Just kidding...

Well, you won’t be reading any humorous posts about math. I had to drop the class. And no it wasn’t me giving up, it was the teacher recommending me to and honestly also realizing something that makes me physically ill is just not worth it.
Here's how it went down:
So you had read that Labor Day Monday I yarfed from starting to do my homework and stressing so hard it got me sick. Unfortunatley, I've also come to realize that when stress hits me, it hits me harder than it used to and sadly more physically. So Thursday class rolled around (This would have been Day 4 if I continued). The teacher started her usual teachings with me sitting there completely lost and trying to ignore the annoying children around me. She then said we were doing an assignment in class. She passed out something from our workbooks and we were to do all the problems. I have never in my entire life had this happen to me - but I froze. I stared down at my worksheet and didn’t know shit. One of the problems could have been what's 2 + 2 and I don’t think I would have known the answer. I have heard about people freezing up when taking tests and always thought, well that's silly. Just relax and get through it. Well I had my first experience. The numbers blurred and my mouth started to water with that familiar feeling meaning I'm going to throw up. I started to break out into a cold sweat and my head start splitting. "SERIOUSLY!!!" I thought to myself. "This is ridiculous, calm down. Get a fucking hold of yourself". I took deep breaths and tried to focus. It wasn’t working. The teacher came over and tried to help me. She might as well have been talking in Russian. I had no idea. She came back and wrote down a tutors name for me. I stared at the problems and seriously could not do 1 fucking problem. I just stared down at my blank answers and fought off the tears and nausea and humiliation. I wanted to die. She came back and knelt by me. "I've been watching you, and I see you not getting it. You’re not going to pass this class. (She knew my situation). These kids just came out of pre-algebra, so they understand but it's been too long for you". I just silently nodded praying to anyone that I would not have an Exorcist moment with this woman and yarf in her face. "I think you should drop the class and take a pre-algebra somewhere. Then come back and I promise this will be a breeze!". She was very sweet, and very right. I nodded numbly and stumbled out of the class my face red with embarrassment as I felt the eyes of all the kids wondering what the hell just happened and the few within earshot who knew.
I got back to the office, tried to get it together, failed and promptly ran to the restroom and lost my breakfast. I came back to my desk trying to pull it together, but I couldn’t. After 2 more trips to the bathroom, my sweaty pale dumbass slinked into my boss’s office and thru tears of humiliation and embarrassment told her a very short version of what happened and could I go home.
I love this woman so much. She's extremely understanding, and sent me off, me promising to see an internist. (Which I have an appt. October 3rd, because I have had some tummy issues going beyond this stress situation, but more on that later).
I came home, slept for 4 hours, woke up and cried for 2.
The next day after getting myself together, I dropped the class, returned my books (which was a feat in itself, but we won’t get into that) and told my co-horts the news.
I've never felt like that. I've never reacted like that. I know the world is full of so many worse things and this is probably petty to most people, but I've learned over the years not to discount my drama because it's important to me. Yes I'm aware of all the worse things, but right now this for some reason completely fucked me up. I really don’t know why. I guess my angst for math was way deeper than I thought.
But - not all is totally lost.
I still haven’t made up my mind what I want to do yet, but I had lunch with the gal in admissions who helped me out and she told me about a self-paced math class at OCC. She also said, if I get through that (It would cover the 2 elementary classes I would have taken at Chapman), I could go straight to statistics and knock out my math completely. So we'll see. I plan on looking into it for sure, but will make a decision when this awful experience isn’t so fresh on my mind.
The positives are the admissions gal seems pretty cool, she's my age and single so I may have made a new single friend since all mine seem to be dwindling at a very rapid rate. Don’t get me wrong - I'm super happy for my friends who are moving in with significant others, having families, getting married. It's just starting to get a little lonely.
The other positive is I did actually survive, and realize how bad off I really am when it comes to math. So if I decide to tackle it again, I need to do it a different way.
I can focus more on the sketch comedy I have coming up next weekend which I'm super excited about and I still have 2 more races coming up that I'm ultra-excited about. My boxing burn classes have started up again, and it looks like I've joined a bowling league!
So thank you all for the support and I still may be calling on you math whizzes next semester!

Math Woes...

