"If today were the day you had to stop dancing, how would you feel.....?"

Hahahaha. Oh, Q1 2015, you have not gone well list-wise. Not even remotely. I'm starting to realize that this year may be the first year since 2009 where I fail to read at least 100 books. Ouch. It's early days and it's not too late to get back on track, but we are seriously off track. We are hiking in the wilderness; we, like, got a training from those "leave no trace" people because we are sooooooooooo far off any recognizable path.

Now, then, where exactly do we stand? Aside from at the foot of the "now you have to read so many more books each quarter if you want to catch up" mountain, I mean. As should be pretty obvious, each quarter I aim to read 25 books. This quarter I squeaked in at 20. Like, seriously under the wire with 20. I realized on Sunday that I was at 17, flipped out, and read like a fiend, and I still am failing. Le sigh.

This makes it a particularly poor time to decide to read A Dance to the Music of Time, but I found a cheap set in a used bookstore recently, and, what can I say, I'm nothing if not insane and self-defeating. I'm aiming to read them during our up coming trip to AZ.

If, like me, you are struggling to fit in reading this year, may I recommend this helpful summary of 12 novels? I think, though I'm not totally sure, that my favorite is:

“Let’s go back to Brideshead,” she said.
“Oh, what a good idea.”
It really was a good idea. They had a wonderful time revisiting Brideshead.
– Brideshead Revisited

The Captain howled "Heave ho, heave ho"/ And tied me up with sheets/ "A storm is brewing in the South"/ "It's time to go to sleep"

So, this happened:

 

 

Turn your face to the sun/ Let the shadow fall behind you

I've written about this before, but I get this question all the time, so here I'm tackling it again. How do I do it?

I tend to get asked this question with regard to either reading as many books as I do or just in general balancing my life. I think the answer just might be that I'm naturally efficient and quick, but here's another attempt at the details:

1.  I only have two hobbies, reading and aerial. 
2. Well, I guess there is fitness, but it's tied to aerial.
3. I take a lot of aerial classes a week, but because Drew and I fly together and are doubles partners, it's time together plus creative outlet plus community. So efficient!
• But also the best! Seriously. 
4. We do fitness stuff at home with the occasional spin and barre class at studios super close to home (well, I do those classes), so there's not a lot of time wasted.
5. I used to be really lazy about cooking. That's gotten better, but again we do easy-ish meals and cook together.
6. I'm not as obsessive as I'd like to be about keeping the apartment in order. You have to let some things go.
7. No children.
8. Sufficient sleep is a priority.
9. I can walk to work in 12min, so I don't waste time commuting. This is huge. While you can take a death by a thousand cuts approach to getting back time or saving money, if you can save either with huge expenses (which I do with this strangely cheap and centrally located place) and time sucks, it will make a larger impact.
10. I work when I can be effective. I get in the office early and rarely stay late because that what makes me efficient and productive. 
11. Scheduling stuff after work helps. Then I know that I have to get enough done and be efficient enough in the time I have or I can't do X fun thing.
12. Life is a marathon, not a sprint, so I pace myself and prioritize self-care.
13. I don't wear make-up or have any sort of beauty routine. I shower and brush my hair. That's really it.
14. I read all the time. If you can only read when you have time to devote 30+ min to the activity, it will be hard to get through books. If you can read for 5min and maintain mental continuity, that helps a lot.
15. I read quickly. I'm naturally a more empathetic, engaged reader, which makes me slower, but I've become increasingly analytic and detached. It's a different experience, but it's faster.
16. I track my reader and push myself when I get behind.
17. I don't waste time evaluating books, since I know that I have to read them regardless.
18. I read summaries if a book will be hard so that it's easier to follow. This feels like a cheat, but I do it anyway.
19. I'm not naturally social, so I really sort of hate going out and I prefer a small group of close people in my life. Saves time.
20. I accept that I will be mediocre at some things and focus on what is important to me, regardless of what the world thinks that I should do.
21. I don't get sucked into all the other things that I want to do, like get back into music, do Irish social dance, paint the apartment, write fiction, join bookclubs, etc. Even writing that out makes me sad. There is so much that I want to do!
22. I'm happiest when busy.

This was unexpected/What do I do now?/ Could we start again please?

I've been meaning to write something about my journey to pull-ups. The end, though, was kind of anti-climatic. One day I thought, hmm, I wonder if I can do pull-ups yet? And then I did some. But let's back up.

I think that my quads and calves were the first part of my body to get strong. My first foray into fitness was running on a treadmill and losing a significant amount of weight as a young teenager (15, I guess). Then I got into dance and kept running. I had really strong legs. Then I injured my back in college and got it back to healthy with Pilates. I got obsessed with the reformer, specifically. When I moved to DC I started doing barre to fill that need. My core got crazy strong; I think my core strength is the most remarkable thing about my fitness profile.

