If, if I do this next bench press competition, on a beach in a singlet, I will go about it all wrong. Last time: hit chest, tris hard. Kept other muscles just above maintenance. Hit the protein. Rarely did cardio. Outcome? Was bored and stressed. Announced retirement . This time: Working everything hard. Joining a "Boot Camp" plyometric/calisthenic class to keep up the conditioning. Am eating a mostly raw foods diet, aided by my ten-dollar juicer/major garage sale find. Why be contradictory? I don't want to be bored and stressed. I want to stay conditioned. I want to eat a healthier diet because it makes me feel better. I'll work at the bench all the while, and what will be will be. Not as much invested this time, which is ironic, because this competition is more formal and official--the pause at the chest kind, wear a singlet , qualify for state record competitions if you do well competition. If, if I do this, I'm doing it for fun. I'm doing it to compete a
I did not read for pleasure this year until May. The previous November, on my fiftieth birthday, I applied to graduate school having scrolled through subject areas for one that sparked more than a basic interest, as I enjoy many different fields. Most of early 2021 was spent climbing the peaks of academic texts, each chapter another foot safely planted, or an effort to find better footing. In this endeavor my synapses traced an old muscularity, underdeveloped but there--ropey, always reaching, sideways and upward and sometimes back down in order to ultimately ascend. Recollections of my Nonexistence, Rebecca Solnit, read in May Broken Horses, Brandi Carlile, read in June Near the end of my first semester I sensed that my son needed me more, or that I should be home more often during his long days of remote learning. His father had stopped allowing him to see me on weekends, relying, suddenly, on the original text of the divorce decree written six years prior, when our son was 12. Now h
Thoughts While Sparring For the First Time --Hey. HEY! --Oh yeah? Oh yeah? --I can take that. No problem. Come at me again. --She's street fighting. This isn't pretty. --I WANT to LAND a solid RIGHT. Get your FREAKIN gloves out the WAY. Lemme try again. --Her head snapped back. THAT'S what I'm talking about. Wait: should I feel bad about that? Her mother is watching. I'm hitting this woman's daughter. --Actually, I don't feel bad at all. --She's tired. She's MINE. Thoughts Later In the Night After Sparring For the First Time --My jaw hurts. --Holy Sh*t I was boxing. --Why isn't this tylenol kicking in? --Why does my head still hurt? --What is this bruise on my chest? --Holy Sh*t I'm 40 and I was BOXING. --What did any of that training have to do with someone standing there trying to hit me? --Must learn more defense before I do that again. --Will you do this again? --Yeah, sure; a little more defense first, though. --But my head. It hurts. Ow
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