Sunday, June 26, 2011

Anti-Product

Today started out well.  I always welcome a chance to go on a good roadmarch.  I got drenched in sweat, only an hour total out and back.  The shoulders felt fine, the feet felt great, and I was just feeling in fine form.  Life was good.
Lunch was a little more taxing.  Rope workouts, climbing a 20' rope more than a few times, some attempts more coordinated than others, some bordering on disaster, but overall successful.  My work ACUs were soaked and I did a rope commando crawl before leaving.  It went well enough.  I began putting my top on, when an old saying I heard somewhere ran through my head: amateurs practice until the get it right, professionals practice until they can't get it wrong.  Begrudgingly I took the top back off and climbed on the rope for another go-round with my arms screaming at me.  I went faster than ever, chomping at the bit. By the time I swung down, I was smoked.  I wasn't panting or out of breath, just worn down.  My big ass doesn't do acrobatics that well.
I was sitting in my truck in the parking lot, still wondering if I could recoup some energy for the evening workout. I had grabbed an energy drink at the shoppette to get me through the office work that was imminent, but that was for the here and now.  I decided to throw some Jack3d in the dry mixing cup and take it in so I could put water in when working out seemed imminent.  I had just put my phone down and begin throwing the scoops in when somebody from work has something that they simply HAD to show me. Granted, it was absolute hilarity, and I could barely believe it at the time.  Unfortunately for me, in my distracted state I wound up putting 3.5 scoops of the powder into my mixer instead of the 2.5 I meant to put in.
I've never used more than 2 scoops.  2 scoops so far has given me a slight jitteryness, a burst of energy, and temporary tourettes that generally entail yelling violent metal lyrics or simply "MURDER!" accompanied by maniacal laughter when alone in my truck.  I figured an extra half scoop would help out just a little.  Just a little more crack never hurt anyone, right?
Taking nearly 2x my usual amount, much less a half scoop more than is advised you ever take apparently bumps up the effects of Jack3d from a whiff of meth juice up to snorting a fist-sized clump of Angel Dust, cut with cocaine, cut with caffeine powder, with a little dab of LSD on top for garnish.
This is gonna be a walk on the wild side.

I put the 5-6 oz. water in with the unbeknownst double charge of Weightroom Crack in the comissary parking lot, and drove the 6 minutes or so to the gym, feeling the effects set in enroute.  Focus, with a slight energetic edge was setting in by the time I got there and was on my way in.  Halfway to the door, my phone rang.  I had to run and pick up some paperwork a few buildings over.  Short trip, but damn, was I FOCUSED on getting in there and getting my muscle pump fix.  I snatched the paperwork and hurriedly said my thanks on my way out the door.  I had work, well, lifting to do, damnit.
I should have known something was amiss when I felt antsy leaving the parking lot.  I had no desire to speed to get to the gym sooner, but I wanted to modify reality itself to get myself to the gym NOW.  My mind sprouted up sub-processes willing for space-time to fold so I could only be a step away.  No speeding would be involved then, according to General Relativity, right?  I simply wanted to make a fold in space, and slip between the curves.  Nothing odd there.  Just getting to the gym.
By the time I got to the gym the second time, shit was getting real.  My focus was narrowing, as if I were a democracy, and my biceps and back were holding a general election.  The vote was nearly unanimous, with 98% voting "LIFT! LIFT!" and the remaining 2% splitting between voting for Ron Paul and boobs.  Just some fat-ass double Ds.  That's as unanimous as I get.
Sign number 2 that I was straying from the path of concurrent reality from the perspective as you, the reader most likely know it was the pre-workout pee.  It was bright, bright yellow.  I took my multivitamin this morning, that's right.  I was entranced by the vivid colors of it, spreading as it hit.  It seemed to expand from it's point of impact, running in all directions.  Up, left, right, down, down, down.  Shit.  I was pissing on the wall.  How does that happen? Probably from standing sideways in the urinal stall, jackass.  I filled my mitts with towels and quickly sopped up the gross contamination. I had weights to pick up and put down repeatedly, and I'm not going to lie and say that I didn't feel a tugging in my nethers urging me to get on to them.  The weights, that is, not the nethers.  Well, not at that moment anyway.
By the time I got into the actual weightroom, I was a laser beam of bundled fury.  I was ferocity focused into a tight, white beam aimed at the pullup rack.  I had to lift my weight up, I was obsessed.  I was still smoked from the ropeclimbing earlier, so I could only accomplish 5 on the widearms of the rack without assistance.  Rest, the attack again!  Fuck, 3!  Why won't my arms just pick me up?!?!  I want them to so desperately, but the stupid things just refuse to pull that weight up!  I'm fully aware that they're already groaning in pain at me, but this is a side-note, like that fold in your sock when you put your shoes on. I don't see how this is related to me wanting to pull myself up a million times, but being unable to accomplish this.  As I got 3-5 sets into my pullup workout I decided that the only thing in the world I wanted to listen to until time itself stopped was Meshuggah's "ALIVE" album.  I put it on, and "New Millennium Cyanide Christ" was soon pouring into my ears in it's live performance polymetric awesomeness at the highest volume I could turn it up to without wincing every time Jens Kidman hit a power scream.
As this song tumbled along it's predetermined path into my ears, I began spinning a combination of it and the same band's "Bleed" into my vision of the perfect reality.  My overstressed psyche resolved the cognitive dissonance through transhuman fantasies and began envisioning how to modify my pathetic tissues into the perfect being.  Before the song was over, I was seeing in the weightroom mirrors not my own carnal, organic form using a bar and my biceps paired with latissimus dorsi muscles to conduct pullups, but the perfect pullup machine instead.

