Marching to the beat of a different mandolin

I'm in the Boise airport, waiting to fly home (via SFO). I've never been to this airport before, and it occurs to me that I cannot remember the last domestic airport that was new to me. Everywhere I've been recently was a repeat visit, and I've been to all the hub cities before, so none of my connection airports are new, either. I seriously can't remember being in a new airport (other than international) in the last several years. I'm sure I have, though...probably? Maybe not. Even the obscure tiny airports I've been through recentlyish were repeats... I need to go more places.

This weekend's road trip was lovely. We drove all the way from Portland to Salt Lake City on Thursday, then had a lovely brunch on Friday and went from there to the SLC sectional. Z had requested that we play 2 sessions, maybe 3, but Max and Dee were planning to play the whole time, so we did, too -- 2 sessions each on Friday and Saturday. We had a 67.5% in our first game, which is usually good enough to win by a lot, but someone had an even better game, so we were second. Our evening session was just slightly above average, and we didn't make the overalls. Saturday morning we were 4th overall, but 2nd in our section with a 60%, then a 63% in the afternoon was good enough for another 2nd overall. Always the bridesmaid! It's all good, though -- I had a great time playing with McKenzie. I really cherish the opportunity to do so, and I'm glad he wanted to play all those sessions with me, too.

Saturday night, we went to a Mountain Goats show at this venue that Max described as "a garage." Now, the Mountain Goats have a pretty big cult following, and SLC is a biggish city, so I figured it was one of those industrial-type spaces. But, no, it was literally a garage. At the end of an alley. There was a little courtyard outside, where we hung out during the opening act, but then we packed ourselves into the tiny room with about 200 other people for the MG show. It was hot as fuck and too packed to really see anything, but the sound was great and we really enjoyed it. Still, I'm surprised that they even booked themselves at a place like that. I'm sure there are better venues for them. Whatever, it was a good show.

The next morning, we drove up to Boise, stopping for a few hours in Twin Falls to hike. It was lovely there, and we hiked the entirety of the Centennial Trail, which ends at the jump site for Evel Knievel's 1974 Snake River Canyon jump. That was neat.

We caught the Mountain Goats again last night at a much nicer venue in Boise -- The Knitting Factory. The show was lovely, and I especially appreciated that even when he played the same songs, he introduced them in new ways. It's not like his act is just canned. And there was a lot of variation from the previous night's setlist. I enjoyed it very much, but a couple of the songs ("No Children" in particular) were difficult for me -- a lot of them are about bitter divorce, and with what Z and I are going through these days...it's raw.

But Z and I are doing pretty well, all things considered, I think. Therapy continues, progress continues. It's not easy, and there's a lot of pain still, but we're getting better.

Z is on his way to Penticton now, where he'll be largely out of touch for the week. I have more real estate classes tomorrow, then a regular work week, and no plans yet for the weekend. Feel free to suggest something.

My wrist has not bothered me at all for a few days, and my foot is almost all the way better. I think that injury may have been somewhat legit. The wrist was totally a brain thing, though. Glad it's gone, hopefully for good.

I took what I felt at the time was a very necessary 3-hour nap this afternoon.  But now that it's midnight, I'm wide awake, so I think what really happened is that I just got an advance on tonight's sleep, and now I won't be able to snooze for a few more hours.  Oh well...I watched all the Olympic excitement tonight, and it was exciting even though I already knew all the outcomes.  I just wish they'd fucking broadcast it live, or at least stream it live on the internet or something.  Also, I'm over Bob Costas.  

Shantytowne photos have started appearing on Facebook and other places, and it fills me with joy.  It also makes me wish that Andrea would follow me around and take photos of me all the time, because she gets such good ones.  

I did pushups today for the first time in over two years.  I've tried a few before, but always had to stop after one or two because my wrist just couldn't take it.  My wrist FELT it today, but it's no worse now that I've done three sets of 10, so I'm thinking that the pain is more from weakness than leftover injury at this point.  I'm going to keep doing a few pushups each day and try to build strength slowly.  Then I'll go back to the 100 Pushups program eventually...maybe :)

I have so many excuses for being in crappy shape. Wrist injury. Bronchitis. Crazy schedule. Blah, blah, blah, just because I have my reasons, that doesn't make me not a sloth.

