tosabarbell

Yesterday we were running the last of our errands and the song ‘Creep’ by Radiohead came on the radio. Whenever I hear Radiohead, I think of my beautiful, French friend, Veronique. It was one of her favorite bands and I can’t make it through the song without shedding a few tears. She’s been gone for almost two years now and the world shines a little less brighter without her in it.

It got me thinking about so many people who are no longer with us but for the memories we have of them. Good times; touch times; funny times; sad times, so many things shared with our friends and family and wouldn’t it be nice if we could have just one more night with each of them? A quick visit where we get one more laugh, one more hug, maybe even an unsaid apology. Just one night, one visit from those we miss.

And then I started to think that as much as I may miss dear friends who no longer walk among us, THEIR children most likely miss them so much more. Veronique’s two sons; my “3rd Mom” Paula’s adult children Molly and Joe, as much as I miss her I can’t imagine their thoughts on another Christmas Day without her in the kitchen cooking for not only them, but the grandchildren she never got to meet.

I wish THEY could hear their mom’s voices just one more time (I actually have an old answering machine with a message from Paula when she was sick but before she got too bad, 11 weeks from diagnosis to death wasn’t nearly enough time to process it all.) I wish I could hear my Grandpa say “Merry Christmas Mommy” to my Grandma and see her sweet smile.

 I’m sure all of us can list those we miss. There are so many people weighing on my heart today, Michele in Hutchinson who has to celebrate her first Christmas without her son, Reno and know that the anniversary of his death is just days away; our Highland Games brother Bill in Illinois who has to attend his son’s funeral on Sunday; Veronique’s boys; my lovely friend Jenn whom I know misses HER mom so much, so many more.

So as we sit and chill and maybe even do it in separate rooms (currently the Z’s are in the backroom watching some raunchy comedian; Oz is upstairs in his room playing his new video games, and Matt is outside smoking a cigar while keep a close eye on our beautiful nearly eight pound Prime Rib roast that currently is residing in the Big Green Egg for the next few hours) I’m so incredibly thankful for the fact that all my children are in the house on Christmas for the first time in years. Of course Zandra was the last one downstairs before we could dig into our stockings and when she groggily came and sat on my lap (at 11:00 am) her twin, Zac, came and put his arm around her and her simple greeting of, “Brother” brought more tears to my eyes. I’m so thankful.

But just one more visit from some ghosts of Christmas pasts would be so nice, for so many of us.

I can’t. I just can’t. I can’t take it anymore. The whining; the attention whoring; the wasting of hours and hours of a lifetime, I just can’t. Some how in the last eight or so years, Mark Zuckerberg has talked us into the idea that we need his app. That we cannot wait in a grocery line without checking his app. That we cannot sit at a dinner or a hockey game together without checking his app.

That his app takes more priority than connecting with the real people or the real situations in front of us. I just can’t.

I don’t know what the final straw was. Perhaps the constant political rhetoric that benefits your point of view; people living their lives according to meme’s; the attention whoring selfies of girls who sit in the gyms with their cameras ready to go, lips pouting, ass sticking out, barely clothed. Ya know what sluts? I don’t care how much you lift. At all. Put some fucking clothes on and just train. I enjoy training videos of friends kicking total ass in the gym and celebrating their hard work. If that’s ALL that were on the Facebook, I’m game.

If ALL posts on the Facebook were positive, people celebrating each other; cute baby photo’s and videos of panda bears playing I’m on board. If ALL posts were like my PNW friend’s Big Daddy and his wife, Devil Ang telling each other how thankful they are for each other (plus Big Daddy’s training videos) I’m there. If ALL we could see on the Facebook were real I’m all for it.

But it’s not, or at least, the majority of it isn’t. It’s mean spirited; keyboard warriors hiding behind socially accepted cyber bullying who’s motto is “IF YOU’RE NOT FOR US, YOU’RE AGAINST US AND NOW WE’RE COMING AFTER YOU!” Hey, remember the time it wasn’t okay to go through life like that? I do. Most adults in their early 20’s don’t. We’ve done that. We’ve shown young adults that they’re too young to be adults and to live entitled and offended at every turn of life.

We’ve taught them that standards are bad. That respectful debate has no part in having an opinion. You disagree with me? Bring on the meme’s. You can say that gay marriage is good but I can’t say gay marriage is bad. My opinion makes me a homophobe. No, I don’t believe gay marriage is the ruination of America, but I DO believe that the Gay Lobby is nearly as powerful as the Pharm Lobby and has ruined good people in it’s wake, just as the Christian Right Lobby has. Newsflash people, your methods are the same. You’re just too caught up in argument to know it. Send out a meme to make your point.

I can’t.

I can’t read about people with really good lives bitch about them. I can’t read about people with a lot of talent put themselves down. I can’t read about unhealthy people not feeling well but refusing to get strong and change their food.

Enough. I’m out…peace YO!

So imagine my surprise last night when Matt said that I had a message from a friend on my FB page? Ummmm, no, I deactivated it. He says, no it’s there. Ummmmm, whut? So I guess even when you try to get out, the Facebook crew decides they don’t like it and reactivate your account.

Sit on that a bit people. You’re okay with that? I’m not okay with that. So I deactivated again, we’ll see how long that sticks.

I have a phone. I have an e-mail. My home even accepts US Mail so go ahead and send me a letter, I love letters! If people in my life think I’m unreachable because I’ve signed off the FB, then you’re in deeper than you thought. OH! I even have an Instagram and Oooooooo, the attention whoring is x1000 on the Instagram. The difference is that the negativity is held to a minimum, in fact, it’s pretty damn rare. And I like that. I can block the stupid girls who troll the internet for dates with their pictures and even the valid training systems who only use scantily clad andro babes as their marketing tools. Whatev dudes.

