the glowing edge

This blog has moved!

2009-03-06T19:32:00.003-05:00

And here's the new address: http://theglowingedge.com

Over Christmas break of 2006 I set up the Blogspot blog that became The Glowing Edge. There were a few blog stutter-starts before it, all now thankfully laid to rest, but TGE kept my interest.

I had wanted to make the shift from journaling privately on paper, which I've done all my life, to writing in a public forum. It seemed easy enough, and it certainly was enjoyable to learn to work the new online tools. I didn't have great ambitions for the blog, and I still don't. I write (and now create videos, upload photos, and so on), first and foremost because I just like it, and secondly with the thought that maybe someone else (my kids someday?) would also enjoy reading.

And that's it. Really nothing spectacular, nothing poetic or grand.

Blogging has surprised me, however -- I've started to follow and get to know other bloggers and I've even met quite a few of you; that's a tremendous gift I never expected to receive. Today I find blogging even more compelling than ever, mostly because of the feeling of community. You guys have been awesome and I am very much looking forward to continuing this journey with you.

In fact, part of the reason for moving The Glowing Edge from Blogspot to WordPress was not just so that I could have more control over pages, layout, and other options, but also because I wanted to employ better tools for exchange and engagement. I'm testing out Google Friend Connect at the new TGE, and of course eventually I'll have a blogroll with all of your sites on it (if yours is missing, message me or leave a comment on the new TGE so I can add it). And I'll continue to read your blogs and leave comments and enjoy the comaraderie, the interesting points of view, photos, and other unique projects and experiences that each of you have.

This feed will no longer be refreshing, but a new feed is set up over at the new place; Blogspot gives me no way (that I know of) to transfer these feeds so you'll have to meander over and connect again when you get a chance.

And there's still a lot to be done at the WordPress site. Most of the links still lead back here (I'm working on it), there's category and tag mess to clean up (ditto), and endless tinkering to enjoy. The WP theme "Thesis" is fabulous, by the way, and of all the themes I've messed about with, it's by far the best and the most flexible. Incredibly well-supported, too. I ponied up for the developer's license, and I highly recommend it if you're rolling your own, too.

But here's to the best part: sharing the journey. Thanks for being a part of it up to this point; I hope you'll come along for the next bit, too.

A beautiful snow

2009-03-02T08:06:00.006-05:00

Last year we didn't get any snow at all in Raleigh, so I really hoped for at least one or two this year. My wish has been granted: the last snow kept me home with the boys, but this one I could drive to work in and really enjoy in a different way. It was beautiful; I could see the line of the storm front and the blue sky beyond our clouds -- the quality of light was astonishing and I wished I had my camera. Local Dave Johnson, known on Twitter as @snoopdave, did have his camera this morning:
Incidentally, it's supposed to be 70 degrees by Saturday. I love North Carolina.

The Pie Cheese Story

2009-02-28T14:56:00.001-05:00

The Pie Cheese Story from Lisa Creech Bledsoe on Vimeo.

One of our family's favorite stories of mistaken food identity, as only the Maker can tell it.

Google poetry

2009-02-20T13:50:00.005-05:00

I'm sick of the Facebook tagging stuff, I tell you, sick and perishing. Okay, just one more: this time, I'm typing random stuff into Google and letting it forecast what I am about to say.

Lisa is

cooking
your birthday
awesome
cooking your birthday happy birthday Lisa
no longer attending the metuchen congregation of jehovah's witnesses

I’m thinking

tonight of my blue eyes
its a sign that the freckles in our eyes are mirror images
about my doorbell
of a master plan lil wayne
arbys costume
about getting metal legs
about suicide
of a master plan cause ain't nothing but sweat inside my hand
of a master plan snoop

Careful

with that axe Eugene

Enough with your

god damn pancakes
your magical riddles

I though those last two were particularly succinct. Now I'll put money on the fact that you're gonna go over there to Google and do it too. Money.

Who is the JokeMaster?

2009-02-12T09:18:00.001-05:00

The Jokemaster from Lisa Creech Bledsoe on Vimeo.

I interviewed the boys about jokes they'd heard lately, then they turned the tables and interviewed me. I think we'll all agree who wins this little exercise.

Leave us a comment and share your jokes!

Running out of bad words

2009-02-11T11:01:00.004-05:00

Warning: Boxing is a contact sport. Users of this gear are subject to personal injury. These products offer a degree of protection but are not warranted to protect the user from injury.