So, in my usual form - when I have something I despise in my life, or something that pisses me off, or makes me not the happy wack job Jami you all know and love, I'll try to humorously blog about it!
Here we go.
It starts like this. I work at Chapman. I can get an education for free. I never got a degree, so here's my chance. I was going to finish my BA in Theater - but I've come to realize you really need to be a full time student to do this. And - sorry Chapman Children - but I can act circles around you. Don’t get me wrong - I do plan on taking a few acting classes here and there if I can, but for a major it just won’t work now that I'm at this age with a full time job. So - I'm going with my other love - Creative Writing. It's going to take me a helluva long time to get this - but that's totally fine with me. I 'm really in no hurry; I just want to learn more and actually have something of substance in my life at the end of it.
So - in order for me to do this - I have to take math. Not only math - but 4 classes of math. I hate math. I have anxiety about math. In fact - fucking math made me actually puke yesterday. Yup. I was trying so hard to figure it out, it caused a migraine then causing me to barf and lose an entire day. Labor Day at that.
I'm not gonna lie - I'm still back and forth whether I'm going to drop it or not. But fear not - it wouldn’t be a drop and forget it kind of thing...more of a drop it - learn the basics and try it again. I haven’t taken math since I was 14 years old and I failed it then. So when I was told I have to take math, I told them to stick me in the lowest and not even bother with a placement test. Sadly the lowest class isn’t low enough I'm realizing. I should have a basic knowledge of algebra - which I don’t. So - I'm giving it one more week or two, to see if I drown before I decide if I can power thru or should stop - re learn how to add and start over. I'm hoping with the support and help friends have offered, the survival guide my boss bought me, and the website a friend showed me - I may be able to squeak through. We'll see.
So in the meantime - I'm of course going to try to humorously talk about it sometimes here on my rambly blog that I'm still flattered and floored that alot of you still read :).

Day 1.
Holy Shit. I'm sitting here in a remedial math class at Chapman U. I, of course, am older then all these kids. I'm listening to some of them (so far all girls) complain to each other that they don’t test well. One gal said she took this class once already. It seems pretty unanimous that everyone is embarrassed to be in this class. Most have lap tops. I'm starting to feel like Reese Wetherspoon in Legally Blonde with my Composition notebook. Damn where's my fuzzy pink pen. I can’t explain the feeling I'm having being a 35 year old sitting in the lowest math class with a bunch of (still all girls) kids who probably are not even of legal age yet. They all check each other out and introduce themselves. But not to me. I have my nose buried in my notebook writing this. I didn’t test into this class. I 'm here because I don’t remember shit about math. There are 2 girls very pissed off they tested into here. Oh please get me through this. There are alot of excuses I'm hearing about why they are here. How the hell do I explain my situation? "Hi there! I'm a 35 year old actor who never finished school. Now I have the opportunity to go here for free (I'm sure their rich parents would love that one), so I'm attempting to actually obtain one of these things you people call degrees!". And in walks in this little Polish Woman with a fantastic accent. I'll skip to the end of class here - I cried the entire way back to my office. I didn’t understand shit. She kept saying this was crap you should already know. As I looked around at the kids annoyed expressions that they were having to go over this again - I realized how little I really did know. I almost quit right then. But - there were lots of encouraging emails, phone calls and a happy hour with some co-workers that kept me from giving up right then.
The next day.
Since I decided to go through with this, my little posse and I headed to the registrar and I signed up. I also went to buy my books. $400!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I actually know what an anxiety attack feels like now. My chest tightened and I started swaying as I stared at the price. John/Bri searched the area for a cheaper version, and then tried very hard to keep me from flipping out. "Math are the most expensive books. Once you’re done with math, none will be this high" John said. "At least it covers 2 classes?" Bri said unsure. My chest tightened more as I grabbed the stack and got in line. Glad I brought my Visa (I just fucking paid off!!!!). Funny side bar - a kid asked me a question then replied with "Werd." He was completely serious. I made a comment about it in the daily report I sent out and sparked all kinds of fun discussions. Anyway...so the gal at the counter asks me "How'z your day?" "Well it was just fine until I saw the price of these books!". She wilted behind the counter and meekly said "You can sell them back later..." For maybe a third of the price I find out. I want to cry.
Day 2.
I take a deep breath and hope hope hope it makes more sense today. Now the kids are getting to know each other, and one girl is really annoyed she's in the class and doing everything in her power to get out. I again avoid eye contact and doodle waiting for the teacher. She pops in. I have to say - as much as I have no idea what the hell she's talking about - she's hilarious. She tells little stories makes the class laugh. I leave the class, and call my lil bro giving him an earful of how much this sucks.
In between.
So I'm trying to do the homework (Seriously so much!) and Bri is helping me at lunches, and I'm running things by Court (Rose you'll be getting emails soon), etc etc etc. It takes me probably 10 times longer to do a problem than it does one of the kids because I have NO IDEA. Proof - Monday I barfed from the anxiety.
Day 3 was today.
The angry girl cant get out of the class, so she's not happy. The kids must have just started doing the homework because they are all mortified how much there is and how long it takes. The pissy girl says "Oh it's easy, just time consuming". I wanted to punch her.
My boss ordered me a book called The Survival Guide to Algebra. I'm starting to read it and it's a kick. I'm hoping it'll help me out and I'm feeling good that it will somewhat. Bri is determined to see me through and probably already ready to kick my ass 3 different ways because I'm such a pain. But god love her - she's sticking to helping me. I still didn’t understand shit today in class, but I finished my homework - sort of tonite, with many question marks to ask Bri at lunch tomorrow. There's a few things I get, but most things I dont. I'm hoping with enough help and patience from myself and my friends I can get through this.
Wish me luck.
I'll try to keep humorous tid bits throughout. I think the 1st test will really be a test of me being able to grasp this crap.
I'm trying.
Lord am I trying.
To those of you helping me now and that will be helping me in the future - I fucking love you.

