Queen Leda

Snuffle, snort, aaaatchooo! Parp, squelch, sniff, grumble, curse. That’s a word emoji of my last twenty four hours. I got hit by a horrible fluey cold yesterday afternoon, but not real flu. More of a manflu. Whatever the medical dictionary definition, snotters and misery abound, and they still do. A combination of Lemsip and Sudafed keeps me going for so long but possibly not enough.

So I could pretend to be all joyful, but I’m not.  Rather than snark like a madwoman, I shall instead focus on some of the positives. Firstly, at the gym on Wednesday, we had the Bear complex, a workout I’ve not had for a long time. Not sure why named, perhaps you are a little like a roaring bear with a barbell? This complex is a sequence of moves as demoed in this video, which equals one rep:

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=bear+complex&FORM=VIRE1#view=detail&mid=D702E398652F81736121D702E398652F81736121

We had to do six times six rep sets, ideally without taking your hands off the bar during the six reps. But you can break for a minute or two between each set and jeezo, you need to. It’s sheer hard work and I only had 30 kg. It’s difficult to keep the momentum going, as usually by the fourth rep of each set, you’re fucked. By round four, I was desperate for it to be over, but I managed it all and enjoyed it in a sick sort of way, even though I was floored by the end.

The female max for this was 35kg, so I didn’t quite get there, but next time…I would recommend anyone trying these moves for flexibility, even with a virtually weightless plastic pipe. If you did that sequence without a weight, 6×6, it would take very little time and be so good for stretching you out in the morning. In fact, I’m going to try it myself with an old broom handle. Five minutes I reckon. Took us about half an hour, although it wasn’t for time.

The thing about these type of workouts is that just at the end, you feel like you’ve been run over by a truck, but by the time you get out of the shower, you feel like a god/goddess. For a while at least. But yesterday was when I started to feel shitey, so it didn’t last. By the late afternoon I just wanted to go quietly foetal somewhere. Preferably my bed.

While we are on the subject of weights, which of course is something that I love. But sometimes you’ve got to draw a line. And for me, that line comes at lifting weights with your fanjo. Some Facebook friends may remember I posted this link with incredulity some months ago, but it popped up on my feed again today. Women, if you want strong vaginas with marvellous orgasms, read the link and weep. With laughter.

On the one hand, I applaud her agenda. Who wouldn’t want a fabulous fanny that gives out mind blowing orgasms at every turn? My only question would be, do we really want to spend time dangling a bottle of fruit smoothie from our undercarriage to achieve it? I think in most cases, the answer is no.

I digress from my other positive thing. Not that it’s the only thing. Today I faced down an unexpectedly hostile meeting at work, with some intolerance on my part. I was feeling crap and trying to be as positive as I could, but there were areas where I had to draw a line, got a bit annoyed with some arseholes and possibly showed it. The meeting ended reasonably, but there were some testy moments.

Later in the afternoon, while enjoying a coffee in a sunshiney play park, I picked up an email from one of the difficult men. He hadn’t been too tricky today but he was generally antagonistic. In it, he wanted to say he appreciated how difficult it was to handle the meeting today, that there were different points of view that would be hard to reconcile, but that he understood that we were trying to do a good thing and pledged his support for the process. You could have knocked me over with a feather, but it just about made my day.

Lesson there: stick to your guns, hang tough and don’t let yourself be bullied. And support your allies: tomorrow when I am back in the office I will send him an email, thanking him for his.

My last happy thing is a poem a friend sent me this week which is worth sharing:

In that year

By Kim Moore

And in that year my body was a pillar of smoke
and even his hands could not hold me.

And in that year my mind was an empty table
and he laid his thoughts down like dishes of plenty.

And in that year my heart was the old monument,
the folly, and no use could be found for it.

And in that year my tongue spoke the language
of insects and not even my father knew me.

And in that year I waited for the horses
but they only shifted their feet in the darkness.

And in that year I imagined a vain thing;
I believed that the world would come for me.

And in that year I gave up on all the things
I was promised and left myself to sadness.

And then that year lay down like a path
and I walked it, I walked it, I walk it.

Until the next, less mucus ridden time,

QL