a reminder.

some stories don't
have a clear beginning,
middle, and end. life
is about not knowing,
having to change,
taking the moment and 
making the best of it,
without knowing what's 
going to happen next.
delicious ambiguity...






gilda radner

delicious ambiguity. mmm. perfection.

last week i got home at two in 

the morning knowing i had to be back

 at work at 8 am. 

and it was this quote messaged  

to me by camilla 

that kept me going.

physique 57: a two week update for you.

there have been two times in the last few weeks when i have forgotten to eat.

and i never forget to eat. not ever.

because i really like food. like, a lot.

but twice i've had the thought to grab breakfast. and then i'm out the door and i realize there's nothing in my stomach but i don't really have time to stop and think about it so i just keep going.

and this is how i know that i'm busy. i mean. really, really busy.

my schedule is color-coded for the first time in my life.

i have a color for babysitting. and a color for my new job. at another restaurant. which i have so many feelings about. because i'm starting to feel like it's time to jump-start my life. and so while i'm thankful for the work and the money and the surprisingly kind people, it's another restaurant. another restaurant. and hostess, babysitter, these are not careers i want to pursue. i want to be more. but...well...this is another tale fore another day. i digress. the point is i have a color for each of my many jobs and i have a color for exercise.

i'm in the middle of the monthly unlimited at physique 57. and i'm trying to get to class four to five times a week. and i don't exactly live close to either studio so it's always an event. just to get there it's an event. then there's the issue of finding a class that works around my many jobs.

this is all to say that right now my life feels a bit like a jig-saw puzzle. how can i make it all fit?

and so it would be easy to cut down on the exercise.

but i can't. i won't. nope. i love it.

there. i said it.

holy moly. i love it.

and i know it's good for me. even if it makes walking up and down the stairs difficult at times. even if i'm sore all over (at times). even if i'm absolutely, completely, unutterably ravenous, all. the. time. (which makes the fact that i've twice forgotten to eat all the more bewildering).

you want to know why i like it?

well. it's like the class takes everything i've worked so hard to learn over the last couple of years and makes it tangible. physicalizes it. it is metaphor made manifest in my body.

1. i can't compare myself to anyone else. i want to. and i try to. often. but at the end of the day the journey is my own. it doesn't matter if my leg is higher than that of the girl next to me--that doesn't mean a damn thing. no one else knows if i've gotten better or can feel if i'm curling my abs in a way that i've never done before. success is personal.

2. as you continue class after class, the pain doesn't cease. but it changes. it becomes tolerable. you can sit in it (or squat in it, as it turns out. and you will. oh my god, you will) for ten seconds then twenty then thirty. and isn't that just like life? we learn to tolerate the ups and downs--the departures from the base line. we learn to run into those moments, to really dig into them. because those are the moments of great change. and growth. and once we learn to really fully experience those moments things become a bit easier. a bit more exciting. a bit more... worthwhile.

did i say a bit? i meant a sh*t-ton.

i'm not going to tell you that the class has transformed my body in the little over two weeks i've been doing it. and i'm not going to post before and after pictures (as it turns out, there is a limit to how much i'm willing to put up on the internet)  because it's not really about that. yes, while the possibility of thinner thighs is endlessly exciting (though i think it's gonna take a bit longer than two weeks)  it's about my health. physical and mental. it's about increasing bone density and cognitive function. it's about a sense of personal accomplishment. and self-worth. self-worth more than anything else.

(picture from new saturday morning tradition of post-physique whole foods health-bar lunch)


ps: GO YANKS!

monday morning revelation.

you think you're immune to such things as the dreamy doctor in blue scrubs.

you're not susceptible to such cliches. you're...(dare you say it), better than that.

and one morning you wake up and life is as it's always been.

and you climb the hill to subway. the hill that you've climbed so many times before.

and then there in the distance, on the corner, is the cut of a man. a man in that unmistakable blue. and you get it. you finally get that thing that has for so long eluded you. and as edith piaf would say, heaven have mercy.

and everything is different and life has humbled you. because yes. yes. you too love the cliche.

sunday morning.

i wake to the fits and spurts of a heater coming to life for the first time this season. it must be cold out, brisk at best. but my room is warm and safe.

i wander into the living room. pull up the blinds. oh how that blue of the sky undoes me. the trees across the way there...heaven. something about that golden glow of an october morning.

into the kitchen, the cold tiles kissing my bare feet. i put on a pot of coffee. there is the smell of fresh paint in there. i wonder who was painting, what was done.

i find my way back into my room. following the grid of wood grain. turning corners. a symphony of creaks. the room smells of sleep. i crack the window. gather my laundry.

down the elevator to the basement. the painted gray cement and slow grumble of the machines.

there's something about sunday mornings. the quiet. the pliable nature of time on this one day. it is restorative. holy. a time trap in which a million possibilities are made manifest. the great gift of the week that simultaneously ends and begins another set of seven days.

i suppose i could write about...

how i've never worked so hard at so many different things as i did this last week.

and how i then proceeded to sleep through the weekend.

or how a new job as me wearing heels for the first time in three, four years, maybe? (my feet are aching).

how my parents brought me a twelve day supply (exactly one case) of pellegrino yesterday.

and how after exactly one brunch in my tiny little corner of northern manhattan with my mother, father, grandfather and a plate of huevos rancheros i am left me feeling unbelievably homesick.

how my living room is now filled with my grandmother's furniture. dark wood. pieces that look just like the stuff i grew up with. a living history in a new location.

or how i slept on a friend's couch last night so i could make it to the early physique class at spring street.

how i've been thinking a lot about love lately. or like. or attraction. and i keep coming back to the wise words of paulo coelho: one is loved because one is loved. no reason is needed for loving. because isn't it funny how what makes one person attractive is simultaneously a turn-off on someone else? thank god love can't ever really be defined. if it could, it probably wouldn't be worth it.

so i could write about all these things.

but i haven't the time.

life's moving so quickly. and i must stick my mahi burger in the oven and answer some emails and put on some heels because i surely don't wanna be late to work.