Mandelo at Work

For my birthday, I did a lot of squats.

I also went for a sushi dinner after the gym and then finally splurged to buy myself an iPod Nano. Though I have a smartphone, the headphone jack stopped working shortly after I got it, so I've been without portable music for a long while. This is becoming excessively irritating as I try to run more and could use the distraction of music. So, I went for it. Now the problem is that I have far more music than can fit on a 16gig device and must pick and choose.

But hey, the squats went particularly well. I seem to have hit a stride where I'm consistently improving and am able to execute with fully correct form a good 75-80% of the time, and close-to-correct the rest of the time. (I have a habit of leaning slightly to the right, because that hip is tighter and I favor it a bit without noticing. We're working on fixing that, or at least getting me to where I can tell when I'm doing it.)

It's the second week of the three-day-split, and effectively the first time I've hit a deadlift weight that proved challenging. (I, ah, jumped 20lbs.) We're doing a little further form work with that heavier deadlift, too. I had great hopes of doing the full run this week, but the deadlifts knocked me for a bit of a loop today.

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Goals for the summer include:

(1) Get all of my major lifts (bench, deadlift, squat) into the triple digits.
(2) Write at least 2 pieces of short fiction.
(3) Finish Visa application process/pack house/prepare for move to the UK generally.
(4) Get down to my goal weight (165lbs).
(5) Start writing an article, any article.

A little bit of writing, a little bit of fitness stuff, and a touch of "major life changes." It seems like a well rounded list to me.

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Books Read 2013

28. "Ghost Spin" by Chris Moriarty

[review forthcoming]

29. "Starting Strength: 3rd Edition" by Mark Rippetoe

A very, very handy book for folks who are into lifting and want some technical assistance. Not everything he says is great--as is true of more or less all fitness books--but there's some excellent troubleshooting stuff in here, plus lots of body science and in-depth explanations of mechanics.

30. "Strength Training Anatomy" by Frederic Delavier

This has color diagrams, and was cheap and small. Mostly, I like the color diagrams of muscle groups recruited, etc. (I found it at a Half Price Books for a couple of bucks. It's not worth much more than that, especially if you have other, better reference material.)

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This is about the six month point of my training journey. And, in that six months, I've gone from being a person who was sure that past injuries, chronic pain, and poor skeletal composition would keep me low-mobility, low-energy, and inactive forever--a person who couldn't physically manage to run, or swim, or anything--to a person who's more fit than the average for my body type and age. Surprise, too: much of my pain is gone. It's still not perfect, but man, am I glad I finally ended up with a physical therapist who was willing to be straight with me--to tell me that I was going to suffer through it for the first while, but that I would never feel good again unless I tried to build strength and fitness.

And I do feel good. I feel kind of amazing, actually.

It's hard to talk about fitness/body/etc without sounding self-absorbed or self-congratulatory, but I wanted to give it a shot, because I had no idea for so long how beneficial fitness would be. Daily back pain? Gone. Aching joints with occasional stabbing-pains? For the most part, gone. Feelings of listlessness, exhaustion, anxiety, and depression? Far more manageable. And I feel more alive overall.

That's not even mentioning what I can do now that I couldn't do before. I still can't run worth a damn--but three minute sprints and interval training are a world away from where I started, unable to even jog without pain. I worked hard to be able to pick up the 35lb small bar at the beginning, and now I bench press 80lbs for my four sets of seven. I couldn't do an air squat for months, and now I've got the bar on my back and weight on the bar. It's the little things, too, like the abrupt bulge of muscle that's developed around my thumb joint, the deadlift bruises on my knees, the calluses on my palms, or the definition lines cropping up here, there, and everywhere around a newly developing physique.

Totally worth it. I'm curious where I'll be in another six months--able to do a full body-weight pull-up, maybe? (I wish. It's certainly a goal.)

First three-day split week! As previously noted, I'm adjusting to the increased workload and loss of rest days--so, these aren't quite what the full routines will be when I've geared up and my stamina has developed more.

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Recent happenings include a Short Fiction Spotlight on Expanded Horizons, here, and a review of Chris Moriarty's Spin Control, here.

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I've also started my new three day split, and have discovered as of--er, today--that I don't yet have the endurance or capacity to do what I'd like to do. Not having more than one rest day in between was an issue; the others, that I've added new exercises and am attempting to do four sets for each. My training partner advised me that it's going to take some time, probably a few weeks, for me to adjust to the new workload that I'm asking my body to do. I was just fatiguing, hard, by the end of the workout--and couldn't actually finish it.

