Quite a few places on my body continue to ache from the 7 minute workout challenge thing. We've been doing it for three weeks now, I think? Since the end of the burpees.

So it's 7 minute workout. You do 12 different exercises, specific ones in a designated order, each for 30 seconds, with a 10 second rest. You're supposed to go all-out -- produce maximum effort -- during the 30 seconds. It just requires a floor and a sturdy chair/bench/table/box.

• Jumping jacks
• Wall sit
• Push ups
• Ab crunch
• Box step-up
• Squats
• Triceps dip
• Plank
• High knees running in place
• Lunges
• Push-up with rotation
• Side plank

My problem at this point is breathing during the planks since there are four aerobic exercises before, and two minutes of max aerobic effort leaves me bloody breathless. Since the plank tightens up the abdominals, I can't take full deep breaths.

Anyway, it seems to be a good fit for my attitude, though it would probably be smart to add another 7-10 minute activity during the day. Maybe 50 burpees! Maybe not (gag).

If you're interested, there are a lot of apps that will coach you. A free one for the iPhone is the "7M Workout" which is by consumer products company J&J as a branding effort (It doesn't seem to actually solicit anything, though it might be scraping some personal info. I haven't given it any permissions). I'm sure there are ones for Android too.

Once you know the exercise forms, an app is overkill: all you really need is a 7 minute audio track with timer beeps and prompts.

Deep in a comment thread from one of my prior posts I mentioned that the New York Times curates an almost-daily list of well-considered articles from both the center, right and the left. Reading these articles lets you see how the other side(s) may be thinking, without having to wade through all the crap that's online. Folks seemed interested in it, so I figured I'd point y'all to it. 

It may be hidden behind a paywall, but I reckon if you click this link from an incognito browser you should be OK. I pay for the Times and don't feel too guilty for sharing this.  

Here ya go!

Writers From the Right and Left React to Trump’s Riyadh Speech, and More https://nyti.ms/2qPF6IY

Introversion and Extroversion might be looked at through the lens of a need to perform. If we have to be "on stage" -- acting in certain ways in order to conform to expectations or needs -- that is probably a social energy sink. Conversely if there are people around whom we do not need to perform in any particular way, that is, be at rest or just "being ourselves", that time would probably be energy recharging.

One can be on-stage and still be alone or with just one or two people reading a book or being quiet. If being alone and quiet isn't your natural state you have to perform it at some level of consciousness.

I know this isn't particularly original. However, I came at this thought by the angle of thinking about how there are people with whom I need to perform "Sean": people I need to pay attention to; and people with whom I don't: I don't have to be conscious of their presense -- with whom I can be comfortable just being present in my own skin.

But then it gets all muddled up with habit and performative ruts and "who the hell am I, and who the hell do I want to be?" and my belief that the sense of self isn't much more than the story we keep retelling to ourself (consciously and subconsciously) about how we react to the things around us.

Deep thoughts for a Tuesday. I really should reserve a car and go buy hardboard panels.

So a long time ago I was talking to a friend about doing the art for a webcomic that a he wanted to develop. When we first started out, I did some concept work while he worked on world building. All of this makes sense to a certain degree.

The problem was that this went on for a very long time. Many months, in fact, passed without our having written / illustrated a single comic panel.

We discussed it, and he wanted to keep going as we were. I wanted to get cracking on a product that people could enjoy.

We agreed to a compromise: I said "Why don't we try a 'minimum viable product'? Write up a five page comic, I'll illustrate it, and we'll put it online. That way we can see if anyone other than us gives a shit."

When it took many months more for those five pages worth of text to come my way, I bowed out.

Now that I'm working on my little project, I'm writing a lot in a lexicon of sorts. Worldbuilding. Not nearly on the level that he did, but I find myself wondering if I'm distracting myself a bit too much with unnecessary things. I find myself doing searches on late 70's and early 80's fashion. Digging up news clippings from 1979 Detroit. At best, these would be 'stage dressing'. None of it will be strictly speaking necessary for the book.

So I guess my question is this: Do you have some rule that you keep yourselves to in order to keep from spending too much time on extraneous elements of your storytelling? To keep yourselves from doing too much homework and not enough actual writing?

ETA:

First, a text from my (second) ex-husband at 7:30AM "Happy Mother's Day!" 

Then our kid wakes up and first thing out of her mouth is "Happy Mother's Day!" And she gave me 2 awesome touching mother's day cards. And a handprint keepsake.

At noon, my current flirtation texts "Happy mother's day to you"

At 3PM, my cousin texts "Happy mother's day!"

At 4PM, my neighbor stops by with strawberries and a "Happy Mother's Day!" wish

At 5PM, a friend from DC texts "Happy Mother's Day"

At 6PM, my brother calls and leaves a "Happy Mothers Day!" message

At 8:30PM my boyfriend from 2007-2010 texts "Happy mothers day :-)"

I love my wonderful life and the wonderful people in it. I feel wrapped in good wishes and oh so blessed. 

