been ramping things up combining my Wii Fit and Wii Sport games with running around the track at the high school near where I live.

Well, I have had laryngitis for several days now, my voice barely audible on Saturday, so I communicated with my daughter via sign language. Sunday morning I woke up at 8 am, showered and then when I was getting dressed, instead of putting on my jeans, I donned my yoga pants and a t-shirt. It was a lazy Sunday so why not. I pulled my laptop onto my lap and began adding to and editing a story I've began a couple of weeks ago.

I wrote for about an hour before I started to get antsy and decided I better put in some laundry. I got back from the laundry room, turned on the Wii Fit and started with some yoga, moved on to boxing and then some strength training before returning to yoga and then doing a few balance games. I took a break, put the laundry in the dryer, had a cup of water and put in the disk for Wii Sport.

I played at least 20 games of tennis, boxed until my arms felt like they were going to fall off and I could feel muscle being built in my upper chest and then moved on to golf to slow down my pace a bit.

I took another break for more water as I was starting to sweat a bit. I also needed to go get the laundry out of the dryer. I exchanged disks again and decided to do the dance steps on the Fit for thirty minutes then I did the long version of the island run and went back for another thirty minutes of dance steps. The batteries in the Wii Fit Board started to run out, so I plugged those back into the charger and put Sport back into the console.

I folded my laundry quickly and was on hour four of playing the Wii when my daughter finally woke up to check her email.

I played for about another hour after she woke up and then after picking up my youngest from her dad's house, I came home, put her in the high chair so she could paint, and I did a forty-five minute pilates workout.

I'm still quite sore tonight, it's a good kind of sore. The kind where I know I'm toning and burning fat. And I know I will go home and at least play a few games of tennis with my son tonight.

Then, tomorrow, I'll walk/jog/run around the high school track a few times with a friend of mine.

I'm looking forward to it.

Thirty-six

Today is my thirty-sixth birthday and I woke this morning to a few text messages, a couple of emails and several wishes for a good day on my facebook page.

I drove to work, parked my car, walked up the stairs in my building and down the hall where I received a "Happy birthday!" from a coworker who I didn't think knew that today was my birthday and has never wished me a happy birthday in all the years we have worked together.

As I walked further down the hall, I saw on our white board, a "Happy Birthday Jess!" with a drawing of a cupcake with a candle in it below the words.

I sat at my desk and our janitor, Faye, greeted me with the same words. I've never publicized my birthday before and I have to say, it's kind of fun having everyone know and wish me a happy day.

I went to visit the person I assumed had decorated the white board and it was indeed her. Then a group of us went out for coffee/tea and one of my coworkers bought me a chai latte. I was then informed that I am being treated to a lunch today wherever I'd like to go with this same group.

So far, thirty-six got up on the right side of the bed.

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This just in:

I got this email as I came back from lunch with a poem inside wishing me a happy birthday. Thought I would share it since I liked it...

You're the kind of person, Jess,
Who's hard to forget,
A one-in-a-million
To the people you've met.
Your friends are as varied
As the places you go,
And they all want to tell you
In case you don't know:
That you make a big difference
In the lives that you touch,
By taking so little
And giving so much!

Exhaustion

Once in a while I get insomnia and get about three hours of sleep. Okay, well maybe it's more than once in a while. It just might be more like two or three times a week. But I seem to function well that way so I've not decided to try taking anything for it yet. Except for once. I tried melatonin once, and I still couldn't fall asleep so I haven't tried it again, yet.

Sunday night was one of those nights for me. It was three o'clock in the morning, and I was still awake. Three thirty rolled by and I thought, I'd really better fall asleep soon since I need to get up at six thirty. I looked at the clock again. It was three thirty-five. I felt myself finally beginning to drift off. Before actually falling asleep, I heard my son call to me from his bed. I looked at the clock again. Two minutes before four.

Thinking maybe he was just talking in his sleep, I lay my head back on the pillow. He called again. I tossed the blanket off and went to his bed to see him propped up on one elbow. He told me his ear was hurting really bad. I got him a decongestant and a dose of acetaminophen and had him come snuggle up with me thinking that if he was in the crook of my arm, he might settle better and get some rest.

I was wrong. Four thirty. Five thirty. My toddler walked to my bedside with three of her blankets, her dolly and a book. She snuggled into the crook of my other arm.

Six o'clock in the morning. My alarm goes off at six thirty but I don't hear it. I have finally fallen asleep. I have a different alarm that goes off at seven. I hear that one and wake extremely groggy after having only slept about an hour all night.

Shockingly, I was running only twenty minutes late. I get into work, get a few things taken care of and go talk to a coworker about how to take care of some special handling orders while another coworker is out of the office.

I get back to my desk and take care of a few more things. An email pops up and it carries the heavy news that my friend and coworker has passed away. The same coworker who I had just spoken about being out of the office.

I blogged about my experience with that yesterday.

This morning I felt numb. Now I don't know what I feel. Sad I guess. And I'm hungry and about to go get my coworker and go out for a lunch time drink. We both need it.

Loss

My consciousness is melting like hot wax into the melodic voices and speed of the Irish fiddling of the group Celtic Woman in an attempt at distancing myself from the reality of the loss of a loved one.

Someone I've known and become very fond of over the past decade has passed from this life into the beyond and when I first heard the news, my voice cried out in response before my hand flew up to cover my mouth and muffle my own sounds.

I stood and walked aimlessly once I had control of my voice as tears threatened. My self control betrayed me and the hot tears spilled over staining my cheeks and reddening my eyes.

