March 14, 1999.

I'm a sleepy girl. A sleepy girl who's just had a rather positive experience with chicken curry and a rather negative experience with isometric exercises. Often my step classes leave me pleasantly tired, happy in the small ache of muscles. Sometimes I leave depressed at the vast gulf between where I am and where I want to be; not in terms of weight, although that's always nice, but in terms of strength and flexibility. Today was a day following the latter pattern.

And thus the wages of a sedentary life are collected.

I firmly believe that my recently overcome aversion to organized group exercise comes from my Grade 4-5 gym teacher. Twice a week, for an hour at a stretch, we played dodgeball. I developed a system that unconsciously mimicked the defensive behavior of insects and their prey: I stood still at the edges of the play area, thus attracting as little attention to myself as possible. Often I could survive 3/4 of the game in this fashion. It's very important for a competitive personality such as myself to find some way of winning, especially if the normal routes (i.e. dexterity, grace, speed, apprehension and genuine athletic ability) seem closed.

From this I learned that life is a competitive struggle of unequal capabilities. I learned that calculated passivity sometimes counts as cunning action. And I learned that I had a crush on Paul Mulligan (although I didn't realize that until Grade 6).

If you believe in Sheldon's body type system, you can excuse my behavior as the manifestation of strong endomorph (sensualist fat person) characteristics, coupled with a measure of ectomorph (high-strung intellectual) and finishing off with a definite element of thwarted mesomorph (strong competitive muscle-person). A heady cocktail of inactivity, of soft living and lowered expectations that has delivered me in a straight line to the moment 4 hours earlier when my whole frame trembled with the effort of keeping my feet elevated 2 inches in a yogic position.

Unfortunately for the nobility of my motivations, I think that its' always been a competitive thing for me, when all's said and done. From early on, my brother defined himself through graceful athletic pursuits such as softball, while I took the easier route of readin' and writin'. Perhaps this is why I feel so threatened by the Boy's interest in athletics...it's a field in which I feel deathly inferior. Yesterday he remarked casually that he used to be a competitive swimmer. It sounded like a whopper, and we bandied about crying wolf for awhile...but what really bothered me (besides the fact that he got Pixie Stix to call me to confirm his story) was the idea that here was another language he could speak, a tongue in which I am utterly dumb.

I've had the kind of soft life designed to yield the maximum happiness to my own peculiar personality. So why do I feel like I suck?

On a considerably lighter note (and despite my out-of-shapedness), it seems that I've attracted the attention of a folk/cw outfit down south. Yesterday I was cordially informed via email, that the next time they (Old 97's, that is) came through town, I was on the guest list. Having no idea who they were, I immediately ran a UBL search. They look rather harmless...they're recommended by Waylon Jennings, not Trent Reznor.

The Boy is somewhat ambivalent about my proposed foray into the world of country & western groupie-ism, but when I outlined the benefits of such a scheme, he grudgingly came over to my way of thinking. Besides, he can't offer me the hardcore sleaziness that lies in potential unfolding in the heart of every backstage. No, I need to go to the professionals for that.

I've decided on the text of my business card, which you see below. Dirk's got one ("Gentleman's Gentlemen, the best muscles money can buy...if you don't have very much money), and now I think it's time for my own. The problem is my nomadic lifestyle...I won't have a permanent dwelling until August, and then it'll be my parent's house. Not conducive to a cool address, I'm afraid. But with that caveat, at least the concept's done.