The most glaringly evident modification was the complete lack of skin. (intestines worn to shield the inward limbs) Unnecessary. Black muscle fibers and sinews are on display in all their mechano-organic glory, in addition to metallic gleaming from underneath, indicating that my I had indeed undergone self-inflicted fractures and I replaced my bones with bars.  My only link to anything other than the existence around me that was the pullup was the dormant wormhole set over my head as if it were a halo.  I had been installed as the savior and tormentor of this entire universe, my coronation ceremony being yet more pullups.  My legs, being detrimental and unnecessary to the pullup have been removed.  Bone stumps, sinews and dark gristle with black tarry streamers hang down from the hip joints, not being hewn completely clean nor cauterized in the Omnidimensional Creator's smooth haste to commence and be done with this, his pullup pocket dimension. It's irrelevant, really, because as in any closed universe the tar and motor oil like substances that intermittently drip down from the un-wounds (it's damage, of a sort, yet it makes me more perfect in form and purpose) never fall to the "bottom," they simply reappear above and fall down upon my upturned face as nourishment, yet this is entirely unnecessary, as I have bones made of aluminum, bleeding oxide. In a sheer stroke of outside-the-box thinking that cannot truly be outside the box when you make the box, I now have the drug of gods being injected into my pounding veins.  
Omnidimensional Creator, who else?