Wet & Wild 5K...

Yup. Had two in a row two weekends here. That was something.
So - Wet & Wild 5K.
After we had signed up for this one, I looked at the course and realized it's similar to the Fair Fun Run meaning there is only 1 really "Fun" thing. You got to run through the Lazy River at Wild Rivers. So, my expectations were already on the low side for this one. This is another one I won’t do again, but I got to experience something totally different this time around.
So, mom decided to sign up for this race. My mom is not an athletic person, and has been frustrated with her weight and the fact that she's out of shape for quite some time now. She's starting to make an effort lately, and I'm hoping I have some influence. I gave her a pedometer, and she's working on the 10K steps challenge I mentioned earlier that my work is doing. She of course can’t sign up since it's through Chapman, but I've made her a little spreadsheet and she's tracking her steps etc. She also attended the Warrior Dash we did back in April to cheer us on, and I believe she noticed the mix of people. The types of races I sign up for, as you know, are not the hard core marathon races. They're fun ones. So they have all sorts of people. Runners, families, people with injuries, larger, smaller, etc. I've told mom she could do some of these and take her time. Do her own pace sort of thing. Hell I'm never in it to win it - I'm in it for a fun different way to exercise. (Although I'm noticing I'm getting a little more competitive, but I'll save that for another blog).
So today's race started out like this:
Robin and her dad met us there (They are runners). D and Court were meeting us there. Lib was supposed to come with mom and me. She didn’t make it. The plan was, D or I were going to walk with my mom so she wouldn’t be alone. It was most likely going to be me & Lib, well now it was just me. And I'm so glad.
I knew this was causing my mom some concern. When we started getting close, she started worrying and lamenting over the fact that she was going to slow us down, and run ahead without her, etc. etc. She was worried she was going to have to stop and rest throughout the race. Worry worry worry. The closer we got, I could tell she was getting a little excited, but still not sure. She got some good walking shoes, she got herself some running shorts and shirts. She was prepared.
As we headed over this morning, I was actually looking forward to taking it easy today. As we ladies all deal with once a month..well yes...and I was extra crampy this morning and my neuroma has been flaring up all week. It wasn’t too bad today, but the thought of not pushing myself too hard today was defiantly pleasing.
After we checked in, got our crap, stretched, battled the nasty porter potties, there we all were in the giant cluster to start the race. Horn blows - we're off. We say goodbye to Robin, her dad, D and Court and mom and I start walking at a decent pace.
I see her start to react as most of us do...noticing we're getting lapped by strollers, children and old people and I see mom start to push it a bit. She tries to jog a couple of times, but is not able. I tell her not to worry, she's keeping up an amazing pace! She truly is. I was honestly surprised at how brisk she was walking. We're chatting, I'm jogging around her encouraging her. She refuses to be lapped by certain folk and speeds up at times. As we near the 1 mile mark she starts to tell me how important this is to her and breaks down. I of course immediately start acting like a jack ass trying to get her to laugh again, but at that moment I realized how hard this is for her. I knew that, but I didn’t realize how much. She can’t get the words out, but she doesn’t have too. We pass the 1 mile mark and I now am even more excited to be trotting around her. She tells me she never thought she could do something like this. She's so proud of herself and excited how well she's doing. I couldn’t be more proud.
We near the 2 mile mark and a couple of women walk past us shouting encouragement to mom - they chat a bit and the woman tells her "You don’t have to be a runner!! You're doing it! Good for you! You go girl!" At this point, I've decided to actually kick my own ass a bit and run backwards in front of mom for a long period of time (which I'm feeling the burn on that one as I'm typing right now...). We're chatting face to face as she's walking and I'm trotting backwards. I can see the determination on her face. I still can’t believe we've gone this far and she hasn’t had to stop and rest.
We finally reach the river portion. We have to wait a moment to get in, and the heat hits mom. She's a bit light headed, but I know once we're in the water she'll be fine. I was right. She's lovin it. She is a fish actually so now she's in her element splashing around as we walk thru the lazy river. Sadly this was only a very short distance. I seriously wanted to run the entire lazy river. Ah well. I help an old man out who’s having a hard time in front of me, and we round the corner to the last leg of the race. I see the finish line. "Mom wanna run it?" We do. D and Court are cheering us on as we pass them and mom crosses the finish line beaming. We did it in under an hour. (I'm guesstimating about 50 minutes).
We get our medals and our bananas and I shove a few waters in her hand making her drink. She did it. I was so proud of her and she was so proud of herself.
This was a race that wasn’t about me at all and I loved watching mom make her goal.
Way to go mom!!