PS: and the next day, I got flowers :-)

Here are the seedings Madeline gave me. 

I transplanted 3 into larger pots, broke open the compost bin, and mixed that nasty stanky liquid in, gave them a soak. Vince had offered me cocktail hour before I went outside to re-pot them, and for some reason, Maslow's Need Hierarchy made me say, "in a minute, I have to play in the dirt first." 

Clearly, I need more pots. And dirt. And plants.

Today I communicated with a deaf person and a person from Mali (who spoke French; not at the same time) via a translation line. I'm living in the FUTURE.

It's so much of it, isn't it? The press of the day and hours against what comes next, neither wishing to dismiss it but also, not quite claiming it the way it ought, because the savoured hour waits.

And what a day it is.  The air is cool, rushing, the light changes from gold to white to blue on a whim.  All of outside feels like the ocean.  I stepped out this morning, on to the front step, the damp from the rains the night before soaking into my socks, and I spread my arms to it.  Soon, too soon, the hot summers will come, heavy breathed and and in some element, relentlesss.  But these flickering seasons, fall and spring, which seem to be growing briefer and briefer here in my small corner of the world as the the big blue marble warms, are precious to me.  Fall always makes me restless, makes me long to run long distances, to move, to migrate. Spring drives me out, into the fresh, into the air, filled with ideas and moments.  I throw open the doors to the cool moodiness of it just as I put on a sweater to guard against the intermittent chill.

Tonight, I want to lose myself in music and motion.  I don't want to drag my expectations and run into those curdled, half formed feelings of frustration.  What is that anyway?  It's not an expectation anyone has crowned me with, it's the thing I do for me.  And yet inside me is that part that will always drive harder, want the extremes, want to do well, do well, and it's never enough.  It's why I think I will never be a winter or summer person, but always a fall and spring, enamoured of the changes, fascinated by the most ardent, difficult parts of process.

*********************************************************************

I haven't had the sensation of falling in love in a long time.  Too long. But this return to something I care about has all the hallmarks.  I am at the sixteen week mark and I find the milkman is coming up the stairs, waking me.  I find the coffee cooling in the cup, I find that progress is more difficult now that base skills have been regained.  I will have to work harder, attend to the growth part of things.  I'm old enough but not so old I don't remember the pain of growing quickly as a teenager, the way the bones stretched and the muscles screamed to catch up.  There's a bit of that now. But pretty masochist that I am, certain kinds of pain are not a deterrent.  I hate being conqueored but I long for a leadership that is stronger than mine.

So I fight against what I don't know, what I can't master.  I don't feel fear or self consciousness, as the fight is so genuinely with myself and always has been.

*********************************************************************

For all of this, you'd think I was good at this already.  Had some mastery.  I am not, like many things I'm forgettable as a sound once it's ended.  I don't stand out in any way in my skating, nor do I expect to.  However, there are private things I wear and do just for me and this is in many  ways, part of that small garden of things I keep that give me joy, regardless of skill.

I'm evangelical about this feeling.  I want you all to have it too.  I want to urge you to find the way life feels like this but it's a tidal wave, it's always too much - I am so frequently too much- that I come here and leave it on the page.

*********************************************************************

My life is rioting around me as I write this.  It is time to go, time to slip into that liquid sunlight, time to tend to the children, time to attend to the very big project.

But each night, the door opens and I go through a forest of gold, of silver, of diamonds. I dance all night and I am sleepy in the morning and it may be that my slippers through but I have no desire to wake or be saved.  

Don't save me from the dreams that give me the fire to do my other work so well.  I would never have wanted the Beast to change into a man.  I'm the mother who hunts the wolf that ate her mother and scared her child. 

I'm the woodcutter who heard the call and answered, with his axe.

I need these things to feel alive.

I suspect you do, as well.

yours, verbatim,

Queen

Honest, sincere question:

What does a news article or report need so you'll consider it "not fake"?   I imagine some folks may just dismiss any news they disagree with as "fake news."  But I'm trying to assess what criteria need to be satisfied in order for someone to accept that what is being presented, whether they agree with the article's viewpoint or not, as "reported accurately."

I acknowledge that humans are gloriously imperfect, and that it is physically impossible to report something without imparting some molecule of bias/slant.  But anyway.

If you are left-leaning, are you capable of reading an article from Breitbart or PrisonPlanet and evaluate it with the mindset that it could potentially be accurate? If the Washington Post cites a source "who only spoke on the condition of anonymity," would you be more apt to believe it's "real" and not "fake?" What if Breitbart cited an anonymous source? Would you instantly think, "This is bullshit" and roll your eyes? What if they interviewed Comey directly?