I sat back down for less than a minute before standing again to put on my coat and walk outside. I very rarely smoke during the day, and usually only when I drink, but today, before it was even ten in the morning, I walked outside and down several blocks, smoking and crying wiping the hot liquid that so rarely appears on my face and periodically words would fly from my mouth in shocked spurts shit! fuck! damnit! fuck! god damnit! shit!

I think I was in a bit of denial. I think I still am. How can this be? How is she gone? It's just not right, not possible, not right, not possibly true! Just not right, damnit!

A little bit of anger seems to be appearing in the midst of my denial. I'm angry at an ephemeral being. I'm angry at Chaos. I'm angry at Gaia. I'm angry at Tartarus. I'm angry at Eros. I'm angry at Erebus. I'm angry at Nyx.

I'm angry at THANATOS, damnit! How dare he take her!

I haven't lost someone quite so close to me in such a long time, this has hit very hard. I can sense that, can see it, smell it and hear it, taste it and touch it.

It is a dark shadow passing over my minds eye.

It is the scent of long reeds dried in hot sun after the rains came down and fermented them.

It is the sound of a flock of ten thousand crows filling the sky with their mocking caws.

It is a metallic flavour poisoning my palate.

It is the feeling of a too cold breeze wisping the air and sending a chill down my spine.

Later....

It really is odd the things that pass through you as a mental stream in times like these.

Just now I gasped at the horror of knowing that my friend was in the middle of a book and now she will never know the end. I'm such an avid reader, I think I would fight Thanatos with every last nerve just so I could live long enough to know how an author wrapped up their book. She was an avid reader as well and introduced me to some of my favorite authors so many years ago.

And now I sit here wondering if it's possible she now knows the end ... because 'that is the way'. I hope, for her sake, that it is. Because I am certain she would want to know how it ends.

I Finally Got It

The writing bug, that is. I started on a story based on a thought that entered my head while sleeping and haunted me at 1:47 am the other morning until I woke and wrote it down. After getting it on paper, I was able to easily fall back into a deep slumber only to wake the next morning unable to get my mind off of the story and where it would go next.

I sat down last night and got some of the details worked out and wrapped my head around where the story begins and where it's going.

I already know the beginning and I already know the end and I already know some of the intricacies. What I have yet to discover is the middle that ties it all together. But I literally fell asleep with my laptop on my lap, sitting on my couch, fingers resting on the keys and my cursor blinking rhythmically in the midst of an idea that had yet to be written in a full sentence.

I am infected with the bug that writers get when ideas fall from their imaginations onto little scraps of paper, napkins with sketches of where a character lives, backs of envelopes with exactly the right name for the best friend, the palms of hands with chicken scratched ideas about the way an engine sounds as a car attempts a hill, a bill they will later pay after removing a section with the perfect description of exactly the right tree.

This bug entered me just before 1:47 am on a rainy Wednesday morning while I lay sleeping in bath water that had grown cold as the water had been drawn hot over an hour before while I soaked, reading a book someone else had written that I happen to be not enjoying all that much as imagination seems to have escaped this particular author in this particular novel, therefore I will not mention the name of the writer or that of the writing. What I will say is that I put the book down after reading several pages and I moved the bubbles about a bit while thinking about the lack of imagination in the writing I was reading and promptly fell asleep without even realizing I was drifting.

KISS Alive 35 Tour

Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Eric Singer and Tommy Thayer rocked the house in Seattle's Key Arena on their KISS Alive 35 Tour last night!

Although it is not the original four members, it was a fantastic concert and the current members of the band play now like they have been playing together for the past 35 years.

The sweat pouring off Gene was a little gross...okay, it was a lot gross, and the white of his makeup began to turn grey by the end of the concert, but I can't blame him given the layers on the armoured and winged costume he wears! Gene seems to have aged more than Paul in the past 35 years, but that doesn't stop him from getting out there and putting on a fantastic show; dancing and stomping around in those platform boots that look impossible to wear! He went flying up to the lights above the stage to sing I Love it Loud with "blood" streaming from his mouth and of course wagging his unusually long tongue at the crowd as is his signature move; and the crowd just ate it up, fists punching at the air with the beat.

At one point, Paul placed one of his silver-and-stars platform boots into a circle on something that looked a bit like a pogo stick hanging from a crane and went flying over the heads of the audience to a platform in the middle of the Key Arena for one song - and I can't for the life of me remember which one it was now! He played with his hair so much - trying to give it more volume all the time, it became almost comical - much like their costumes and makeup - which just added to the theatrics of the concert and the theatrical personality of Paul Stanley!

Funny tidbit...I've never heard Paul talk that much (sing yes, but talk, no) and I had no idea that he has a New York accent! After investigating the birth place of Paul today, I discovered he grew up in Queens. Since KISS originated in New York, I don't know why I was surprised.

He said "y'all" quite a bit and my daughter always cringes when I say that, so hearing Paul Stanley say it just made me smile.

Tommy Thayer had a solo that went on for several minutes showing off his lead guitar skills and he did not disappoint! There is obviously a reason they chose him to replace Ace. Even the ultra low-key head bobbing Seattlites started to rock their knees and toss their fists in the air a bit while enjoying the melodic beats and rhythms pounded out by ten fingers, six strings and a bit of musical genius.

Eric Singer's solo on the drums was absolutely astounding! He is truly a gifted percussionist! And of course lifting him above the stage on hydraulics and spinning him around in circles while he was playing just added to the fun -- and is of course, expected of KISS given that their concerts have always been so much of a show! He sounded perfectly blended with the band and is an excellent choice as their drummer!

I hope the current members stick around for the duration.

Overall, the concert was an awesome spectacle of lights, fire, sonic booms, silly theatrics, makeup, lots of black hair, shimmers, sparkles and incredible music! I expected nothing less from KISS.