Every piece of boxing gear I own says this, and you can trust the author: it’s perfectly true. I have had a sprained wrist (training for boxing), injured shoulder (training for boxing), and now a busted rib (boxing). The first two I whined about, but with this one I have run slap out of bad words and need to borrow some, if you have any extras lying about.

The biggest fattest butt-pain about this is trying to get in bed at night, attempting sleep movements (just don’t), and trying to get out of bed in the morning. If we could dispense with the whole “people should rest at night” thing I’d probably be just fine. Although that may be taking it a bit far.

The doctor was all nonchalant: “Yeah, I see this ALL the time, football players with rib injuries,” then, belatedly, “How did you get this injury again?”

He flattered me out of the meds I wanted, though. He said, “Most of the guys who come in here are moaning and can’t breathe, all hunched over…” He eyed me standing there calmly, and considered his hunchbacks of Notre Dame football. “You seem to be doing pretty well,” he concluded, “You’re in pretty good shape.”

Things I wish I’d said at that point:

“Boxer chicks are tuff.”
“I had natural childbirth three times.”
“You should see me skip rope.”
“I have a tattoo.”

What I actually did was stand there and nod my head stupidly when he said he thought I could probably get by on ibuprofen. He did tell me he would write a prescription “if you really think you need it,” but I was enamored with the idea of being tuff and lost my chance. Crap. (See what I mean about the bad words?)

He also told me that the football players wear a piece of gear that protects their ribs, and he dashed out of the examining room, then came back to tell me the name of the supplier. I started to remind him that I wasn’t a football player, but opted out in the end. I’ll bet the football gear says the same thing the boxing gear says anyway.

So. I’m out of the game for a couple of months, and the main reason I’m grouchy is that it is just so hard to get in condition. Getting in condition is harder than getting in the ring and you spend more time and energy doing it. Given how horrifying the thought of getting hit in the ribs is right now, I feel a fair amount of trepidation about getting in the ring, but I’m guessing that will fade as I heal. And I have to start with conditioning anyway, so my main focus will be on figuring out how to do that. Again. Damnit.

Click here to read more incredibly fascinating boxing posts.

Violet Vector and the Lovely Lovelies!

2009-02-06T13:04:00.005-05:00

I wanna go see these fabulous people, live, Now. I also wanna be as adorable as Amanda is. (Patience! Open a new tab and do something else for a sec and let it load, you won't be sorry you did.)

Note: I did end up making it to their show at the Pour House in downtown Raleigh and they were incredible. I expect to see them go far!

The Shame Line is Open

2009-01-29T16:20:00.004-05:00

Three months ago I picked up a jump rope for the first time since I was eight years old. Watching me try to manage a few hops was probably like watching a drunk steer stagger around a corral, except with cursing. I couldn’t believe something so simple, so universal, so obvious could be so impossible. Elementary age girls all over the world do this!

But that’s how it was, and there was no getting around the fact that if you are a boxer, you also will jump rope. There’s a good reason for this correlation. Jumping rope incinerates calories (up to 1000 an hour); improves your posture, timing, and coordination; powers up your heart even better than running does with less impact on your knees; and costs ~~nearly nothing~~ fifty dollars. I should say more about that I guess.

After three or four humiliating sessions of attempting to jump rope, I did what any middle-class American woman would do. I tried to purchase my way out. I watched my trainer and several other team mates effortlessly skip their way – without misses – through round after round of jump rope drills. Their ropes had shiny silver handles and whistling clear tubes for the “rope”. I could tell something was helping the rope swivel without twisting. I decided that if I had one of those jump ropes, I would be graceful and skilled, too. Har.

So like many others before me, I got sent to the Buddy Lee Jump Rope website, and I paid my (cough) fifty dollars, and my path to success arrived in the mail about a week later. During the intervening time I did my best to convince my husband that fifty dollars was a reasonable price to pay for a glorified string with handles. It didn’t go well.

And I learned what everyone learns. Jumping rope skills take time and practice to build, no matter how awesome and ridiculously expensive your jump rope is.

Eventually my drunken, cursing steer act evolved into a mildly irritated and slightly graceless steer act. Then, in the space of a week or so, I left behind the bovine analogy all together. I am now a pretty good jump roper. In fact, I can jump rope for half an hour straight with a few misses, throwing in the occasional twist-the-rope-in-front trick, a running sprint, and the standard pogo. I’m not yet as graceful on the “boxer shuffle” but I’m gaining ground daily.

