Conquering Cleanliness

The conquering continued this morning in other areas of my life. I was determined to wake up and immediately go work out but I didn't feel like it. And since I wasn't conquering anything by not going to the gym except perhaps my conscience (which is never good), I forced myself to do something else productive. I cleaned.

I ate breakfast and then I did the few dishes leftover from last night's cleanliness marathon. I put away the hand-washed dishes from last night, deep-cleaned the counter tops and my stove, swept the floor, loaded the dishwasher, made a pile of boxes and things that need to go to the trash on my next trip out the door....

For those of you know who have never visited my apartment, let me explain. I don't *like* being dirty or disorganized or slovenly or cluttery but it seems to happen. No, not seems, it does. And while there have been short periods of time in my life when I have not been this way, the general rule is that I am messy. I can recognize the flaw and I am not happy with the status quo. But whenever my life gets hectic, cleanliness falls by the wayside. I give up. My living room is nothing to boast of at the moment but if you'd seen my living room over the last few years, you'd be impressed. It's getting there. My kitchen at the moment is something I can be proud of. And while there is laundry from the last few days haunting my bedroom, it is otherwise mostly clean. The best part? I refuse to make my closet messy or disorganized, so while things tend to hang around outside of it as a result, I can find every single piece of clothing in it with no problem. I walk into it and things are generally in a neat and pleasant order.

Please understand -- this is progress. This is extreme progress.

When I'm done meandering on blogs and writing and getting ready for my day, I will go into my bedroom and put away all the laundry I started a few days ago. It will have a place.

Who knows? Maybe later I'll vacuum. Haught, isn't it? Being clean is the new sexy. (or the new Alison sexy)

Conquering the Elliptical Machine

I've been a coward. I admit it.

I have been afraid of my apartment complex gym. I'm was afraid of walking in the dark early morning hours by myself. I was afraid of the other people who may be there and what they might think of me and my workout routine and my obvious newness to working out and well...what they think in general. I was afraid of the gym equipment, in particular the elliptical machine. No matter what I've done, I cannot seem to figure out how that damn machine works and how not to fall off of it. This led to fears of not being able to use the elliptical machine when other people were around, a fear linked to my previous listed fear.

Now, I know what you're thinking. The other people could care less. If I'm that afraid of walking in the dark, just drive. These are simple solutions that just didn't fit logically into my thinking at the time. Because even though I know deep down inside that the other people don't care, I still don't want them there while I'm exercising. Even though I could drive, there could be an attacker lurking in the darkness to maim me in the simple 15 foot walk to the gym.

But no more. I'm tired of living in silly fears that are really only excuses for me not to wake up earlier than I have to and exert myself physically. I've been mildly successful at waking up and accomplishing this over the last few weeks but this morning was a little different. I lay in bed after hitting snooze on my alarm and refused to allow myself to go back to sleep. I lay in bed and forced myself to be awake. In my warm, comfortable, cozy bed, I forced awakeness on my tired body. (It is important that you realize how much I love sleep and my bed and that doing this to myself must be the result of a certain amount of personal reflection and forced discipline and perhaps even a new wave of thought and outlook on life for me in order for me to accomplish this.)

Not only did I wake up early and go to the gym. Not only did I do it in semi-darkness. I also did not shy away from the building when there was a girl already in there running on a treadmill, looking like an Olympic athlete and making me feel like a sloth. I also surveyed the room of available equipment and, despite her encroaching presence in my subconscious, went immediately to the elliptical machine. I stepped on cautiously but with bravado. I was determined that even if I fell off, I would, so to speak, climb back onto this electric horse and tame it -- and in the process, relinquish my fear.

It was a bit awkward at first but when I stopped thinking about it, my legs and arms moved in a seamless balance and grace that almost felt like no movement, save the aching in my arms and legs and my heavy breathing. The room felt brighter (no, not just the rising sun), the air felt cleaner (no, not just the feeling of exercise), and the world was a better place. This may seem like the tiniest of tiny things but for me in my little world, this was victory.

A smaller victory from this week was me being the Atlanta office champion for our company-wide Connect 4 tournament. In the coming weeks my skills will be tested in inter-office play. With my resounding workout victory to boost my confidence, I am a force to be reckoned with. They'll never know what hit them....

One Minute Writer: Pendulum

Today's Writing Prompt: Pendulum

In what area do you tend to swing from one extreme to the other, and back again?

There is no "area" for me here -- this is much of my life. Even if my calm exterior says otherwise, I am usually swinging from one thing to another internally.

You know, I say that and that's not entirely true. Perhaps I swing from being in the middle to extremes. Perhaps a pendulum isn't the best metaphor, because I do find rest in the middle. I just also have a tendency to swing from one extreme to the other at times.

This was totally not worth a blog post...but I am too exhausted to think of anything else to write.

Lists

"Eliminate something superfluous from your life. Break a habit. Do something that makes you feel insecure. Carry out an action with complete attention and intensity, as if it were your last."
-Piero Ferrucci

The above quote is a good start or continued step in changing my life. Let's make a list, shall we?

1) Eliminate something superfluous from your life.

Soda?

2) Break a habit.

Be clean and orderly instead of putting things where ever. Wake up without hitting snooze. Be active rather than slovenly.

3) Do something that makes you feel insecure.

