When swine flew cable news was there to cover it

I  apologize for yet another lengthy hiatus between postings, but I just got out of quarantining myself from H1N1. I found out about the swine flu while I was on my layover returning from my vacation in Puerto Rico and based on the amount of coverage it was getting I assumed that Outbreak had come true while I was on vacation. I momentarily considered turning around and trying to book a flight back to Puerto Rico where most of the news coverage was in Spanish so I was completely oblivious to the impending pandemic in progress.

 People temporarily lost touch with reality over the swine flu for a minute. We got to see on an almost minute by minute basis how quickly a virus can spread from state to state and country to country. (Obviously not nearly as quickly as this viral email.)

Because of the panic caused at least partly by the frantic media hype, schools were closed*, people canceled vacations, and a whole population of innocent Egyptian pigs were slaughtered. Yet when put in perspective, for most people, swine flu probably only posed a minuscule risk when compared to their risks of catching any of the hundreds of other communicable diseases that no one gives us minute by minute updates on.  Imagine if we got a news update every time someone was diagnosed with tuberculosis, or AIDS, or any of the many other STDs. It would be a never ending update. Constant news updates could possibly have a positive effect initially of scaring a few extra people into using condoms…but eventually everyone would probably just get desensitized.

According to the latest update there are around 2254 cases of confirmed swine flu in the US. Comparing the swine flu stats to other risks (tuberculosis (13,224), AIDS (1,106,400), and the heebie jeebies** (724,998,976) ) and we see that the risk of catching swine flu only beats out the risk of getting hit on the head by a falling anvil by a small margin. Although frequent viewing of Looney Tunes would lead us to believe that risk is significantly higher.

All joking aside I don’t mean to belittle the significance of H1N1 that much, I just get a little miffed when things get blown out of proportion due to the mixed blessing that is 24-hour news coverage.

Thankfully most of the media coverage of the swine flu has died down, so now the 24 news coverage can turn to more pressing matters like Obamas choice of condiments on his cheeseburger.

 

 

* Okay I have to admit that my concern meter went up a notch when it was reported that a kid at a school just a few miles from my employer was infected. But mostly I was hoping that my employer would overreact and give us a week off work (I mean surely someone I work with has a kid at that school).

** Beware, most people infected with the heebie jeebies have no idea they are infected

Happy Earth Day! (What do you get when you mix Black and Green?)

In honor of Earth Day I wanted to promote the Go Green message and explore why going green hasn’t really caught on in the Black community.

I learned from Stuff White People Like* that white people like the following:

T-shirts

Bumper Stickers

Recycling

And since the go green message has been  spread primarily by way of white people wearing T-shirts, and sporting bumper stickers on their cars it would appear to the average non-white person that the whole  green movement is a decidedly white phenomenon that they need not participate in. Sort of like extreme sports.

 This is such an unfortunate misconception! I am a black person and I have been trying to make efforts to greenify my life for several years now, but I have noticed that not many of my peers have jumped on the green bandwagon. I  have a few theories, that I will discuss shortly,  about why this is the case.

Now to the casual observer I probably don’t look very environmentally concious for the following reasons:

1)  I’m black.

2) I generally don’t wear T-shirts with Go Green themed slogans (refer to #1)

3) I don’t have a Go Green bumper sticker on my car (refer to #1) 

I’m hoping that I can send the message that being greener doesn’t require that you be white, wear green message t-shirts, or even that you defile your whip with tacky adhesives. It is indeed possible for black and green to mix and be beautiful.

As I said before I have devised a few theories as to why the green movement hasn’t quite taken the black community by storm yet.

1) The Black community has a number of well known social ills to contend with so when a socially concious black person is trying to choose a cause to get behind, saving the planet generally doesn’t make the cut.

2) Most green initiatives appear to be a lot of trouble. Let’s take recycling for example. It’s easier to chuck all your trash into one container than it is to sort out the recyclables. Also a lot of communities still don’t have recycling programs that make it much easier to do this. Black people generally don’t go out of their way to do things that they can’t see an immediate benefit from.

3) A lot of green initiative appear to be expensive.