So. When I’m not at the boxing gym I go to a regular fitness center, and for two months or so I’ve been taking my diamond-studded jump rope with me and doing my thing. Until I started jumping rope at that gym, I NEVER ONCE saw anyone jumping rope. After a couple of weeks I noticed I had set off a trend of guys (and guys only) who suddenly decided to do so. And now there’s an interesting pattern that I bear witness to nearly every single time I go.

It goes like this.

I get to the gym and post, in ink that only guys can read, a sign that only guys can see, on the front of the huge glass-walled aerobics room where I typically jump. The sign says: “The Shame Line is Open.” This draws them in, one at a time, for a whuppin. During the 30 minutes or so that I'm calmly jumping rope and making it look easy, they come in, pick out one of the barely-used jump ropes hanging on the rack, flex their muscles a bit (neck rolls are a favorite, I’ve noticed), then proceed to whip it for about eight jumps.

Whereupon they invariably miss, glance over to where I’m serenely running my routine, and start again. They NEVER try to Just Jump Rope. They have to throw a trick, or sprint, or double jump, and they fail. This is frustrating to them because they remember in high school how they could do this, at least a little bit. And they were cool, yes they were. And darn it, they still are.
They never last an entire minute. And honestly, I never lasted at the beginning either. But jumping rope is absolutely nothing like riding a bike; it’s a skill you have to develop and maintain.

I feel some sympathy, in an amused 43-year-old woman kind of way. But I’m not closing down shop or anything. Somebody’s gotta run the Shame Line. Might as well be me.

The Pink Pantsuit

2009-01-24T15:32:00.003-05:00

When I was about eight years old my great-grandmother gave me a pink pantsuit that she had lovingly sewn by hand just for me; it was a cotton-synthetic mix, required no ironing, and was precisely the color of a cat's tongue.

I was in a private elementary school and in some odd twist of religious reasoning, girls weren't allowed to wear pants to school unless they were part of a pantsuit. This meant that in addition to the pants, you had a matching jacket and often a vest as well, the addition of which somehow transformed the pants – in themselves a tool of masculinity and possibly immodesty and the devil – into an honorable part of schoolday attire for a second-grade suburban girl. I was violently opposed to dresses, which I considered highly impractical for dodgeball and kickball, my two favorite activities during recess; pantsuits met school requirements and allowed me to maintain my ferociously defended and regularly challenged position as queen of the asphalt.

My family lived carefully, in those years, on the lower edge of the middle class; paying for a private school for me required sacrifice. Gifts were carefully considered and occasioned a fair amount of celebration, perhaps because of their rarity and thoughtfulness. Interestingly, gifts were also often extravagant. A basketball goal. A Raleigh road bike. A trip to not one, but two movies. I was thrilled at the indication of love that the carefully hand-sewn pink pantsuit represented. I was a cherished great-granddaughter; a child over whom much care had been taken. It wasn’t that I liked pink (I didn't particularly) or thought I would look attractive (I had never considered such a thing); in my mind and heart the physical outfit itself was minor compared to the rush of gratitude I experienced at being the object of such devotion.

My favorite outfit from the year previous was a three-piece purple paisley corduroy pantsuit (with bell bottoms!) and I'd loved it so well that my mother had taken me to Olan Mills to pose on their white shag carpet for a portrait. I had just outgrown that outfit when the pink pantsuit arrived in a cardboard shirt box with white tissue paper folded around it.

I had no idea, until I got to school, that clothes made by hand (and one could tell!) occupied the absolute lowest rung on the social status ladder. I had not even been aware that there was such a ladder. To this day I'm not sure how it was communicated. Was I sneered at? Were my sleepover invitations declined? Did I get picked last for kickball? Nonetheless, it was communicated, and I silently, shamefully, pushed the pink pantsuit to the back of my closet.

From that point I began to cultivate a carefully edgy "I don't have to follow the rules if I don't want to" approach. When with great ceremony I was inducted into the National Honor Society, I horrified my parents and extended family by choosing to wear sloppy overalls and leaving my sneakers unlaced. I wore cowboy boots to our very traditional church on Sundays. I reluctantly purchased one dress for my high-school graduation, and later refused to attend my college or graduate school graduation ceremonies. My wedding dress was a white cotton everyday garment; it was the first dress I saw when I walked into Goldsmith's on the day I could no longer put off finding something in which to get married.

Mussie, wherever you are, thank you for your unreserved love. I didn't wear your pantsuit much, but it helped me become the slightly out-of-the-mainstream, fiercely determined, and sometimes relentless woman I am today. Maybe there were days when I took it too far. But you know what? It felt good to be a woman who made my own way. I cherished your gift, and I loved you. You shaped me more than you knew, and I'm glad to be the woman I am.

