Saturday Night Gym Thoughts part 2

I woke up yesterday morning with every intention of going to the gym at 7:30pm (Kings tip-off). After watching the trio of superhero shows on The CW, running errands, having lunch with my best friend, grading essays, playing with the dog, and writing for a few hours, it was 9:30. My plan of watching the first half of the Kings game at the gym was ruined. At that point, I would have only caught the last few minutes. After getting ready and stretching, it would have been nearly 10 at night before I started the work out, which would mean not getting home until after 11, and then not getting to sleep until nearly midnight. Midnight is late. Too late. Martina is gone this weekend, so no one would ever know if I decided to stay home and not work out. It was of no consequence to anyone but me. I had the final episode of the first season of Top Chef I could have watched, or after two hours of struggling to find a groove in writing, I had two solid hours of writing and I could have stuck to writing until bed. There is half-read Harry Potter book chilling on my nightstand as well. These are all things I would have rather done. Besides I have not lost any weight in two weeks, so it is not like the work outs are, you know, working.

Instead, I made myself change my clothes, put on my running shoes, and go down to the gym. I negotiated with myself that fifteen minutes was better than nothing. Sure, it wasn't the sixty minutes I normally did, but it was something.

January has been full of great work outs. Nights where I feel lighter than I ever have. Nights where I get so invigorated, I feel I can accomplish anything in the world. Last night was not one of the those nights. Last night sucked. My left thigh hurt. The wifi was not working, causing my Podcast to keep cutting out, which left me with only the television. The first few minutes were fine because I had the final two or three minutes of the Kings game. Saturday night after 10 at night, the sporting events vanish though. Not even a tennis match. I often turn a sporting event on while listening to my podcasts, but without the podcasts, I had to watch commercials, and that leads to paying attention to how much longer I have. It sucks.

But

I finished. Sixty minutes. Nothing is more rewarding than completing a work out you had no desire to do. It is easy (well, easy is relative I suppose) to get a work out in when you are motivated to do so. Completing a workout when you struggled every single second, that's the good stuff man. That is where you realize you are doing this for real. Those are the nights you learn that holding yourself accountable is enough. It is fun to post to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. It is good to have that accountability. It adds pressure. But, if on a solo Saturday night, you drag yourself to do a workout you do not want to do, you know you actually do want to do it.

For fifty nine minutes and fifty nine seconds, I was miserable. Then, the cool down program started and I knew I had made it. Suddenly all of the misery rolled off of me with the sweat from the work out. As good as Thursday and Friday night at the gym were, Saturday was that bad. I checked the time every five minutes, filled my head with negative thoughts about how I see myself. Nearly convinced myself to just quit trying to lose weight. After twenty three days of solid working out and eating well, I am only four pounds down from where I started 2015. Maybe it is just who I am. That fear of my personality being tied to weight haunted me for like forty of the minutes on that treadmill.

Some how I managed to shove it all down and finish the work out. I am still dealing with some residual negativity and I would be lying if I said I was not haunted by a dream in which everyone I loved told me I was fat and gross and undeserving of good things, which is a real fear I wake up with at least once a week.

The goal is not weight loss. The goal is health. It is tough to measure. My body feels stronger when not in agonizing pain from working out. Mentally I am definitely healthier than I was for most of my life before I actively sought out health. I have to keep plugging away. The only way this works is if I get myself to the gym on a regular basis whether I want to be there or not.

Life is about to get even busier tomorrow as my Master's program begins. Because of my commute, 4 days a week I will leave my house slightly after six in the morning and 3 days get home at like 6:45, and 1 day I will not get home until almost 10. I cannot let myself forget how important feeling better is. Making time is the only way.

Last thought. After the Kings game ended, I turned on Diners, Drive ins, and Dives. Not sure if working out while watching it was the best idea or the worst idea, but it definitely kept me entertained.