Urban Dare...

Urban Dare.
Fail.
When we signed up for this Urban Dare, and watched people's U-Tube videos, and saw pics, etc. It looked like the Amazing Race. You get a clue, you arrive at a destination, you perform a dare then get another clue. The dares had rock climbing, eating fun things, riding a paddle boat, things like that!
Ours did not.
So here's the breakdown of the Urban Dare Race along with me and Lib's photo re-cap. There were fun moments; I mean how can there not be with my best friend in the whole world and me as a team.
We were the Darling Devils.

Joining us were my bro and his wife, our friends Court and Nat, and later on Julie and her man. We started out well enough. We arrived early to grab some breakfast and as some were waiting for me to come from the parking lot, some woman walked out of a what we didn’t realize was a restaurant and said - "You guys looking for something to eat? We have Bloody Mary's and Mimosas!". Sold. So we started our morning off with a couple of drinks and a very greasy breakfast. Probably not the smartest thing, but most of us were smart and just ate a portion as not to offend the "cook".


Julie & Gabe phone us that they have arrived and checked in, so we head over to Auld Dubliner where we check in, and end up hanging out for a while since we were so early. We got out T-shirts (You didn’t have to wear it if you were in a costume), our bibs and a passport. We of course all treated ourselves to a few more drinks...I mean we were in a bar and started getting excited. Court and Julie were a team, Gabe and Shane then D and Nat (Beer Brains 09 - consisting of tutu’s and personalized trucker hats. That's D. I love her).


The head guy tells us all to head out and meet in front of Laugh Factory. We all gather, they have a costume contest, then we are handed clue sheets. Lib and I dart to the side, plop in the shade and start to go through it. I realize right then - this is not what I was expecting. There is a list of 12 clues - all ending with an answer of some place you're supposed to go and take your photo. There were only 3 "Dares" and a "Photo Hunt challenge". WTF! Oh well, we start in. D had loaned us her phone, but unfortunately we are technologically retarded and it was difficult. We can also call people, so I was on the phone calling friends to help with answers. We get to a point where we have the answer to almost everything and figure we should get going.
Here's where we went wrong.
We decided, well let's just to the 1st thing on the list. The clue was "This was #2 in the Travel Channel's top 101 places to eat. Go there and take your picture in front of it.". Thank you to Vanessa - the answer was Roscoe's Chicken & Waffles. We attempt to use D's navigation thing - I speak the name into the phone and after some cursing and having no idea what its doing, Lib squeals - "It’s working! This way". We're off.
We running, and running and running - "How Long!!!" Oh Right (I think to myself) you're usually in a car, it's a bit farther than we thought. It's cool, we start to laugh and as we're running I'm calling people and making notes. Seriously - How we didn’t die is beyond me. Running while writing/texting/calling isnt the smartest idea. We just happen to come upon one of the dares! The luck! So we jet over and the gal tells us that the name of our passport (Which was SteamPower) has # value's. There are little sticks in the ground all over the grass each with a letter and a # value. We are to find ours, add them up and give her the correct total. We start. We have fab teamwork here as I shout the value's to Lib who writes them down while still juggling D's phone. We right out the #'s - she shouts them at me as I add em up on my phone calculator (See my phone was good for something). Stamp. We're off.
We are now running up a f-ing hill.
We happen upon another one!! Sweet! We jet over to see what it is. This is the "Urban Lab Chantilly Clad" or something. It's an odd looking installation. As we run up to the girl, she says "3-Legged Race! Run 3 times around this thing". We're off, after a few stumbles we f-ing rocked. This was the one we probably did best at. We got in a perfect rhythm with each other and lapped all the fools stumbling next to us and then STAMP. We're off!
Now we're almost to Roscoe's. I decide we need to figure out where we're going to go so we don’t end up back tracking. We sit down, I'm on the phone with my lovely mom getting the addresses of all our locations since Lib is afraid to turn off D's phone and lose Roscoe's. We pull our our map. FAIL. It's not a detailed enough map. WTF!!!!!!! We're screwed. We now have no way of figuring out where the hell we're going, because D's phone is not working for us either. Fuck. Well, what can you do. We head off to Roscoe's. On the way we bump into Julie/Court. They tell us where one of the local's is and we head off. We have totally lost our devil horns at this point and we are sweating and dying already. We finally find Roscoe's.
The nice thing was, the other peeps in the race were, for the most part, really cool. Alot of times you'd hit something at the same time and we'd pull the you take my photo I'll take yours sort of thing. So - photo local #1 -

We're off to "Anita Ekberg started in this Fellini film. Take your pic in front of the Spa with the same name". We find La Dolce Vita Spa and shoot the pic with the help of other Urban Dare folk.