Example:

2 pack of Energy efficient light bulbs $ 8.98

2 pack of regular incandescent  light bulb $ 2.64

Which one do you think a budget concious black person is more likely to pick?

Of course in the long run the energy efficient light bulb will save money by using less electricity and potentially lasting up to 10 times longer than the regular light bulb.

4) A key reason I think going green hasn’t caught on in the black community  is the messengers for the cause  generally don’t look like or speak to us.  When black people think of environmentalists, images of hippies, hipsters, and other inexplicable white behavior come to mind.

 So given all of these barriers what should be done to make taking steps to reduce our carbon footprint more attractive to people of color?

To start I propose the following:

1) Steps need to be taken to make going green seem a little less like a white hipster trend….perhaps the term “Going Green” is a part of the problem. It’s catchy and short and can easily fit onto a T-shirt which automatically makes it attractive to white people. But it also makes it seem too much like a fad and not enough like a real lifestyle change.

2) Get more urban celebrities on the green bandwagon. This will help to make it cool among young black youth. Which in turn will make it even more cool among non-black youth. If we’re really lucky the hip hop hop image will make a shift from conspicious consumerism to conservation.

I heart Luda

I have to commend Ludacris because he is the first urban personality that I know of who has taken a stand to try to promote environmentalism. (On a personal note I luvs me some Luda).  Now how committed he actually is to living a greener life may be questionable since I’m pretty sure his raps still include a healthy dose of conspicious consumerism….but hey it’s a start and at least he was out there getting the message out.

3) Get more regular people who aren’t hipsters or hippies on board. Teachers, politicians, local business owners etc. It has to be made clear that being greener is not a white thing but an everybody thing.

4) And finally perhaps someone should create a dance craze that incorporates green initiative education in the lyrics. Maybe it will catch on like the electric slide, the Soulja Boy, and the Stanky Leg.

Until my proposals are put into effect here are some links that might help to spread Green education. 

Earth Day Network

15 Ways to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint

Reduce Your Trash to Almost Zero

Feel free to suggest other ways to make green the new black.

The dating minefield part I…Who should pay

I have been tragically remiss at updating my blog lately and to all who have been waiting with baited breath for my next entry I say breathe please! I really meant to post something but every time I sit down at the computer to type I wind up playing word games on the net. And to be perfectly honest it actually happened this time too. But I managed to type something between rounds.

At any rate today I want to touch on one of the many minefields in today’s world of dating.* In  a world where in a rapidly increasing number of cases women make more than the man they are dating who should pay for dates?

The old school had a simple solution to this conundrum**. The guy pays duh! But today it may not be so simple. It seems a little unfair for the guy to always bear the burden of financing activities when both people make money and both people have bills, especially in these tough economic times. But some guys still take pride in being able to treat their woman on an outing. But what happens when there’s a big financial imbalance leaning in the females direction. Should all dates be things the guy can afford? Is it emasculating for the woman to have to pay for the guy to do things that are outside of the guys budget? Do guys get offended when the girl offers to pay on dates? Should everything just be split fifty fifty? Should girls just avoid all of this and date up? (This of course is unrealistic for a lot of black women who want to date black men since we’d all be fighting for the same 11 available successful guys…but that’s another post entirely)

I suppose the answers to these questions vary from person to person. But it seems like it would be easier if there was some standard etiquette that everyone could follow just to make the whole process simpler. 

 I personally don’t think that getting to know someone should have to be a bank breaking process for either party. So I’m all for splitting the costs, either by going dutch or taking turns treating each other.  But a lot of guys don’t like to let the girl pay, at least not at first. Which I think is fine of course since letting the guy pay gives me an early gauge of  some of their personality traits. Are they generous, a cheapskate, the type that tries to impress you with their spending, financially responsible etc. Of course early dates aren’t necessarily always good gauges of future behavior since we all know we meet the representative.***

I’d love to get some feedback on this since I am one of the most clueless people around when it comes to dating and relationships.****

If only they were this easy to spot

 In the event that I don’t get any feedback I will make up my own list of rules. Maybe I’ll share them with the world in a future post.