A random encounter that changed my perspective

Every morning a group of older men sit at a table at Starbucks, and fill each other in on their previous day, or shoot the breeze about current events, or laugh at the stupidity of one of the men. It is an eclectic group of men. One talks in a deep southern drawl, another is a heavy set Hispanic man with deep callouses on his hands. There is a scrawny Asian man, occasionally, and every so often an abrasive black man. They all pale in comparison in terms of intrigue to the quiet, man with long curly hair he often tucks into a beanie, and a long white beard that almost never moves as he speaks. His hands shake uncontrollably, and every seven minutes he gets up from the table and goes outside to smoke a cigarette, no matter the weather. For eighteen months I have watched these men, curious as to their individual and collective stories. How did this group of men come to be friends? Why do they spend hours in Starbucks? As a writer, and as an observer, I find all of these men interesting. They welcome a variety of people to their table, exchange gifts with long time baristas, and hold court on a wide spectrum of topics.

One day, around the New Year, the smoker of the group stood outside holding his cigarette in his left hand, clothed in a tie-dye peace sign shirt, jeans that hung low and loose, thick black boots, and a rainbow colored beanie. I walked by him, nodded like I usually do when I see him and went into Starbucks to write. Three hours later as I emerged from the haze of writing, there he was again, outside, cigarette in his left hand. He asked me my name, and asked how I liked the apartment complex where I live. (My complex is backed up to the shopping center which has the Starbucks, and I walk to and from Starbucks, so he knew where I lived.) As I put my bag down to talk to him, I noticed his right hand shaking uncontrollably, and his left leg too. His face read that it was a struggle for him to raise his left hand to his lips to take a puff on his burning cigarette. His name is Raymond. Raymond helped change my perspective of life that day. In the weeks since, we have occasionally chatted, usually briefly, because as I found out during our first conversation, he cannot sit still for very long.

Raymond's uncontrollable shaking comes courtesy of an accident in 2007. An accident that put him on permanent disability. An accident for which he is still paying hospital bills. An accident that left him with rods in his spine, weak limbs that tighten if he stays in one spot for longer than 15 minutes, and left him with a stutter. Raymond was a career military man. He was scheduled to go to Vietnam, but we pulled out. He was stationed in different parts of the world in the 1980s and 1990s. In the early 2000s he worked on a base in San Diego. The accident happened on the military base. He told me the details were still a bit fuzzy to him. He shook his head, smiling as he stuttered through the story.

He was out directing some men who were re-positioning surveillance cameras on the base, when he noticed, out of the corner of his right eye, an army jeep swerving recklessly towards him. It was too late to jump out of the way, and the jeep hit him, and tossed him into a concrete barricade of some sort. He awoke days later in a hospital. A week after that he was released from the hospital, and all he wanted to do was go back to work, but it was not to be.

His story was depressing but his tone and body language were anything but. He told me he was thankful to have kids who helped him. Thankful that he survived and gets to live into old age. He said that the hospital bills are terrible, but he has a roof over his head, food to eat, and people around who make him smile. The daily struggles help remind him to appreciate the time he has left, and since the accident he gets to read more, and life has slowed down. He still misses working, and picks up odd jobs here and there, but only in the warmer months because the cold months are too hard on the rods in his body. He picked up smoking after the accident because he needed something to do with his hands while he walked around outside after sitting for ten minutes.

The warmth and joy that emanated from his core, rocked me back a little bit, honestly. If I get water in my shoe, my whole day is flat out ruined. Here is a guy whose entire life was fractured by an event over which he had no control, and he walks around every day appreciating it and taking it all in.

At the close of our discussion he wished me a good day, we shook hands and as I walked away, he said "God bless you." This is not a phrase I enjoy hearing, if I am being completely honest. My relationship with God is rocky, and has been for twenty years, and normally when someone says it to me, it feels so fabricated, like they are trying to teach me a lesson. The sincerity rang out from him though.

I try to remember how grateful Raymond is to experience every day, and my goal is to get myself there.

How can I learn better?

Our online grade book has an app that allows students to check grades even when we close our books to enter final grades. I think it is an unofficial app, but it has an app. Beyond the app, the students and parents have access to a portal, which allows for them to check grades in real time. If I enter something, I can have students coming to ask me about the grade they got within three minutes. For example, today I entered grades for an annotated poem for AP. Less than 10 minutes later, one of the students came in to ask why he got a ZERO when he knows he turned in the assignment. His annotated poem turned out to be on the last day of the Island of Misfit Papers (no-name wall) before I tossed it. Problem solved.

