Moxy.... the beginning

"Moxy had one more bad poundin in her head. That knock she took from those two strongarms made her see stars... 'Apple must have sent them to deliver a message', she thought, over the sound of the streetcar, the hustle and bustle of the city's working class, the smell of the freshly drenched streets, the way the buildings look when bathed in a combination of moonlight and streetlamp glow, "this city makes sense... it's real, where I belong. But Apple? Apple Tangerine Moonbeamdream Travolta. Don't let the name fool you, old girl, he belongs to this city as much as you do..." She comes to the dead end of a dimly lit, putrid smelling ally. "Password"? She hears, as if the heavy night air had spoken from the darkness... "umm... dammit...oh, 'North West Hammerstyle'. A door swings open, revealing a smoky, loud, yet dimly lit speak easy... "Apple is waiting for you..."

                     Upon her entry, the speakeasy goes quiet. Piano stops, conversations cease, glasses seem to make no noise... the smoke hangs in the air, as if time itself has crawled to a fraction of its original pace. All eyes on her, she takes it all in stride. As she approaches a table, she deftly removes the shot from a particularly shady looking patron's frozen hand, his gaze never leaving her, seemingly unaware he was suddenly missing his drink. Without effort she quickly downs the rust colored liquid and passing the second table in the row, turns the glass upside down and slams it down with a force unexpected from such a petite figure. "Thanks kid, next time, try a real man's drink... " she said as they all stared at her back - her black, rain-soaked trench, her smartly brimmed fedora that always sat on the back of her head, and her motorcycle goggles. Always with those motorcycle goggles. In her left hand, was that cane, yet no one ever saw her walk with a limp. Mysteriously black and silver – but not shiny, seeming instead, to absorb any line that shone on it. She wasn't the showy type who did things for attention and no reason other... but if there were any people around who knew the deal with that cane, they weren't talking...

Hulk.... Smash!

I'm coming off a caloric deficit weekend. That has fueled me to make a decision about my gym life. For a period, I had decided that I was going to muscle up. Pile some bulk on. Get swole... Let me just say, that shit is hard. This is coming from someone who - might I add 10 years ago, lost 60 pounds and have kept it off this whole time. The hard part about this whole thing isn't the weights bit, not the training, not the cardio, not the pain and sweat and exhaustion, the hardest part is eating. I have had an epiphany because of all this - I'm a little dude. I have a small frame and that's just the way it's going to be. I have decent enough genes that I could pack on some muscle, but damn, I increased my caloric intake to around 1900-2100 calories a day, which i thought was a LOT, apparently it wasn't. I got a noticeably larger, noticeably stronger, was able to lift more - in fact, I slid comfortably in to the "225 club" where I was working out with on a regular basis, 225 on the flat bench - 4 45 plates and the bar. I even maxed out, my personal record, 250, I could possibly have completed a 1 rep max of 275. The 250 was my 6th set of 8+reps, and all over 225 pounds, so I'm sure I was a bit gassed by that point. BUT, I can't keep up that kind of eating. So again, going back to the thing I said about identifying with things and allowing those things to help define you as a person, I'm taking myself out of the 225 club.... I'm just not meant to be moving heavy weights like that.... because I can't keep eating that much food, and I need like 320+ grams - that's like ... well one of my protein shakes is 84 grams. And everyone knows the best protein is from actual food... so. Point is, I'm 42. I'll be 43 this year. Unfortunately, I got in to this game too late in life. I'm rapidly (I assume) running out of hormones to build muscle. I should be more concerned now with sculpting the muscle I have and trying to keep it, and keeping the fat off. My mom's only living brother had a stroke the other day. It runs in the family... so far I've had two uncles who had strokes and heart attacks, an uncle to die of cancer, grandmother to die of cancer, grand father to die of cancer, I have two aunts who had alzheimers and .... point is, my future is going to be a damn disease land mind. I will say this though, I will not go through life slowly losing my mind. I will go out in a glorious ball of flame before that happens. :) 

It's been a while... long enough for everything to change

Like a year since my last post, or something. Part of that has been because I have raged against google+. Call me an asshole but I don't think just because I have a google email account, that gives them the right to post any of my pics or information on any of their satellite companies' pages. e.g. my pictures on picasa.... fuck google. part of it has been because my life itself has changed. Not because of anything enacted, but sometimes things happen over which we have no control. This is one of those things. I'm not going to talk about it here because it's mine to deal with. Mainly I am posting this to test out the new interface and attempt to control as much of it as I can...

Recently, I have been using all the self control I can muster to keep from raging on people. Normally I don't have a lot of patience for stupidity, ignorance, sense of entitlement or the general malaise that comes with most of humanity, but recently .... it's been much worse. To the point where I pretty much have to shut down mentally until I can get to the gym, work through my anger and most times, after that, I feel great. But that's because I leave it all in the gym. If I had never started working out, I would probably be in prison for murder by now. Which brings me to another point - I was watching a YT video the other day on steroids. It was an email video, a viewer was writing in to get the opinion of this person. The general consensus was that steroids are ok as long as you don't imprint with them - in other words, he went on to say, don't let the steroids define you as a person, don't identify yourself with the size and body you get from using them because at some point, you will have to stop using them and you will lose the gains you made while on them. Once that happens, you will be sent in to an emotional tailspin, trying to figure out who you are because the person you see when you look in the mirror is not the person you expect to see....  ad infinitum. Well that's great and all, and I happen to agree, you shouldn't let an alien substance, whether it's steroids or botox or a new car or hair dye dictate or guide who you are as a person. But you can also apply this to literally anything - going to the gym in general, weight training, dieting, losing weight, having a tan, religion - nothing is permanent and at some point the thing you use to define yourself could and may possibly come to an abrupt end. Then what? So, how do we define who we are? If we don't use something we come in contact with every day, how are we to develop a personality? How do we know who we are? The alternative is to follow in the footsteps of Bodhidharma and live in a cave with no alien influences.... I don't know. While I have no intentions of doing steroids, I can't help but expand the point of view of this video to include all aspects of life....