My Fair Lady

I'm super white...

I have fair skin.  Now, if you don't know me or haven't seen me in a while, let me explain further.  I have REALLY white skin.  The other day my mother saw my leg and said, "Kim, you're the only person I know who can put their leg next to a piece of white paper and make the paper look like it's old."  My sister added onto this comment with, "Your skin is 92 Bright."  They laugh, but I can make them go blind by reflecting the sun off my leg at just the right angle.  Also, the red haired girl at the gym who looks like a china doll was pleased to find the first person she's ever met who is whiter than her.  I'm whiter than most people, with the exception of albinos.  But really, I'm not much darker than them either.  The freckles give the illusion of more pigmentation.

There's a picture of me as a baby laying on my parent's bed.  It's kind of a "Where's Waldo" kind of photo because the sheets on the bed were white.  The only real way to spot me is to look for the dark hair.  If I had the picture I would post it.  Sadly, it's somewhere in my parent's house.

It's been uncharacteristically warm this March, so the inevitability of shorts, or at the very least capris, is once again upon me.  I decided to make Jergens lotion with sunless tanner part of my daily routine in an effort to blend in with the crowd.  Here's the thing about sunless tanners and bronzers; they make the assumption that you already have some sort of color to your skin.  They are orange which, on skin with any amount of brown, will leave you with a nice warm, natural-looking, sun kissed glow.  But when you mix the orange with pure white... you get orange.  It's not too bad in natural light, but combined with the florescent lighting at the gym, I looked like an Oompa Loompa.  Flailing around doing Zumba didn't help alleviate that image.

So my option this summer boil down to blazingly white, oddly orange, or sweating in long pants for three months.  I'm not sure where I'll land on this.

Adventures in Yoga

My gym started a new yoga class and I tried it out last night.  I'm trepidatiuos about yoga because it seems like such a pretentious form of exercise, like Pilates.  In both cases, the people doing the exercises seem to barely be moving.  But they're all in way better shape than I am, so who am I to say it doesn't work?

Hugh Laurie, not the guy from yoga.

There was only one guy in the class and his mat was set up next to mine. He looked like a younger Hugh Laurie, but with slightly less 5 o'clock shadow. We had a pleasant chat before class but sadly, he did not share Hugh's beautiful British accent. He wore tan socks, black shorts, and a shirt that exposed his hairy belly when he reached in the air. Also, he swore a lot under his breath while trying to balance in particularly odd positions. I can't say that I didn't feel the same way.

Although I'm not completely sold on yoga, I can see the appeal.  The lights were dimmed, there was quite music playing with chirping birds in the background, and it was just slightly too warm in the room.  Perfect conditions for what a friend of mine in college referred to as "Nappy Time," which was usually a ten-minute nap followed by making out to Counting Crows.

We stood barefoot on our mats (I kept my socks on because I didn't realize we'd be barefoot and my nail polish is chipped) and contorted ourselves into positions like "The Monkey Pose," which my monkey-loving daughter said reminded her nothing of a monkey and came up with a different pose to better suit the name.

 

Next, we laid down on our backs, put our right ankle on our left knee and lifted our left leg straight up in the air pulling it towards our chest. I don't know what this move is called, but I've named it "Burning Calves and Broken Winds."  As we did this my friend and Zumba instructor, who was next to me, whispered, "This is good for us.  Zumba shortens our muscles."  I have no idea what that means, but I assume it's Fitness-speak for, "Pain is weakness leaving the body, even if that pain is caused by contorting yourself into unnatural positions."  She said something about having wine after class, so I smiled, nodded, and tried not to cry as the weakness left my body.  I'm assuming gas is also weakness leaving the body.

After our contortions we stretched our bodies straight out on the floor, pointing our toes and reaching our arms above our heads.  The instructor told us to stretch as if there was someone pulling our arms and legs.  This immediately brought to mind a movie I saw a long time ago where a person was drawn and quartered, which is a polite way of saying they tied his arms and legs to four horses and had them run in opposite directions.  This was not a peaceful thought, and I instantly tensed every muscle in my body at the idea of being torn to pieces, which counter acted the 45 minutes of stretching I had just done.