If you are fervent Trump supporter, is it even possible for you to read something on The Huffington Post or even the Washington Post and believe it's within the realm of possibility that it may be accurate? What if they cite an anonymous source? What if they cite a primary source? What if they interviewed Comey himself, for example? 

What criteria need to be met for you to feel satisfied that the reporter is reporting accurate information?  Do you need unedited video from Trump himself? If he were incriminating himself, would you dismiss it as doctored video? 

I'm struggling with this.

(x-posted to DW.)

Sometime, about two years ago, an important part of me was hit in a storm.  The way trees suddenly sheer off branches, the way a cliff suddenly becomes a muddy stew of rocks, pine needles sludge.

I am built for recovery.  I'm not simply, strong, I'm adaptive in the heathiest sense I can ascribe to that word.  As long as I've had memory, reaching back to the smallest parts of me, back when I remember how hard it was to climb on a chair, or reach a doorknob, I have had hope.  It's not a delicate, golden, flitting thing, it's inside me, as strong as the as the ocean, and it batters to get out of me when the world becomes difficult.

Some people say "Derby saves," and there are varigated meanings of that, of course.  I think many things can save you.  

But most of all, you are going to have to save yourself.  Even if, even if we all get by with a little help from our friends, sometimes.

It's up to you.  I try to never forget this.  It's why loving yourself and loving your friends as hard as possible feels like the most important thing to me.  

And yes, this has everything to do with skating.

*********************************************************************

I am passionately devoted to Valentine's Day. It has never bothered me to be unpartnered, I've never felt constrained to express my love only by traditional discourse, and Valentine's is the perfect day to celebrate the indulgences that feel native to my being: chocolates, glitter, elegance, perfume, jewelry, lingerie, paper, pens. I can't imagine a holiday that more exemplifies the contents of the first two drawers of my antique dresser.  

 I do not know what tipping point I reached when I lost my restraint for loving myself.  

When I realized that the important she was a person that I lived inside and that she was, for lack of any other better word, fun.

When I lost my restraint for loving myself, I lost it for loving other people too.  Now when I meet people they can either flee from the tidal way of my full force of energy or affection.  Or they can step in and be bathed in it.

*********************************************************************

I was scrolling through messages to find pictures of my new Lolly Skates by Moxi.  And here they are.  When I first opened them, the day before I left for Europe to go on tour with a client, they were without wheels and laces.  I felt uncertain, I could not see the full vision.  I hadn't had time, see, to daydream the wheels, to contemplate the laces, to envision the toe stops.  I had only hours, to pack, to do those thousand small organizational things that make up a successful tour.  But my friend showed up and carefully wrapped my skates for me, assuring me that he'd take care of them while I was gone. 

When I came home I was startled a bit he offerd to get me from the airport.  Our friendship has been, primarily, in the dark and at the rink, but I was worn flat by the trip and ready for some discourse that did not relate to professional matters.  When he opened the trunk of the car, they were there, in their box.  I was hesitant.  I wasn't quite ready to think about them just yet. 

But I unwrapped them and there they were.  He'd listened carefully, and taken a few risks.  Risks that paid off because the moment I put them on they were perfect.  They held my foot and supported my ankle.  The nerve damage in my faulted left foot was less than barefoot.  I could not believe it.  

I have wonderful friends.  He's a newer friend.  I realized though, it's like the way I give Valentine's.  It's the point that you reach where all the restraint and careful navigation has become simply dull.  No one wants a compass and a map to friendship.  You might as well say what you mean and mean it.

"I'm not too much?" I said.

"Not scared by it at all," he said.

I'm pretty sure we are going to be friends for a very long time.  I would have hugged him but I was hugging my skates and I know that was just exactly what he wanted.

"Hey," he said, "I'm glad you are my friend."

And in a day and age when Woody Allen ruined it for those of us who absolutely fucking can be friends with members of the opposite sex by asserting we can't, that naming of me as friend is like someone put the most beautiful crown on my head.

Friends. 

They are the best thing this world has to offer.  Don't argue with me on this.

*********************************************************************

The nerve damage in my left foot is a dull burning reminder of the dues I've paid.  Hours on set of long miles walked, sometimes as long as the Bering Strait.  Stairs and trucks, time on my feet, time paid.  Time unpaid.  I think of the Little Mermaid, how the burning steps she took were punishment for wanting beyond her means, for longing for a life that was, by Anderson's measure (or someone's) sinful.  My burning foot is from duty. And it now interferes with the step I want on the inside.  I need my foundation, I need my feet.  

This body belongs to me.  I make a doctor's appointment, I step up eschewing the pretty bag of spoils from Europe: real honey, creamy chocolates, apricot brandy.  The ability to step, to glide, to dance, is more desired.

