Been working out. Making an effort to get some good exertion outta the way before Bob comes. Hopefully the effects will hold throughout the hiatus I’ll be taking during his trip and then I can pick up where I left off.

When I work out consistently, which is sporadic, I notice that it does work; that my body does change shape and start to shrink. I bought one of those aerobic step thingees I used in aerobic classes in the States. We found one here in a little store by Tongdaemun Stadium. It had been left in the window for too many years and one side was pretty well sun-faded. We inquired about it anyway as it was the only one we saw. It came with two platforms for each side. I asked if the guy had more platforms, which he did, but he said it was dangerous to go any higher. I told him I was tall and needed more height and he agreed. Said he had to go to his warehouse to get the extra platforms, so he got out a ladder to climb through a little square in the ceiling where we heard him walking all around and thought maybe the ceiling wouldn’t hold. After awhile, he came back down with the extra platforms and we were in business. It’s boring for me, so I switch every few minutes between lifting and stepping. We bought weights too at Tongdaemun Stadium, one set of dumbbells at a time. At first it doesn’t seem like it would be too difficult to just carry around a 9 kilo dumbbell while changing trains or walking to and from the subway station, but after awhile the weight really pulls on the joints and vows start to emerge between gasps about how this kind of stupidity won’t be tried again. So, we have weights and we use the old particle-board trunk I bought 8 years ago at Ernst as a bench press. It works.

I notice that exercise agrees with my body, my health, just like the propaganda says. And lately, I’ve been fairly consistent and I feel good. I see that my knees and ankles look thinner - that’s the first flab to go. I worry a bit that my hips are the same size and I try not to think that maybe, on my downhill slide to 30, that my hips are here to stay and I will forever have them attached like wings, as Dave’s mom would say. In which case, I feel fortunate to have large breasts: I can avoid the "pear shape" phenomenon. I don’t know about hourglass, but maybe I look like a figure 8 with arms legs and little head (maybe not so little) with big thick hair. The thing about breasts is that I notice that they too have shrunk a bit with my knees and ankles even while my hips remain defiant. (Would you like a little cottage cheese with that swimsuit?) I look around in this land of small perky tits and wonder what it would be like to have breasts like tiny Jell-O cups. I’ve got the National Geographic Specials who keep me in all kinds of underwires and wide straps, preventing me from even thinking about those spaghetti tanks that the chicks on Friends are sportin’ now. I have to stuff them into jogbras made of re-bar to contain them during bouncy activities. Thus, as Mary coined, the uni-boob effect, where they sort of meld together within the confines of the jogbra, moving as one solid mass with powerful momentum. I had thought this phenomenon was responsible for my shirt sliding back gradually and choking me, but I've decided firmly that my butt is the culprit in that situation. At least I don’t look like a pear: Gotta keep thinking about that. And anyway, I guess I’d rather have breasts than not and even if they shrink they’ll never be teeny - hell, they’ve never been teeny; I think I skipped training bras altogether - and my wide hips minus the dairy product metaphor are still wide. Dave said the other day: Them are childbearin’ hips! I said, Yeah! All my kids would have beautiful round heads: no squishing through a narrow pelvis.

Ahh, so we’ve been working out. I didn’t have a lot of energy today, but enough so that after lifting and stepping I decided a walk would be nice too. It was hot today - not quite 80 but close - so I cleaned the filter on the AC before we started. April tis a little early for the AC, don’t you think? Well, I figure since the company didn’t help us pay for an overpriced fitness club they can subsidize our home gym’s atmosphere. The AC fired up fine and cold, the cool breeze blew renegade hairs onto my sweaty brow where they stuck and annoyed me. Yes, it’s working just fine. Being that it was so hot, it was time too to break out the hat with the crusty yellowish-brown ring that’s beginning to look more like a landscape painting than the disgusting sweat residue that it is. Dave’s mom bought him this hat, a white U of W baseball cap with a big fat, purple W smack in the front center. Dave never wore it so I snagged it for walking on hot sunny days. The sweat is really visible on the whiteness and really looks gross after 1.5 years. I wonder what the other people on the trail think when they see it? Anyway, without the hat in the hot muggy weather, the little hairs around my face break free from my controls and freak out in all directions like bizarre antlers. No matter what state the hat is in, it looks better than medusa. Don’t wanna be scarin’ the little kiddies out there. Today, putting on the hat for the first time, it was a little tight. My hair has grown a lot since last summer and I had to adjust the strap open a notch. Didn’t want to have a big red stripe across my forehead for the rest of the evening, ya know?

Well, the walk was nice and short. Came home, showered to get ready for the weekly visit to the Hard Rock Café. Can you believe that we’re regulars there now? Good grief, what a sad statement: Nobody is a regular at a place like the Hard Rock. I mean, c’mon! So, I’m liking my legs looking more fit and thought tonight would be a good night to break out the short black skirt. Speaking of fit legs: They still hurt from that crash back in Feb. The bruises are gone, though I can still see that the areas that were bruised are still just the slightest, teeniest bit darker, but definitely the flesh remains tender. Is that, uh, normal? You know, I have these funky pointy knobs on my knees - had them for years. I used to think they were some kind of calcium growths or something but the podiatrist told me that the bones in my lower leg have actually turned slightly because my legs are misaligned. Nice. Probably need a hip replacement later. I figure that’s why I can’t run. I can walk and bike forever, but whenever I try jogging on a regular basis, I can only go about three weeks before one or both hips start protesting with sharp, deep pains. Anyway, my knees don’t hurt from the pointy knobs, they just look kind of weird. What is really weird though is that when I crashed and totally banged up my left knee, the bump disappeared. I’m thinking that the impact shifted the bone back into alignment ‘cause now my leg looks totally normal. Of course, the knee is still wacked from when I wrenched it hiking a few years back, but at least it looks OK. So how long should I worry about the tenderness where the bruises are anyway?

Showered, dressed, Dave set the VCR to tape the season opener of Newsradio. Off to eat. I’d been having grand visions of a chocolate milkshake all day and was totally determined to live the fantasy, but after scarfing all of my veggie burger, every damn fry and even the wimpy piece of watermelon decorating the plate, I’d decided it was worth skipping the shake just for some chance that the exercise could triumph over my voracious appetite today. Turns out Dave forgot to turn the power off of the VCR and we missed the season premier. Damn. I paused for a moment thinking about the truth in the cliché that VCR's are difficult to program.