To a high school student, grades are the single most important part of school. Not intrinsically mind you, they don't really care. They HAVE to care. Cell phones, cars, weekends out, all depend on grades. Parents, teachers, administrators, colleges all pressure students to get good grades. In elementary school, kids go home and get asked "What did you learn today?" I have asked over 300 students int he last 2 years if they ever get asked that question, and a handful said yes. They get asked "How did you do on that test?" "What grade did you get?" Students are conditioned to bypass any comments on an essay, in favor of looking for a grade. I put grades at the end of an essay just so the students have to at least flip through the essay to maybe glance at some of the comments I leave.

This focus on results is damaging. It is damaging to teenagers, to teachers, to parents, and to colleges. Studies are showing that high school graduates are less prepared for colleges now more than ever. Cheating appears to be at an all-time high as well. When the importance is the outcome, the journey, or the learning, gets lost. I have seen great kids bawling due to one F because they believe that F is going to destroy their future. Parents believe the four year college is the only worthy route to a successful life. Not only is a four year college the only route, but it has to be a well thought-of college. The UC System or bust.

As someone who went to a high school that wasn't exactly well regarded in terms of education, and who went to junior college, and eventually a State school, hearing students regurgitate these ideas, hurts. It pains me to think that I have students who think their entire lives hinge on getting into Berkeley. I am a pretty smart guy, but it never came super naturally to me. I worked at it. I fought for learning, and because of that, I believe that the college from which you get your degree is not nearly as important as the education you get out of your school. I know plenty of dumb people with degrees from great schools.

Learning is what is important, but it has gotten lost. It has gotten lost in a sea of grades, extra curricular activities meant to pad a college application, and stress about the future. I have students already worrying about how to deal with a mortgage in the future. Everything is about the next step, not the current step. Producing well-educated students is my job. Producing thoughtful teenagers, is my calling. It gets increasingly difficult to do both of those jobs, when all students see is the end result.

I apply this to my regular life now too. Weight loss is great. But focusing on how much weight I do or do not lose, keeps me from focusing on the important things I learn about myself, about food, about my body. It can be demoralizing if the focus is solely placed on the end result. Frankly, it does not even matter if I never reach my ultimate weight loss goal. As long as I am trying to improve, and learning about myself along the way, my life will be better. My life is better. Now the next step is to stop thinking so much about the future and live in my present. Enjoy the things I learn on a daily basis. Take those little things and apply them to the bigger picture, when the time is right.

before grades come out, I always remind my students of two things:
1. Grades do not determine intelligence.
2. Grades do not determine your life.

We can plug so many other stressers into that second tip. Much of what we stress about does not determine our lives.

I tell my students to ask "How can I learn better" not "How can I raise my grade?" I ask myself "How can I be healthier?" not "How can I lose weight?" It is about perspective. We could all use an adjustment to our perspective at times. It's not about getting an A, it's about learning the information and understanding how to apply it to our lives.

Have an awesome weekend readers.

Saturday night gym thoughts

Last night, after returning home from Vallejo, I wanted to get in bed and read. I also wanted to sit down on the couch and watch a movie with my wife and sister-in-law. Instead, I put my gym clothes on, walked down to the gym at our apartment complex, and got on the treadmill. The gym at our apartment complex is a lonely, quiet place on a Saturday night. Every night during the week, someone else was there doing something. Last night, though, it was just me. Me, the treadmill and a 2014 Theater People Podcast episode featuring Lin-Manuel Miranda. This decision to go to the gym on a Saturday night felt major. Not because I was breaking personal records, and not because I wanted to be at the gym more than anything else, no it was precisely because I absolutely positively did not want to spend my Saturday night at the gym. The last four years have been a see-saw in terms of working out, but the one problem was that I never made time for the gym, I simply went when it fit my schedule, and when it no longer fit my schedule, I stopped going. I tried 4:30 in the morning, 5 in the morning, Just on Saturday or Sunday mornings, etc. Nine days into the year, and I have been making the decision to make the gym a part of my routine, no matter what else is going on.