Does it hurt?

2009-01-22T20:24:00.005-05:00

It's funny how many people ask me this about boxing. Short answer: yes. If that's all you need to hear, that's cool, but it's one of those simple questions (like "Is there really a Santa Claus?" and "What does Paris Hilton do?") that perhaps calls for a more complex answer. Lucky you! I'm here to elaborate.

Beginning with the obvious, it hurts to get punched in the face. Ditto ribs, gut, and ears. Even with big, puffy boxing gloves and headgear on, it hurts. One's nose, particularly, stings quite a bit when you get popped there. Teary eyes and bloody noses are not uncommon. But here's the cool thing: when you learn that you can actually take a punch, that's pretty awesome. And when you learn you can last an entire round, that's even more incredible.

But the simplest fact of the matter is that in boxing, you don't spend most of your time being punched in the face (ribs, gut, ears). You spend most of your time training and conditioning.

And that's what hurts.

To really bring this home for you, let me give you the list of the top five tortures a boxing trainer inflicts upon her willing (yea, even eager) pupils. And I won't even include the things you can't eat any more.

1. Neck snaps. Heh. An accurate name if there ever was one. Lay on your back in the ring with your shoulders and head suspended over the edge. On the trainers count, snap your head quickly to the right three times like so: One, two, three, ONE. One, two, three, TWO. And so on to ten. You should be completing the ten snaps in about fifteen seconds total. Then you do ten to the left. Double time, now, and keep your eyes open. Now that your neck is starting to seize up, do ten to the front, really lifting your head as high and a quickly as you can. When your trainer finishes that set and starts everyone over again from the beginning, you may feel as if you are going to pass out or die. You should be so lucky; this is only the second set, and there's still one more to go.

2. Ring slides. These sound and look innocuous, but they're deadly. A group of five gets in the boxing ring and forms a circle, facing in. Aaaaaall you have to do is glide sideways, as fast as you can, in that circle with your teammates, for as long as the trainer says. She who holds the stopwatch is your master, and you are the slave. Now move it. At first it's okay, but after about 2.5 minutes the bottoms of your feet start to burn. Periodically the coach will shout, "Switch!" and you change directions, but it doesn't help. After several three-minute rounds of this, you will sob with relief when the trainer calls time. The next day you will have massive, slidey blisters on the bottoms of your feet. You will moan a lot and annoy all the people around you. You will avoid the gym like the Black Death.

3. Arm circles. When the trainer tells you to purchase a couple of two- or three-pound weights, do so immediately. Because if you fail to show with your little weights, they will punish you by making you use the five-pound or heavier weights, and you will experience serious agony in short order. Stick your thus-laden hands straight out in front of you and begin to make little tiny circles. Again, the count is One, two, three, ONE, and you'll do 25 in the front, then without dropping your arms do 25 straight up above your head, then 25 behind your back (you gotta hunch over for those), then 25 with your arms extended out to your sides. Whatever you do, don't drop your arms or the whole team will suffer for it. For the cherry on top, extend your arms out to the front again and Just. Hold. It gets worse. Because that's only the first set.

4. Mountain climbers. Push-up position. Pull your feet, one at a time, up to your chest, as if the floor were a vertical wall and you were Spiderman climbing it. Pretend Dr. Octopus is chasing you and you have to go really fast. Do ten million repetitions, and keep your butt down. This is why it sucks to be a superhero.

5. Duck walks. Squat all the way – I said ALL the way down, until your behind is hanging an inch or two from the floor. Now walk. Quickly. While carrying a 12-pound medicine ball at the back of your neck, lifting it straight up in the air, then returning it as you duck walk. Do laps. This is the only exercise I simply can not do (although all my in-their-20's teammates can). I'm guessing it's the over-40 factor, along with the rice krispies I have in my knees.

There are more tortures, but I think you get the idea. Strangely, my boxing team meets twice each week for a two-hour session of this sort of thing, and generally speaking those of us who are on the team also commit to three other gym sessions on our own every week as well. Go figure.

So yes, Virginia. Boxing hurts. But for some reason, we do it anyway.

Click here to read more of the boxing posts.

Snodude

2009-01-22T18:16:00.007-05:00

In which Mom comes out to photograph the snodude and its creators... (that's the Maker in yellow)

In which the Ice (pink hair, background) launches a snowball toward an unsuspecting target as the snodude creators nap...