The pullup bar was not suspended as much as it simply *was*.  My world was a dimension devoted solely to the perfect pullup for eternity.  Pullups aside, it was void, a tiny, closed universe with a handle at it's center. The wormhole halo was a jewel in the crown of The O.C. 
It was around this point, I believe, that my Id, Ego, and Superego became 3 coherent entities within my head. It was like a sidebar on my computer that I could monitor.  (screams unheard, deafening thoughts) The Ego maintaining near-absolute control, obviously, but to actually have the Id and Superego elucidated so clearly was quite enthralling.
I found myself paying subconscious attention to females in the gym.  They were assigned colors for easy identification, luckily they were all wearing different colored shirts.  There was Red, Yellow, Blue, and Dark Blue while I was there.  None were categorized as being more attractive than the other, and the obvious question being asked was "why not?"  Any men accompanying them were strictly analyzed for threat level and cost/benefit of a potential battle with them for mating privileges.
In the meantime the Superego was surprising uninterested in sex.  It was was frustrated with my ineptitude to indulge in infinity pullups.  Somebody so well proportioned, muscular, strong, eugenic, and square-jawed as myself should have no problem doing whatever the hell they want.  If only I could somehow overcome the bonds that ATP and lactic acid placed upon my muscles.  Reality itself was inhibiting my accomplishment of my will, and therefore it was the enemy.
The entire time, my Ego was watching this and keeping the Id from throwing a 45 plate at Red's male friend when his back was turned, and assuring my Superego that we could not, in fact, do infinity pullups no matter how badly we wanted to.  Some unknown force was keeping me doing pullups and adjusting the assistance level so I could keep doing around 5 reps each set.  After about 20 minutes I had to have done 100 pullups and was drenched in sweat. My heart rate was between 140 and 150 and stayed there the next half hour as I continued to work out.
I soon established my attention radius around me; my "Hate Pie" as I dubbed it.  Anything outside of this pie was irrelevant, aside from the Id keeping peripheral eyes out for potential breeding partners.  There was lifting to do.
As I moved on to prone rows with 100lb. dumbbells (I was going to do 80s, but Red's male friend was doing 100s, so I was not to be upstaged) the Id was throwing out intense violent impulses and fantasies of general mayhem, likely in sync with the Superego.  I was an unstoppable killing machine, a true rival for the Hulk.  I was certain that if a man were to burst into the room with a .50 BMG machine gun, it would still take half the belt to put me down, in which time I would manage to close the distance and put forth a valiant fight before finally succumbing to blood loss.  I was a hero of legend.
After exhausting my upper back muscles I decided the next best thing to pullups, lat pulldowns.  At this point the Id had for some reason abandoned sex entirely and was focused entirely on crushing my enemies, seeing them driven before me. The lamentations of their women was secondary if not tertiary.  Anybody who did not do... something, and had done... anything, must be destroyed.  I was an unharnessed god of death and destruction, and mayhem was my right. At one point I may or may not have clenched my teeth and growled "please forgive the evil in me - the darkness within; ferocious, inherent demon, adrenaline gland resident." There's no way to be sure.
After a full 50 minutes of speed lifting what I usually do in an hour and half, the Ego decided it was time to head home.  I grabbed my bag and wobbled out of there, dry heaving behind my truck from sheer exertion from the day exacerbated by the ass-kicking workout immediately prior.  I was glad to be done, and finally the Id snarled and ran back into it's cave.
As I drove home I still had some equivalent of 'roid rage going on to some degree.  I swear during the final turn to the road leading home the driver of an Avalanche pointed at me to indicate something to his passenger.   I fucking HATE Avalanches.  It's the epitome of suburban cowboy cum gangsta-rapper wanna-be vehicle.  My primary thought was "ram him."  I was Harv in Sin City, and I would live through it.  The pain would be temporary, but the badassery forever.  The electromagnetic bonds of the molecules holding my seatbelt together would play along and enable me to simply fly through my windshield like Superman, crashing through the punks, at which point I would simply caveman bash his face in.  The hardest part would be aligning my truck so it struck his in such a manner as to project me straight at my intended victim.

Looking back, it was the most Metal day of my life, albeit entirely inside my own head.  I do realize that from a 3rd party perspective I just walked around the gym wide eyed, most likely mumbling a metal lyric here and there, sweating my ass off, breathing hard from speed lifting, and looked like "that guy" throwing up in the parking lot.  I probably gave the stink-eye to a dude in an Avalanche too.

If only he sold Jack3d, I could be the posterboy for "that guy."

