I'm starstruck. I had nothing to do after the workshop ended at 4:15, so I went walking around Fort Worth. I went into this outlet-store kinda mall and walked around for a minute. It was eerie, because NO ONE was there. Friday at a mall and nobody was there, not even teenagers. So I left and ended up at Barnes & Noble. Not that B&N is a HUGE deal to me - they seem to be on every corner these days.
Anyway, the point is I was checking out the bio section and saw Bob Scheiffer right there in front of me. I stared for a minute. I was prepared to walk away but a little voice in my head said Jennifer, JUST! TALK! TO! HIM! So I walked up and said, very quietly, that I thought he'd made a great speech earlier. He thanked me and shook my hand and asked me where I was from and who I worked for. We made chit chat about whether he was going to the dinner tonight, etc etc etc. I would have asked to take his picture with me but I didn't have a friend or a third person handy. And pictures that I take of myself are always terrible. So that was my most recent brush with fame. Cool.
I don't know if I'm going to go to these things much anymore. I've been going alone for the last 2 years, and it's never as much fun as when you go with a group. I think I've made a respectable number of friends/casual acquaintances while going to these things, but there always comes that point when they go off with the people they came with, and you're left alone. I feel like I'm the new kid in high school again and don't have any friends. Hopefully I can round some people up tonight to hit the rockin' bars in Ft. Worth. Actually, I don't know if they're rockin'. I don't even know if they're here. The wildest place I saw to drink around here was a Jamba Juice stand.
Side note: I'm drinking a Jack Daniel's Hard Cola right now that I swiped from the hospitality suite. It tastes like a cross between Vanilla Coke and cherry Tylenol syrup. It gets better the more you drink, but I don't recommend it.
Oh, and despite my food debauchery I worked out today. The little health club they have rocks. I did 20 mins on the treadmill w/sprints and 20 minutes of weightlifting. It was 20 mins shorter than I usually do, but I had to go to a lunch.
Greetings from Cow Country! Yes, I am in Fort Worth, TX, sitting in my hotel room surfing on this slow-ass Internet connection. I would have posted last night, but I got to the hotel at about 5 and had to be out the door at 6:15 for the opening night reception. I won't say much about my trip up here, except that it was hell. HELL. Love Field is a reeeally long way from Fort Worth and I had to pay $35 to take the shuttle here. And the other guy in the shuttle argued with the driver about the price; I thought he was going to stop the van and pull the guy out. Not too much fun.
However, everything has been a lot better since then. I've been to some great workshops, hung out with long-lost friends, made some new ones, and listened to a speech by Bob Schieffer (the CBS 'Face the Nation' guy). He rocked.
Plus, I visited Billy Bob's Texas last night, which bills itself as the "Largest Honky-Tonk in the World." It was cool.
As for the diet - I blew it. I blew it big time. Last night they gave us beef brisket, potato salad and cole slaw for dinner. I had to eat it, because it was the only thing available for us, unless I wanted to go out and spend mucho money on something else. For lunch we had chicken in a cream sauce, cream pie and salad with cream dressing. Creamy creamy creamy.
After that last somber post... some thoughts from me. I got pretty upset at all the memorial services that were being broadcast on CNN yesterday. I guess the breaking point for me was in the morning; I was sitting in front of the TV and preparing to dry my hair. (Yes, I dry my hair in front of the TV, without a mirror, but it still looks okay.) They were doing the roll call of victims and they had just started on the B's when I started the dryer. 10 minutes later, when I was through, they were STILL on the B's. I guess that kind of made it clear exactly how many people died in one fell swoop at the World Trade Center. Most of us just think of it in terms of "a lot," or "thousands," not really thinking about the enormity of it all. But that roll call made it crystal clear.
Enough sadness. I'm going out of town today! I'm going to be packing my crap up here at the office in about two hours and preparing to head for the airport and fly good old Southwest Airlines ... I love Southwest and hate them at the same time. I love that their tickets are so cheap. I love the great attitudes of their employees. But I hate, hate, hate their seating policies. And I'm not talking the "large person buying two seats" rule. I'm talking about the cattle-call method in which you have to get on the plane. In case you've never flown Southwest, I'll give you the lowdown. When you check in, you don't get a ticket. They give you this big, brightly-colored piece of plastic with a number written on it - usually anywhere from 1 to 5. If you've got 1, congratulations! That means you'll be in the first seating group and able to board the plane first and pick a good seat. (There are no assigned seats on Southwest.) If you have 5, you'll have to wait with the last seating group until everyone else has boarded. This means you will probably be sitting in some crappy seat, such as one of the ones in the front that faces backwards (causing you to actually pitch FORWARD during takeoff).
