Self-Improvement – Page 21 – Noel Lynne Figart

February 24, 2008

Fighting Intertia

Finally got off my butt today and went for a walk around town with my son. We took the long way, and dropped off some library books on to discover (horrors!) that it wasn’t open this early on a Sunday morning.

He’s asked if he can go back later to pick up some books. Hmm… Let me think… <grin>

I’m trying to encourage him to be more independent, so I’m sending him by himself, even though I could use both the hangout time with him and the walk.

I talk about fitness a lot in my blog, but to be honest, I am quite sedentary by nature. I don’t get spazzy from sitting all day, and I’m perfectly content in my writing chair all day knitting and writing. It makes it difficult to motivate to move.

The problem is, if I do that for too long, I start to hurt, and then it hurts to walk and then… Well, you get the picture.

It’s gorgeous today — about 25 F and a bright sun in a cloudless sky. So, a perfect day for a walk instead of a swim.

I’m still exercising in fits and bursts rather than consistently. Certainly the fits and bursts are better than nothing, but I’m feeling the lack of resistance training, especially in all the joints from my hips down. I need to be better about weights if for nothing more than to have the physical stamina to be on my feet all day when teaching a class. When I was working at Hogworts, I was getting in those 10,000 steps a day without even thinking about it. I couldn’t park any closer than a half mile from my office. I worked on a campus, so I was all over the place. And for the last year I was there, I was quite good about the swimming and weight training. I think having a slot that was the only slot I could get my exercise in was actually better for me in a lot of ways. The “Now or Never” mindset was a real help in motivating me.

Be that as it may, I really want the benefits of working out, and the way to get them is to (and stay with me here) work out. I know, it’s a crazy and radical though, but it’s true!

I’m gonna go back to the swimming three days a week and weight training three days a week first thing in the morning. I liked the schedule and stuck with it longer than anything else. I’m bumping my swims up to a mile, though. I need the longer workout, and well… I can! I like that a lot. Because my cardio is swimming, my weights are gonna be concentrating hard on lower body and not quite so hard core on upper body. You can’t beat distance swimming for upper body strength building.

I’m going to go back to doing at 5:30 in the morning, because I want the habit developed for the days I’m teaching as well as the days I’m not. I often blow off a workout when I am teaching and I don’t want to blow off workouts on busy, out of the office days. So, I’ve got a couple of weeks to really build the routine before I hit the classroom again.

It’s a constant struggle to stay motivated to stay active, and I’m not just talking about the “getting skinny” bullshit. I mean staying active enough that I’ve the physical energy to do my day, accomplish my goals and feel good emotionally. I oughta put that first. I’ve never in my life had as good of results from an anti-depressant as I have from regular workouts. Special Snowflake, that’s me. I’m all delwikite and have to pump some iron or I get all weepy and emo. But it is a struggle to stay active. I generally love how I feel after I’ve gotten the heart rate up good, but I’m immature enough that it’s often difficult to remind myself that dragging my ass out of my chair/bed/whatever and getting moving is a good thing. The thing is, it’s not a “do this today and a year from now you’ll be glad you did”. Oh, no. I get the emotional results in less than an hour. How’s that for impatience and foolishness when it comes to difficulty of motivation? LeSigh. Maybe I’ll grow up someday.

But, I will have my rear in the pool tomorrow morning at five thirty. I can certainly make myself do that much!

January 29, 2008

Swimming, Open Water and Writing

There’s something just innately satisfying about swimming a mile. Well, I swam an 1800, so that’s slightly over a mile. Took me 48 minutes and change. No, I am not a fast swimmer! For swims like these, I’m grateful for my Otterbox (waterproof casing for an iPod). I was listening to Jim Dale’s reading of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

I wish there were some marathon open water swims where I live. You’d think with all the lakes around… I mean hell, Lynne Cox, that crazy¹ woman who swam in the Antarctic spent her early childhood in Manchester, NH!

I’m not in the least interested in participating in a triathlon, though. I remember bitching last winter and swearing I was gonna try to start an open water swim event. Looks like to get such a thing going, I may have to do just that. Feh. Maybe I could talk to the Master’s team over at my pool and see if there’s something doing I didn’t know about.

I got some good news. I’ve got a month more on my gym membership than I thought I did. Gives me another month to dig up the money to continue it. I haven’t been doing worth a damn on the weights — at least getting my butt to the gym. For some reason, I’m more likely to stumble outside my bedroom first thing in the morning, and take 20 minutes six days a week to do an upper or lower body workout than I will go to the gym to do a full body workout three times a week. I suppose I shouldn’t sweat it. My body doesn’t care if I lift heavy stuff in a gym or in my home as long as heavy stuff gets lifted!