In which the Ice unleashes a snowball at ME!

In which everyone wants to get in the picture.

Wow. Just look at that green NC grass...

Inauguration Central

2009-01-22T17:53:00.003-05:00

Who needs a TV when you have Teh Internets (a dusty series of tubes). We watched the inauguration on CNN, and when their servers bailed (c'mon, CNN, did you not KNOW people would be logging on??), we switched over to Joost, which didn't have a single hiccup.

Leave me a comment telling me how often you dust.

The Ice's SnObama Pix

2009-01-22T17:40:00.004-05:00

Finally! We got a lovely great snow (I'm inclined to call it a snobama) on the day of the inauguration. The Ice was up before dawn, thrilled to catch the first downy layer. He ended his picture taking with a happy self-portrait:

Eyes on the prize: beating back the flight impulse (again)

2009-01-11T20:45:00.007-05:00

A good workout and five decent rounds in the ring today. It was the first time I ever came away with a headache, mild though it was. My trainer's been letting me take more frequent and intense punches, I think, and she's also set off my flight reflex again. It's unbelievable how strong the desire to step backward and turn away is.

Today she pointed out how, after I take a jab or a hook to the head, I am (belatedly) throwing my guard up and physically turning my head away so that I can't see her, thus allowing her the chance to reset and prepare her next move. By the time I turn my head back into position she's already launching her next attack. It's amazing how dramatically your boxing game can improve if you can take a punch and continue to stare straight ahead at your opponent, while also keeping your (ringing, buzzing, just clocked) head clear enough to plan and release an offensive. Aaargh. Who knew boxers had to think and work so hard?

It sounds incredibly simple, doesn't it? Keep your eyes on your target. Sharpshooters do it. Ballplayers do it. Even guys tossing darts in a bar do it. And boxers absolutely have to do it, yet over and over again we fail to do it. It would seem to be natural and obvious. Yet so often I hear our coaches tell us, "Open your eyes! Keep your eyes on your opponent." Why would we have to be told that?

The difference for boxers has to do not only with the flight impulse, but also with cultural notions of appropriate space and aggression. Basketball players may get in each other's personal space, and even look at each other intently, but the basketball and the goal are the real focal points, and the visual interactions between players are rapid-fire rather than prolonged. Runners look toward the next hurdle, the horizon, or the finish line, not at another runner's eyes. Football players, particularly linemen, probably come closer to understanding this issue than any other I can think of, but even they don't continue to stare down the opposing lineman after the block. It's incredibly hard to be that close to an obvious and understood aggressor and watch them intensely, even after getting hit. It feels completely unnatural.

Some parts of the complex interactions in boxing can be practiced. Obviously we train for power and endurance. Our coaches also work hard to prepare us to overcome or be resistant to dizziness and head shock (spin training, neck exercises, etc.), and to increase our ability to react quickly (speed and timing drills). But there's not a single exercise I know of that can help you learn to keep your eyes on your opponent after they rock you a good one to the head; it just takes experience in the ring.

And it's just plain crazy how happy I was today to not only get some of that experience, but also to begin to tease out the reasons for what makes it so difficult. Now. Somebody please pass the ibuprofen.

If fascinated, click here to see previous boxing posts.

A break-up post

2009-01-09T11:57:00.006-05:00

Sigh. I once loved making playlists. I carefully chose themes, burned discs, and kept the glove compartment in my car full. I posted lots of my playlists here. But then I met Paste. They carefully chose themes, burned discs, and kept my glove compartment full for me. I felt cared for.
Then I met Pandora for iPhone. If you love free, uninterrupted, picked-just-for-you, fully customizable music and haven't been over to Pandora in a while, it's worth a trip. They have added some great features, like bookmarking and sharing. For a while there were rumors of Pandora's demise, but so far they are still going strong.

Now when I'm in the car, I just plug in my iPhone and have all the custom music I could ever want pouring out of my speakers. I can change genres on the fly, discover new artists, and mark (and/or purchase -- they give you the option of course) notable songs or recording artists. I get smooth, ad-free music all the way home. I would pay a subscription fee for this, but so far, they haven't asked for it.

Dear Pandora: You are so much better than all those others! I don't even think about them any more. I hope we'll be together for a good long while.

Engine goosing for geeks

2009-01-09T11:04:00.005-05:00

So, the Husband is working on refinancing our house, mortgage rates being so low and all, and that is just a genuine thrill to start with. Really, he's read multiple books, cruised websites, asked for recommendations, the whole deal. I more or less ignored the whole thing until it came time to unfreeze my credit file. Since he was in charge of the bigger refinancing project, I asked him to be on standby through Skype, where we had a chat box open, in case I had any questions during my phone conversation with the Equifax people. This is a screenshot of our conversation. Now there's an excited man.

