That Awkward Moment When You Have to Steal Your Own Stuff

I am painfully aware that I have not written on this for quite some time now, mostly because I was being lazy and because I couldn't think of anything that seemed worth writing about. Anyways I've decided it might be fun to try and write something again, so here goes...I will tell you a tale of my summer time adventures.

I go to the gym on a regular basis, like almost daily if I am not in the mood for running. Sometimes I just don't want to run, or sometimes something hurts and I can't run, so I go to the gym. The gym I go to is located Downtown. They get a lot of business people who work Downtown, as well as people like me who just want to go to a gym that has actual lockers and showers. They also provide scholarship money for people who cannot afford a membership, which is cool. Most of the gyms in this town are the 24hr fitness centers that have little cubbies to put your stuff in, and you have to drive home all sweaty and gross because they don't have showers....that's not really my thing, so I am particularly fond of the gym I go to, mainly because of the showers.

Anyways, when I go to the gym, I generally put my clothes and all my valuables in one of the lockers provided for day use and obviously lock it so no one steals my stuff. I leave my gym bag containing my shampoo, conditioner, mousse, deodorant, hair brush, etc out, and I put that above my locker. My thinking on this being, there isn't really a whole lot of room in the lockers for my giant gym bag, and if someone really needs shampoo or conditioner or whatever that bad, then they are welcome to use them, and I won't be out too much money ya know? Of course I don't want people touching, using, or taking my stuff, but it's not going to be a hardship to me if one of those things goes missing.

So, one day, when I went to gym, I went about my normal routine with putting my stuff in my locker and my gym bag above the locker...like I have been doing for over four years now without any problems! Then I proceed to go and workout. When I come back to the locker room when my workout is finished, I notice that my gym bag is not quite in the spot I left it. It is above the locker next to mine, not above my locker like I left it. This is not unusual, as sometimes people accidentally bump your stuff, or they're rude and just want to move it out of their own way. I hate when people touch my stuff. Most people are aware that it is not ok to touch and or move other peoples' belongings in the locker room. It's a freaking code, just don't do it!

So this is not unusual, though not common by any means, so, slightly annoyed, I proceed to get ready for my shower. When I go to get my shampoo and conditioner out one of the pockets of my gym bag, I have the unpleasant discovery that they are not there. They are always there...in the same pocket. They only come out of the pocket when they are being used, and then they go straight back into the pocket. Someone has stolen my things! The nerve!

I just stood there, slightly flabbergasted, for a few moments, trying to determine how I was going to proceed with my shower if I didn't have shampoo. The confusion then mutated into anger and resentment. Who did this kind of thing anyway? The sense of violation I had was overwhelming, and it was just shampoo and conditioner, things that were easily replaced. I can't imagine how I would feel if it was something more valuable that was stolen.

I decided to check my pocket one more time in the vain hope that somehow my hygiene products would magically reappear in their proper gym bag pocket. While I was doing this, a woman walked into my little section of the locker room and put her shampoo and conditioner down on the bench in front of me where I was once again frantically trying to find my shampoo and conditioner. She was using the locker right next to the one I was using. I looked up briefly as she set down the shampoo and conditioner in front of me, and guess the fuck what! They were my shampoo and conditioner! I know this because my shampoo and conditioner rarely ever match. I always end up with two different kinds because somehow my shampoo always gets used up first, so I have to go buy another one. When I do this, I usually buy one that smells different from the one I had before, thus no longer matching the conditioner I have. So I generally end up with a shampoo for more volume or something and a conditioner for dry hair or whatever. Anyways, the point being, these were my Goddamn products!

I decided to give the lady a little grace, so I say "Oh gee, did I take these out of my bag and forget that I set them there? I'm so spacey sometimes."

Her response was, "Oh no. Them were in my locker. They mine."

I was a little angry at this response, and I wasn't ready to give up on my things. "Really? Because they are the exact same kind that I use, and mine are missing from my bag."

"Nope. They was in my bag. They mine."

