Monday Bacon: Road; Hell; Intentions

Posted on December 15, 2014 by tosabarbell

intentions

We been talking a lot about intentions lately. Like, I say something in a snappy fashion and Hubby says, ‘you mad bro?’ and I’m all ‘wtf are you talking about?’ Now, of course I didn’t INTEND to sound snappish but all he gets is the result. The actual action. Huh.

Kind of important stuff. It got me thinking, at what point in life do we lose the ability to care about what our actual ACTIONS are and get completely caught up in what our INTENTIONS were? So, ya know, it doesn’t matter what we do, just what we intended to do. And if our actions are harming a relationship we care about, well, we can either pay attention and not give one flying fok about intentions; or we can be stubborn in our knowledge that we INTENDed something entirely different so the other person just has to chill and STFU.

Ooookayyyy, but then what happens when the other person is all, “I’m peace out bro, don’t care about your intentions anymore, just how you act towards me and how your energy darkens my day. Daily. CYa!” This has happened in my life, if it hasn’t in yours at some point I’d be surprised unless you’re under four years old and then really, you shouldn’t be reading this blog. There are people who I’d tell repeatedly that their behavior and destructive, negative energy towards me isn’t conducive to me being happy with myself but it didn’t matter. It only mattered that they “believed” they needed to say things “to find peace” with themselves. Their intentions are admirable (at least in their own minds.)

Sidebar on that: shut up. First off, if your God tells you that you need to lay your shit on someone else’s doorstep to “find peace?” You’re using God to be a jerk, I don’t even care if you “intended” it differently. I wonder if he likes that? If this is learned behavior because your parents have been doing it for, oh I dunno, 40 or so years and have driven away any hopes of a healthy, positive relationship but you think, “Ya, I’ll do that too.” You’re also an idiot. A jerk and an idiot. But hey, keep reading that Bible. It’s doing wonders.

Anyways.

At the end of the day, our relationships reflect what we bring to the table. Not what we intended to bring to the table. Obviously. If you need to be right, and alone, because others aren’t feeling your intentions, than you either need to pivot and give more priority to your actions. Or be alone. You can’t have both if your actions have a negative impact on others.

And when people do decide to ‘peace out’, you don’t get to wonder what happened. You know what happened, being right according to your intentions was more important to you than the real relationship you actually had. I’m sorry when people don’t get that.

I actually really am. It isn’t pleasant to repeatedly tell someone that you’ve moved on from the bad energy they bring to your life. They could change that, haven’t, so byebye. Life’s too short to put up with destructive behavior just cuz it’s difficult to cut someone loose. Snip snip, those are my intentions AND my actions. See how easy it is to have them be on the same page?

I have a low tolerance for people who complain about things but never do anything to change them. This led me to conclude the that single largest pool of untapped natural resources in this world is human good intentions that are never translated into actions.

Cindy Gallop

Training Log

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Your Good is Our Crappy.

Posted on December 12, 2014 by tosabarbell
good

But there’s protein right?

Generally speaking, I’m not fond of kitchy, glib sayings. Our Warm-up Is Your Workout. Good gawd, can you get any more douche? Did you know people actually wear t-shirts that say this? Srsly? Srsly. Jesus is the reason for the season, shut up. Christmas means different things to different people and putting a glib slogan to it is stupid. You’re just really not very clever. Dr. Seuss was clever, he rhymed with style..and characters that probably took an acid trip to create. Good on ‘im.

But I got to thinking the other day, if I WERE to create a stupid slogan, it would be Your good is our crappy. Yup. To all those people (like, 90% of non-training people I know), when you say you’re eating “good” it’s actually so crappy that even on a cheat day (which I don’t believe in doing), we still wouldn’t touch it. Sometimes “good” just means that your food only came from a drive-thru window half of the week instead of all of the week (I once had a client who had talked herself into that. That she only bought one drive-thru meal where she usually buys and eats two. Srsly.)  Sometimes “good” means that only one row of frozen thin mints were eaten instead of the whole box. (Don’t freeze your thin mints? My god what’s wrong with you. That is all kinds of delicious!)

“Good” is subjective. Meaning, if eating garbage all day, day in and day out, is normal to you then that one piece of real food you’re consuming doesn’t mean you’re having a “good” day, it means your diet is a chemical shit storm and the forecast is most likely more shit and that 1 ounce of real chicken isn’t going to make any kind of dent YO. Yuck.

This also applies to feeling “good.” Feeling ‘not sick’ is actually not the same as feeling “good.” Feeling strong with a headache is not the same as feeling weak with a headache. Strong allows you to cope and walk through life with less than ideal efficiency than a weaker, untrained person. This carries over to organs, connective tissue, etc. If you are putting demands on your body that your lack of muscular strength cannot support, your connective tissue is at risk. Duh. But we don’t think about that. We just think think about keeping our bodies as strong as possible as a whole through training and food and letting them do their thing.

In almost all cases, strong will function far better than weak. Even in disease. But where the only “disease” suffered is weakness and crappy food, ya, your best is our crappy.