Part of last night's gym decision was fueled by the deception of week one losses. One week into the year, and into my renewed sense of life, I lost six pounds. I feel better, too, which is the most important part of this, of course. But focusing on the weight loss for a second, six pounds is a nice start. It means in one week, I lost the amount of weight I gained in 2015. I am back to what the scale said on January 1st 2015. All I had to do was get on the treadmill for four hours in a week, dance a little but to an XBOX game, not eat any of the dozens of doughnuts at school, eat some vegetables, and BAM six pounds down. If I keep this up, January will be an exceptional month. I can probably roll the confidence of a six pound loss into a month of losing fifteen pounds. February is when it will be get tough. Once the weight stops shedding so easily, that is the key.

I have to admit, this feels different. Different from the year I lost slightly more than a pound a week five years ago. I can sense a level of commitment that has never been there. Who is to say what will happen as the year goes on, but I know that the last few years, I would have sat down on the couch and watched a movie, or gotten into bed and read a book, and not gone to the gym on a Saturday night. I feel stronger in my resolve this time around. Not sure what is sparking it, but I know that now is the time.

A thing that I have been thinking about for the last nine days is time. Because of my commute and outside of class commitment, my job takes up 11 of my waking hours, Mon-Fri. Sleep/trying to get to sleep, takes up between 7-8 hours, which means I have somewhere between 6-7 hours a day for the rest of my life. This includes reading, writing, working out,watching movies, seeing friends, and spending time with my wife. For much of my life, those extra hours would have been spent on the couch watching television. I still watch television, but, I am choosier with my options. Eliminating cable helped. If my financial aide situation gets fixed and I can start Sac State in a week, then Monday and Wednesday, I have no free time. Those days will be rest days.

How do I make the most of my remaining hours? I figure I lose an hour every day to cooking, bathroom, laziness, which gives me five hours. One hour will be dedicated to the gym on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Now I am down to four hours. Four hours a day for me. When I factor in the reading I have to do for my three classes, I probably am realistically down to two hours a day to write, hang with friends, or watch a movie with Martina. When you start to realize how precious your time is, you realize what is important to you, but more importantly, you realize who is important to you.

I envision many more Saturday nights at the gym. I actually had a great time last night. I am still a bit unsure of myself when other people are in the gym. I still think that people are glaring at me. I still think people mock me, which I know they do not, but it is hard to get out of the mindset that has been with you for most of your life.

I am finding peace, slowly but surely. I have dedicated myself to so much change this year, and in only nine days I feel tremendous growth. I have talked about letting go of bad energy, but it was always about letting go of the bad energy others gave me, not from within myself. This year, it comes from within.

Let's all make 2016 our best year ever.

My HAMILTON obsession

Many people are surprised to learn that I am not actually knowledgeable in the field of musicals. I do not know the big stars of Broadway that are not widely known in popular culture. I never know anything about current or upcoming musicals. I like jukebox musicals. Outside of the musicals in which I have performed, my knowledge base is quite small. I could title a book Everything I know about Broadway I Learned From Watching the Tony Awards. Starting in probably 2000, I watched the Tony Awards and the next day would the Cast Recording of the show with the musical number that most impressed me. I continued that trend until the last few years when I stopped watching the awards as a live event.

In 2008, I sat down to watch the awards like I always did, and then something magical happened. A young Latin man in a newsboy cap stood next to Whoopi Goldberg as she introduced a musical medley to a show called In the Heights. 15 seconds into Lin-Manuel Miranda’s opening rap from that show, performing as both story teller and protagonist, I downloaded the cast recording on iTunes.

You have to understand something, even at 28 years old, the middle section of the Ven Diagram of People Who Like Broadway Cast Recordings and the People Who Like Rap Music, was like a sliver of a sliver, to me. The middle section could be counted on one hand, maybe not even needing all five fingers. Now I was watching the Tony Awards where a dude was rapping, and not rapping in a Sondheim way, but like spitting serious bars.