At this point I was really annoyed and angry. You have the nerve to steal my stuff, and then put that stuff down in front of me and say it was yours all along? WTF!?! However, for whatever reason, I am not the kind of person who can just come out and say "I know you stole my stuff, and now I want it back, so hand it over." For whatever reason, I just can't seem to cause a scene, even when it may be necessary. I don't know why I am like this. I wish I was better at just saying what comes to mind, but that's not how I am, and it is damn infuriating sometimes. So, I just looked her in the eyes and glared, my feeble attempt to communicate "I know what you did, and I'm not happy about it. So there!" I then proceeded to march myself off to the showers and use the soap the gym provides for members to use. I hate using it though because to me, it smells like vomit, and I never feel clean after using it. But, today I don't really have a choice, as I was drenched in sweat when I was done with my work out and it had now dried all over me, making me feel crusty and gross. I used the vomit soap and go back to my locker to get dressed.

When I returned to my locker, the shampoo stealer was not there anymore. She had gone off to dry her hair. Her locker, however, was open, and her stuff was still in there. I decided to peak in and see if I could see my stuff. Sure enough, when I looked in, there in a bright pink bag, was my shampoo and conditioner. In fact not only my shampoo and conditioner were in there. My hair mousse, my deodorant, and my body lotion were all in there too! I decided I was going to be rash and steal my stuff back.

I have never been more terrified in my life! While I was taking my stuff from her, I was so afraid she was going to walk around the corner and see me stealing my stuff. If this happened, a scene would be caused, and there would be no going back. People would have to get involved. She was a much larger woman than me, and there was no doubt in my mind that she could snap me in half with little effort.  My heart was racing so fast I thought for sure, despite all the exercise I do to prevent such a thing, I was going to have a heart attack and die with my stolen back shampoo clutched in my hands. I was shaking like a leaf.

Once my stuff was safely in bag where it belonged, I dressed as fast as I could and booked it out of there. I didn't even brush my hair. I just got out as fast as I could. I'm sure I looked like a crazy hobo woman or something with my snarled hair and clothes haphazardly thrown onto my body, but I had my stuff back. Victory. I was still terrified she was going to come out and chase after me, demanding I return the things I stole, or break me in half.

When I got home, I was still shaking from all the adrenaline and the fear of being caught. Never again will I steal anything. I didn't fully recover for another few hours after returning home, after my husband politely told me that maybe I needed a drink or something. This is why I will never be a criminal. 

On Being Atheist

I'd like to preface this blog with a statement that most of the time I'm fairly certain I am not an atheist.  I am quite aware that this subject is taking quite a different turn from what I normally write on here. However, the other day I had a friend tell me that her boyfriend accused her of being an atheist because she did not want to go to church on that particular day. This statement really hurt and offended her because she considers herself a Christian. While I can understand why she was hurt by this, I also do not see why being called an atheist is really so offensive.

The word atheist is thrown out there like some kind of dark mark on a person, like calling someone an atheist means they are worse than someone who murders puppies for a living. As though an atheist is a person with no moral values who is like to do some of the most criminal and dark things one can imagine. Simply because one does not believe in God, one is considered worse than a killer or something. All I really have to say to this is What The FUCK!??! Really?

My husband, the most kind and caring man I have ever met, is an atheist. This is not something he came to easily. He was raised to believe in God, but was forever asking questions of why, and he finally came to the very hard conclusion that God did not exist. Just because he does not believe in God does not make him any less of a fulfilled person than someone who does believe in God. He is more willing to help people without being asked than most Christian people I know. He genuinely wants the best for people. Why does being an atheist make him seem like a horrible person in the eyes of others then?

I mean, some of the Christians I know are the most judgmental hateful people I have ever met. They use the Bible as an excuse to keep their prejudices and bigotry because God says it is supposed to be a certain.(First of all, God did not write the fucking Bible, a bunch men did, and even if you say oh he was there influencing what they wrote, don't you think they still snuck in some of their prejudices and beliefs?) If God told you to jump off a bridge would you? Probably you would because after all it is God who is talking right. Would you ask "Why God, why do you want me to jump off this bridge? Is it to prove that I believe in you? Is it to save an innocent life, or is it because you are on a fucking power trip?" Would you ask, or would you just do it? My husband asked questions, and he did not get satisfactory answers, so he did not jump off the God damned bridge.

