Just 'cause...
...I'm part of the problem and adding more analysis and critical thinking to the steaming heap, don't think I've abandoned my freakish new comment policy.
If you want to add more critical thinking, you have to create something as well. Offer a feeling or tell me an experience or describe something.
I owe bigtime for those two long posts, but for now I'll give you:
Stood in front of the thigh-high box, eyes wide. For all my life, jumping has meant ankle rolling. But she told me to leap and I pumped my arms twice to wind up and hopped lightly onto the box. I could do it again and I did! Lots of times, into a soft crouch, with clearance to spare. I could even jump down, forwards and backwards.
If you want to add more critical thinking, you have to create something as well. Offer a feeling or tell me an experience or describe something.
I owe bigtime for those two long posts, but for now I'll give you:
Stood in front of the thigh-high box, eyes wide. For all my life, jumping has meant ankle rolling. But she told me to leap and I pumped my arms twice to wind up and hopped lightly onto the box. I could do it again and I did! Lots of times, into a soft crouch, with clearance to spare. I could even jump down, forwards and backwards.
posted by Megan at 5:37 PM
6 Comments:
We did plyometrics in high school track. I was terrified of jumping over the high boxes because I thought I'd catch my feet on the top and eat it.
The other day I was walking down the street and I made eye contact with this girl. Sometimes I do it on purpose, seeing someone attractive and catching their eye, but this time I was surprised. Not really prepared for it, you know? I was preoccupied, thinking about something else, and all of a sudden I'm aware that this girl and I are looking at each other.
So I looked at her for a second (we're still walking) and she's just on the plain side of pretty, and I'm thinking about whether or not I want to try and talk to her. She looks like she might be interested, and all of a sudden I'm afraid, like what if I ask her out and we get together and I'm not happy? Because that's how much I overthink, get ahead of the situation, psych myself out. So we get within a few yards and I break the eye contact. And walk on my way.
So I walk along for a while, wondering whether I'm a coward or not, wondering whether I'll die alone or not. Because that's how melodramatic I am, I'm like a teenager, I swear. And I'm getting close to my destination, and I walk by another girl. Prettier. And I catch her eye, for a moment. And I nod my head, sort of a "hi", sort of an acknowledgment, I don't know what it means exactly. But women mostly don't like it; they almost always break the eye contact when I do that, don't know why.
And that's just what this girl does, she breaks the eye contact and looks past me like I'm not even there, and I walk up to where I'm going. And I'm thinking about how I must just be that ugly or something, that whenever I actually nod at someone like we might actually do something more than just walk by each other, then they shut me out. And I think I might actually die alone, although this time I recognize I'm being melodramatic.
But it takes me several minutes before I catch the symmetry between those two situations. And then I feel dumb, like I'm so self-absorbed I can't see how I treat other people. Can't see how someone did to me exactly what I had just done to someone else.
That's my experience.
My critical comment is this: if analysis is your strong suit, then go ahead and analyze. Yeah, sure, definitely make a point of getting out of your head every now and then, but don't apologize for being thinky if you're good at it. And if, some day, you're not in the mood for analysis, if it's just too much right then, just skip it. You don't always have to engage. If someone's being analytical and it makes you feel bad, just skip over it.
You choose when to engage. If someone is being overly thinky in the comments, it's not always your responsibility to respond. Not even now.
If you feel like you have to stop people from being analytical (or exact some kind of payment for it), that's just as pedantic as when commenters feel like they have to dispute every single point of your post. There's just as much stop-energy in your new comment-policy as there is in any of the comments you're objecting to.
Tom - Thing is, I'm not afraid of catching my feet and falling all over the tipping box. I mean, that'd hurt and all, but it wouldn't be the same hurt as rolling my ankles and that's where all my thought and fear is concentrated. Anyway, I could jump higher than I did!
Oh- I just re-read. I'm not jumping _over_ high boxes yet. I'm just landing on top of them. Yeah, you'd have to be real worried about catching your feet on the downside and bringing the box with you.
Mitch - Yay for smiling and nodding! I'm sorry folks don't smile and nod back. They should. If you were in Sacramento, they would even say "Mornin'" or sometimes, "Evenin'".
I know my new policy has lots of stop-energy in it. But for a while at least (hopefully not until November) I'd rather lose the comments than read more analysis. When that feeling goes away, I'll change my comment policy back.
Description: Looks like a daring jumping spider, but with a solid red abdomen. Cool streak of color climbing up my chard. Who are you, new friend? What do they call you?
For weeks I've been promising myself I'd get to the track as soon as it got a bit warmer. Went to the gym today and found it was closed till noon, due to Easter. I was on the verge of heading back to my office when I remembered...
I still hate running, but I think I hate it little bit less today. I did a couple of 400m sprints at about 80% and was reasonably pleased to get 1:19 as my fastest. I followed it up with 40m intervals, and some simple plyometrics. It felt good being out there with just me, the trees, and the birds. My right calf is a bit sore, but that just means I need to get out and sprint a bit more.
i cut my knee down to the tendon on one of those boxes in high school track. you were wise to be wary of it.
That last bit reminds me of high school winters, and doing plyometrics all through the cold in the old bomb shelter, by the caged in, dilapidated weight room -- all so that we might drop a few seconds off our mile times in the spring. It was quite a bit of work for not a whole lot of return, in our cases.
For a second, I felt a little bit of regret at giving up that once familiar burn in my quads and calves, but then I realized I'd simply traded it in for a consistently more whole-body sort of ache, and that made it okay.
My least favorite were the ones where you jumped over the box, from one side to the another, over and over. Those were so much worse than jumping forwards and backwards, which in turn was worse than the up-down, on and off the box.
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