We head off, knowing the addy of places and hoping they're this way. We are going for a very long time. We are also now in a very questionable area of Long Beach. I'm not going to lie, there were a few times I was a little worried. We did see 2 drug deals, and had quite of few homeless asking what the hell all these people running around were doing, but other than that nothing too bad. We run into Shane/Gabe. They point us in the opposite direction we're going saying the one is closer. Sigh - we turn around and finally find the "Mel Brooks starred in this TV Series with Don Adams. Take your pic in front of this tutoring academy".

Now, at this point I have an enormous blister forming on the side of my heel. I state to Lib we have to stop somewhere for me to get a band aid. We wander into a very scary liquor store and battle the counter fellow with a language barrier explaining I need a band aid. His buddy - a very ancient Asian man shrieks at him what I want in his language and he finally understands. I also notice the double pain glass shield we have to exchange our money through. Yup. Not a great area. I get my band aids and we take a 1st aid break.


We're off again. We drag up to the "Robin Williams movie where he played a gay biz owner or something...yup. You guessed it. Take a photo. As you can see by this photo - we're kind of over it.

I had spotted our other local while on our way to the Birdcage Cafe. "You need 98% to pass this test, or something - take your photo in front of the nightclub. Thank you Vanessa - I had no idea what the hell that one was!

We're off again. One of the photo hunt challenges was we had to take a photo of someone not in the race re-inacting the famous WWII photo of the soldier kissing the gal all romantic like. I was thinking this was going to be tough, especially since most of the people we have encountered are mean or on drugs. A lovely couple is walking towards us and Lib stops them to explain our task. The dude looks suspicious but his adorable GF says "Come on honey!!! It'll be fun!!!" so they get ready and he looks at me and says "Now what's the pose? Oh..this?" and promptly nails it. They were so awesome!!!!! Look at her pointed toe!

At this point we're a little flustered and we're wandering around trying to find Civic Center. This is when we get a call from Julie. They finished. I wanted to cry. I knew we weren’t close. She says since we got screwed with the wrong map, she'll help us out. We find the Civic Center while on the phone with her and follow some other racers to find the Bram's something Marlin we're supposed to photo ourselves in front of.

I call Julie back and tell her what we have left. "Oh no." She says. Yup - all 3 of our last places were totally scattered. She tells me where they are and this is the moment I almost quit. I just want to sit down and start to cry. I hang up and tell Libby. She has the same face as me. We're so f-ed. I'm now not even sure if we'll finish before the cutoff time of 3:45. We start off to the 1st one, bitching to each other about how lame this f-ing race has turned out to be and why didn’t I look and see we had a bunk map and FUCK!!! We call Julie again, because - yup we passed our 1st damn one due to our anger. So we turned around and took a photo in front of the stupid toy car pileup.

We luckily happened upon the other "Dare" when we saw a bunch of blue T-shirts running one direction - Wheelbarrow Race. Lib drops on all fours and we wheelbarrow around the little cones. STAMP.
We head off to our last and farthest spot. Because guess where it f-ing was. BACK NEAR ROSCOE'S!!!!! Yup, we are so screwed up and should have nailed it when we were on the other side of town. It's the Museum of Latin American Art. Fuck me. As we start dragging back, Libby is wanting to call a taxi. I'm so defeated by this point I almost agree. So, we do what we do best on our way back and just laugh. Try to look at the good side. We got our exercise! We got to catch up! Ya. Fuck.
We finally arrive and take our photo in front of the (which we now hate) Angel of the America's.

We see a really neat mirror thing (I make a mental note to come back when I'm in a better mood and do some camera play) and take our FUCK YOU URBAN DARE! Photo.

We start our trek back. We also realize we haven’t done our last photo thing we need to do to finish the damn thing. We need 3 people not in the race to do the Hear no Evil, Speak no Evil, See no Evil. We're also walking through and area where there IS NO CIVILIZATION! We've now heard that everyone in our group has finished of course. Whatever.
So we pass (again) this lovely park and figure fuck it, let's go take a nice happy picture on the bridge!