Maybe you are concerned about where your soul will go after you die, so this is why you believe in God. While it is nice to believe that there is some sort of life after death, there really is no proof. What if we all just die, and there is nothing there. Our souls are gone, and we rot and turn to dust. I honestly think it is kind of a beautiful thing to imagine my body becoming part of the earth to be used again by something else, to be part of the soil, the wind, and the rain. Is there something weak or wrong about a person who believes this? I think it takes a lot of bravery to say to yourself, "I don't think there is life after death, but I'm ok with that, so I'm just going to live now and be happy."

I guess what I am trying to say is that the word atheist has a lot of stigma behind it. Some people use it as an almost swearword like insult. I don't really think it is an insult. I think it is a compliment. It is like saying, you are free enough to make your own life decisions, that you really thought about things, and this is the conclusion you came to. It is like saying I am not a sheep who follows blindly, but a person who goes their own way. I mean really. How do we know our God is the true god? The ancient Egyptians, the Romans, the ancient Greeks, and others all believed there gods were real, and now we laugh at that. Who is going to be laughing at us thousands of years from now? Why don't you ask questions?

Anorexic Bitches

Anorexic bitches, yeah, you read that right. Why am I writing about anorexic bitches you may ask? Well in truth, I'm really not. I'm really writing about people who insist that those suffering from anorexia are bitches.My first thought was along the lines of "Why would you call someone suffering from a disease a bitch?" Well? Why would you? I have only ever heard other women call people suffering from anorexia bitches. My guess would be along the lines of women are jealous of each other. There is such pressure in this society for a woman to be thin that she sees another woman who is thinner than her and immediately wants to attain that level of skinny. If she can't become that thin, then that other woman is a bitch anyway, so what does it matter? I compare myself to other people more often than I like to admit. It's not healthy, but it's something I feel as though I was trained to do (maybe by myself, maybe not) somewhere in life.

This leads to another question. Do you really know what it is like to have anorexia? Do ya? I know many women suffer from eating disorders, but to be jealous of them seems a bit ridiculous. Just a little info for ya. Your whole freaking life is consumed by food and by all the ways you can avoid eating it. You think about food all the time. What will you eat today? What time will you eat? Make sure you do not eat the whole thing. Eat slowly to enjoy the flavor and to be sure you know when you are "full". What do you have to do to burn those calories off? Run three miles? Walk five miles? Pace around the dining room table for a half hour? Oh do you smell those cookies? They smell sooooo goooood! I think I will just sit here and smell them. That way I can almost taste them. There is no room in your life for anything other than not eating food, thinking about food, and trying to find a way to burn off the calories you consumed. Oh and weighing yourself, so you can see the little numbers on the scale that will either make or break your entire day. NOTHING! Does that sound like fun to you? Oh, you are a half a pound heavier tonight than you were this morning? Now you are depressed for the rest of the night, and you have to go run five miles to make up for that half a pound. You should really be jealous of women who have this problem. Really. You should.That sounds like one fun obsession.

So you see, this is really a miserable way to live. Don't you want to have fun? Don't you want to be able to focus on your significant other, your family, your friends, your pets, your hobbies? There are so many things that you have in your eating-disorder-free life. All that women with anorexia have is a number on a scale to make them happy. They are stuck on this mental hamster wheel that they cannot get off without help from people who are kind enough not to see them as bitches, but as human beings who have a disease and need help. So grow the fuck up and start trying to be a little more compassionate.

Whistlestop Half Marathon

I meant to do this last weekend, but I forgot. I have been away from the blog for a few months now, mainly because I have been ridiculously busy. I have started school again, and I got married! Yay! So, yes, things were crazy for a while.