Oh well. The flight is only 55 minutes, and I plan to get there early, so hopefully I'll be fortunate this time. I'll let everyone know how it went. I plan to take my work laptop with me, so I'll be able to blog about my trip virtually nonstop.
I didn't go to the gym yesterday. I didn't feel like it, plus Mark was coming home early so we could spend some extra time together on my "last night" in town. We ate dinner and watched TV and it was great. I do, however, plan to use the hotel gym (their facilities look excellent - look here). No, really, I do. It'll take me HOURS to get to the hotel since it's so far away, so all that sitting down is going to make me crave a good run.
I'll also take pictures and post them when I get back.
Eats:
1 slice whole-wheat toast w/1 tbsp crunchy peanut butter, 155 cals; 1 cup skim milk, 90 cals. Going to lunch w/my aunt today, so God knows how many calories I'll inhale. I did, however, pack apples, pretzels and other healthy snacks in my suitcase. Aren't you proud of me?
I thought tonight's flexibility class would be a cake walk. You know, something relaxing and not at all hard. Just a way to stretch those overworked muscles and chill out. Boy, was I wrong! Yeah, the lights were off and the instructor had this new age music playing, but other than that the class kicked my butt. It was more like yoga than stretching. We did the downward dog, upward dog, shoulder stand, the works. The only ones I really liked were the stretches for the inner and outer thighs and the glutes, because I got to lie down and close my eyes.
I did 20 minutes on the bike before the class and 25 minutes on the treadmill afterward, so I guess I completed my penance. But it didn't help that I marched to Atlanta Bread Co. (in the same shopping center) immediately afterward and got a Greek salad with chicken to go. I love Greek salads, mostly because of the feta cheese and pepperoncini peppers. Yum. The dressing was OK - I should have asked for a lowfat version since the one they gave me was laden with olive oil.
Well, I'm off to soak my aching calves in the tub. Goodnight.
Oh no! I forgot that I can't come to the 'dog class' because I will be out of town this Saturday. That sucks the big one. Now I have to wait another month for the next dog class before I can actually be a full-fledged "volunteer." Well, at least I can come in and pet the kitties in the meantime.
One more thing. So I will be motivated to actually DO it, I will be doing an extra 15 mins of cardio work today as penance for my french-fry splurge at Wendy's. I had planned to do 30 minutes because I'm doing the flex class too, so ... 45 mins on the treadmill AFTER class is over.
The 'cat class' went okay. There were about 8 of us and this guy showed us around the SPCA building, how to sign in, what to do, what not to do, etc etc. My favorite part came at the end, when we went in the cat room and actually learned how to handle the cats. As if I didn't know how already. The cats were very well-behaved, save for a few kittens that kept reaching out and batting our hands. I better not spend too much time in that room - I will end up taking one home, I just know it.
So anyway, I have to be there at 9 a.m. Saturday for the 'dog class.' I actually could use some instruction in that area, particularly in the area of dog-walking - some dogs are very easy to walk while others are damn near impossible. My aunt has a Lab that she can't walk because he always wants to turn around and bite the leash. Puppies are so cute, but SO HARD to take care of. Especially if they're inside/outside pets. Cats are so easy. I've never had to litter train any of my cats. I just set the litterbox up, put them in the middle of it, and voila - they know how. However, yesterday someone peed in the hall outside the bedroom, so I'm hoping there won't be any more of that in the future. Both Dude and Oscar are neutered; I assumed that would take care of it. But perhaps not.
Enough about cats. I was running late coming back to work and had to stop by Wendy's to get some food. I got a grilled chicken combo - yes, with fries. But I only ate about 2/3 the order and threw the rest of the fries away. Man, you don't know what kind of willpower it took to throw those away. I should have put them in the garbage can outside my office, because I can SEE them there in the trash under my desk and it' s driving me nuts. But I refuse to fish them out of the trash. That would confirm my suspicions that I'm a slave to food.
Tonight I will be going to a flexibility class at the gym. It's not that I'm particularly inflexible - I can touch my toes sitting and standing - but I thought it would be a nice departure from the usual. I'll post my experience with it later tonight or tomorrow morning.
Ho hum. At work. Looking forward to going to the conference on Thursday. Hoping that my measly 50-minute flight will make it there in one piece.
Last night I did 40 minutes on the treadmill and bike again. I'm starting to feel really good DURING my workouts, rather than tortured. I would have gone 50 but I just wasn't in the mood. I would have done some weight training too, but on Mondays the floor is really crowded and I just didn't feel like it. I went home and did butt crunches and regular crunches.