I had to write about skating, and it's the silliest thing and I keep saying that, but who dedicates an entire blog to happiness?  Happiness is now a project, a thing that we are supposed to build and construct.  I don't and I can't.  Joy I can find, happiness is the result of unrestricted joy.  I don't want to read about it as it walks backwards anymore.  You don't fall in love by doing it right, just as you can't tickle yourself or give yourself a great hug.  Communion, action, reaction to without dreading the consequences.

*********************************************************************

Someone asked recently about my name. I used to have a shirt, "I taste of glitter... and rock n roll."  And I do.  I'm not a faint impression, that's okay though. 

I am Queen because my entire life, I was the princess.  The princess that knew she wanted to grow up to be Queen and take over the world.  Who was never bothered that sometimes one might be saved by a prince or menaced by the dragon.  Princes after all, only become consorts in your own kingdom, so really they are just helpers after all.

Queen.  Queen of my own destiny, queen of the world, Queen of Air and Darkness, Queen Mab.  

Everything that is ridiculous, over the top, and too much that lives in me is in that name.  

I'm not saying this right.  The words won't come out of the air and sit down and play nicely on the page.

But I'll keep trying, that's the reason I write here.

Q.R.C.

A post, written in parts.  So some of this is several weeks old old and some is new.

That said... on with it!

*********************************************************************

I went to a derby bout this past weekend.  It was delicious.  When you are mid bout it feels so fast, a flurry of arms, legs, glimpses of faces.  Jamming makes your heart pound so hard against your chest.  But watching it is such a different experience. It can be easy to think that it's simple to remain on one's feet during it.

I love derby.  I really think that with some focus I could be damn good. But my heart is far more in dance skating right now.  I'm so frustrated that it's been thwarting this week.  I've scarcely had rink time, once on Thursday.  The rain comes down and while I can skate, I'm always half an eye on my knee high that she doesn't shove her precious toes underneath one skate pounding down.

My friends on my deep secret OPW will tell you I am somewhat obsessed with systems of organization and belongings.  This week, related completely to everything, we began to deconstruct my front garage.  My house is a wreck and that's saying something. 

What I keep thinking about is this: why this?  I mean you have eight hours to work, eight to sleep and eight to play ... in theory.  Why, in the full life of a solo mother of two, with a strong career swing, would I choose this as my play and what cost?

No, for real, everything has a cost.  A minute flies by, another replaces it, but that's a minute gone and that new fresh one is only there for sixty seconds.  Life is precious. 

So I organize, structure.  The things I love, I try to give a lot of space to to breathe. Including skating.

*********************************************************************

Two nights a week I slip out the front door with my skate bag.  My friend picks me up and we drive off down along the waterfront.  The first part of the conversation is usually about skating as is the middle parts and the end parts.  My entire week I am other things, but starting in the darkness of the car, our faces only lit by the dash lights or the lights of passing vehicles, we are just this part of ourseleves.   For three or four hours, twice a week, I can narrow my focus down to a few things: my skating, my technique, the music and myself.

*********************************************************************

I return from a long work trip.  My skate friend picks me up with one thing in mind: In the trunk of his car are my new Moxi Lolly Skates.  When I left they were without wheels, full of potential.  In his hand they have taken on pink wheels, pink toe stops, and on deeper inspection, tiny teal nuts hold the wheels on, constrasting sweetly in a personal way that only I would notice.  Finding friends to skate weekly with you can be a challenge, and these details are a love letter to a shared passion we have that is by some measure, silly, but as I've said before, a necessary balance for me.

I am jet lagged.  Two countries, three time zones, but the next night I am at the rink and lacing up my  new skates.  I'm so tired I am still lurching standing still on my own feet, much less wheels, but I can't resist.  The skates are everything I thought they'd be.  Moving in them, across the light speckled floor, is like unicorns and glitter, like the smell of a brand new Lisa Frank sticker book, like Hello Kitty purses, Zebra bubble gum, cream soda, blanket forts and drawing rainbows.  It's like the first thick line you draw on paper with a new box of crayons.  It's the first time you see someone at your front door and that strange feeling in the bottom of your heart, that is hopeful and shy all at once, that knows, "We're going to be best friends."  For all the movies and songs that catch the bad ending of things, the lurching moment where you realize that everything you believed and loved is not real, skating is the opposite.  It's about the things that are real, that are always fun, that make you smile.  

It's easy to lose these sensations, my daily responsibilities are so big, so large, the spaces I move in are so fantastic.  But sometimes I want to be in that simpler part of me where the magic starts, where things grow and change, where my default is always, always, happiness.  I was born a happy person and despite or in reaction to all, I am always happy eventually. I'm a lucky penny with two sides, and I live a wonderful life.  

Skating is just an extension of that. 

Covered in glitter and smelling of rock n roll,

Queen Rage-Crush