January 31st, 2011
It’s Natural To Be Afraid
“All my life I’ve been good / but now / whoaaaa I’m thinking, ‘What / the hell?’ “
—Avril Lavigne
“Meet me at the Malt Shop!”
—Jeff
(Also, insert lyrics from Six Days At The Bottom Of The Ocean, if they existed.)
Man. Stellar weekend. Deep deep dreaming. Gymnastics obsession (all day I dream about…). Where to begin?
Weekend is easier. What a lovely one at that. Friday we started our evening early for a Super Date Night! Skating (breaking in my new skates…very, very nice!), then Blue Valentine (good but not excellent), then Malt Shop (“Meet me at the Malt Shop! / forget about your boyfriend!”). (+ Yellow Room Hotel!) Fun fun fun night.
Slept innnn Saturday then up and at ’em. I managed a pretty crummy but good-to-be-outside run in the 24ish degrees…slush and clouds and all. Off to do some crafting, then met up with Jeff and Jack and Laureen at Annie’s. Malty weekendy. Delicious chocolate cola, I forgot how good those things are. Off to the gymnastics meet! Air Force was no match for the U but had pretty leotards…plus, those girls are going to be flying fighter jets soon, as Jack pointed out. Impressive! The U had a pretty terrific meet and it was really fun to see their butt-kicking on floor. Home to hang out, read, email, etc.
Sunday I got up early and got crackin’ on the crock pot. Kind of obsessed…especially on Sundays. I also made myself some oatmeal scones and hot fresh coffee. COFFEE!!! Finished up my cutting and rinsing and put-together-ing in the kitchen and enjoyed a fresh scone with an amazing grapefruit (thank you Jeffrey!) and HOT COFFEE while watching the glittery snow falling against a blue sky. Reading. Heaven. Off to swim where I banged out a good 2000m or so and felt wonderful. Didn’t even have to share a lane, and did much left-side breathing. I love swimming sooooooo much (but not as much as I love my bike). So peaceful and meditative.
Home where Jeff was STILL posting things on Craigslist. Much $ to be made apparently. We then watched Auburn vs. Georgia and I made myself a POACHED EGG ha ha ha and some sauteed spinach. Lots of good Sunday eating. Made the mistake of putting in 1998 L8 DVDs for Jeff after the Auburn-Georgia meet…Jeff wanted to know why our bar routines were so short?! Ha! Still so fun, loved that year. I kind of wouldn’t mind reliving 1998 to be perfectly honest. Or a lot of HS. Yes, I know, I’m a freak. Got to the freelance and all of that and it was grand. Dinner and early to bed. Craigslist/lavalamp shenanigans. Good good sleep. The End.
(And then deep, creepy dreams. Almost multiple levels deep. I was very afraid when I awoke.)
Gymnastics…watching the 1998 L8 season seriously put me in awe of what my body could once do, and made me finally realize how far away I am from that now (and am 99.9% sure I will never be back there again, but, you never know, hahaha). Sure, I can do things now that I couldn’t do at all (physically, I mean) at 16, but damn! Backhandsprings on beam? Aerials on beam? COMPETING? So crazy. Also, I was a lot smaller physically so that probably helped (um, not that I intend to regress to a semi-child’s body, LOL!). I couldn’t believe I stuck multiple beam routines with all of these skills, either, HA!
It also made me realize how much I loved USAG JO Optional meets…loved it. Even as afraid as I was. Just watching it gave me that feeling again; how grand it was indeed. (Clearly, I can’t put this into words…so I’ll stop trying.) Side note, Jan. 31st ish was so awesome in 1998/2000. Great gymnastics happening those weekends IIRC. Lots of 9s! OK enough.
OK. Off to mentee hour in the snow, snow, snow. Happy Monday/end of January.