Monday, June 20, 2011

Epic Burn

So, I've been feeling good about my weight losses lately.  Without even trying hard the other day I stepped on the scale Thursday morning after a morning of moderate weightlifting and a standard breakfast of eggs and coffee I step on the scale and see 230.0 smiling up at me.  Well, this morning I step on the scale before even eating breakfast and see 241.3.   I was not a happy camper, to say the least.
So, inevitably my inner bitch comes out at over the day, and while we're getting ready to do something I have to pull a "honey, does my ass look big?" or "am I still pretty?" moments.  I want the wife's assurances that I haven't gotten neck rolls in the past 96 hours. I even do the chick thing and sigh while turning to her as if we've discussed this subject ad nauseum and frankly I'm tired of talking about it:


"OK, honey, I'm having a self-esteem crisis. My weight's back up to 240, but all my 34 waist pants are still fitting like they did when I was 230."


To her credit, she even acted as if she was the husband who was quite frankly sick of my shit.  She just looked me square in the eye and in her best "you know damn well _____" voice, she shot at me:

Well, honey, quit stepping on the damn scale three times a day.



Not to be deterred form my estrogen powered pity-party (I must have eaten some soy at some point today) I did the classic chick thing and acted as if she hadn't even spoken:


I just don't get it. I don't think I've put on 10 pounds of muscle in the last week, but my pants are fitting the same if not looser than last week when I was 230.


Yes, I was honestly dumbfounded that a 26 year old active male's body weight could fluctuate 11 pounds based on highly active days (I worked out 3 times on Wednesday) as opposed to off-days (0 workouts and feasting on Sunday).  To be fully honestly, I was in no way, shape, or form fishing for a compliment, but the wife was in full-on husband mode and sick and tired of my crap, much less coming home from a full day at work to find me lounging on the couch, watching TV with the house a mess and no idea of what to make for dinner.


Maybe you should just stay away from the scale the week before your period.


Uff-da, that hurt.  It was a good underhand hammer blow right to the nethers that at that time must have resembled a Ken doll.  A slight bump but no dick, to be sure. Only at this point did I realize that I was in full-on Bitch Mode and in need of immediate course correction.  We had some pizza for dinner, and I wasn't going to prance around complaining I felt all fat or bloaty later, either.


Goddamn, I need to get some more deadlift and shooting in.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

The Whale

So, me and Tammy have Phineas & Ferb going in the background for the kid to watch while we're tending to... whatever.  This is a new episode with a take on "Moby Dick" wherin P&F construct a giant mechanical shark, and Candace goes about with a captain of a small vessel bearing a resemblance to Ahab. After some discussion on the topic, the wife decides to display her literary prowess by critiquing their choice of aquatic life for the step-brothers to pilot: "They know that Moby Dick wasn't a shark, right?"
At his juncture the shark had swallowed the Ahab-esque character, and he was interacting with Phineas.  My logical response is: "Yeah, and Moby Dick didn't eat Ahab, either."
Tammy replies: "Well, Moby Dick ate SOMEONE!"
I stop and consider what would cause her to say this, as Moby Dick didn't consume anybody that I can recollect.  Lots of dead people, yes, but actually eating them, no. The only correct response I could think of was: "Dammit, Tammy, you're thinking of 'Jonah and the Whale'."

After the captain's departure from the vessel Candace takes upon the dual role of Ahab and Fadullah or whatever his name was, maniacally pursuing the shark in order to "bust" her brothers, and in the ensuing mayhem is lashed to the machine's side via ropes attached to plungers functioning as harpoons in this tale.  I comment that with her extensive background bookish knowledge, the likelyhood of that reference going over her head was little to none, right?
"What?"  she replied.
"The part where Candice is banging on the shark, tied to it by harpoon ropes. That went over your head entirely, didn't it?"
"Why? is that in something else?"
"You've never read the book, have you?"
"The Bible? Yes, I've read it."
"What?"
"Moby Dick, he's in the Bible, isn't he?"
"No, Moby Dick is in 'Moby Dick,' also known as 'The Whale.'"




In true Tammy fashion, as I'm sitting down to begin the process of saving these conversations for posterity, she saunters by and has to look over my shoulder at what nether of the Interweb I've visted this evening.  She was kind enough to bestow upon us all this final gem:


"...The Whale? What is that about?"


I will make learning occur, some day.