 

 

 

 

*I think I might do a series on the dating minefield…but I might not…but in case I do this will be called part I

** Incidentally, somewhat against my will, I’m reading Steve Harvey’s book “Act Like a Lady Think Like a Man.” I wanted to find out what the fuss was about. I’m only on chapter 2 and in this chapter is the following sentence:

Know this: It is your right to expect that a man will pay for your dinner, your movie ticket, your club entry fee, or whatever else he has to pay for in exchange for your time.

Is the old school on to something here??? Perhaps my liberal approach to dating does more harm than good in that it doesn’t allow the man to fulfil his primal need to be the provider. Feedback on this would be helpful.  

***This is all pretty irrelevant for me at the moment since it’s rare that things get much further than the text messaging stage with the guys I meet these days.  But I figure I’ll get back into the swing of dating eventually and I need to know the rules of engagement when I do.

****This of course doesn’t always stop me from giving my opinions. (I do have a policy against giving actual advice though to avoid bearing the burden of guilt when things go wrong. Giving opinions is a much less guilt ridden alternative when you want to impose your will into the affairs of other peoples lives)

 

Capitalism at it’s finest

The whole country is in a financial mess and all anyone seems to want to do is blame burn someone in effigy for it.   There has never been a worse time to be a bank executive or CEO of a multbillion dollar corporation. In a recent poll*, banking executives beat out crack dealers and peddlers of children on the list of most reviled professionals.

 

Stealer of homes, futures, hopes and dreams

 

Ambitious small business owner

 

It’s so unfortunate, and I really hate that a bunch of people are losing their homes, and jobs, and are unable to retire as a result of this situation. But let’s be real. People were buying fabulous houses that were doubling in equity every six months. HGTV had everyone thinking they were real estate investors. Jim Cramer had everyone thinking it was a good idea to bet the farm in the stock market. Jeans were averaging $100-$150 a pair. Something had to give!

Booooo Yahhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!

All the while our government was removing all oversight and accountability from the banking industry and the banking industry was merging and consolidating themselves into a handful of mega-financal Super Wal Marts. The result:  a handful of people with nobody watching them holding the nations economic future in their hands.

Given this scenario there could be a couple of different outcomes.

Outcome #1

Despite the lack of oversight, the banking executives responsibly manage funds by taking reasonable risks and experience modest but sustainable growth.

Outcome #2

Seeing the opportunity to rake in unbelievable riches by making a few tweaks in banking policies, the banking executives turn the banking industry into a gigantic roulette table and make outrageous bets with ridiculously thin capital to back up the bets.

So what do you think happened?

Welcome to Vegas Baby!!!!!!!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

So now our government is forced into an imposible catch 22. Sit back and do nothing and watch the economy fail or make hasty decisions to pump billions of dollars into the problem that may or may not help the situation.  All because the economy is dangling at the mercy of a bunch of companies that are “too big to fail.”

Perhaps that’s the heart of the problem. Why should banks be allowed to grow to a point where, if they should fall prey to poor management decisions and greed, millions of peoples finances hang in the balance? And if they are allowed to get that big why shouldn’t someone be watching to make sure they are doing the right thing for the people who depend on them? Why should our banking industry even be a part of the legal gambling racket that is the stock market? And why should people be fed the idea that they can make a mint just by sitting back and letting people play with their money? Maybe instead of fixing an obviously fatally flawed system someone needs to sit back and rethink the system entirely. Maybe capitalism as we know it isn’t so perfect afterall.  

There’s a slight chance that we all got too greedy, and the more money we had access to the greedier we got. But perhaps this economic crisis will serve as an opportunity for people to try to learn to live more simply, do more with less and learn to appreciate the little things in life. 

Or maybe we’re all just biding our time until they fix this thing so we can cash out our home equity to buy a luxury boat and some designer jeans to wear on it like the good old days**.

 

*Poll was completely unscientific and consisted of only one imaginary participant.

**By good old days I mean days that people other than me or anyone I know personally were experiencing, but that we were all dreaming about.