We then see these women walking towards us. Libby stops them to explain our last photo dare. One women leaves - now there's only 2 of em but another women is walking towards us so I stop her. They look a little wary at first, but since we're pretty much begging the lovely lady who is doing the Hear no Evil says "Come on ladies!!" and promptly assigns who’s doing what. I wanted to kiss them all.

We finally drag ourselves into the bar. Stamp our card. Show the gal all our pictures. They say congrats and we're done. Where's my f-ing medal!? Whatever. We collapse with our group, finding out Shane/Gabe didn’t get there too far ahead of us, and we notice we did it in about 2 1/2 hours I think - which isn’t horrible. But - the fact that we would have probably have been amazing had we had a f-ing map.
I got myself a glass of white - wanting booze but something cold.

Julie and Gabe had to peace out, but I got the final photos of us, exhausted but actually looking happy! :) So in conclusion - won’t be doing Urban Dare again. We all agree we were really disappointed that there were not more activities to do. I think that would have made it better, because even if we screwed up our route like we did - we would have had fun activities to look forward too. Oh well. We finished, and of course there were really fun moments! Thank you to my partner in crime and my best friend in the world - Miss Lib. We do make a pretty damn good team!

Fair Fun Run 5K...

Hi there!
So. Did the Fair Fun Run last Sunday. And I will say this. It was not really all that fun. I was actually annoyed. The way they advertised it was "Run, skip or walk! Play games and other fun stuff while you run thru the Fair". Ya no. There was no games to be played. No rides to be rode. Everything was closed up! The little volunteers they have (I'm realizing lots of races have these little volunteer folk that cheer you on throughout the race and give you water, medals and what not and usually have answers to questions you may have. The Fair Fun Run children did not. That may be the problem. They were really annoying kids. I had a few questions that I asked a few of these little morons and they looked at me blankly and said "I'm just a volunteer". Sigh. One of my best friends Robin was there with me, and had a teenager of her own. She stated hers wasn’t even as useless as these kids. Whatever.
So, we sign in, get our little bags of advertisements and our T-shirts. There's no sort of bag check or anything, so we trek back to my car and drop all our stuff off in there bringing only my phone so I can snap some photos of what I think will be some random fun stuff.
We're at the starting line, surrounded by real runners, and families and folks like us. I start noticing the shoes people are wearing. I noticed how mine are falling apart. Robin tells me I really need some better running shoes. I learn this in a much more painful way later.
The race starts late. Sigh. We head out. I try to run more this time, since Robin is a runner. She of course keeps telling me she doesn’t mind walking, but my pride keeps getting in the way so I push through my burning lungs and my now throbbing knee. I do walk a lot, but I ran much more than I ever have. We run onto Newport Blvd. I notice there is no cones and cars are whizzing past us. Um...that’s not very safe! The moron children who are supposed to be guiding the group and cheering us on are on their phones not paying attention to the people almost getting run over by asshole drivers. Nice. Robin and I push our way back onto the sidewalk. I will not die on Newport Blvd.
We round back into the parking lot and start around the front of the amphitheater. I see a few guys running at us and past us.
"Are they in this race?!" I shout in amazement to Robin.
"Yup" she states. Holy crap!! These dudes just did a 5K in like 5 seconds!!! As we round our way and a few other dudes go running by - I realize there's no girls!
"Where are the gals?" I ask Robin.
"They're usually 2 minutes behind the men". Huh. I learn something new every day. Although my friends Julie and Rose are pretty badass in the running area - I bet they would smoke those guys.
Anywhoo...we run into the Fair. Sweet! It's of course closed, but I'm getting excited to see all the fun stuff we get to do! We run. We keep running. We run past the rides. We run past the games. WTF!!!! There is no fun. There is nothing open for us to do! I notice a few other people are slightly annoyed as well w/some of the comments I'm hearing. Sigh.
Well - I make the best of it. I start stopping Robin and taking shots of her. As she does of me. We run through this one Fun Zone area and I start leaping up on the benches and running across them screaming "Where are my obstacles!!! Where are my fun things!!! I want to jump!!" I hear laughter all around me and some people cheering me on. That's right. I have support. And I'm entertaining people which is what I do best anyway.
So we run. We pass two of the moron teenagers and I hear her mumble something about a slide. I do a U turn and ask her what she just said.
"Take a detour and go down the slide!" she says!
"Hell to the fucking yes!!!!" I grab Robin and we run over to the slide ignoring the angry look from the father in front of me since I just swore in front of his daughter. Oops.
So that was our fun. That's it. The slide. I also felt bad because I noticed the idiot teenagers were chatting with each other and not telling everyone about the slide detour!! When Robin and I re-joined the runners I shouted about the slide and saw a few folks turn around. That's right. I'm helpin out.
We run up through the amphitheater which was kind cool watching them set up for whatever band was playing that day, then down and out and to the finish line. I'm now dying mind you because I've been running and jumping on shit and acting like a child so my knee has started to swell and my run has turned into what looks like a lame horse sort of lopping along next to Robin. We pass 2 moron teens that are actually cheering people on and I scream at them to keep it up. As we approach the finish line, I see supporters with signs for people "Go Brian!" or "Way to go Nora!". This is awesome. I make a mental note to find some fans to bring to the next race. What's also awesome is as my limping, sweating, red faced, and pain ridden body comes stumbling down the last stretch people are yelling encouragement my way. I don’t know these people but they see my pain and are screaming "You can do it!!!" "Power through it!!!!" "You’re doing great!!" I heart those people.
We cross the finish line and the retard teens hand us a medal. Robin and I stumble out of the way and take we finished photos as fire red hot pain starts shooting through my now swelling knee.
We decide to skip attending the Fair and have breakfast instead. I won’t do the Fair Fun Run again, but I'm so glad Robin was there at my side. She's one of my besties, and I'll always love her. And even though I pretty much screwed myself up for the rest of the week, I was glad I powered through. I got some great advice from Running Rose about running properly, and some great tips. Robin jumped on my ass about better shoes. And mom was ready for me with ice and Advil when I came home.
I'm no runner. I never will be. But I'm athletic. And stubborn. And I have to be active to live. So I really am enjoying all this random activity! Now to save up for a better pair of shoes...I got Urban Dare next weekend!