But, I am swimming, which is also important. Lately I’ve been swimming on the days I’m not teaching computer classes. Gets me out of the house on days I don’t have to work away from my writin’ chair, and ensures I do something besides sit in my writin’ chair all day.

I have to finish outlining a document for a client today and study for a class in MS Access I’m teaching tomorrow.

¹I use the word “crazy” with the upmost respect. I love to swim and all, but that woman is hard core!

January 24, 2008

Be Yourself

Yesterday was fantastic, professionally. I delivered some kick-ass service that’s really helped a couple of clients get to where they wanna be. Projects like that are just plain fun.

I learned an important lesson, too.

You get advice as a youngster starting out in the world that seems conflicting. Goodness knows I always thought it did! You’re told on the one hand to “be yourself”. Then you’re told “be professional.”

Well, “myself” is hardly the image of the professional woman. All suits, sobersides and cool efficiency isn’t me.

I didn’t claim the stuff I did in the poly community on my resume.

I would even tone down my accent in the office¹. Now, I did that even when I lived in Virginia, because there is a perception that thick accent indicates a lack of erudition.

When I quit working as an administrative assistant, I was taking a big risk, and I really decided to go whole hawg. I re-wrote my resume as a CV. If I had relevant experience, I claimed it, by God! That means my CV² shows the polyamory stuff. And I found out that it worked. It got me shots at work I wanted.

When I teach? I let the accent run wild and free. It doesn’t make me appear stupid. It makes me appear approachable. The colloquialisms that come out when I relax my diction are funny. When you’re teaching something as dry as computer applications, humor is necessary or your class goes to sleep. Approachability? That’s even more important. Students have to ask questions to learn!

Part of it had to do with a misunderstanding of what “professional” means. To be professional only means you’re delivering a good service in the context of your environment. If you’re a lawyer, it might mean a suit. But, I know of at least one lawyer, however, who has her own version of a writin’ chair and probably works in her robe and slippers as often as I do. Your eccentricities are assets if you take the trouble to understand them.

Being yourself just as hard as you can is really what works, because then you’re centered in the joy of what you’re doing. As foo-foo and woo-woo as it sounds, the other rewards come when you do it. Every dollar joyfully earned is worth two earned with grudging effort. When you’re centered in being you you’re delighted to work as hard as is necessary to get what you want, but it doesn’t feel like work. You’re just doing what you do and it’s great.

¹ Mostly Richmond, VA with overtones of Stafford County.
²A Curriculum Vitae is not only for the academic or the medical professional. If you have a “nonstandard” life of any sort, if you do volunteer work that is experience in something you’d be interested in being paid to do (organizing cons translates into events planning!), if you’ve written a lot… All these things are life experience you can put on a CV. It’s more useful than a resume and gives a clearer picture of what you have done and can do.

January 22, 2008

Why I Do It

Just got back from my swim for today.

I skipped yesterday because I was going to be on my feet all day teaching and I figured I didn’t want to be too tired.

Feh. I’m sorry I chose that. Not that it’s not possible to get too tired. It is. Not that is it not sometimes wise to pick and choose daily activities to keep from overtaxing yourself. It is. But I was tired and spazzed last night, and I think that if I’d gotten up and taken my swim, I just would have been tired.

The simple fact of the matter is that when I swim most days, I am clearer-headed and have calmer energy throughout the day.

I don’t swim to get skinny. I’ve been swimming for a year and a half and I ain’t skinny, nor even “not overweight”.

I swim because A) It feels good and B) I’m clear-headed and relaxed after one.

I did have a long and exhausting day yesterday, and had promised myself I was going to work from bed all day, only leaving it to swim.

Changed my mind and moved to my writin’ chair after my swim today. It’s a sunny day, my living room has lots of windows and I propose to enjoy it while I work. Also, wanna bake some bread and I’d rather be working where I can actually hear the kitchen timer. I think it felt like some sort of mental dissonance to be working in bed once I got dressed.

January 20, 2008

Swimming Hair Care

Swimmers, here’s a little trick:

Get thee some Mane ‘ n Tail (it used to be marketed as shampoo and conditioner for horses, but people use it with good results, too), wet down your hair with non-chlorinated water, put a little Mane ‘n Tail on your hair and work it through, then put on your bathing cap and do your workout. Afterwards, wash and style as usual.

Your hair will be all soft and shiny.

Don’t use too much or your cap will slide off and you’ll be leaving a trail of conditioner scum and make no friends at all in the pool.

But it really is a good treatment for hair abused by chlorinated pools.

