Image Consultant

2:34 a.m.

Since I have tried and failed to sleep, I figure I'll detail the extravagance of my day here in the hopes that I'll bore myself into a slumber.

Andria called this morning to announce to me that we wouldn't be able to meet up today because she was looking at apartments with her parents, which meant no dilly-dallying (a phrase that I've been waiting to use all day for some reason). I hadn't mentioned here that she was going to come into town because, and I don't mean for this to sound harsh at all, I was only sort of half-expecting it to really happen. This summer hasn't been the best for visitations - something seems to consistently come up one way or another - and suffice it to say that I wasn't blown away with surprise when it didn't happen. It's not such a big deal at this point, anyway, since we're already well past the halfway point of summer and she'll be living here again during the next school year.

Today I had to work out. I don't mean I had to as in I was forced to. Not at all. I had to because if I didn't I couldn't see any way out of my agonizing muscle stiffness. Does it mean more pain? Yeah. But pain I already have - I'll take a little more if I can regain some small amount of flexibility. It definitely helped quite a bit. I regained almost full mobility in my left arm, and I can almost completely straighten out my right. I'm not quite to the point where I feel that I could play coordinated sports or anything (which sucks, because I've had a hankering for some racquetball for quite a while now), but if I keep working at it, I think I'll get back to where I was before I started this ridiculous escapade of beefing up.

I already have a love/hate relationship with my weight lifting. On the one hand, I love the fact that my muscles have already hardened up a lot - I wouldn't say that they're by any means all that much bigger, but they're a helluva lot firmer. I no longer have a horrible case of "squishy muscle." And if you're unfamiliar with squishy muscle, then you've probably never had it and you can bite a nut.

Heh heh...Walnut.

On the other hand, however, the stiffness, the soreness, the occasional shooting pain in muscles that I was unaware existed before I began this...is it really worth it?

Fuck if I know. I'll be honest - I took this class because it was the only thing offered in summer that was both open and looked like something I would do. The muscle stuff was kind of a pretty pipe dream in my mind that I wasn't expecting to happen due to the fact that I wasn't expecting to be driven this hard. Now that I have been I don't really see any way out of it except to keep going or drop this sucker entirely, and quite frankly, I don't have the time or money to be dropping courses just because I don't feel like taking them.

And it would be sort of nice to be in better shape. Not wheezing and on the borderline of death after a short racquetball game is a definite plus. It would be wonderful if I could last longer in those things.

As far as looks go....here's something that will say a lot about me...I don't think I've ever looked at myself in the mirror and said, "Ugh, I need to fix this."

Sure, there's the usual array of issues - oh, there's a "skin blemish" (because we aren't allowed to say "big-as-Texas zitty pustule" anymore), my hair is getting too long, where in the hell did that tattoo come from - these things come up, but it's never anything I'm going to think about for more than the five minutes I spend actually looking at myself in the mirror. I don't have a lot of image problems. If you guys make a huge deal out of thinking I need to change my appearance, fuck you. You look fat in those jeans and those shoes don't match that top, retard.

Did that get you in a tizzy? Then it might be time to reexamine the situation. It's not healthy to obsess over this shit.

Me? I look good. You wanna tell me different? Go ahead, but you're lying in the dirtiest way possible. I mean, come on. We both know I look good. I'm a sturdy guy, both emotionally and physically. Just try to knock me down.

....yeah, I probably shouldn't be an image consultant.

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