All these different activities....

So I decided I'd write a blog about all the different physical stuff I'm doing. If any of you readers are on my Facebook you've seen the posts of "I'm doin this class and that race and this what not".
It started out as me trying to find creative ways to exercise. I don’t have a gym membership anymore, and what they charge now days I couldn’t afford to get another one. I've dropped my trainer since he's not a good trainer and I was only doing it for the deal. So - I need to be creative.
I'm sure all of you have heard of Groupon and Living Social. And there's another one called Schwaggle or something. Anywhoo...they're deals. This is how I've been able to actually afford all this stuff. I actually had to pause because I signed up for too much and got over loaded. But you know what? I've loved it. I'm not doing any theater right now, and I'm not really sure when I'll be doing any upcoming. I'm really enjoying this stuff right now. I'm joining up with a burlesque troupe, but there are only a couple of shows coming up and the rehearsals will be limited and it’s still actually exercising! So - that will most likely be the only theater I do for a while and weirdly enough I'm totally ok with that. Of course this may change, but right now this is where I'm at.
So.
Let’s start with Warrior Dash. I actually blogged earlier about this (I'm pretty sure), but I wanted to bring it up again because this was kind of the kicker that got me started wanting to do all this shit. I have always wanted to do a race where you climb stuff! I love obstacles! I actually can’t run, so I power walk all these races I do, but its ok because they're "fun" races usually. Not just a straight 5K. Or a triathlon as some of my much more fit/active friends are doing right now. I have to say - I'm fascinated reading about their adventures. I don’t think I could physically ever do what they are doing but they are kicking some major ass. The discipline is insane. I will happily read about their adventures, but have ones of my own. Mine being more random I suppose! :)
One of the things I signed up for was a Groupon that got us a bunch of different classes with Hidden Talent Fitness. This is basically a group of burlesque gals that teach a bunch of classes. My friend April and I jumped on board. So far:
Chair Burlesque: This was the 1st one we took. I was happily surprised that I did quite well! We showed up and both promptly bought a pair of shoes. If I'm going to do it, I might as well do it right. So now I'm walking into the studio to dance in heels. (Character heels so not too brutal). The gal taught us a chair routine to the theme song to True Blood (I'm gonna do bad things to you...) It was super fun, the only complaints I have are she kept having to run over to her iPod to pause and re-start. That took up alot of time. So we didn’t actually learn an entire routine. But it was fun none the less. Not much of a work out tho.
Zumba: I enjoyed the work out aspect of this class because you never stop moving. The instructor wasn’t very good though. All she would do is dance up front and we basically copied her. I would have liked her to maybe teach us the basic footwork or something. But I was certainly sweating at the end of that class. The dance itself is kind of weird. It sort of reminded me of bad 80's dancing at one point, another time I thought we were doing the Macarena...then I was seriously scared we might break into the chicken dance. It’s kind of odd, but again - good cardio work out.
Pole Dancing: I had to bring a different pair of shoes for this one. My more hooker heels. Yup, gotta have your stripper shoes to do the stripper dancing. We took 2 of these classes. The 1st one was actually just me and April. I didn’t care for it too much, cuz the gal showed us a couple of moves then we just kept doing those over and over. I'm sorry. I'm not actually here to learn out to pole dance. I'm here to get a fun work out. The only thing that worked out was one arm. I wasn’t impressed. Well the next time we took the class there were more gals, and the instructor actually taught us a routine. I liked this a lot better. I also had the best upper body strength in the class. We had this one move where you basically lift yourself up almost sideways and do a leg move whilst up on the pole. Most the girls could only really bounce up and not get the leg move in there, but yours truly did it slow, steady and well. The gal even had me do it again for everyone to watch, saying "You have great upper body strength!". I of course beamed and promptly kept doing that. Yes, I will show off if I can. Well..lemme just say...the next 3 days I couldn’t lift my arms over my head. Way to go Jami. I also was not a fan of the spinning around the pole. I for some reason get super dizzy. So every damn spin I'd do, I'd have to pause to wait for my head to stop spinning. The work out was pretty good tho. Really worked your upper body!