But my upper-body? Terrible. I couldn't even really do push-ups. Barre had a push-ups and weights section, but I never seemed to get stronger. I also didn't necessarily care all that much. At the time fitness was primarily a fun way to not blow up like a balloon (since the other option, eating less frozen yogurt, clearly isn't fun).

Then I got into aerial, and while you don't need much upper-body strength when you start, if you get serious you do. Especially if you get serious about something aside from flying. While basing involves a lot of core strength, my arms (well, back, chest, biceps, triceps, and shoulders) were/are my limiting factor. And they still weren't getting stronger. I resolved a few times to really work on pull-ups, but I never saw any progress.

It's not entirely fair to make it sound like one day I just could do pull-ups. I made some serious changes (that I am just now finally getting to writing about; sorry), but I wasn't focused on pull-ups and I didn't expect to get them so quickly. First, Drew and I did the Gamma round of Focus T25; Shaun T (best known for Insanity) does amazing cardio, but Gamma was his first really strength focused workouts. Then we did Insanity Max 30 (which is probably my favorite workout series ever), and it has strength workouts built into the schedule. They were still cardio-ish, so they were fun, but I actually got stronger. There is an odd tricep focus in them, and all of a sudden I can do tricep pushups. I never could do good ones even on my knees, even though in barre you do them every class.

I wanted to get stronger for specific aerial goals, so I asked Drew to create a regime that would focus on strength but would keep cardio (so I don't go crazy; must have cardio). He reviews and describes it here. The main ingredient is Sagi's Beachbody series called Body Beast. It's all about lifting heavy; there are drop sets and super sets and giant sets, and I sort of feel like a bro when I do it. I don't love the misogynist comments that come up (there are no women in the series, and Sagi will say things like "this is not the girly workout" or derogatorily call one of the guys "barbie"), but I was inspired by the Dumbbells and Diapers blogger.  I figured, what's the worst that could happen?

And the answer is, I'd suddenly be able to do pull-ups. On the one hand, this is exciting, but on the other hand it kind of makes me angry. Pull-ups, for whatever reasons, have this reputation as being nearly impossible for women to do, but that's not fair. Fitness is super gendered in ways that mean women don't tend to train in ways that would get them to pull-ups.

Now, I'm not at all saying we should abandon barre and spin for weight lifting. As a joke, Drew and I call it "lady fitness," since it's so silly that there are these types of physical activity seen as just for women (flip side is "guy fitness". But lady fitness is no joke; barre is hard, spin is hard; it's not that lifting is harder, it's just different and gets you to different goals. You don't need those goals, I didn't have them, I didn't train for them, and I couldn't do them. Now I train for them and I can do them, but my first love will always be super intense cardio.

It just drives me crazy, though, that we act like women just can't do something, when the issue is women not training properly because fitness is so gendered (why is everything so gendered?).

And you never know 'til you reach the top if it was worth the uphill climb./ There's a fine, fine line between love/And a waste of time.

Man, it's been so long since I just adored a list book. It's such a wonderful feeling, discovering a book through this that I'd never have read otherwise, and then just falling in love with it. Lucy Gault broke a long streak of "meh."

It sort of reminded me of Ian McEwan, whom I adore. Like many McEwan's, it's about how a moment, a small choice, a small mistake, can have huge, life-altering implications and can lead to just absolute devastation. The book is interested in how love fails and how people cope with and are shaped by guilt.

I'm also fascinated by books by adults for adults that involve children and children's inner worlds. It's so interested to compare these to books for children. There's some type of literature course here, I'm sure, on that topic.

Anyway, some favorite quotes:

"It's no good, loving one another"
"Why isn't it?"
"I'm not someone to love."
"Oh, Lucy, you are! If only you know how much you are!"

It was Bridget who had told him how his daughter's limp had lessened with the years and how a stoicism had developed in her as a child when those same years failed her, how faith had still been kept, love shattered.

Hers was a different allocation of time and circumstances from her mother's, from her father's. She could not pretend.

Big girls don't fly

In doubles/duo static trapeze, like most duo circus acts, you have a flyer and a base for each trick/pose (some tricks are dynamic, but mostly are hitting a specific pose). The base's job is to be strong and in control. The base is supporting the flyer's weight to varying degrees depending on the trick. The flyer's job is to be light, tight, and trusting of their base.

The basic example I always give is of the base in a catch-lock (similar to a knee-hang but more secure) hanging from the bar by their legs, with a fly hanging from the base's hands in an inverted split.

In a given act, partners can switch roles, but usually one person is the flyer and the other the base, at least generally. And usually, the smaller person is the flyer.

When I first started static doubles, I mostly based. This was for a number of reasons.

• I'm pretty strong
• I don't like inversions; the flyer has the scarier job generally
• I'm a natural base in that I have a good sense of how to balance my weight and the other person's
• Conversely, I'm not a natural flyer; my instinct isn't to get tight when things get scary and I have trust issues

But, one main reason was just that I felt (feel) too big to fly. I acknowledge that I'm not huge. I'm on the taller side of average at 5'7" and I clock in at about 134 Lbs anymore. During my ballet years, I weighed so much less. I also wasn't as healthy or as strong, but there is part of me that will always want that body back.