They say it’s just hair

On June 6, 1995 I made a decision that has changed my life for the past 13 plus years. On that day I sat in a beauticians chair and chemically altered my hair for the first time. It was two days before my high school graduation and to mark my transition into adult life I thought it was appropriate to transition from what I at the time considered to be baby hair to the grown up world of relaxers. I was probably the last of my peers to make this transition so I felt like it was a long overdue rite of passage that I was no longer being denied.

Fastforward almost 14 years and I barely remember what my naural hair texture is. 

When I was growing up the the deep and dirty south I was taught to believe that straight  was the right way to wear your hair…so by the time I was a pre-teen I was suffering through same the bi-weekly ritual that most black have girls suffered through at some point….. the dreaded pressing chair.

the hair identity crisis starts early

I believed that the only way to wear my hair was straight even though the hair that grew out of my head clearly was not straight. So I suffered through the bondage of burning hair grease in a smoky kitchen every two weeks just so I could enjoy about 24 hours of straight silky hair. And that was in the winter time. In the summer it was so hot and humid in Mobile that all that effort usually went to waste within 45 minutes of stepping out the door.  

The day I got my first relaxer I left the hair dresser feeling free. Finally I could wear my hair down for more than one day. When I walked in to graduation rehearsal the day after I got my first perm a couple of my classmates were in awe of my long straight newly permed hair. Most of them had only seen me with my hair pulled back into a pony tail.

creamy crack application

Of course the reality was that I wasn’t really freed that day. I only traded one form of bondage for another. Now instead of a bi-weekly holding my ear and trying not to jump when I felt the heat off the comb bondange, I was in creamy crack application every 6-8 weeks bondage.  All because I still believed the only way to wear my hair was straight.

 

After all of these years of textural alteration I would love to just go back to my roots and reacquaint myself with my natural hair texture.  Unfortunately a relaxer isn’t something that you can just reverse. To go natural I would have to either wait for enough new growth to come in and cut off all of the relaxed hair and go short, or I could keep the relaxed hair and press the natural hair until I have enough natural hair to cut off the relaxer. But either way it requires cutting off the relaxed hair and some wait time. Unless I shave my head…which is a non option.

I have numerous issues to overcome before I can take the plunge into naturaldom.

1) I don’t know how to take care of my natural hair. The last time my hair was truly natural (i.e. not getting pressed or permed) I was in elementary school wearing plaits.

2)  My mom and most of Alabama thinks its a little radical to wear natural hair….I know…that sounds a little crazy if you live in a more progressive area….why would wearing your hair the way it grows out of your head be radical….but in Alabama they haven’t quite embraced the natural thing yet….  my mom of course was the main one who didn’t want me to get a perm in the first place…right behind my grandmothers…neither of whom have relaxers…wearing my hair natural might be the first “radical” thing I do….if I do it….hmmm 

3) What if I go to the trouble to go natural then get bored and miss my straight hair…would that mean I don’t love myself or something?

4) I’m really afraid of cutting my hair short so I’d have to go with option B and do a gradual transition. But what if the hair at the point where I have two textures is weak and breaks and I’m forced to cut my hair short….and then I discover that I look like a 13 year old boy with short hair…and then instead of getting approached by attractive eligible guys I get approached by gay pedofiles….I’m tripping I know but it could happen!

Aside from all my issues I’m probably a perfect candidate for natural hair since I don’t like styling my hair, and I’ve never really taken full advantage of all the things you can do with permed hair anyway. I guess I need the right hair dresser who can teach me how to properly care for my hair to give me the push. Of course I would imagine that most hair dressers would have little incentive to push anyone to abandon expensive chemical treatments every 6-8 weeks. So what’s a girl to do?

There must be a support group or something I can join…Any advice????

In Honor of St. Patricks Day – Revisiting the Leprechaun

Happy St. Patricks day to all my Irish Peeps! Especially those of you over in the land of Eire getting low…(see my last

To me it looked like a leprechaun to me

post).

In honor of the holiday I thought I’d pay tribute to some magically delicious shenanigans that took place in my home town a few years ago.   I’ve probably watched this video a hundred times and it still cracks me up.  Enjoy the YouTube post below.

Anybody seen a Leprechaun say yeah!!!!!!!!