I’ve been reviewing my goals for this month. I’m quite on track. It’s hard for me, sometimes, to let go of the big picture and concentrate on the day. Now don’t get me wrong. The big picture is crucially important. I refer to it each time I plan my month. But when I’m planning a week or a day, I’ll look at my goals for the month or the week rather than the year. I try never to look more than one step up timewise to keep myself from getting overwhelmed. I try to look at my yearly goals only 12 times a month after I made them. I know it sounds funny, but I think this is going to work. Making sure your dailyness is leading you where you want to go, it’s all good.

I’ve always been lousy at “slow-n-steady”. I’m trying to teach myself this, as if I do a little slow and steady and do accomplish everything I plan to for the year, I’ll have had a happy, productive and balanced year!

January 18, 2008

Repeat after me: I brought this all on myself! [1]

My kids are going to be with me this weekend, and I don’t often get a whole weekend to play with both of them. They wanna game. I made up this diceless game based on the Discworld many months ago. I’d call it more interactive storytelling than “gaming” per se, but the kids really enjoy it. I’m just glad I have had the experience of being a GM before so that I knew to take notes. I suppose there are advantages to have a Mama who is a writer.

Speaking of being a writer, this is the weekend that the Universe has decide to gift me with a lot of work. I guess I can scratch the goal of writing an effective proposal off my to-do list. This is my opportunity to make sure I can use effective time management skills, right? Unlike the cliché, I don’t miss deadlines!

However, I am going to be spending a lot of the weekend doing fun stuff with the children, ’cause, well… I have my damn priorities straight! Hello coffee, my old friend…

It’s funny. I’ve sat at the very desk at which I am now sitting² writing queries to magazines that were (I now know) way the hell out of my league before I graduated from High School, for God’s sake, because this is what I wanted to do. At the time, I’d read science fiction stories that portrayed technology that had… well, more or less the Internet as we know it³. I remember thinking, “God, that world seems neat! Too bad I’ll never live in it.”

Well, I do live in it now, and ya know what? It is neat!

¹ RE: the title. One of the attendees of PolyFamilies CampCon 2004 had a habit of saying this. I found it both funny and oddly comforting.
²I have a laptop. I don’t always work in the same place. These are my two other common workspaces:

³Friday, by Robert A. Heinlein leaps to mind.

January 17, 2008

Being a Fat Athlete

I was doing some research on swimming and sore abs because… Well, I went for a good swim today and my abs are sore! Look, don’t you Google every damn thing you go through? You don’t. Fine. I’m a weirdo. Deal.

Anyway, as I was maundering around the Internet and avoiding finishing my last article for today (but I did send out a good query for AT THE FOOT OF THE THRONE three days early thnxsomuch!), I ran across Fat Girl on a Bike.

This chick made me ashamed of myself and face how damn’ vain and shallow I can be.

Vain? Yeah. You see, I’m fat. No, it’s not a value judgement. I am.

But I’m also an athlete, dammit. I never called myself that because I’ve always felt I “wasn’t there yet”. I played soccer, but I wasn’t great it at. So, I wasn’t really an athlete. I was a martial artist but I never earned a black belt, so I’m not really an athlete. I’m fat, so I’m not really an athlete.

This woman, who is doing triathelons not to “get skinny” or any other damn reason than she bloody well wants to compete in triathlons puts me and my scale stepping to shame. I’ve actually had to psyche myself out to go to the pool and swim, which I love because I didn’t feel like I really belonged in the pool with all the real athletes. It’s idiotic. Like you don’t deserve to claim a love of movement, which I do have, unless you’re committed to “getting skinny”. That’s gotta me more important than loving the movement for itself.

Now, I know swimming is good for me. How I feel after a good workout (and the sustained good mood for many hours) is a powerful motivator to get me moving. Yes, yes, yes, I’m all for the increased health benefits of being active.

But I swim because I love to swim. It feels good. I lift weights because I love to do it. I adore moving heavy stuff. When I was a martial artist, the love of having the guy a foot and a half taller than I am go THWACK! on the mat was immensely satisfying, and so was being knocked flying. (Hey, you know I’m a weirdo). Anything that requires finesse of physical control excites me.

Will I get stronger and more fit the more I do it? Of course. But I don’t have to have goal of looking like Pudgy Stockton (I know, not fashionable, but I really, really like the way she looked) to just enjoy the workout for its own damn sake.

January 15, 2008

Just total randomness

I’m choosing to be a little lazy and swimming later in the morning today, instead of getting my butt in the pool first thing. I had an idea that I wanted to put in some notes on right away. So I did.

I’m kinda stuck for an idea for a Misanthrope column for next week. Honest, it’s no joke trying to find a weekly topic on the theme of “Don’t be a fucking idiot”.