Thus my love affair with Lin-Manuel Miranda was born.

I have been trying to attack HAMILTON on this blog for a few weeks now, looking for the angle from which to write. Do I write as an unadulterated fan boy of the creator? Do I write from the angle my Degree in English taught me, looking motifs, themes, poetic devices? Should I write as a hip-hop lover, analyzing the insane rhymes, and how those rhymes are articulated? Ultimately, I am choosing to look at this show, the way I often do on this blog, the way it inspires me.

When I was 13 I wrote the first short story I remember writing. It was about a 13 year old boy and his younger brother who accidentally witness a mob hit. No one believes them because they are kids, and the two boys worry that the mob will come after their family, so they get on their bikes and take off. The rest of the story involved them dodging bullets, setting traps, etc. It was like Home Alone or Three Ninjas as a road trip movie. At 16 I wrote a fantasy story where Bill and Ted and the Ninja Turtles were called to a distant land by a mystical figure named ADOY who wanted them to save Princess Butterfinger from Vanilla Ice, who had enslaved his planet using battle rhymes. Bill, Ted and the Turtles turned out to be useless, and eventually Princess Butterfinger saved herself and her planet. My senior year in high school I took a horror literature class and our final project was to write a scary story. I wrote a story about a bunch of people stranded in a hotel where people start getting murdered. It was a fairly standard slasher story except, I had two killers with separate agendas, killing people not knowing the other was killing people as well. My teacher asked for the stories to be at least 5 pages long; mine was over 20.

“Why do you write like you’re running out of Time?” So goes the main theme of the Act One Finale of Hamilton. “Who Lives? Who Dies? Who Tells Your Story?” So goes the main theme of the Act Two Finale. Lin-Manuel Miranda has created two hip-hop based musicals around men who wonder what their legacy will be. The resolving event of In the Heights is the protagonist, Usnavi, coming to terms with his legacy being the guy in Washington Heights who tells the stories of those around him, coming full circle as our narrator. He opens the show introducing us to the characters, but after the opening number, he stops being a narrator, until the end. He realizes the importance of telling stories, and how legacies are built through story telling. In HAMILTON, He writes the story of two men obsessed with their legacies, but coming at those legacies from two different angles. These two men have become forever linked in the history of our country. Aaron Burr’s eventual act of murder changed the legacy of both men. Hamilton is reduced in history books as the guy who was killed by Burr, and is on the $10.00 bill. Burr is not remembered for his push for women’s rights or as an ally of women. He is remembered solely as the guy who killed Alexander Hamilton. Both forever immortalized for my generation in the original Got Milk? advertisement.

Lin-Manuel Miranda aimed to change the legacy of both men through the power of words. His layered, lovely hip-hop Opera mines every ounce of genius I can imagine to create a complex and powerful story about the power of writing. I am a believer in this power. Stories create life. If you want to know about a time a period, read the stories that were written in that era. Read Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 to learn about the fears people in the 1950s dealt with. Arthur Miller’s The Crucible manages to tell us about two separate time periods and how they link. Stories are vitally important.

At the age of 13 I knew that. I essentially wrote a story about the lengths I would go to protect my family. I was willing to run away and take on the mob with just my little brother. In high school I wrote about a woman strong enough to do what male movie heroes were too inept to do. As a senior, I understood the tropes of slasher flicks and added my own spin onto them. Scream had come out and shown that tropes still worked if you understood them and could deconstruct them. Telling stories have purpose.

At some point in my twenties I lost the confidence to tell stories. I also lost the confidence to care about my legacy. I stopped thinking I had a legacy.

Now, as I claw my way back from the trash heap of self-doubt, I can turn to HAMILTON for help. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s show is chalk full of reminders about the power of words, especially the power of the written word. In the show, Thomas Jefferson is so scared of Hamilton’s power, that even after Hamilton is fired and after he has smeared a current sitting president, leaving him seemingly powerless, Jefferson remarks “As long as he can hold a pen, he’s a threat.” The people with the ability to write are threats. Those who tell the stories create the world.