For those unfamiliar with this story** this was a real news story that aired on WPMI in Mobile a few years ago about the commotion that was caused in the Crighton community over some alleged sightings of a creature that was described as a leprechaun in a tree.  The brilliance of this piece is the fact that it’s unclear whether this is a well orchestrated joke or whether the people actually believe there is a leprechaun living in a tree. The video went viral and resulted in songs, T-Shirts, and webpages in it’s honor. To date this is my all time favorite viral video.

** What kind of rock were you living under back in 2006 when this came out????

Ghetto culture touches the world

Makes music that's more popular than the Beetles?????

I was talking to my brother today and he quoted a statistic that was just unbelievable to me. He claimed that friend of his read that a song by Flo Rida was the most popular song in the world ever. Really ever? So your friend believes Flo Rida made a song that beat out Happy Birthday and everything ? Of course the researcher in me was not about to take a third hand statistic like that as fact without doing some verification.  As I expected the statistic that the guy reported was slightly off since he failed to put a very relevant qualifier in front. But the real statistics were still pretty amazing to me. Apparently the single “Low”  by Flo Rida was the best selling digitally downloaded song to date* with over 4.5 million downloads.  It held the #1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 longer than any other song in 2008. And get this… It went #1 on the charts in Australia, Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand, France, and Thailand. It was also in the top ten in several other countries. Ireland????

What I think of when I think of Irish girls dancing

I wonder if Flo Rida had any idea he’d have the Irish Lassies and the girls down under getting low when he made that song. The success of stuff like this is a testament to the influence that urban culture has not just on America, but on the entire world.

On one hand I see where people who complain about the images of black culture that the rest of the world get exposed to are coming from. In far too many cases these are the only images of black American culture that some of these people have. But on the other hand it shows that young black kids have real power because the whole world watches to see what they like.  Maybe someone needs to figure out how  this power can be used for the good of the black community instead of complaining about it?

 I also think it’s hilarious how so many non-black people critisize  “ghetto culture” while their kids are posting videos of themselves on Youtube getting low low low low.

At any rate I get excited when someone unexpected has a global impact. We saw what happened with Soulja Boy and Crank Dat. Whether you love the song or hate it you have to give the kid credit for the global impact his song had. Even prisoners in the Phillipines were Cranking that Soulja Boy. I can’t wait to see what the next ghetto thing to go global will be.

Will we see videos’ of kids in the villages of India doing the Stanky Leg?

* Apparently this stat is based on U.S. sales or maybe songs made in the U.S. because the actual number 1 most downloaded song in the world is a song by a Japanese girl that had over 7 million downloads in Japan. If something is number one in an Asian country with all those people you may as well say it’s number one in the world. Even if the rest of the world has never heard of it.

 

Getting real about racism Part II

I talked about racism in my last post because, as everybody is painfully aware, with the election of Obama, talk about racism started blowing up the airwaves. I think everyone hoped that electing a black president would be the beginning of the end of racism and we’d all be holding hands and singing cumbaya by now. 

We're not quite there yet.....

 Of course it seems to have, at least initially, had the opposite effect since it has given racists a whole new array of forums on which they can identify themselves. A quick look at the comments section of articles about just about ANYTHING will let you know that there is still an abundance of cyber-racists lowering the bar on dialogue for everyone.  Fortunately most racists of today, especially cyber-racists, are an easily dismissible nuisance. The problem is most black people haven’t learned how to ignore them effectively. Most people who post inflammatory remarks, or bake inflammatory cookies, or draw inflammatory comics are just starved for attention. They know the stuff they say is going to piss a bunch of people off.

Yet every time this happens black people do the same thing. We reward the attention seekers with our undivided attention.

I would let this topic go but I got a text message today from a very good friend telling me to boycott Barnes and Noble. Apparently my friend was not satisfied with the appology given by the manager of the store for the unfortunate monkey book prank that was played using their display window. I did not hear this appology so I can’t speak on it. But regardless of what they said I have no plans to boycott or encourage others to boycott Barnes and Noble or any other place that contributes to increasing literacy.  My feelings on it are yes the store probably could have done a better job of monitoring their display window and yes the manager could have groveled for the forgiveness of all black people for their negligence. But is this a real issue that deserves my energy? I don’t think so. And what would be accomplished by punishing Barnes and Noble  for this anyway?

