Even Infinity is Finite

In my last post I made a reference to the conundrum that many of us face: Time. But time is not the conundrum. It’s the lack of this valuable commodity. Long gone are the days of summer that lasted an eternity. The days you actually desired seeing your classroom teachers or your friends. When you’re younger time is infinite, but at the age of 27 I’m already aware that feelings of infinity are most definitely finite.

I’ve always been an early riser- if I’m up past ten I feel as though I’ve lost so much of a day that is impossible to get back. People that don’t enjoy this attribute include my friends. An example of how they feel about this includes a recent text message I received:

John, the poor guy, just wishes I would be content sleeping in. I like to sing Jack Johnson’s song Banana Pancakes to him:

But, baby, you hardly even notice
When I try to show you this
Song is meant to keep you
From doing what you’re supposed to.
Waking up too early
Maybe we can sleep in
Make you banana pancakes
Pretend like it’s the weekend now

I like the irony of singing this to him as I’m rolling out of bed. With zero intention of making anything for anyone. The only objective I have as I roll out of bed on a weekend morning is relaxing with a cup of coffee. Taking in my morning in silence and appreciating my time.

Steve jobs once said, “My favorite things in life don’t cost any money. It’s really clear that the most precious resource we all have is time.”

Sure, that’s probably easier to say for a guy that had a great deal of wealth. At the same time, Jobs’ death came at the age of 56. Fifty. Six. That number makes my heart heavy. Here was a man that despite his wealth could not control his untimely death.

History says Benjamin Franklin made the famous quote “Time is money.” How often do you determine a value for your time? I could mow the lawn, or I could find that young entrepreneur down the block that said they would do it for $20 to do it for me.

Reassess your own usage of time for a minute. Don’t worry- it’s only sixty previous seconds. This afternoon, I got home from work and crashed on the couch watching the minutes disappear as I got lost in a television show called Love and Hip Hop that I’m embarrassed to admit I watch. The dog was even mortified for my existence- I could tell as she sardonically chomped away at a toy.

In that moment I recognized that for some of us, working out feels like an enormous waste of our time. When this is true, then of course we don’t want to commit to even the length of a television show. And to all of my co workers, I love you dearly, but when the day comes that I spend more time with you than my children (the non existent ones that live somewhere in some egg) I might have to figure out how to find balance in my life. So I am aware that the struggle is real.

Though attributed to quite a few famous names, John Lennon has been credited for saying “Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted.” Maybe not today and maybe not tomorrow, but if time is money and I’m willing to pay to get my ass kicked in a spin class, maybe your workout is out there too. Regardless, find what creates joy in your life because tomorrow is never promised.

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Voted most likely not to cry during onion dicing. 2015.

No one actually likes the gym

There are multiple me’s- sometimes I’m pretty cool and relaxed, sometimes I suck. I’m like a box of chocolates. Delicious. (See what I did there, you may have assumed I would say: you never know what you’re gonna get. But I didn’t.)

This magical list of who I am on any given day is long and I’m sure you have a list of your own because none of us are one dimensional people. Now, my least favorite versions of myself includes days I haven’t had coffee yet, when I’m hangry, and when I’m driving. Yesterday around noon I had just bleached my whole kitchen and started folding laundry to find a whole other stack that, I swear, appeared out of thin air. Damn you, laundry. The minutes ticked and I knew I wanted to get to the gym, but I also knew the hunger was coming on strong.

It was now or never and I found myself threatening and manipulating my friend to come to the gym with me.

She actually called me mean, but I know that we all need tough love sometimes and eventually she would appreciate my cruelty. And she did. So off to the gym we went, in the early stages of hangry, only to find a packed house of resolutioners.

Pause in my story: I need to give credit where credit is due and tell you that Sass and Balderdash, great name by the way inspired this post, so do yourself a favor and check out her page and post here.

Back to yesterday. We enter the gym to a line for the treadmills- no available machines. AND I forgot my headphones. Clearly I can only blame all of these problems on the phony gym rats. Alison questioned, when are they going to stop coming, February? We both hoped our gym would be cleared and went on to find any machine without a wait list.

One great thing about our gym, and there isn’t much, is they purchased a separate space in another building. This building is the red headed step black sheep child of the gym and therefore, no one pays any attention to it. Let’s call a spade a spade, it’s a weirdo. But we found ourselves in an empty back room, used by only one woman that was eyeing us and clearly thinking to herself: I wish these phony gym rats would go away. Probably because we spent a considerable amount of time sitting on mats and talking about how heavy the weights we chose were.

When she finally left we found ourselves actually working out- lunges with weights, abs, squats. And I felt like a newbie at the gym because of that woman’s judgy eyes- seriously, she made us move our mats over for her! I gained a new sense of respect for the resolution goers. We all started somewhere. For me, it was August 2013- because naturally I would start as bikini season is over and no one is going to the gym because it’s too damn hot. But if I walked into a room full of judgmental people, grilling my intentions, it’s possible I would have quit.