Not only does HAMILTON do that, it also shows the importance of Point of View, of representation. Miranda chooses to make Hamilton’s immigrant status a driving force, making the story instantly relatable to our world. It is a show that matters NOW. It shows how writers shape a narrative. It is impossible for me to hear Hamilton and Lafayette gleefully exclaim “Immigrants, we get the job done,” without thinking of the current landscape of our country. I think of my wife’s family, and all that they have accomplished, knowing immigration, for them, is important. I think about the stories of my students, many of whom are immigrants, or First Generation American Born. Lin-Manuel Miranda helps give voice to the voiceless.

I am a straight white male, so I have had a voice my entire life. I see representations of my life on screen, on the page often, but what I do not see is good representations of obese people. Obese people, in film, are often the comic relief, or worse, thin people in fat suits, making fatness their absolute joke. I have stories to tell as an obese person trying to get healthy, or about obese people trying to live in a country where fat jokes often feel like the last safe “politically incorrect” joke grouping. Two of the four main characters in my first novel, which you will all hopefully be able to read in 2016 or 2017 (I’m not giving up on this book), are overweight. One is obese and clearly modeled after me, and the other, a female character, is overweight. I think the stories I tell for them are unique. They are not stories we see often. I have been nervous about continuing to write stories featuring overweight people, and I understand that my character’s weight is important to the story of my first novel, but I kid you not when I say, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s HAMILTON, has helped me realize, I can tell stories about obese people for as long as I want, and I can make their obesity a main part of the story, like Hamilton’s immigrant status, or not. Characters can simply be overweight because people are overweight, so that is what I intend to do. Not everything I write will be focused on that, but I feel like obese characters deserve to have their stories told too.

Lin-Manuel Miranda also writes shows with strong women, giving power to the women of history, about whom we know little. He has a voice, and he wants to give his voice to many differing groups of people. I admire this. I want to do this. I want to give voices to all kinds of people. It is why I highlight stories of minority people (People of Color, women, Transgender) on my various social media platforms, but I also want to learn about their experiences and write characters who share those experiences. It is important for all people to see people who look like them, or read about people who look like them, not as a token, but as a fully realized character. All of the characters in HAMILTON are fully realized. They all have bits of their own stories in the show. All of these stories are important. And if you are obsessed with Lin-Manuel Miranda like I am, you know that on his Twitter, he continues to illuminate the stories of the people his characters represent. He loves them all, and wished he could have crammed of the stories into his show.

The mantra of Miranda’s Alexander Hamilton is “I am not throwing away my shot.” This is my mantra for 2016. I want to live by the same ideas that drove Miranda’s protagonist. This idea of taking advantage of every day. This goes beyond writing, and gets to the original focus of this blog when I started it years ago: my health. I have been throwing away my shot for most of my thirty-five years. That stops now. So, when I post things on Twitter, or Facebook or Instagram about my physical health, I am going to hashtag them #notthrowinawaymyshot

Lin-Manuel Miranda speaks to the educator in me, the English degree thinker in me, the hip-hop lover, the musical lover, and ultimately the writer in me. Hamilton embodies all of those things and so much more. I want to simultaneously enjoy it as a fan, while analyzing why Burr raps as a narrator but as Burr he refuses, or where in Burr’s life is he looking back and realizing his legacy was tarnished by the violence. I want to craft a whole unit surrounding this show to teach in tandem with a history teaching about the Founding Fathers. I want to get with other hip-hop fans and be amazed at how he manages to fit so many words into a bar, and how he uses rhymes to further a character. Pay attention to how Lafayette raps at the start, versus during “Guns and Ships’ towards the end of our time with him. Talk about showing and not telling character growth. I also want to talk to other hip-hop fans about the hip-hop references, the love letter to hip-hop that is engrained throughout the show, from the obvious "10 Duel Commandments", to the more subtle Right Hand Man referencing Busta Rhyme’s “Boom goes the Cannon” from “Scenario.” Mostly though, HAMILTON makes me want to write all of the time, and tell all of the stories I possibly can in the best way I know how.