Just a quick post to prove that I’m still alive. I know the value of that is questioned by many, including myself, but I’m still here, just like that faded mustard stain on your favorite Superchunk t-shirt1. It’s just that life has been busy with many un-blog-worthy things.
I feel like I have had too many “lost weeks” lately. And by that, I mean that I know I’ve done stuff; my house, husband, and dad duties, as well as hitting the gym, photo hikes, and Mindbender visits, but in the end, I don’t feel like I have anything to show for it.
On Friday, I found myself oddly void of the desire to visit the Caligula-like setting of the gym and all of its sweat, testosterone, and cluster bomb pheromone attacks camouflaged in Gymshark tights. Instead, I opted to get some shit done and then do a short photo walk at Meridian Park. This obviously did nothing for my rotund shape but did get me out of the house, and somedays, that’s all that matters.
It’s been a minute and a half since my last post, but there is a very good reason for that; weather, travel, gym time, and soccer dad duties have conspired to keep me out of the woods with my camera, and no one exactly wants to read this shit anyway, let alone read this shit when it has nothing to do with anything even vaguely outdoor-related and only features photos of my kid playing soccer, a bowl of pasta I made for lunch, or my dogs. Unless, of course, I’ve misjudged my ever-dwindling audience and the blog’s SEO stats (I think I have those).
On Monday morning, I wrote a post about how much of a slacker I was over the weekend. However, because my slack was so unbelievably strong, there were no photos to accompany the post. So I waited. But I waited so long that I now find the post more irrelevant and even dumber than my usual dross. So it’s been permanently shelved—the Blog Dogs rejoice.
There is a first time for everything, and I’m not too ashamed to admit it; I hurt my foot Monday afternoon while animatedly relaying a story to Brenann about the time a few years ago when I saw a clip of a non-league goalkeeper doing the Connor McGregor strut after his team scored a late-game winner at the opposite end of the pitch.
Over the years, it’s been well documented that I am a creature of routines and habits. Some are good, like going to the gym at the same time every morning, and some are bad; we won’t speak of those right now. Still, I dig a good routine, and Tuesday’s gym time was ruined by a dentist appointment I apparently made after a cleaning six months ago and only found out about via a Monday night reminder text from the office. Oh well, it seems my body will have to remain in this sagging and flaccid state one day longer.
As I write this, it’s a dark, cold, icy Saturday morning in mid-Michigan, and I can’t make up my mind if I want to go for a photo walk in the icy woods, go to the gym to lumber nowhere fast on the Dreadmill or go back to the Bed of Torment for a second sleep; the world is my mother friggin’ oyster as they say.
Somewhere between morning bowel discharges, too much coffee, and my 3 egg white omelet with veggie sausages, I was made aware via a variety of Instagram posts that today is the Barry-Roubaix gravel race near Grand Rapids.
Yet another unneeded brief message from the President and CEO of thesoiledchamois.net, and Soiled Chamois Enterprises, Inc.™
Dear Reader,
I apologize in advance for this post. I started it on Friday but then became slightly “under the influence.” So I shelved it until Saturday evening. But then I became under the influence again and shelved it until Sunday morning. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I tried to clean up this mess up as best I could, but I don’t care enough to work on it any longer. It also seems I enjoy being under the influence a bit too much. But we all knew that. I’ll let you decide which parts were written when.
— Management
As mentioned in my last unneeded post about nothing, I experienced a bit of knee pain while on the Dreadmill the other day. Well, thankfully, that pain didn’t stick around, and I was back to doing “sprint” intervals the very next day and actually felt really good (enough) over the 3 miles.
The week has been moving along pretty darn not bad, with daily workouts in the gym, including a 5-mile lumber on Tuesday that took me so long that the Dreadmill started going into cool down mode, and I had to hit stop and start again, just to keep walking my “sprightly for a fat man” 4 MPH. I guess most people don’t stay on a machine for over an hour, especially someone who is a shadow of their formerly fit self. I do love me some cardio, though, even if it is just a fast walk while listening to music and trying not to notice that there is a war going on via the rows of talking heads on the TVs in front of me.2