Will punishing Barnes and Noble for an incident non-incident that they are probably not even really responsible for contribute to the end of racism? Probably not.

Will giving national attention to a stupid prank encourage other pranksters to pull attention grabbing racist stunts then turn the evidence loose on the internet? Much more likely….

I was reading the comment section of a blog about this incident and saw how upset a lot of people got over this thing. One person said they had just gotten a B&N gift card, but after they heard about this incident they threw their gift card in the trash. Yeah that’ll show em!! Give them some free money! Hello the gift card was already paid for!!! Just like most knee-jerk reactions to incidents like this, this was an example of reasoning with your emotions rather than your head.

As a people we seem to wear our emotions on our sleeves. And as long as we make it known that this is the way to get to us, people will keep doing stuff like this. When you think about it does it really matter if someone thinks  black people are monkeys? Someone thinking it doesn’t make it any truer than me thinking white people don’t have rhythm* makes that a fact. Black people need to stop being so crippled by what other people think of us and focus our energy on being all the wonderful things that we actually are.

*Okay there is documented evidence to back this up all over You Tube so there is a possibility that at least in most cases this is a fact. But who cares whether I think most white people can’t dance.  Obviously some of them can. I saw America’s Best Dance Crew. Besides I told y’all I was predjudiced  in my last post.

Let’s be real about racism

Just as I predicted, now that we have a black president, the racially motivated comics and jabs have been flowing in non-stop.  And just as I expected people are getting  up in arms about things that, in my opinion, really don’t matter that much. Here are just a few notable examples.

Cookies baked in "honor" of Obama's election

Now as a black person I guess I’m supposed to be shocked, appalled , or at the very least outraged by these comics.  I’m not. What I do find shocking is how people seem to react with amazement every time someone comes out with one of these.  I liken it to a baby playing peek-a-boo who is shocked and amazed every time the person they’re playing with’s face reappears from behind their hands.  

Oh my God people are still racist!!! I can't believe it!!!

Here’s a newsflash that might come as a shock to a lot of people. It’s so shocking that any political aspirations I might have had before typing this might be shattered by these next few sentences. Okay here we go. Ahem….Most people on some level are at least a teensy bit prejudiced about people of other races.  

 Now I’m really going to put the last nail in the coffin of my political aspirations. The “most people” described in the statement above includes me.  I would be as dishonest as most politicians if I came out and said the following: I’m totally not prejudiced. I don’t even see color.   I would never laugh at a racial joke.  **

So since most people are at least prejudiced of course some people will take it to the next level to outright racism. With that said I’m never surprised when I see racist jokes and comics come out. Although I am sometimes surprised by the lack of business savvy and/or public relations expertise exercised by some of the more high profile parties that put out some of this material. But hey, everyone does or says stupid things sometimes so whatever.  For the most part I for one am not offended by racist jokes (expecially if they are funny), and even when I am offended I at least respect the people who make them’s right to free speech in this country. While I’m pretty hard to offend, I also respect peoples right to get offended about whatever they want to. ( Now racist actions are a totally different ball park. The parties involved in such acts get no sympathy from me when justice is served. But that’s another post for another day. )

All of the three jokes illustrated above resulted in some form of public outrage. The first attracted the attention of the official spokesperson for all African American outrage, Mr. Al Sharpton, and resulted in boycotting of the NY Post. The second resulted in the resignation of a California mayor. The third resulted in demonstrations outside the New York Bakery responsible for baking these commemorative cookies as well as threats to burn down the shop etc. Obviously the public is still engaged in an ongoing game of peek-a-boo with racism.