Yuck.

good1

Before you call yourself a Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, or any other theology, learn to be a human first.

Shannon L. Alder

Training Log

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This Is Your Big Comeback!

Posted on December 10, 2014 by tosabarbell

comebacksnatchsetup

My first weightlifting meet in over 3 years was a complete blast. A quick 12 minute drive to downtown (some call the area the 5th Ward and some call it Walker’s Point. Milwaukee is really confusing) followed by an incredibly easy and smooth check and weigh in got the day off to a great start. The ladies at the desk were very nice and friendly and the lifting area was very “fight club.” I’d say more on that but, ya know, the first rule of fight club is, ya know.

A beautiful, brand new platform that initially I was a bit concerned about after seeing how shiny it was on the FaceBook. Shiny and slippery platforms aren’t really what we want to lift on but it was very nice and solid. Footing would be good. Brew City CF owners Murph and Jeremy are very nice and enthusiastic young men who are doing good work furthering weightlifting in Wisconsin. The groups were nice sized and warming up correctly in a group of 17 was a bit challenging but fun. All of the ladies were incredibly nice and supportive, very Highland Games compared to the snarky and bitchy I got used to down in Texas.

Our 69, 75, and 75+ group was pretty evenly split in that the first half did most of their attempts before we opened which cleared up the warm up platforms nicely. Murph and Jeremy put a computer for us to keep an eye on the lifting and hopefully, if we’re paying close enough attention, we’d get downstairs in plenty of time to lift.

As we were standing around and checking the screen, the eventual winner of the 69kg group asked where I was opening. After telling her 55kg, she said I looked solid in warm ups and will do great. Very sweet. All I know is that her name is Jayme (not even sure if that’s correct spelling) and she was a very good lifter and very good person. She asked how long I’d been competing and I told her this was my first meet in over 3 years. Her reply? “This is your big comeback!” Heh. Very sweet.

And I guess it was. A big comeback in a small pond anyway, heh.

comebackgroup

Lifting was good, solid hits. My last snatch attempt at 63 should have been there, I’ve done it in practice. I let some external noise get to me and that’s MyBad. The one thing I wasn’t prepared for at this meet was the noise. Tons of conversations going on around the room, phones ringing, and people playing youtube right in front of the platform isn’t the norm at weightlifting meets and I let it annoy me. It annoys me that I got annoyed.

comebackchalk

Walking up to each lift, I remembered some advice I got from Michael Dickens down in Texas before my final attempt at trying to make a 15′ WOB. He told me I needed to relax, smooth out the swingies prior to the final pull. THAT’S when it’s time to unleash the power, not before. He was right and I hit the 15′. So applying it to the platform was easy, instead of tightening up once I walked up to the chalk, I waited until the final squeeze before pushing away from the platform. Disco, they felt awesome.

My jerks in practice had been a bit soft here and there and I wanted to make sure I didn’t give the judges any need for interpretation so it was important to me that I stuck each one. My final at 82kg was so solid I was immediately kicking myself that I didn’t go to 84. Damn.

But I stuck to my goal, which was to get an 85kg total which was the qualifying total for Master’s Nationals and the Master’s Pan American’s. The Nationals are already full so I had my eye on the June meet in Georgia. Also, I wanted to have fun with Weightlifting. My time down in Texas was so stressful and I just didn’t have fun with my lifting. Obviously. I looked back at my numbers and my paltry 114kg best total is almost not real after lifting a smooth 142kg total last weekend, three years older.

comebackjerk

OH! On age, I was definitely the geriatric of the group. In fact, when Jayme’s name was called for her first attempt and she was still upstairs in her sweats and warm up shirt (we couldn’t hear anything up there so it was important to either watch the screen or have your coach running to grab you) I hot stepped it upstairs and said excitedly, “you’re up luv, get movin’.” (I later told her that the situation brought out the mom in me. Heh.) She made her lift but paid closer attention after that.

That I tied for 2nd  (but took 3rd due to weighing in heavier) against these young guns was pretty satisfying I’ll say. That 3rd place medal is treasured, probably more than these young men and women know. After lifting, Matt and I ran for coffee and a snack before coming back so I could referee for the big guys session. Which was also a lot of fun and we saw some nice lifts. We also saw some pretty intense silliness. Screaming, throwing the bar down so violently that pieces of the brand new platform went a’flyin. That doesn’t work in the real world, I wanted to say. But I think I’ll let the wanna be showmen figure that out for themselves. Matt called it junior varsity, I think that’s appropriate. I just think it’s a shame when people idolize other lifters because of their antics rather than their results. Misguided youth I guess. There are worse things in life.

Overall the day was awesome and I’m thankful for it and for sharing it with my hubby. There are few places I go in life where anyone has a Bigg-er cheerleader than me. True story.

comebackselfie

OH! On qualifying, I haven’t yet. I need to lift these numbers in a National meet and I need to do that before registrations open for the Master’s Pan Americans or I won’t make it. I’ll do my best but I also realize that it may not be in the cards for me this year. But I hope it is.

