Hello, 30. Goodbye, attractively-worded and ultimately unattainable long-term goals.

I recognize it's time for a confession (although that violates one of the central tenets of this blog). It's been far too long, so let's be real for half a second about why: I started this fall feeling waaaaaay too optimistic about what I could realistically accomplish while working at a charter school, living in Brooklyn, and maintaining some kind of a relationship with Excellent Boyfriend (who still lives in Philadelphia). That being said, let's break it down:

Success: I've lost 5 pounds!

Abysmal Failures: I haven't sustained any additional weight loss. I'm too sleepy to run on the regular. I eat Hawaiian pizza twice a week and I'm the first in line for second breakfast.

Mitigating Circumstances: Between class time, prep time, meetings, parent phone calls, high expectations, personal failures, anxiety, worry, and sleeplessness, I maintain what amounts to a waking-life work day.

That being said, tomorrow marks the first day of my birthday month. I'm about to turn 30 and, for reasons I'm sure I don't have to spell out, my frantic days are now imbued with deeper dread.

Therefore, to combat this unease, these are the things that I will do, disregarding risk of injury or infamy, before the dawn of October 17th:

1. I will run a marathon. Not all at once, of course, because that would be ridiculous. No, friends: I hereby swear that I will log 26.2 non-consecutive miles between this evening and my birthday.

2. I will cook something healthy and share it with my friends.

3. I will bake something awful and eat most of it myself.

4. I will sleep outside, for one night, and I will look at the stars and drink whiskey.

5. I will wear something scandalous.

6. I will visit my favorite coffee shop---the one I haven't been to in five years---to smoke a cigarette and play a game of Scrabble. Then I will cross the street to buy a special for a stranger.

7. I will finish a book.

8. I will write a terrible poem.

9. I will do something nice for my co-teacher, my parents, and my sister.

10. I will win a hand or two or six at blackjack.

AND

11. I will keep this semi-regularly updated :oD

Rocksteady, run!

A couple of years ago I tried to enlist a friend to be my running partner. He was clever and self-deprecating and had just finished his first 5K. I liked his style: For the final kilometer, he ran with a lit cigarette in his mouth. When I asked him to run with me, he laughed and assented and then told me, in kind of an off-handed way, that I was probably pretty fun to run with. "I bet you run just like a rhino with a ponytail," he said.

At first, my feelings were hurt. I imagined myself as Rocksteady, the miniboss from that impossible Nintendo game. He's easy to beat. You just play as Donatello, stand on top of the box, and bo-staff the hell out of him as he butts his head mindlessly against the wall:

Sad times, right? Who wants to be Rocksteady? He's heavy and dumb and, if you look closely, he's got an awful case of cankles. The problem is, though, that my jerkface friend was right. I do run like a rhino. But now I try to think of myself as "single-minded" rather than "stupid." And what do I do when I hit a wall? Why, I back right up and then hit that fucker again.

Which brings me to where I am now. I said I'd update this blog every day, but I'm revising that to "Tuesdays and Thursdays, or when I'm sick of playing Fruit Ninja." I said I'd work hard to get some daily exercise, but I felt totally justified taking three days off after a marathon weekend of championship kickball. So what did I manage to do? How am I planning to break through this particular wall? Well, I enlisted myself a motivational coach in the form of my loving and supportive partner, who is now at liberty to say things like "wow, you sure did eat a lot of ice cream today" and "go run. You can do it. It's only 93 degrees. You're not going to die."

To be honest, I assumed I'd appreciate his encouragement a little more.  For one thing, I'm pretty sure I will actually die if I go outside. On the other hand, I feel like it might be worth it just for the sympathy I'd get if I did keel over.

At least no one's gonna hit me with a bo staff.

Three rules.

Eventually, this blog is going to get ridiculously interesting. At some point, when I'm a marathon runner with a kitchen full of homemade bread and artisanal pickles, posting daily pictures of my chiseled abs and backyard chickens, you, dear reader, are going to be really happy that you started reading early.

Of course, I don't make my own bread right now. And I don't buy fancy pickles, either--I get whatever sweet gherkins happen to be on sale, and I wrap them in swiss cheese and wash them down with Jack Daniels. I can barely make it through a 5K without stopping to tie my shoes three or four or 19 times so I don't keel over and die from overexertion. And I don't own a single chicken.

But all that's about to change, one sweaty run at a time.

See, I used to be fat. Like, way fatter than I am right now. And for a year, in grad school, I made all my own meals, and I went to the gym every goddamn day, and I whittled myself down to a gangly size 4. And that lasted for about another year until I remembered that I like reading waaaaaay more than running and I like eating about ten million times better than not eating. Now I'm a mostly-sedentary size 10 schoolteacher and I've got no energy to do anything at all except lie around and read trashy novels and excoriate myself for my own lack of motivation.

Conversations that I have with myself mostly go like this:

"Man, it would be really nice to start cooking again. Maybe join a co-op. Get some fresh fruit. Make some jam or something."
"That's only cute when skinny people do it. You'd just be a fat girl. With jam."
"Well, maybe I'll go for a run today! I'll take Terrible Dog and---"
"---what, lumber down the road where everyone can laugh at you? Okay, run then. Shuffle away. But wait until it's dark."

Then I feel depressed and get in bed, where I read for three hours and polish off a pint of pork fried rice. 

Recently I've realized that I'm mistakenly blaming my lack of motivation and general sense of malaise on these extra 15 pounds. It's an easy excuse: "Oh, of course I can't write/get ahead on my lesson plans/get dressed. I didn't even run today. And I can't run, 'cause I'm too fat, so I guess I can't do any of that other stuff, either." But I can't keep doing that, because I'm sick and tired of myself and I'm about to turn 30 and I've realized that I am incredibly. fucking. boring.

So. Here are the three main rules that I'm going to start following in an effort to improve my physical health (and, in a roundabout way, my mental health, too):

1. Eat less. (That means no empty calories, no fast food, no deep-frying my empanadas.)

2. Exercise more. (At least once a day for 30 minutes, and I'll run if I'm not injured and I've got an accessible sports bra.)

3. No mixers. (I'm not going to give up drinking, but I've got to stop swilling my meals.)

Additionally, I promise the following:

1. To write at least once a day twice a week, even if I'm just updating this silly little blog with something along the lines of "drank 15 margaritas. Died."

2. To be straightforward and honest about my progress---or lack of progress.

3. To absolutely not, under any circumstances, turn this blog into a confessional or an autobiographical pity party.

And in honor of my very first blog post, I'm going to toddle out and go for one of the shuffling jogs I like to call a "run." Then I'm going to come back and finish off the last of the sangria, since I won't be making any more.

But first? A nap.

And maybe a little more of that fried rice.