wait for it

After giving the same answer to a second person who asked if I competed over the weekend, I thought, Well now, that's about what it is, isn't it? That's about the point where I am in life and not just the deadlift, am I seeing this right? No, I didn't compete, I said. I'm reworking my form, which means back to basics, lifting 135 instead of 200. Getting it right with the lower weights until my body memorizes what to do, and is ready for the stress of more. (Oh, and the shins . They're killing me. It's one thing to rule out the option of wearing a skirt the day after deadlifting, to hide the streaks of purple, but it's another to scrape yourself silly while also maneuvering a heavy bar. Eventually, I give up not because the weight's too heavy, but because my shins hurt .) There's some fear with perfecting form--fear of pain but also of taking too long to get things right, which also becomes a problem of pride, because people seeing me lift...

Buy shin guards or stop deadlifting? That is the question. And the exclamation: my kids say the big bruise you see here looks like an upside down exclamation mark. In deep purple. Thanks to a visit to the chiro and a session with my boss, I'm improving on my form and looking forward to moving up in weight. (Still not sure how I was pulling 200 with an nonfiring left glute.) This will not improve upon the bruising--it's a given with the move--though I'm told the shins toughen up in time. I'm also calling on my retired Adidas stingers for help; as wrestling shoes used for boxing, I'm convinced their low soles will help me deadlift. Why not? Too many changes to allow me time to be ready for a meet next Saturday, though I haven't ruled out competing for fun. In addition to my boxing/wrestling shoes, I will surely be wearing some long pants, because man, this shin hurts. So why do this? It's a great question, one I've been putting to some guys at the ...

Too busy to produce one coherent post; here are some recent developments, instead. In the category of how often does this happen : I'm looking at graduation announcements in the paper and I say to Simon, "I snapped this girl's head back with my fist." --------------------- I used to pay to write my own college papers. Thanks probably to drinking too much coffee today, I flashed back to sitting in the sculpture room at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, where I'd hand write essays (yes) and take them back to my typewriter (egads) for a clean copy. I never did have any notions of being a writer, yet something in me knew the words would flow best around great art. So I paid to sit there. --------------------- I'm a personal trainer now.  At the risk of making too much of this, it seems fitting to stop and think about how I got to this point. Most directly, I began t he certification process thanks to a man at my gym who claimed a year ago ...