I really hope it is.

My dreams were at once more fantastic and agreeable than my writings.

Mary Shelley

Training Log

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5 Times a Year

Posted on December 4, 2014 by tosabarbell

sick

We’ve been talking a lot this past week on people being sick. Like, all the time (it seems.) I honestly don’t think I’ve been around so many people that get sick so often as I have here in Wisconsin. Children throwing up is common here (common, not normal.) Bigg’s niece and nephews barf all the time. All. The. Time. It’s bizarro world. I can not think of 5 times all three of my kids have thrown up in their lifetimes (the 21 year olds boozin’ it up doesn’t count.)

Zandra puked during the landing into Texas before the first grade. Oz puked on the plane landing from a 7 hour flight home from Maui. I think Za got motion sickness in the car once and puked into our Moo Bag (our Moo Bag was a cow patterned trash thingy from Target much like a lunch bag. We’ve gone through many but they’re always called the Moo Bag.) Zac is made of steel, which is good. OH! Za just puked again last weekend after getting her flu shot but felt fine by evening. So I’ve thought of 3 times, one includes last weekend. There may be more but I don’t think so.

Now, I will say that my Zandra tends to be more sick than the rest of us. She gets run down which annoys the ever livin’ out of me but I whill say since she’s been here, she’s doing better. I suppose I didn’t take awesome care of myself either in my early 20’s, I’m just heartier than her. Heh. But for the most part, we just don’t accept sick. Of course, part of the Grandpa factor plays into that but sick is sick. It just doesn’t roll around here.

Bigg has longtime friends around here who are always sick. And by always, I mean I have never seen them go more than a month without being sick. There’s some kind of sickly, sweaty, pallor that comes over most middle aged cheeseheads here. Too much booze; too many cheesecurds; not enough training; not enough sleep. It’s pretty gross.

So we got to talking last night about someone else we know who has been sick at least 5 times in the past year. 5 times!!! WTF!? Matt’s response was even more surprising to me, he didn’t think that was all that uncommon. In fact, he thought he and I had been sick around 5 times in the last year.

Actually, no we haven’t. Now, I’m not talking about an errant headache or a cough or feeling rundown post wedding and traveling. You take an advil and go about your day. True story. I’m talking about, sick in that you need to call into work; or can’t train; or can’t be around people because your kid(s) has just barfed for the umpteenth time in the past 12 months. Sick. Real sick (by the way, if you’re sick, real sick, don’t train. Your body needs something you’re not giving it and your fellow training partners know that your body has something they DON’T want. Duh.) Sick, you need to go to the doctor sick. And no, don’t be sick for two weeks straight and finally suck it up at 11:00pm at night and head to the ER. That’s not what it’s for. You actually adult up and head to urgent care at 8am. Duh again.

Anyways. I have learned that sick is very subjective and used altogether way too often. You don’t feel perfect? Then you must be sick. And oh by the way, one thing I’ve noticed with weak people is that when they begin to feel “sick”, they throw in the towel and determine that they’re sick.

Not us. Don’t feel 100%? What do we do…more water, better quality food, no hooch, better sleep. Say no to extracurricular activities. Adult up and take care of yourself so you’re feeling fine by morning. No sickness here, not allowed. I’ll fight that shit every way possible. Sick? Nope. Not me. Not gonna happen. Tired? Take a nap. Tummy ache? Plop Plop Fizz Fizz and be on your way.

Ya know what really annoys me about people who are sick all the time? That they never look to the WHY of being sick all the time. As if they are some random victims in this whole health thing. Uhhhhh, what food is constantly making your kid barf? What exercise (COUGHrunnersCOUGH) is breaking you down so much that you can’t find a silly little cough that’s “going around.”

OH! That’s another thing. Stop fucking saying that “it’s going around.” My god, ya know who was immune to “what’s going around?” John Travolta when he was in a bubble. That’s it. We all live out there. If you are around kids that are bringing in, gasp, germs? Guess what, you adult the fuck up and start taking care of yourself. Being some powerless victim while you sugar and booze up to the germs of the world doesn’t make you a victim, it makes you stupid. Congrats, here’s your sign…

sick1

Anyways.

Chances are that we will all go out in public at some point. Chances are that we will come into contact with a germ. If your immune system is so FRA-GEE_LAY that you can’t handle that without “catching something” , then you either are diseased or you are not taking care of yourself. Chances are it’s the latter. That’s on you luv. Sorry I’m not sorry.

But 5 times? That’s not normal. It may be common, but it’s not normal. Knock it off. Sick sucks. It’s far easier to head that off at the pass rather than lay in bed and let it take hold of you for a week or more. Just ask sick people who don’t like to be sick. Random acts of disease happen and once they’re better, they will do most anything not to get sick again.

True story.

Only one thing could’ve dragged me away from the soft glow of electric sex gleaming in the window.

Ralphie as Adult

Training Log

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