I got a pasta machine for Christmas, and I’ve been using it a lot. I’ve been doing an experiment with whole wheat pasta, and you know? It’s pretty good.

I need to think about sprouting some herbs soon, actually. I prefer fresh herbs in cooking and haven’t had an herb garden of any sort since the summer 2005 (which wound up being my “pesto year” as my basil went out of control). I’ve got dirt. I have a sunny, south-facing window. It’s no trick to get a seed try and germinate a few plants. I’ll even get myself a bukkit, and I’ll have a nice, portable herb garden for my porch this summer.

Has anyone had much success growing fresh herbs indoors? I do have a room where a philodendron, a Boston fern, a Christmas cactus, several spider plants and a calendiva are pretty happy. Would this be a place where herbs would do well? I’ve only ever cultivated them outside and in the summer.

I also want a bukkit for some mint. I’ve been yearning for a good mint julep lately.

January 14, 2008

What to do on a snow day? Swim!

I didn’t go swimming at 5:30 this morning. It’s snowing and I don’t like driving in the snow. I’ll walk to the gym later today when and swim then.

School is closed, so I’ll be taking my son with me. Yeah, just the “snow day” treat — a long swim!

If I’d had somewhere I had to be later in the day, I probably would have gone ahead and gone swimming early this morning, but I don’t. I usually get up early to get in my swim just because if I get it done, I’m up and going for the day, better. Still, it’s nice when I don’t have to!

Got some site work to do.

I’ve mentioned it before, but if you’re a user of MS Office, I really encourage you to try One Note. I find it a fantastic planning tool.

I’ve been collecting a book list for the Polyamorous Misanthrope recommended reading page, but it’s going to be very different from the usual Polyamory “recommended reading”. It’s not that the poly books aren’t good. Many of them are excellent. But I’m going to be dealing a lot more with historical example of social dynamics (why yes, the Oneida Community among others), and modern practices in negotiation and interaction. I’m increasingly of the opinion that the new business model for interaction works very well indeed in poly situations. Yeah, I’ve got a Misanthrope article brewing on that, too.

I’m also looking at the shambles that is That Damned Book and wondering where to go with it. I had it all plotted out and when I read what I’ve written, individual scenes are kinda keen. But as a flow of plot and events, It Just Won’t Soar, Dammit. I’ve been working on That Damned Book intensely for two years now. (And have been noodling with it for more like twelve years). Maybe I oughta just let it go. I wrote At the Foot of the Throne, which is a much better story as far as plot and pacing, in about seven months.

Oh, for you writers? If you really enjoy novel writing software, I encourage you to check out yWriter. I do use and enjoy it. It can’t solve my problems for me, but golly does it help with planning and plotting!

January 12, 2008

Getting Things The Fuck Done

I said I would stick to my goals, so I have not planned to swim today. Original plan was to swim 900 yards every week day until the end of the month, so that’s what I am going to do. I may cheat and use the hot tub, though. <grin>

This does not mean, of course, that I do not have a metric assload of things to do.

I want to write a timeline for getting stuff done for the PolyWorks Fund group to tear apart. I’ve been procrastinating horribly on this, and I’m not entirely sure why. Must… Get… Done… Today…
I want to write a much better query for At the Foot of the Throne and find another publisher to whom to send it. My book let me show you it.
I’ve got some projects I wanna bid on.
I need to re-do my Polyamorous Misanthrope dragon image to clean up the header. Write a whole new theme for the blog would be favorite! Not sure exactly what I’m going to do with that, as I’ve tweaked the present theme all to hell instead of creating theme independent widgets.
I’ve gotta write a new page for the Polyamorous Misanthrope that links to books and stuff I think are poly-useful. I have a feeling some people are gonna take exception to some of my ideas. (At least, I hope so <EG>)
Must write more on That Damned Book. I’ve gotten a lot of good ideas and imagery for it on my morning swims. I think that while listening to audiobooks to try to kill off lap boredom is useful, there’s a lot to be said for using that time to let my mind roam free.
Gotta record greetings for a couple of listings on my advice line.
I really want to get the house cleaned up. It could use some Loving Care, maybe even mop the kitchen floor. I’ve been working downstairs, so the clutter in the bedroom is not giving me the visual reactive cue of “Clean me up, dammit!”

I’m finding myself listing all this stuff I need/want to do, and I’m really having to discipline myself to make sure they’re congruent with January’s Goals. If they’re not, I just make a note for next month to decide what February will look like and will these things lead me to the final accomplishment of Goals 2008? I know it sounds goofy, but I’m good at getting excited and sidetracked, so this really helps.