Anyways, last weekend I ran the Whistlestop Half Marathon in Ashland, WI, and I have to say, I really enjoyed the course. The course was on a trail that used to be railway tracks. It was basically very packed dirt. I was worried about it being a trail run because I don't really run on trails, but it turned out to be quite a nice run. I could tell I wasn't on pavement, but it wasn't more difficult to run on. The course was quiet flat which was nice. It was mostly wooded, and the leaves would have been very beautiful if the wind hadn't blown most of them off the trees. There was still a fair amount of pretty colors though, even though most of the leaves were on the ground rather than on the trees. The rest stops were all at reasonable distances, and there was a large amount of volunteers to help with everything. It was a very well run race, and you could tell that it had been done many times before. The setting was beautiful, so that just added to race.

I did fairly well for virtually no training. My knee was bothering me, so I cut way back on my running a couple months before the race. I had one seven mile run and one four mile run in the two months preceding the race. I told myself that I was allowed to walk at mile eight if I really wanted to. I was really ready to be done after about six mile, but in the end I ended up running the whole thing! I finished in 2:09, and was pretty happy with that time. 

Overall, I would  highly recommend this course if you are in the area. There is a full and half marathon, as well as a 5K. Everything was well run, and the course was beautiful. I will definitely run this race again!

The Park Point 5 Miler

Yesterday I ran the Park Point 5 miler, and actually had a decent time despite the fact that it was almost 90 degrees with air humid enough to drink. The race started at 6:30pm. The whole day I was worried it would be cancelled because it was so hot. I kept obsessively checking my e-mail to see if the race directors had sent out an e-mail to say the race was cancelled. It wasn't! Yay! Five miles doesn't really meet my quota of exercise for the day, so I went to the gym and worked out for a half an hour right when I got done with work.

 Now I know this sounds a bit obsessive, but the day before I didn't get to work out because I got a call saying I could pick up my car! And I had to do this before 5:00 when the car fixer upper place closed, so there just wasn't  a whole lot time for exercise. Now before you all get all judgmental about my driving and everything, I would just like to say that this had nothing to do with my driving skills. We had a flood here last month, and the garage we rent has a flat roof where apparently, a bunch of water started collecting. Needless to say, the roof caved in...on top of my pretty blue car. The repairs took about two weeks, so I had to drive a crappy rental car for that period of time, so I was really excited when I got my own car back. I therefore decided to do some extra exercise on Friday to  make up for the missed exercise on Thursday. Normally I do six or more miles of exercise in a day anyway, so it wasn't like I did more than my body could handle. If I had been able to work out Thursday, I would have been content just to have the race be my exercise for the day. Here is a somewhat blurry, picture of what it looked like.

Anyways, it was really hot for the race. We got there early like I said in order to pick up my packet, and then we found a nice shady place to sit until the race started. There was a really strong breeze that kinda kept things tolerable. The director announced almost as soon as we got there that because of the heat and humidity, the race was only going to be a "fun run." They weren't going to give out awards or anything in hopes of keeping people from going full tilt in order to win their divisions. This really had no effect on me because I'm not good enough to win a race or a division for that matter, and I had planned on taking it easy because of the heat anyways.To compensate for this, the director said we could all get five dollars off next year's race entry. I'll take it! They had races for little kids before the adults started racing, and those were fun to watch. Some kids were really competitive and others you could tell their parents had made them participate haha.

Once the race started, I pretty much wanted to just stop running and go home. It was a very uncomfortable run. It was an out and back course for the most part, and on the way out we were lucky to be running on the side of the road with the shade. On the way back, the sun was brutal. The breeze did help, but it was so humid that the sweat wasn't really going anywhere despite the wind. Some of the people who live on the point had set up sprinklers or they had their hoses and were spraying runners if they wanted to get wet. Normally I avoid that kind of thing because when my shoes get wet, I get blisters, but I pretty much just said fuck it and ran through all the sprinklers I could.

The course itself is very beautiful. There were a lot of views of the water, which I always think are pretty. It was also flat. As a normal rule, I don't mind some hills, but I was happy not to have to deal with any. A lot of people had pretty gardens that we got to run by too.

My time ended up being 43:47. I was pretty happy with this considering the heat. I will definitely be doing this course again. The race itself was well organized, the views were great, and the lack of hills was fun.