Take a dance class. Learn how to shoot a gun. Ride Goliath at Six Flags. Use an Internet dating site. Introduce myself to a stranger in a coffee shop.

4) Carry out an action with complete attention and intensity, as if it were your last.

Pray for the world. Write a novel. Create a web site and catalogue all of my quotes. Save for a house.

Lists are my new favorite thing, can you tell?

Running Away to Italy

In other ways, I wish I could just leave my life for six months to a year and go live in the Italian countryside writing and learning Italian. It would be running away but at least it has the potential to be a peaceful running away with personal growth.

- LiveJournal post from June 28, 2007

See Lyndsey, it's like I knew one day I would read Eat, Pray, Love =)

I'm looking through old livejournal entries, sort of a checkup on what I was doing this time and a little later through the years. I came across the above. I am going to Washington D.C. at the end of the month to visit Lyndsey and hear Elizabeth Gilbert speak at the National Cathedral (none other than the author of Eat, Pray, Love, the non-fiction account of Elizabeth's year-long journey to find herself and spirituality. The first phase of the trip is Italy where she learns Italian.)

As I read the book, I wanted nothing more than to take a similar journey, to leave everything in my life behind for a time and become...better. It seems that it wasn't just inspiration garnered from the book -- it was something that I truly wanted even before I recognized it in the wonderful book....

Sleeping Confuses Me

I was restless the night before last, unable to sleep but exhausted. I wanted nothing more than to leave my thoughts and slip into the sweet oblivion of nothingness that can be sleep. I wanted to wake up on the other side of something. Instead, I woke up feeling as if I'd been tensed the entire night, my eyes clenched shut and dry as a rock, as if I'd closed them so tightly that tears couldn't come. I could tell that it was too dark outside to be time to wake up. And while I thought it was perhaps 3 or 4 in the morning it was really 6:35 am and really too late to go back to sleep. Instead, I convinced myself to drag my exhausted ass to my apt complex gym. Impressive, no?

I spent basically all of yesterday exhausted. Everything hurt and yet nothing hurt. Like having a low-wattage electric current going through your body all day (or so I would imagine, I've never actually experienced something even slightly similar) but electricity for some reason seems an appropriate likeness. I know I looked terrible. People even commented on it. I'm grateful I was still able to get work done without making a mess of everything I edit. That's the trouble with being a copy editor -- there's no room for being truly distracted by anything. When things are going in my life or I'm tired or lazy, mistakes get to the client. Drama. Panic.

It was nice to fall asleep gracefully last night, like I'd recovered grace from wherever I lost it. I woke about as peacefully, having just had a lucid dream where I'd been in Boston with my family visiting my sister. I was trying to catch up with everyone on the streets but it had turned dark and I had lost my sense of direction. The dream changed dramatically and I was essentially flying through the air with not as much control as I would like, trying to get back on the right road in daylight. As I realized I was flying instead of driving and unable to get quite back to the road and land, I thought, hey I'm dreaming anyway, who needs to be on the road? and set out to do whatever it was I wanted. I landed in the lake next to the road and started flying up on trees, stripping bark for fun, doing back flips, forward flips, flips in the air, whatever whim or fancy struck me at the time. I adore flying dreams.

It was pleasant to wake up this morning, in contrast to waking up the day before. It was 8:30 but I went to sleep at 10:30, so I can deal with getting 10 hours of sleep and no more. Normally I can't sleep that late but obviously I needed it.

I think it's funny that I had a lucid dream without thinking about it whereas if I actually have the goal of a lucid dream, it never really happens. Funny that the conscious decision to have one results in nothing whereas naturally I tend to stumble upon them as I go along. Sleeping confuses me....

[Note -- Ha! No spelling errors found by spell check! That means no typos as I was typing this either. I am awesome.]

For the Hearing Impaired

Melissa Baird reading from the February issue of Real Simple (her favorite magazine and also one of mine)

I was catching up on some magazine reading this evening and I came cross the above article. I read it, I loved it, and I instantly thought of my friend Jordan.

Jordan is known for his love of sleeping. He has been rudely awakened by some people we will loosely call his friends in a manner of ways, including by snow brought indoors. He is not inherently lazy and is very much fun to talk to and be around but he does love his sleep. I found this article and was filled with a deep desire to share it with him. I had found something that spoke to his love sleep.

Knowing that I could scan in the physical article itself and e-mail it to him when I'm at work tomorrow, I still wanted to share it with him immediately. I googled with hope. My hopes were dashed against the jagged rocks of despair when the article in question was not listed on Real Simple's website or anyone else that I could find on the vast Internets. But Eureka! There is a podcast online. Someone has read it out loud and recorded it for the benefit of the hearing or visually impaired in California. And while Jordan is not hearing impaired or located in California, I wanted to share and share immediately.

I listened to the article myself out of curiosity. After listening to Melissa Baird read the story for only a few sentences, I was floored. I was enthralled. I was rooted to my computer for the remainder of the 19-minute podcast. Her reading became my background music. Her voice is delightful. It reminds me of someone I know but I cannot divine the resemblance. No matter -- her voice is divine. And I am now on a mission to discover if she reads anything else. I was happy to listen to her read out the ingredients for a recipe and describe verbatim from the magazine how to cook a particular dish. Anyone who can read a recipe in such a way that I am enthralled deserves further research and certainly recognition on my little-read blog....

Surely she must read other things than Real Simple! I must find out!

To Be Continued....