Lesson learned, girls: when you're looking to get your guy's engine going, call Equifax and unlock your credit so he can refinance your house! Works every time for me!

click to enlarge image

Beating the clinch

2009-01-05T05:54:00.008-05:00

I'm about 155 pounds and 5'8". Thomas is 180 pounds of solid muscle, and perhaps an inch shy of my height. A triathlete for the past ten years and a competitive wrestler as well, he moves with lightning speed and power. And as is more common with highly experienced athletes, all of his movements are carefully controlled. Which is why, after seeing him spar with my trainer, I was perfectly willing to get in the ring with him, and learn what he had to teach me.

Beyond his punching power and speed, I knew he would be incredibly savvy in slipping my jabs, ducking, and getting in low. Although we are both over 40, he seems to have knees that will do anything for him. I would have to protect my stomach, ribs, and kidneys. Sometimes that feels like a catch-22: if my gloves are in front of my face (where they are needed!), my gut is exposed regardless of how well my elbows are tucked in. This is partly why boxers sometimes look a bit hunched over; they are protecting more of their body. Me, I don't hunch very well. A lifetime of good posture makes me box like a plank. Think Pinocchio with poorly-oiled joints. The Tin Man, pre-Dorothy. It's pathetic.

But I do have long arms, which means an opposing boxer wants to get inside my reach in order to deliver the body blows, which is where the clinch comes in. When someone comes close in with a flurry of blows I simply can. not. think. anymore. I'm exhausted, and the only response I've been able to muster up is a hunched (hey, finally!) clinch. Plus begging for mercy, which isn't pretty.

Over and over again in the ring with Thomas I'd find myself there, being relentlessly pummeled from a clinch. He controlled his punches, but my ribs were taking a beating. "What do I do??" I finally huffed, the third or fourteenth time. "I don't know what to do when I get in this position!"

That seemed to flick a switch in Thomas (who is truly a very nice guy), who backed up and said, "Oh. You start throwing your uppercut at me. Really lean in to it, and if one doesn't work, throw another. Shove me off and land your right as soon as I'm back in range. That oughta help."

And darned if it didn't.

I've never landed an uppercut on my trainer before, but Thomas politely enjoyed several and came back for more, making me repel the clinch and shove him away again and again. It was a little like punching and shoving a slow-moving train, but it marks the first time I've felt able to do something about being utterly under siege.

Here's to ring time, where learning meets motivation.

Click here to read previous boxing posts.

I'm looking for a fight

2009-01-04T21:49:00.004-05:00

I didn't start out that way, honest. I started out just looking for a way to stay in shape despite a crunchy knee that prevented me doing distance runs. And there was that heavy bag that the Husband carted home for the boys that piqued my interest. But even when I shifted gears from regular boxing classes to joining the boxing team, I told everyone that I just wanted to learn technique.

Hello, have I met me? I'm frankly embarrassed at this flagrant show of self-ignorance. I'm competitive and athletic. I love a challenge that engages mind and body. I'm bossy and overbearing (truly pummel-worthy).

The fact is that no matter how slowly the ride began, the minute I climbed into an actual boxing ring and had a go at the sweet science, I was hooked. It was exactly like my first roller coaster ride: all the watching and studying just can't compare to the incredible thrill of a single three-minute round. The need to focus, respond, endure, and deliver with power and speed is a competitive athletic person's elixir of life.

So I shamefacedly went to my trainer and began my long speech in which I intended to admit that I would be utterly grateful to her if she could please get me a fight. This year. The sooner the better. Despite what I told her earlier. But first of course I needed to justify my changed position and include some stuff about how dedicated I would be. I had pirated parts of the "Mom, can we keep him, he'll be real quiet and I promise I'll feed him every day" speech and re-worked it for my purpose.

She let me begin without laughing in my face, but as I floundered around with my build-up, she shifted her feet and began looking around the gym for a distraction that might prove more interesting. I relented. "You know what I'm going to say, don't you?" I asked, embarrassed.

"Well, yeah," she told me, kindly not smacking her forehead. Or mine. She waited.

"I want to fight!" I exclaimed.

"Well, yeah," she responded calmly.

"Can you get me a fight?" I asked, puppy dog hopeful.

"I can try," she promised.