So, fine, I'm not fat. But I'm also not petite. I have curves (as my chiropractor once said, my hips would be great for popping out babies). Circus has plenty of tiny women, so when I partner with women I often get to base.

Then, Drew and I started doing doubles together. He's taller and weighs more, but not by much on either, so I can base him and sometimes do. We're working on a routine right now where I'm the base in one of the fancier moves, even. However, I am smaller and he is stronger and static is a decently gendered activity, so I mostly fly anymore.

On the one hand, this often terrifies me. Working on inversions takes a lot of steeliness from me (Mandy often says that I'm tough, and I guess maybe I am, but it doesn't really feel that way), but I keep trying.

On the other hand, it helps me tremendously that Drew is my base, since I trust him so much. There are things we do together that I really can't imagine trusting anyone else enough to base (except our instructor). I can see that for some couples partner acts would not be a good idea, but for us it works really well (even if I sometimes feel bad that I'm the weak link in our act and I know that I'm slowing him down).

I still often feel too big to fly, but I'm slowly getting past that piece, too. At first it was really hard to actually give Drew my full weight (it's weird that it made me self-conscious, but it definitely did), and I'm over that now. I'd love to end this post triumphantly saying that I'm over these issues generally and I'm comfortable as the flyer now, but I'm really not. It's a work in progress. Circus has been so many things to me, and one is a safe (albeit scary) place to work on body image demons, and to work to see my body primarily as functional and strong.

Don't run off in the pouring rain/ Don't call me as they call your plane/ Take the hurt out of all the pain

I feel like I owe a progress report, but it's seriously depressing. I have read six books so far this year (on the list, anyway). I've picked up a bit in February compared to January, but considering how bad January was it's a) not saying much and b) not enough to counter the effects. I've read 644 on the list so far. I desperately want to be at 700. I think that would help me psychologically.

That said, I'm super excited because: today I started a third list document to help me on my quest! This is huge, y'all. For years, years now I've been using two lists. One keeps track of all the books and I bold the ones I've read. I use that to help when I'm searching for books. The other is my running list of all the books that I've read. I use that when I want a quick reference for how far I'm at. It's super important to track what I've read, because honestly, at this point there are many I don't remember.

So, what's the purpose of this new list? To keep track of the books that DCPL does not have in their system. At first, tracking that didn't really matter much, since there were so many books to read I could just move along. However, as we get closer to the end of the project I won't be able to do that as much. Starting to find these books will save a lot of pain in the near future. Whenever I buy a book, usually for a trip, I should be buying books that I can't get at the library. This new list will make that easier.

I swear, one day this project will be all about me trying desperately to find a copy of Adjunct: An Undigest for like, years and years.

Sometimes love is not enough/ and the road gets tough/ I don’t know why

So, this happened (finally! I have always, always, always dreamed of going to Istanbul).

Think of all the things/ We've shared and seen/ Don't think about the things/ Which might have been

Happy 2015! Or something. I'm actually in a really bad mood due to a significant back injury (my last few days were supposed to include flying, German wheel, dance trapeze, and flying, and they include a bit of dance trapeze and a lot of bed rest). I'm potentially willing to forgive 2015 if it shapes up immediately. Right now it is on serious probation.

But, let's not forget 2014. So, how did we do?

Well, not terribly, I guess, though also not well, exactly. Once again we hit exactly 100 books. The depressing part of that is I made that about a week before the end of the year, but then rather than reading more books and getting a bit ahead, instead I read a game theory book and some super frivolous non-fiction. Le sigh.

Admittedly, 100 books is not bad (and again, I read more books than that over the year, that's the list books). It's my goal for the year after all, and I should be pleased about meeting the goal. Or something. I think that the issue here is that for awhile I was doing so much better than just meeting the base goal. 2012 I hit 100 in October and then kept going. That's definitely the year I've read the most

That said, man, 2012 was a really rough year for me. 2014 wasn't a great list year, but it was one of my best years. I'm not sure if there is an inverse correlation here, but it's not exactly unrelated, I don't think.

So it's gonna be forever/ Or it's gonna go down in flames/ You can tell me when it's over/ If the high was worth the pain

Some random thoughts that I've had this month on the march to the end (I'm at book 99 for the year, 637 for the project, if you are wondering):

Joseph Conrad is vanquished!

What kind of idiot chooses Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow when trying to read nine books in December?

I really do not understand why Anne Shirley ignored geometry for Ben-Hur. And I say this as someone who's not a fan of geometry (number theory any day).

Does it really matter if I don't read 100 books this year? What am I saying, of course it does; my life will more or less be a complete failure if I don't.

Why are so many books about horribly irritating people making horrible life choices? Money, I'm looking at you.