I didn't have a magazine while I was plodding along on the treadmill last night, so I watched the people working out downstairs. A gym is a really odd place. At least, mine is. It's filled with UT students, yuppies and other young people. I watched everyone grunt and pant and contort their faces into expressions of pain, and I realized: It's all about sex. I estimated that at least 80 percent of the people working out were there because they wanted to be more attractive to the opposite sex. Not because they want to have a more efficient metabolism or prevent heart disease, but because they want to be sexier. I'm reminded of that scene in American Beauty where Kevin Spacey all of a sudden decides that he wants to start running. And his gay neighbor asks what his fitness goals are, and Kevin Spacey says, "I want to look good naked."
That's a sad statement (especially when you consider that he was working out to impress a 16-year-old girl). And it's even more sad when you consider that there are hundreds, no THOUSANDS, of people working out in gyms every day like maniacs for this shallow reason.
I guess I really can't blame them. After all, one of my biggest motivators for working out is to look better in shorts (not the main motivator, however). And popular culture has idealized the "thin" look so much that I guess this phenomenon was inevitable. (Could it be called a phenomenon?) But to me, it seems kinda pathetic and misses the whole point of health clubs. It becomes especially apparent when I see guys walk up to the treadmills and Stairmasters in these skintight, nylon, not-at-all-comfortable workout getups. They glance around at the other people first, as if to make sure that everyone's noticed them. Then they make a big production of setting up their liter-size water bottles and their Walkmans before immediately setting the machine to an extremely high speed. No warm-ups or anything. Then there are those who feel like they have to "compete" with the person next to them. I've actually seen guys walking on treadmills who will up their speeds whenever I start running. And they won't slow it down until about 1 minute after I've slowed down to a walk again.
Anyway, that's my gym rant. Sometimes I think I should just work out at home.
Eats:
1 Yoplait yogurt, 170 cals; 1 cup pretzels, ?? cals (I will fill this in when I can get a hold of the bag)
Oh, almost forgot. This past Saturday I went to an informational meeting about volunteering at the local SPCA. I figure some volunteer work will get me out in the community and stuff and help me get to know this city. Right now I hardly know anyone except the people I work with, and Mark. I really need to get out there and meet people.
So I went to the meeting - yes, it costs $25 to volunteer, but that all goes for insurance so you can get your thumb stitched back on if a dog bites it off. So no biggie. I'm going to a "cat class" tomorrow at 12:30 so I can learn to handle cats (ought to be easy; three years of cat ownership teaches you pretty darn well), and then I have to go to a "dog class," which will be harder, but just as fun.
I'm hoping I can do the fun stuff at the SPCA, instead of being the cage cleaner or whatever. They have tons of volunteer positions, and the one that I'd really like to do is help with special events, where they go on location to Petsmart for adoption fairs and stuff. Either that, or be a "cat socializer," which basically means you take the cats out of their cages and play with them. But Mark says that job is for ... ahem ... people with low mental capacities. (There WERE about 5 "slow" people at the last meeting, so maybe he's right...) But I still want to do it.
Eats:
1 Yoplait custard style yogurt (caramel flavor, mmm), 190 cals; Lunch - 1 ham sandwich w/mayo & mustard on sugar free bread, about 300 cals; 1 serving Smart Puffs, 130 cals. (Smart Puffs are amazingly good and pretty low in calories, like gourmet diet Cheeto Puffs, I highly recommend them.)
Wow. When was the last time I went a whole weekend without posting?
Anyway, the weekend was good. I made up for not exercising last Tuesday and Wednesday (sick) by exercising on Saturday, and Sunday like usual. I have really been kicking butt on cardio. I did 50 minutes Saturday and 40 minutes Sunday. In the seven or eight weeks since I joined the gym, I can tell that my aerobic capacity has increased. For example, I can do 5-minute running sprints now without too much trouble, whereas when I started, two-minute sprints would knock me down. It's good to see that kind of progress, if not lower numbers on the scale.
Weight is holding steady at 134.5. I'm just lucky it hasn't increased, considering the junk I ate this weekend. I had 2 pieces of pizza and a slice of chocolate pie on Saturday, and we went out for Mexican on Friday. However, the Mexican probably wasn't too bad b/c I got just plain chicken fajitas, no sour cream, instead of enchiladas covered with sauce or deep-fried chimichangas.
I'm extremely busy this week because I'm trying to get a week's worth of work done in 3 days. I'm going to try and do some stuff from the hotel in Ft. Worth, but I doubt I will make any progress. There's too much schmoozing to do.
Name: Jen Location: DFW, TX Occupation: Journalist WHY this stupid blog?: To lose the 20 pounds I've packed on since high school and to entertain you with stories about my fabulous life. Current Weight: 138 My Goal Weight: 115 Pounds to Go: 23