And thus began my fascinating indoctrination into the ways of competitive amateur boxing. Weight classes and rules have changed this year; I have to lose a few pounds in order to be at the top of my weight class (142-152 lbs) rather than the bottom. I have to start saving money because I'll almost certainly have to travel out of state to get a match, given the dearth of female boxers in the Masters (i.e., old people – 35 and above) class. I need to get very serious about sparring time, conditioning, and training with the team.

And I can hardly wait.

Click here to read previous boxing posts.

What I use my lingerie bags for

2009-01-04T16:50:00.002-05:00

Calm down, I'm not posting about lingerie. But you know those nifty little mesh lingerie bags that you are supposed to use in order to keep your delicate lacy whatevers from getting torn up and damaged by the big bad washing machine? Yeah, I use them not for lingerie (I've been into "nots" today), but for my boxing hand wraps.

Wraps are about 15 feet long each. Throw two (or worse, four or six) of them in the washing machine with all your other laundry and you have a recipe for wet, irritating, knotted hell. Which I believe is why many boxers don't wash them. Ever. Which is part of the reason boxing gyms have such an incredible, dog-you-in-your-dreams, worse-than-high-school stink. WASH your wraps, boys. But I digress.

This little conundrum is easily solved: when you get back from the gym, toss your nasty, stinky, smelly, sweaty hand wraps in a lingerie bag and leave said bag and its vile cargo in the laundry hamper. When your husband is moving clean wash from the washer to the dryer, he finds a tidy little lingerie bag (which gives him a warm feeling) and sees that you have thoughtfully made his job just that much easier. He removes the (not tangled! fresh-smelling!) wet wraps from the lingerie bag and hangs them over the pull-up bar where someone will find and roll them up for you later (your kids will like this job).

LeSigh. Housekeeping made painless. Boxing made fragrant. And you thought it couldn't be done.

"Did not" Christmas Vacation

2009-01-04T16:40:00.004-05:00

I'm trying to recall if I've ever had two weeks and three weekends off in a row. I don't think I have, and this one was incredible. Here's the short list of what I did not do:

did not travel
did not cook or eat any huge meals
did not box for a week
did not go to any Aftershock gigs
did not send out Christmas cards
did not get a Christmas tree
did not spend too much for Christmas
did not drink much alcohol
did not make New Year's resolutions
did not send or answer email
did not blog
did not do (or stress over) any work-related stuff

For contrast, here's what this freed me up for:

learned to sew
sent my first mail art
enjoyed oceans of hot tea
read eight or ten novels
rented five movies
drew, cut, and pulled prints for two linocuts
re-read Zone Perfect Meals in Minutes; began shifting my diet
enjoyed my family
averaged 10 hours of sleep a night

I have to say, it was awesome and I highly recommend the "nots" in particular. What did you not do this year?

What "going steady" used to look like

2008-12-10T15:38:00.007-05:00

Nearly 50 years ago, when my mother was in high school, every girl had a set of these two pins. When they were "going steady" with a guy, girls wore the whale pin. The duck was reserved to mark availability. Why whale and duck?? Where did they get them? And why does the whale look so... dismal? My mother doesn't know; please leave me a comment below to inform or speculate.

When I was in high school we either wore a guy's jacket (for me, this was the Husband's maroon nylon windbreaker with elastic wrists and aluminum snaps up the front, oooh wee) or their class ring. Guys' moms hated the latter, I'm sure; after shelling out $300 for a Balfour that said "Craigmont Chiefs" on one side and "Class of '84" on the other, some fritzy-headed teenage girl leaves it in the school bathroom and it's gone forever.

I didn't do that, I swear.

I mean, I did do it, but I remembered and ran back to the restroom (risking a detention slip) and found one of the nice cleaning ladies just then picking it up.

I never told.

PS: Thanks, Alex, for taking the macro photo : )

My Shoes Sparklez!

2008-12-09T20:07:00.006-05:00

So November was my birthday month, all Lisa, all month, it was awesome and I highly recommend it. Especially if you can score summa these.

My friend (also named Lisa, it's kismet) had listened to me exclaim whenever I saw the elementary school girls at church with those awesome red glitter Dorothy shoes, or anything else remotely sparkly, which of course they didn't make when I was a kid, and which I never see in Target or Shoe Show in my size. So! She got on the ol' interweb and got me my very own disco ball shoes and as soon as I ripped open the box I kicked off my boring but beloved Sauconys and determined to never let the sparklies leave my feet. Except that they were bunching up the sheets, so...