This kind of thing frequently happens to me when trying to relax.  I'm not a relaxed person by nature.  I've been accused of being high-strung and wound tighter than a top.  I'm comfortable with this.  In fact, I am completely comfortable with being uncomfortable.  I enjoy being in a cat-like state of readiness at all times.  Being too relaxed sometimes sends me into a total panic.

When I got home I realized that I was not at all relaxed as I expected to be, but completely wound up.  I was talking really fast and couldn't stop pacing for about ten minutes.  My sleep was restless and I had repetitive dreams about falling from various places; off bridges, buildings, scaffolding, and airplanes without a parachute. 

This morning, my whole body ached (probably from all the falling).  While waiting for my kid's bus I paced the full length of the porch windows like a caged tiger at the zoo wondering, "Is the bus late?  Is it coming at all?  Did we already miss it?"  Day 1 of yoga has not seemed to make me any less high strung.  I'll keep going for at least a while because I already bought the yoga mat, but I look forward to Zumba tonight where the music is loud, the movements are fast, and the instructor tells you if you put your leg down you're a loser. 

Also, only one person farts in Zumba and it's not me.

Lessons In Grace... from Madonna

I fell off the stoop while taking the garbage out this morning.  I landed flat on my back in the driveway.  My first thought was, "Did the neighbors see me laying in the driveway?!?"  The possibility of breaking my back didn't occur to me until much later when I was safely inside the house and cringing in pain every time I leaned over.  This is why taking out the trash should be the man's job.

Graceful has never been a word that anyone would use to describe me.  I have a long history of clumsy adventures that ended with bumping hard into walls, falling down multiple flights of stairs, and ultimately landing on my face.  I wrote an entire blog entry about my misguided attempts at Zumba. 

But with the recent performance of Madonna during the Super Bowl half-time show, I have a renewed confidence in my own movements. She teetered carefully across the stage on her 4-inch heels and nearly bought the farm a couple of times.  She probably should have practiced in them first.  And as the 53-year-old woman attempted a hand stand with her skirt flapping up while the dude from LMFAO grabbed one of her ankles and the other leg waved wildly in the air, I cringed.  And I couldn't help but see myself as she attempted to stand back on her feet after getting down on her knees during "Hey Mr. DJ."

No matter how ridiculous I look in the circus-style mirrors at the gym while flailing around in an attempt to loose weight and get healthy, I take comfort in the knowledge that I now look at least as good as Madonna.

** Please don't yell at me if you think Madonna rocked the house.  Watching it again in the sober light of day might give you a new perspective...  :-)

I Do Not Heart Zumba!

I do not love Zumba.  This is not a popular opinion.  It's been my experience that, for the most part, people who like zumba love it, and people who don't love it rarely go back for a second class.  I do not fall into either of those categories.  I grudgingly return to the gym twice a week, every week to endure the humiliation that is me attempting to dance and be even remotely funky while doing it.

I get through it by standing behind a really tall girl in the class so I don't catch a glimpse of myself flailing around in the floor-to-ceiling mirrors that surround the room.  I imagine myself being just as coordinated as the lovely and tall instructor who has been a dance teacher for 25 years.  When she stretches her arms out from side to side looking graceful as a swan, I imagine I look the same and not, as I notice when the tall girl was out one day and was exposed to my own reflection, looking like Kermit the Frog having a seizure.

Guilt is a big factor in me returning to the gym for zumba.  My kids take dance lessons from my instructor and when I pick them up from class she gives me a doubtful look and says, "Are you coming tonight?"  She has a gift for getting people to do things that they have no motivation to do; a gift I am sure is helpful while she is trying to get a room full of 3- and 4-year-olds to pirouette all at the same time.  She is lovingly motivational and pushy in the best possible way.  :-)

I think the most motivating factor in getting me to go back to zumba is friendship; friendship with my instructor who keeps me on track, and friendship with the other ladies in the class.  One friend in particular keeps me coming back.  We share a similar sense of humor about ourselves.  We snicker at the same ridiculous moves.  Class is not the same if she's not there to laugh with.

So no, I do not heart zumba.  But I do love all the friends I have made while going.  And that's what will keep me coming back.