But the Facebook? Fuck off. I’ve let you steal hours of my life and watch you do the same to my loved ones. There are many times where I view the Facebook as “the other woman.” Think I’m exaggerating? Watch how many times a day your partners/children/co-workers faces are shoved into their phones.

So. Fucking. Done.

I like the idea of isolation, I like the idea of solitude. You can be connected and have a phone and still be lonely.

Paul Theroux

Gratuitous picture of Lidia Valentin

I had a nice birds eye view last weekend in the warm-up room before I lifted. We had 13 girls (lucky 13 on Friday the 13th;) lift and three of us were opening in the Snatch after the other lifters were almost complete with all three of their attempts. That means that there was a lot of downtime for me while others were warming up.

Now, I remember last year at my local meet when I noticed one woman in my group who started warming up a half and hour before our session was to begin and her opener was a couple of kilos under mine. Uhhhhhhh, dudette, we won’t be taking our first attempt until around 10:30…whaz up?

At that meet, I got on the Airdyne around 15 minutes before our session was to start. From there, I didn’t touch a bar for another 25 minutes. My warm ups take about 7 minutes and from there I take about four lifts before my opener. Now (hopefully) this may change as I increase my lifts. I may throw one more light one in there. Time will tell.

But just as in Milwaukee, the amount of reps taken by most lifters in Savannah shocked me. Now, there were a few lifters who were very deliberate in their warm-ups. One woman in my class who has just finished cancer treatment (yeah, have I said yet how amazing these women were?) was lifting very conservatively and was coached by Michael Cohen (lucky girl.) They were across the gym from my platform and he had tight control of her warm-ups while remaining very positive and supportive (again, lucky girl.)

Another girl was lifting without a coach and while I didn’t see what she was doing the whole time, she seemed to have her reps put in place. At the very least, she wasn’t pulling every time I looked over.

But OyVey, some of the women took more reps in their warm up than I even take in a training session. One woman next to me worked up to just one kilo less than her 1st attempt and came right back to the platform to take reps in between her attempts.

Now, yes, I understand that it’s necessary at times to take a rep in between attempts. I saw Michael Cohen do it earlier in the day during his session. However; as most of us lifters (seems coaches haven’t realized this yet) know, that rep is taken at a much lighter weight and we know we have at least “x” minutes before our next attempt. We’re not going to go back to the warm up area and start lifting higher than our first attempt when our second is going to be in about 90 seconds. Yes, I’m serious.

Melanie Roach always looks so happy when she lifts!

The woman on my platform took reps in between her attempts and by the end of the session, she looked like she’d been through a war. Congratulations, you’ve just lifted the equivalent of three weightlifting meets, how the fuck are ya?! As nice as both she and her coach were, I wanted to scream SIT DOWN FOR GAWDS SAKES! 

After we were done and Matt and I were driving to dinner (The Crab Shack on Tybee Island was the place Michael Cohen sent us and he was spot on. It was fun and delicious and perfect.) Anyways. I told Matt about how many reps the ladies were taking in the back and he said, ‘It showed. People were tired.’ I imagine they were.

And since I’m bagging on coaches a little bit…

I adore watching Jim Harbaugh lose his shit on a regular basis but no way would I want to be coached by him.

…let’s talk about intense coaches.

In general, I’m a pretty calm coach. Sure, I’ll get stern and may bark a bit if the weight is heavy enough and the cue is important enough that I need to ensure my lifter hears my voice but I approach competition as relaxed as I can. Throwing has helped me with that. The tighter and more intense I feel, the crappier (it’s totally a word) I throw. So I relax, the power is there and it will be drawn upon when needed. I can get myself fired up without the band aids of music or pacing or being a cunty bitch to others. It’s how I roll. It’s funny to me when people in the throwing world tell me I’m so intense (like it’s a bad thing?) How I interpret that is that I give a shit on how I throw so I may not join in their reindeer games along the sidelines and that’s seen as a bad thing. *Shrug*

So when I see coaches in a warm up area pacing back and forth so tense it seems their heads are going to pop off at any second, I stay far away from them. I want no part of that energy, it sucks the life out of a room. I’d rather be uncoached for the rest of my days than put up with something like that. This is a meet, the ground work has been laid, it’s go time. I’ll watch the monitor/table for you and tell you calmly when you need to take a rep. I won’t stalk over to you like Big Deloris and tersely say, “NOW, go NOW.” JHMFC dude, sit down and have a sammich, you’re wound tighter than the lifter who already is looking nervous.

So here’s my observation; warming up at a meet is approached the same was as training in a commercial gym, head down and focused on your own shit. I was pleased I got to meet some very nice ladies and even give some ‘atta girls’ when they did well and they did the same for me. That’s cool and not very common in my experience of weightlifting. I stayed relaxed, kept my warm ups to the minimum and went 6 for 6 for the first time in a meet.

But I only took 5 snatch warm ups before my first attempt and three of those were very light. I took five warm-ups for my C&J opener of 75kg and two of those were 45kg. That’s 16 lifts overall on the day and my body was extremely tired the next day. I have no clue how the women who took about 40 attempts (think I’m exaggerating?) felt. Uff.

Ask any athlete: We all hurt at times. I’m asking my body to go through 7 different tasks. To ask it not to ache would be too much.

Jackie Joyner-Kersey