Still. Hat tip and heel click goin' out to Lisa Shelden, the Rockin-est!

Why I box

2008-11-29T13:44:00.006-05:00

I box in a suburban gym. Everything is branded "LA Boxing" in chirpy red and blue. The branding makes me think Hollywood weight loss, and in fact, most people are here to lose weight or get fit. It's clean, carpeted, and full of sunshine most days. There are no cement floors, wooden pallets, musty lockers. The lockers are tidy cubbyholes like you would see in an elementary school. The only difference is that these are guarded by a video camera; the equipment people have here does not come cheap, and it is like as not to be stolen without such precautions.

None of this fits with my fantasy of being part of a dark, cramped boxing gym with big, quiet Rocky types or ropy bantamweights and their arthritic old-man trainers. But it's certainly reflective of my life, none of which ever took place in New York or inner-city Chicago. I've lived most of my life in the suburbs of Memphis, Tennessee or North Carolina. Mine is a universe of shopping malls and bedroom communities, two car garages and Saturdays mowing the lawn.

Contrary to my initial experience at LA Boxing, there are actually plenty of women at the gym, I just never see most of them. It seems like most of the women go to kickboxing classes and rarely come to a boxing class. It reminds me of the seventies, when great waves of women suddenly decided to sign up for jazzercise and self-defense classes. I never did that, not because I thought anything was wrong with it, but because I was motivated by different things.

I hate kickboxing. There are no rules, no boundaries. Almost anything goes in kickboxing. In boxing you have a stance, there are ways you move and duck and punch that remain the same, no matter what. There's a purity about boxing that I love, as well as a sense of history and tradition. I can't name one kickboxer, but I know Muhammad Ali, George Foreman, Sugar Ray Leonard, Joe Frazier, and Leon Spinks. There's a lot of theater and drama here, but also a lot of incredibly difficult work, endurance, pain, and even legend associated with boxing.

Boxing engages my competitive spirit, my desire to be good at something that not everybody wants to do, and my desire to learn from masters. The sport demands my strength, my intellect, my focus, and my patience. I train in a suburban gym, but I'm a part of something with history and heart. I don't box to lose weight. I don't box in order to be able to defend myself. I box because boxing is beautiful, difficult, and inspiring. There are heroes here, and I want to know and be a part of their greatness.

The other boxing posts:
I'm Learning to Box
Boxing Update: Curiosity killed the cat
Mike V: 12 blazing seconds on the heavy bag
Getting in Boxing Shape: How many ice packs does one need?
I got my first boxing trophy

Happier than a bird with a french fry

2008-11-21T09:56:00.005-05:00

I totally couldn't resist reposting this fabulous Etsy find. Perfect, isn't it?

Playing the banana lottery

2008-11-18T12:19:00.004-05:00

I have four guys in my family. Nobody really cooks much, so I try to keep reasonably healthy and easy-to-eat (read: no actual cooks are used in the making of this item) foods around for them. Bananas are on the list.

But my family is funny about bananas. They will love them, devour them, never let them go bad some of the time. I may pick up bananas twice, or even three times in a given week because they are eating so many of them. But sometimes I buy a bunch of bananas and… they sit there. Growing their inevitable brown spots. And I will say brightly to my boys at every new opportunity, "Banana for your cereal, hmm?" or "How about a peanut butter and banana sandwich tonight?" or "Would you like to take a nice banana for your lunch/snack/friend today?"

I am a terrible banana salesperson. They never go for this.

I am slowly coming to grips with the fact that my family has a collective banana toggle switch and it's either on or it's off. There's no place I can check on this switch, either. The only way to know if everyone is "banana on" is to actually purchase some and see. It's exactly like playing the lottery. Insert money, receive bananas. Sorry, you're a big banana loser today. Please buy again!

I used to have a fantasy about making banana bread after losing the banana lottery. I would in complete good faith tuck my bananas into the freezer beside the pot pies, pizza, burritos, and the few other "instant" freezer foods I stock. "Sleep well, little bananas," I would whisper, "I'll be back for you!" Six months later one of the boys would drag them out and shout (because they always shout) for someone (who, do you think?) to throw them out to make room for more pizzas, a science experiment, or even (this is a true story) six Tupperware containers full of rare North Carolina snow.

So now the losing bananas feed our worms. Which, by the way, are now free range worms. Of course I feel guilty, starving children in Haiti and so forth.

But three times in a row now I've brought home bananas and they've all been eaten. I'm on a lucky streak, and I really feel like I can win. I plan to play again.