When I went to the doctor last week, I was prepared to have gained weight, but I figured something in the neighborhood of 5, maybe 10 pounds. It was significantly more than 10 pounds. So. That won't do. Time to push the excuses aside and just fucking get back to it.

I moved my dumbbells into my bedroom so that they're in a more visible location. Each day, I've been doing sets of shoulder and bicep exercises, along with squats. I'm anxious to get back to pushups, but my wrist isn't quite ready yet. It's much better, though, so I'm hoping it won't be long.

Also, the new job I think I'm going to start soon is just 1.8 miles from here. Should be a totally easy bike ride, right? Ugh. It's so not. I tried it the other day and wussed out before I got all the way there, because the road I took was too curvy with no shoulder or bike lane. I was trying a back road because Canyon, the main road, doesn't have a bike lane out that direction, and it is a very busy road...but I think if I do bike, I'll have to go that way. But there's another problem. It's uphill the whole way. It's not a huge hill, just a long, gradual one, and it turns out I'm in no shape to do that for a mile on a bike. Which is kind of distressing because really? It should be easy. So I'm going to work on getting into the right kind of shape for that ride, and until then, I'll probably walk or bus to work to start out.

I'm also nervous that taking a full time job will make it harder for me to work out or just be healthy in general. Right now I play this game with myself where I tell myself I'm going to work out, and I put on my workout clothes, and then I take anywhere from 1-5 hours to actually go do it. But I always set a deadline for it in my head and I always make it by then. I just usually have a nice large window. And I get my best workouts in the early afternoon, right after my lunch is well settled. Messing with that schedule (or rather, lack thereof) is going to be a challenge. But I'll do it.

Because I've gained more weight than I'm comfortable with, and I'd like to get rid of it ASAP and never see it come back.

When I got fat before, it took reaching 199 pounds on the scale to be like WHOA, no more fucking around, time to get serious about this. And I lost 60 pounds. I gained about 7 of them back and leveled out in the 140s, where I've been perfectly content for the last few years. I'm glad to know that I've recalibrated and that now my oh hell no weight is much lower than two bills, but I'm annoyed with myself for hitting that threshhold again.

So anyway, I've been trying to get in some serious exercise every day since that doctor's appointment. Yesterday I went on a great hike with sillygoosegirl and her husband.  It was about a 5-mile round trip, with a fairly significant elevation gain.  It was strenuous, but at no point in the hike did I feel like I was pushing too hard, so that's good.  Then today I went to the gym for a run/bike cardio combo.  Having been sick, and on vacation before that, it's been about a month since I've really run, so I'm easing back into it.  A mile warmup jog, then 30 minutes on the bike or elliptical.  I wish I felt like I could do 4-5 miles like I could last year, but I'll get back to that before too long.  It's a promise I'm making to myself.  

I went to an orthopedist today about my wrist.  Still no answers.  They took more x-rays, they felt around my wrist and hand for a while, and told me all the same things the first hand specialist had said.  "The x-rays show no bone damage, and your pain is not consistent with any injury."  It hurts like a motherfucker if I try to put weight on my wrist, or bend it backwards, but those are the ONLY things that cause it to hurt.  The doctor poked and prodded my wrist in every way he could, and nothing else made it hurt.  The idea is that if it is ligament damage, it would be sensitive or tender to that pressure, too, but it wasn't.  So this doctor, like all the others before him, gave up and sent me on my way with nothing but another bill.  I did get referred to another hand specialist for MRIs, but that'll have to wait until I get back from Montana and Wyoming, so my appointment is June 29th, and that's probably just an initial consultation rather than an actual MRI that day...but I'm hopeful that they can do it all in one visit.  I'm just so frustrated about all this, and I'm so tired of not having good use of my dominant hand.