Y'know....

.... I don't really miss cable that much. At least not while the weather is nice and I'm busy.

In the past week, however, I have:

• landscaped my front yard, planted more perennials, and re-mulched
  
• mowed the grass (yes, this is bullet-worthy.. it's a very big deal when I actually get my grass cut)


• cleared a huge area at Dan's for our planned vegetable garden


• pulled all the pesky oniony weed things out of the landscaping in Dan's front yard


• taken the dog to the lake twice


• got sunburned
  
• enjoyed reading books
  
• gotten to know and love RedBox movies


• gotten all the things I need to transport the yak and get out on the water
  
• put my chairs back out on the front porch and had my morning coffee out on the porch with the old girlie

Even when I'm at Dan's, when we have the tv on it's usually a Pens game, or a Bucs game, or Palladia. LOVE Palladia. I did catch up on Hell's Kitchen, the only one I keep up with these days of the many I used to.

I'm not as twitchy as I thought I'd be. All this, and I still have jetskiing to look forward to.

It's the little life lessons ...

... that teach us the most.

For example:

When you're carrying your styrofoam cup of coffee by its rim, in your teeth, because your hands are full...

... it's best not to sneeze.

*twitch*

I did something impulsive. Normally, when this happens, it affects my bottom line negatively but feels really good in the short term. Like - being able to reach that itchy spot in the middle of your back - good.

This impulsive decision, though, is more like waking up one day and deciding it's time to give up smoking crack cold-turkey. Yep. You guessed it. I cancelled my cable and had them haul away my DVR. *twitch*

Month after month, I'd look at the bill in disgust, and tell myself for one more billing cycle I'd pay it, then decide next time if I want to downgrade or cancel. I knew it was the right decision when on my last night of being a cable-having member of society, I was lying on the couch, perusing my riches of digital and HD channels, hundreds of them... and couldn't find one. damn. thing. I wanted to watch. Browsed the DVR selections... nothing to watch.

It all started when, watching a show about kids with life-endangering obesity, I commented to my fiance that I would get rid of every TV in the house before I'd see one of my kids on blood pressure medication because they're obese. I'm good at making bold proclamations like that; especially when I don't have to put my money where my mouth is. After a couple of weeks of stewing on that statement, though, I realized it's pretty damn hypocritical of me to say that. Here I am, with a good 60lbs to lose before I am at a weight that I believe would be healthy for me, a couple years from *cough*40*cough*, and my primary form of entertainment keeps my ass chained to the couch. I have expensive running shoes, an expensive treadmill, a not-so-expensive bike, and a brand new kayak, and summer is coming. Do I really have time for TV? Does the cost justify the result? For me, I decided... no it does not.

Now, before you think I have gone totally batshit nuts, I feel the need to inform you that if I'm still in the house when fall comes around, I'll hope the Comcastards and Dish Network come a callin' with some sweet deals for me to woo my ass back to the couch. I'm wondering what the effect of several months without cable will have upon me. Maybe, when fall rolls around, a time of year I refer to as "hibernation", I will have found alternatives to paying $80/month to watch a few shows I could catch online anyway.

We'll see.

*twitch*

No.

I don't have your:

• purse
• wallet
• dentures
• coat
• eyeglasses
• cash
• checkbook
• suitcase of belongings

I have no use for your:

• walker
• cell phone
• blood pressure meds

And I damn sure don't have:

• your jewelry
• your watch (if I touched it at all, it was to move it to your other wrist)

I would rather you don't bring any of this with you to the hospital. Thanks in advance.

My plan to stop this craziness

It's not too far-fetched, but it would require the media to (yeah, right) show some restraint. And the entirety of media in America, from print, to internet, to tv and cable news would have to consistently adhere to the plan. Wanna hear the plan?

Next time some asshole decides they're going to senselessly take out as many innocents as possible in a hail of gunfire, before ending their own pathetic existence: DON'T GIVE THEM ANY PUBLICITY. None. Never mention their name, except in sealed court proceedings. Never tell us of their motives, or their political stance. Never show us their picture. Their MySpace page. Their online rantings. Don't interview their friends or family. Make it as if this person never even existed.

Picture the next slighted, entitled, disgruntled asshole watching the news and finding that a mass shooting was given 30 seconds maximum in the local newscast and was relegated to a little blurb buried on the 6th page of the newspaper - if that. No name or face given to the perpetrator. No voice given to their family or friends. Do you think that maybe, just maybe, there's a small chance that they will decide it's not worth all the effort? That, since they will go unnoticed anyway, and since they were planning on ending it all anyway, they'll just carry out their miserable demise alone, leaving nothing more than a scathing suicide note as a final fuck-you to those left behind?

I'm ok with that.

I gotta be honest here...

... though I love what it does for my body and how I feel when I'm done with it, I hate running. No. I HATE running.

But, you ask, didn't you do Couch to 5K last winter, running every other day like clockwork until you graduated the program? Yes. And, you ask, aren't you signed up for a 5K right now? Like a month from now? Guilty, again. And I will follow through with that. I will train as best I can, though I will despise every single moment of it. Many people will finish in front of me. Hopefully, a few will finish behind me. And then, I can put this running nonsense behind me for good. Or, until I lose my mind again. I don't know why it took me so long to come to this conclusion. Even when I was running every other day, the only reason was that there was a finite endpoint to it. When I reached that endpoint, the motivation disappeared like a fart in the wind.

The past week, predictably, the weather's been getting nicer. I've been walking the little pup in the park, about 4 miles round trip. At the clip we walk, it's a good enough workout that I can feel the muscles in my legs twitching for several minutes after we've finished; they have that nice taut feeling without the tearing sensation in my achilles or the feeling that someone did a cannonball on my lower back. I've done a fast walk/hill climb workout on my treadmill on the days the weather or my schedule didn't agree with walking outside, and I've been just as sweaty and burned just as many calories as if I'd run the whole time. Except... I enjoyed it. I wasn't watching the clock chanting to myself, "amIdone-amIdone-amIdone-whencanIbedone-jesuschristonacrutch-it'sonlybeen5minutes." (or words to that effect)

When I'm outdoors walking or hiking.. I enjoy it. I assume I will love kayaking even more, once I get the new boat out on the water. My bike is all tuned up and ready for riding to work, or the store, or wherever I feel like riding. I guess the point is, there are so many active things I really love to do, why would I spend all day fretting and dreading and beating myself up until I half-assed eke out something that resembles running... when I HATE it?