But, that gives me a new set of goals. I do like goals. First, I'll try to complete the routines with three sets for all but the major lifts; then, when that's working, bump them up to four. Onward to victory, etc.

Now that it's been announced, I can post it, too--the table of contents for the forthcoming Queers Dig Time Lords, to which I am a contributor.

As follows, I will be sharing bookspace with a bunch of wonderful people:

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Damn, do I need to get back to actually blogging instead of just posting fitness logs and reading lists and complaints about stress. So, here's five things that I've forgotten to mention or have been too busy to bother with:

(1) I've been making a sustained attempt to explore more of this city that I live in and love before I have to leave it. I've been here my whole life, but I still have a huge list of restaurants and bars and places I want to go that I've been putting off. Recent trips include:
[a] The Back Door, a bar and restaurant: I enjoyed the food a hell of a lot, as simple but well-done bar fare with homemade chips, mid-rare roast beef that melts in your mouth, fresh au jus, etc;
[b] Purrswaytions, a lesbian karaoke bar: this was fun the first week, and a bit duller the next--the crowd is small, the bar is dingy, but it's also cheap and trashy in that particular way that can be pleasant;
[c] Nowhere, a queer bar and club: this one, I loved--a group of associates and I went last night, and the scene is good (music, crowd, drinks, etc., all positive). At Nowhere, I got to dance for a long while, which was a pleasure. My usual go-to is Connection, which has drag shows and go-go dancers, but also a cover and expensive drinks; I think Nowhere might be a new spot on the map.

(2) I encountered a rogue chicken in the parking lot of our local Wal-Mart yesterday. I made a brief attempt to convince it to come to me, but it wasn't having any of that, and wandered off again. By the time we finished shopping and came out, the chicken had disappeared. There is a nice neighborhood behind the store; I suspect the chicken made its way back to one of those houses, where it likely belongs. It was still a bit surreal.

(3) Our mice have not been successfully integrated; we've made several attempts, and the last ended in a bad squabble wherein Yelena's tail got nipped. So, we're giving up on that. It's too much stress for the poor thing. We want her to not be lonely, but she's too neurotic to adapt to the other mice, and so this is the best we can do.

(4) My partner has started Chantix in a last-ditch effort to quit smoking. This is the first time he's made it past 36 hours without a cigarette in any attempt he's ever made--not a single one--and though he's miserable, it's working. The pills cause nausea and mood swings, but if it makes this work, then he's willing to suffer through it. We desperately need to save the money, and it's also necessary before we head to the UK, where that stuff's even more expensive. He's been smoking for nearly a decade, so it's not a simple process, but I'm glad it's at least seeming to work so far. Fingers crossed.

(5) And lastly: I'm continuing to get more and more caught up with every passing day. I am pleased, and cannot wait for a break from crushing deadlines.

This is the last week of my two-day split; since Tuesday is my final day at the dayjob for the semester, I'll be shifting to a three day split, and I've got the routines all laid out. I am deeply pleased that I'll be able to do three days, finally--that's optimal, and lets me spend more effort and time on target for various muscle groups. I'll also likely try to start doing 4 sets of every exercise, as opposed to my current 4-on-mains, 3-on-auxileries. Also, push harder. I know I'm not scaling up my auxiliaries at the pace that I could (or should!) be.

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This so does not reflect all of what I've been reading--lots of magazines for the Short Fiction Spotlight column, a boatload of essays and articles during the end of the semester, etc.--but it's the closest I've got.

21. "The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction," Jan/Feb & March/April, edited by Gordon van Gelder
22. "Cane" by Jean Toomer
23. "She" by H. Rider Haggard
24. " The Little Magazine Others and the Renovation of Modern American Poetry" by Suzanne Churchill
25. "I, Pierre Riviere, Having Slaughtered My Mother, My Sister, and My Brother…: A Case of Parricide in the 19th Century" edited by Michel Foucault
26. "Spin State" by Chris Moriarty (Reviewed, here.)
27. "Spin Control" by Chris Moriarty (Review forthcoming.)

I cannot even explain how much I'm looking forward to being able to just read what I want to read again. It's such a rare pleasure.

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