 Other than a general feeling of  indifference, here are my personal feelings on these three examples. 1) None of these jokes was particularly funny to me. (If you’re going to make a racial joke at least make it funny!) 2) All three of these cases appear to be bigger demonstrations of stupidity than they are of racism.  Newspapers are suffering right now and it seems pretty stupid to toe the line like that in this economy. Or perhaps they were just gambling big that a little controversy might attract new readers to their publication. In that case maybe the folks at the NY Post were smarter than I think. But something tells me that the widespread boycott of their paper isn’t helping sales. The watermelon patch at the white house was just a stupid email forward and I think it’s ridiculous for the mayor to lose his job over it.  I get a flood of email forwards every day. If I wasted energy being outraged every time something mildly offensive was in one I’d be tired all the time. But a mayor is a public servant so he just needed to be smarter about his. And the baker who made those cookies is obviously an idiot who no longer wants to be in business. I’m not sure how his business is doing after the incident but I doubt that  angry demonstrators outside your doorstep  is a big sales booster.

So the moral of this story is racism is still a fact of life, but it’s just not economically viable. We have this fabulous right to free speech in America that I will always stand up for.  But sometimes free speech has consequences.  Most people recognize this. That’s why most people who want to remain employed don’t go in to work and tell everyone how they really feel.  But obviously there are still some people who have to learn this the hard way.

 

**I plan expand on this in a future post….stay tuned.

Working out

Here’s a little background on my personal beliefs as they relate to physical fitness, and the use of gyms to attain this condition.

1) I don’t believe in paying to exercise.

2) I don’t think it’s supposed to hurt to be in shape.

3) I have an exercise equipment phobia (I also have an office equipment phobia but that’s another post entirely)

4) Commitment is not one of my strong points.

5) I think gyms are evil institutions that thrive by selling people some imaginary (and for many people unattainable) fitness ideal. 

Figure A: Scary Torture Device

Figure B: Note unrealistic fitness ideal posing next to torture device. This tactic is similar to the deceptive practice of strategically posing attractive women on sports cars.

With all of that said, I recently joined a gym. Joining a gym of course makes me a big ol’ hypocrite so why, you might ask, did I join? 

The primary reason I joined is my inability to pass up a good deal. I was able to get the membership for a fraction of the regular cost by signing up through my employer. But of course even at the fantastic price it’s a total waste unless I actually use the membership.  Note that I did not say that exercise is against my beliefs. It’s just the idea of paying for it that troubles me. But for at least the next year I’m bound to do just that.

There were a couple of secondary reasons I joined the gym as well. I’m a couple of years over 30 now so I figured taking better care of my body should move up a couple of notches on my priority list. But more importantly the third reason I joined is gyms tend to attract guys….in shape guys….and I figured it couldn’t hurt to add a new place that has the potential to attract guys to my hang out rotation. Clearly the activities I regularly engage in don’t attract very many men.

So basically my logic behind joining a gym is ..for lack of a better term… flugazie. I don’t have any specific fitness goals other than a desire to make sure I don’t get dangly upper arms before my time.

I also have a goal of  not accidentally losing any weight. I don’t have much weight to spare. And all of my weight fluctuations up or down tend to show up most noticably in my butt and thighs. As a black girl it’s desirable that I maintain as much of those parts as possible without gaining too much in less desirable areas.

So I need to develop a fitness routine centered around those two goals.

So how is this whole working out thing working out you ask? Well so far I have set foot in the gym 4 times. Twice I ran on the treadmill. Not because I felt like I needed a cardio workout. The treadmill was just the only piece of equipment I saw that didn’t fill me with an overwhelming sense of fear and dread.  Hopefully tomorrow some of those fears will be eased because I made an appointment to get oriented on the other equipment. The third time I went to the gym I tried a yoga class. This wasn’t so bad except all the foreign sounding positions the instructor was calling out sounded like she was casting a spell on us. I also apparently haven’t mastered focusing because my mind was everywhere but in the peaceful place she kept instructing us to go. The fourth time I went in I never even changed into my gym clothes because I wound up joking around with some of the staff until I didn’t want to work out anymore.

So basically working out hasn’t quite worked out just yet, and my feelings about gyms are pretty much the same as they were before I joined. We’ll see how my session with the trainer tomorrow affects my attitude. And just to be safe I’m about to go bake myself some chocolate chips cookies to make up for any inadvertent calories I might burn tomorrow.