Thursday, April 19, 2012

The Shape Up

The All Around Make Over

I believe that everybody has a subheading; something they are most known for, second to their name.
For example, I am Miss Coordinate, and secondly, I'm the girl with the huge knockers. From now on however, I will be known to many as Miss Coordinate - the girl who fell off the treadmill.

My new health kick saw me doing things I had laughed about doing before, like not drinking at the bar on Friday night and being the designated driver. I was very put off at first - change tends to shock me out of my habits.

Much like a man with commitment issues, I like to try before I buy, so I kept purchasing casual visits to the gym. I had started feeling very good about myself after a few sessions, and finally bit the bullet and joined (for a month). I don't know if it was an indicator of the storm to come, but much like toxic relationships, as soon as I was committed to it, I started to find things that were wrong about it and panicked.

- I went to take a photo for my membership, and the computer actually froze. I thought he was kidding, because I was that reluctant to have my after-work-frazzle-monster-face caught and immortalized. My face actually broke something, and I had to pose again (this time with a little bit of a jilted smile)

- I decided to take a spin class, and after doing a full lap of the gym, and walking through the weights area (aka the hello-baby-man-smell-rape-dungeon-pitt-of-kaniption), I found the class in a small dark room filled with close-knit bikes and strobe lighting. After about 20 minutes of this class, or hell- whichever, I felt like an epileptic mountain goat & could no longer lift my limbs above 5cm from the ground. I had to (very politely and sheepishly) flood the room with light once more and leave. Due to the shin cramping, I thought it would be a good idea to walk it off on the treadmill, as penance for giving up on my class. As I started to feel better and get excited, I lifted my leg to run and once more cramped up. The result of this was not to
a. press the emergency stop button.. it was
b. forget I was on a fast-moving platform that would not stop to check on my welfare, and proceed to fall quite flailingly, on the ground.

As I post my inner-most thoughts, I reflect on them. I guess if you keep everything to yourself, you have nothing to measure it by. Somewhere, between the dolls that splash around in their make up kits before their 3 minute stint on the treadmill, and the sweat factory that is always open for business in my pants when I am there, the gym has helped me find myself. I don't know if it's the layers o' mine shedding, but I have realised how bitter I have been, and how happy I am to just let it all go, and change my own subheading.

I think people that seem bitter are just doing so because a part of them wants to "prepare" for the worst, so that we don't expect too much and are more let down when (sorry - if) something doesn't work out.
It's always braver, and always stupider, to give yourself away every time with no reservations and just
Shape Up & Quit the Bitterness.
Sweat is just fat crying. Bitterness is just wasted Opportunity building a blankie-fort and eating a bucket of Ben & Jerry's on a Saturday night.

Some people say "I'm not bitter, I'm just realistic". Bzzzt. Bullshit. You're just as shit scared as anybody else, you are just too much so to admit that you don't want to be hurt in any way ever.
It comes down to what we believe.
Nobody wants to believe in something with their wholeness and then have that belief destroyed when their carriage turns back into a pumpkin.
And thus, you lose out on feeling, on opportunities, and most of all, on love.
I didn't want to believe that I couldn't finish that spin class, so I pushed myself.. but after my shins collapsed and I hit my head on the handles due to my legs giving way, I realised (when the stars cleared) that sometimes we just need a new pumpkin to carve into whatever the freaking hell we want it to be.

Recognising the difference between bitter and realistic:

Bitter: you're good looking, which means you probably have the mental capacity of a staple gun, and only want to staple me and move on to the next bit of paper.
VS
The benefit of the doubt (BOD) - ahhh. Our old friend BOD. I think I had a falling out with BOD when all my experiences made believing in it seem really really stupid. Let's reconnect with BOD, because maybe it can still surprise us. (The bitterness in me is cringing).

As my excess fat and fear falls away, I have dropped my bitterness and started to enjoy feeling the burn.

Sometimes the difference between bitter and realistic is as thin a line as a tightrope, but I BELIEVE that the difference is knowing what to believe in.

What do we let ourselves believe? What do we know? I think Life and Love are about ACTIONS, and not WORDS.

Don't talk about going to the gym, losing weight, toning up, your troubles, your worries, your lack of Something.
Don't talk about wanting to spoil me, prove yourself to me, treat me well, fight for me..

Just act.

Get up and do something.


Changing my subheading to 'The Will-Be-Chiseled Optimist'


<3 Miss Coordinate

Saturday, April 14, 2012

The Ring Of Fire


As the weather turns colder, our bodies & brains yearn for things (or people) that have once kept us warm. We band together and bang together to start a little fire & thaw out; get the feeling back in ourselves again.
This week, in the sudden turn of cold, I have caught myself wanting several times to spoon the stranger in the train seat next to me to steal his body heat.
I think the cold makes one urge for two things, mainly. Alcohol and / or a nice warm bod.
I decided against all of these things (as most of the time i was at work- awkward) but my mind flashed back to a night when I was kept quite toasty by a particularly snuggly Past Tense. And then came the shiver.


It made me realise, in my seek for sunlight, that there is always a part of you that waits for someone in your past to come back. No matter how hidden or denied, i believe theres a little pandora in all of us, waiting patiently to be reopened so the trouble can start all over again.
The romantic in us never wants to completely rite someone off... Until too much time passes. 
Apologising after it is far too late is like putting a packet of bandaids on a mountain of lava. Even if you strap a hundred of the suckers on there, and even if melting is involved, it'll still disappear as if they never were there.
So what is there to do when one wants to fuel their winter fire without the will-he-call-me blues?