I Heart Weeds

I was on a run earlier this week. It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining. There was a nice breeze. It was a little too hot, but I hadn't exercised for a couple of days in a row, so I felt really good despite the heat. The legs were happy to be moving, and it just felt wonderful to be running in general. I was having a great time, and then, I smelled something rather unpleasant. I was running by a beautiful house, well more like a mansion really, with an immaculately maintained lawn. The driveway had zero cracks in it, and there was a gait that opened to let cars onto the perfect cracks-don't-belong-here driveway. My mother refers to this house as Captain I-Don't-Know's house because when we were little we would always ask who lived there. Anyways, as soon as I smelled this, my throat wanted to close up. I took shallow breaths in hopes of getting away from it without breathing too much of the stench into my nostrils. I still managed to cough anyway. The only way I can think of to describe the smell is to say that it is a chemically deranged fresh cut grass smell. I immediately think of grass when I smell it, but not in a pleasant oh look at the pretty green grass kind of way. It's more like a Frankenstein grass smell, trying to be the real thing but turning out to be a grotesque imitation.

Well, needless to say I soon spotted the tell tale little white flags that inform people to keep small children and dogs off of the lawn for x number of days so they don't get POISONED! The Captain I-Don't-Know and his family apparently spray their lawn to eliminate those ugly little weeds that detract from perfection. I don't know about you, but when I run by a lawn that has been treated, I kind of become personally offended. I just absolutely abhor the smell, and of course, the only reason people treat their lawns is to personally offend me. The world revolves around me in case you weren't aware of this previously. On a more serious note though, I have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of being willing to potentially harm children and small animals simply to have a lawn that to all outward appearances could be carpet. Is it really worth it? Are outward appearances really that important to you? Do other people really care what your lawn looks like? I mean really as long as you don't let the grass grow a foot high, I think most people could care less whether or not you had weeds in your lawn. It just seems like a poor trade off to me. A perfect and pretty lawn, but screw you cute little animals and kids.

Maybe my preference for having a weedy yard just comes from the fact that I grew up in a house where if we were to have gotten rid of the weeds in the front lawn, there would have been no front lawn at all. So, I really do heart weeds. I don't know, but suffice it say, I think treating your lawn is kind of selfish and highly unnecessary. Think of the CHILDREN people!

Midnight Sun Midnight Run

Yesterday, or maybe rather early this morning I guess, I ran a race called the Midnight Sun Midnight Run. It's a race to celebrate the summer solstice. I ran it for the first time last year, and I thought it would be really fun to do again this year. It starts at midnight (duh), and it is a 5 K distance. The course is right next to Lake Superior on a route I am very familiar with because I use it for my long runs when training for marathons or half marathons.  It's really pretty during the day and at night.

I went into this race with the hopes of a PR. I've been running some lately (finally a decent amount after being injured), and I thought it was possible. My goal was to do it in 25 some minutes, or at least this was the goal I told people. My secret keep-it-to-myself-to-avoid-embarrassment goal was to to do it in 24 some minutes. Well, my official time ended up being 23:47! Boooya grampa! I feel like a freekin' cheetah! Haha. I felt like I was dying the whole race, and my dinner from earlier in the night was like a rock in my stomach, so maybe I could run faster? It definitely a thought to keep in mind.

Bronson was a good sport, and he came along to cheer. At the end of the race he said I looked good, and he told me he thought I was in the first 20 females to cross the finish. I told him that was bullshit, and he amended that to say maybe the top 40. I ended up being the 38th woman to cross the line out of 385! Sweet! I placed 19th out of 132 people in my age group. I like to see that I am getting faster. I started out with 11 or 12 min miles when I first took up running, and I ran that same pace for many years.

I'm hoping that someday I can somehow trick Bronson into doing a 5 K, but he says running is a deal breaker. I had a Runner's World magazine that had an article about how to start running, and for the longest time I couldn't find it. My secret hope wast that he was reading it, but it ended up it fell behind my nightstand...sigh. But that's ok because I couldn't ask for a better cheerleader. He's so awesome for coming to all these races to just stand around and wait for me. I'm a lucky lady!