My hope is that if your resolution was to change your habits and get fit, that you stick to it. Even when you want to quit or life seems busy. Because if as Americans we spend nearly three hours a day watching television, at least manage to find 30 minutes of leisure in front of a machine with a tv! Compromise… It’s what life is all about.

So to every resolutioner, welcome to the gym.

As for my friend and I, this was our conversation today:

See. We love it.

Life of a Mogwai

I hate showering.

TMI?

Well that’s what blogs are for: Too much information for the good of humanity. How else would you find out that other people hate cleaning themselves as much as you do? Don’t worry. You’re normal. Says the person that hates showering… And apparently this piece of work too:

If you’re wondering to yourself who is that you’re a better person than I am. Kudos.

Anywho!

Despite my aversion to water that’s comparable to a mogwai, I always manage to bathe myself after a workout. Mostly because I believe in overcoming obstacles in life. It makes you a better person.

Wednesday I had a choice to:

A) blog about my kickass workout

or

B) shower

Good for me, I chose the latter. So, three days later and I’m finding some time to indulge you in my progress in life. Here we go!

I, Talia Timberlake* am the heaviest I have ever been in my whole entire life. Maybe it’s because part of my resolution this year was to have no resolutions. Screw the man! Maybe it’s because Maslow had it so right when he wrote about the significance of food. Maybe it’s because Meghan Trainor sang an inspiring song about having all the right curves in all the right places.

And I may or may not have sent this gem out to a few people on New Year’s Eve:

Ugh, I’m such a jerk! Granted, there are a lot of topics of conversation that could come up when looking at that picture again. For instance, I’m wearing a romper. Normally, rompers are a welcome addition into my clothing family- not on a night where bathrooms are sparse and the streets are flooded with drunken humans. The romper on New Years Eve was single handedly my worst decision of 2014.

So after I came home from a fabulous vacation in Key West, help take me back! I weighed myself and had a life sized (literally) reality check. Remember that one time I wrote a whole post dedicated to my hatred of the scale (see here). As much as I hate the scale sometimes it’s necessary to reflect. Especially when you’re consistently opting for stretch pants because unbuttoning the top button on your jeans all of the time is looking increasingly obvious under your now tight shirt. Then again, you can always just buy a moo moo.

It hurts to see a number you have never seen before. I swore that working out was not about weight loss- until I gained weight. And it doesn’t matter what size you wear, it isn’t fun. I have many opinions on my current insecurities, for example, shut up, you’re being so annoying right now. But whatever, on a rainy day I’ll blog about how photoshop, magazines, and the porn industry have destroyed us all. So back to my recent destiny: As groupon would have it, a local cycling studio was offering up a deal, and I’m a sucker for deals so I bought into it with a few friends, thus scoring our workout classes for $5 a pop. Unheard of!

That was in December.

I procrastinated going. I got sick. I was tired. I had a really long day at work. I had a longer than usual week at work. Oh yeah, and I was afraid!

There it was! The root in my procrastination. I was terrified of going because the last time I cycled I swear I saw Jesus through beads of sweat blinding my eyeballs- and I’m Jewish. But that was over one year ago, before I realized that it’s ok to feel like death may be closer to 30 than you imagined- because it’s not. Because you’re going to walk out of your workout feeling like … Things that release endorphins. Which p.s., feels sensational.

So I took a class with my girl, Sarah, which always makes going to workout easier. Forget the fact that you won’t even be close to each other or recognize the other person exists once the workout begins, the sheer accountability is the perk. We signed up for the one hour class which is the longest class they offer. My immediate thought was: fuck. The class was also the one that incorporates weights so naturally my second thought was: why didn’t I read the description of the classes before I blindly signed up. Damn you, Sarah!

Since I have a tendency to vacillate between diligence and laziness, clearly I chose the one pound weights over the two pound weights. Like I said, I love challenging myself. Actually I always feel ashamed in weight classes because without fail I will choose the lowest weight option. One pounders are less challenging to hold than a baby rattle. Literally, a baby could lift this with ease. I don’t care. It make me happy.

My fears aside, the class was wonderful, the instructor was helpful, and I got a great workout in. I love looking around a room and seeing people of all ages, genders, abilities, sizes- it’s a beautiful thing. If you are a near the Long Beach area check out Ocean Ride. The first “ride” (they call it that, aw, so cute) is free. My intention is to go once a week minimum as a supplement to running. And maybe to fit into my pants again. Dream big, folks, dream big.

*name changed for privacy. And because Justin asked me to take his name. I know, I know, I’m a feminist… I should have hyphenated.

2014 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 12,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 4 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.