Drink! Or work out.. But who wants to do that?
The Past Tense (as I must remember him as) once told me that people speak their true feelings when they are drunk... of course, that would require actually intending to do some talking between the aggressive face embracing that you end up doing. 

I guess someone is either 'it' or 'Not At All', and maybe everything in between is just instant gratification.
It takes two to keep the flame alight, or the lid to pandora opened or closed. If the other party doesn't help carry the load, you are just standing there with a blown out candle and a used box.

The poor Nice Guys out there.. I think they miss out because there are just too many ways to play Bad Cop, Drunk Cop, Laid Cop these days...

Having said that, I can't blame alcohol for his or my poor POOR judgement, as I've realised everyone that I happen to dislike is a non drinker!
I don't know what it is about the clean living, liver loving, water & wheat grass freaks out there. Don't they know what they are missing? Maybe it's because they don't get the opportunity to 
- be irreparably Something (stupid, hilarious, whorey) and let go
- have a rambling deep and meaningful and exercise ones right to get a little bit Ghandi on the Shiraz
- have a public vom, pee, or other display of bodily Something 
- empathise with your hangover but..
My being friends with a non drinker seems to be as frequent as a leprechaun riding a mammoth-cross-unicorn through Hogwarts.. and maybe till now, I liked it like that.
I guess no one likes to be a booze-racist, so I'm trying to start seeing how the other half live. Shudder.

There's something about the freezing cold that makes me want to leave the perfectly good warmth of home, strip down into my gym gear, strap down my girls with duct tape so they don't escape and show the real girls how it's done... yeah right. But that's another fail for another blog to come.

Stay tuned!


Strapping on my nikes, setting down the beer goggles & saving the sambuca.


<3 Miss Coordinate

Monday, April 9, 2012

The Yellow Brick Road

Being in the hotel industry, I tend to collect a lot of odds and ends (and get a lot of phone calls from people needing a room only for an hour, but that is neither here nor there). On a day where I actually left my desk, I ventured into the staff room and found a row of books loved and lost by past travellers and sex-seekers. I decided to re-read the classics, Of Mice and Men, and The Wizard of Oz. 

I found Dorothy in a flat, dry, dying plot of land in Kansas. It may have taken a hurricane to lift her out of her grey home, but the important thing is that one part of her life was over, and she had to let it go and move forward.
As a suburban girl, I come across most people that build their lives in the one place. Some are begging to leave and start a fresh life somewhere exotic on the coastline, some drop off the face of your earth even though they are only a hop, skip and a taxi away (oh my), and some stay exactly where they started.

I myself, love the change of pace when I stay in the city. It's colourful & refreshing for a 'break', but I learnt that you can't take a holiday away from yourself - you just need a hurricane brain to lift you into a new state of mind. It made me realise that coming home is always the hardest thing to do when life gets tough, but the clarity will have refreshed the grey tones and everything becomes OK.

It's a fine line between brave and stupid to pack your bags and move somewhere else. I have always envied those people that moved to Australia and set up their life and made it work. It's easy to romanticise the idea of moving far far away, where life will be better, sunnier, happier.The emotive Tin Man yearning for a heart, the protective Lion wanting bravery, and the lively scarecrow who wants a brain, all allude to the concept that "if only" some particular thing would happen, all our problems would be solved. 


If only I had time to.
If only I was brave enough.
If only he wanted a relationship.
If only he wasn't already in a relationship.
If only my old boss had been a little bit nicer.
If only I had realised sooner that "stressed" is just desserts spelt backwards!
If only he hadn't seen you for the last time in an oversized, see through "I love Napoleon Dynamite" shirt.. Then he definitely would have called.  
If only I had realised he was a good friend of your family before telling you how much of a tool I think he is. 
If only I didn't salsa dance with that stranger, I wouldn't have fallen over while everybody in the club watched and developed a bruise on my ass in the shape of "YouShouldHaveStayedHomeLastNightyouTwanger". (Maybe some "If Only's" are allowed!) 
If only he didn't 'get away'. Let me ask this; can The One get away twice? If The One Got Away, was he ever really The One to begin with? If he was The One, he would be with you, and not have gotten away, even if wild horses chased him the other way and then built a moat of hay around them. Some of our Ones always tend to get away several times before our If Only's run out!
Some days I think men see women more like bugs, than beautiful humans. They don't wait to see if we're the harmless kind, or what type of bug or anything about them.. They just scoop them up, lull them into a false sense of security till they are on their backs with their legs kicking in the air and then flush them down the toilet! 

What I truly believe, however, is that There is No Such Thing as a fresh start. You will always take you with you.. and that's where the issue will remain until you take that journey and face your truths. What does my heart know? What does my head feel?

When I am home, in the place where I have slept all of my life, in the place that knows me, I have no choice but to remember who I am and what my reality is. And there, in the dark, is where you find yourself. You brave The Night. You face The Alone. You have a cry, and you let it go. Loneliness is the human condition, and the best we can do is to embrace the journey, learn our own heart and never let it go. 

This bug knows that she will always survive the trip through the yellow brick pipes, overcome her fears and trump the wicked witch. Even thought I didn't find what I was looking for in the Emerald City, the journey was exceptional!


Clicking my Heels,


<3 Miss Coordinate