Chair Cabaret: I was assuming this would be just like the Chair Burlesque. Oh no. This was a different gal, and our class was dimly lit and our moves were fancy like! At one point we laid across the seats of the chair, then flipped up into basically a head stand. When she 1st did it I thought "Oh dear Jesus...I'm goin down" but alas I did pretty good! I'm horrible with routines. My coordination is not the greatest, but I can usually fake it pretty good. I was stunned I performed quite well. 3 girls in the class ate shit - chairs crashing down with them and all. They were ok, just a little embarrassed but I cannot believe I was not one of them. The next couple of days my upper body, abs and legs were super sore. I loved it. That class worked all my problem areas!!! April and I signed up for 2 more of those classes we liked it so much. I'll let you know how they are.
Hip Hop: We knew going in that we probably were not going to care for this class, and we were right. The music gave me a headache, the gal spent more time watching herself dance in the mirror and we always had to wait a few minutes into the song before we started. There were also 2 little teeny bopper chicks in the class acting like assholes that I seriously almost drop kicked. Hip Hop...not my thang.
Kickball: You all know I play kickball. Sadly I will not be playing after this season. Unfortunately it just isn’t fun anymore. The league has gotten too big and the people are so angry and competitive (Yes. Kickball). Plus our old team captain always tried so hard to make it fun and our current captains don’t. So I've been getting my Monday night excersise playing ball (Actually more this time since I'm one of the best players...yam that’s right) but this will be it.
Boxing Burn: Ok, I just signed up for this one. My 1st class was Monday, and the other tonite. It’s Mon/Wed for the next 4 weeks. I LOVE IT. It’s brutal and I'm sweating like a whore in church and I'm so f-ing sore and I'm boxing and I'm doing cardio. This is exactly what I love to do. A cardio work out that invovles hitting. Yes. I do have that in me. Hello Irish temper. I haven’t been a part of an ass kicking class like this in a while. I definitely plan on keeping up with this one if I can. It’s through the city, so we'll see but right now I love it. I'm even hoping to do the class then straight to kickball after on some nights. Yes I'm that insane. I also feel pretty confident in the class because even tho I'm an uncoordinated retard, I know how to box. I love this one.
So that’s all the ones I've taken so far these past few months I suppose (Did I miss any?) I have a bunch of stuff upcoming: Fair Fun 5K Run, Wet & Wild 5K, Urban Dare, and Beachapalooza. Those will probably get their own blogs like Warrior Dash. Then I still have some upcoming classes: Paddle boarding, Aerial Hoop and Tissue Dancing, Power Yoga and Indoor Rock Climbing.
So yes folks. I'm on the fitness train. And I'm on it the way I like it....lots of variety and fun. I've also been taking the Pink Panther out alot (My bike) since the weather has been so lovely. I painted my moms roof. And I've also joined up with my company's ICount program. It’s a 10 week program to hit 10,000 steps a day. It’s really neat and I love that my company does stuff like this. The 1st challenge has started, there's about 200 people signed up (How many are actually participating I'm not sure) but they have a list of the current top 20 performers and I'm 4th at the moment. That’s right. The little competitive Jami is coming out for this one. After a few faulty pedometers I'm ready to blow my coworkers out of the water!
So there's the fitness recap and there will be many more. I also have that therapy appointment tomorrow, so you may be hearing some humorous therapy stories. I have no idea what to expect.
So on to the next right!?

And almost the middle of July...

Remember that time thing I mentioned?
Seriously it’s fascinating to me how fast it sails by. Yes, I'm abnormally a very busy person but still. Sheesh. July 10th. Anywhoo....
So I got blind-sided by another dude. I'm starting to wonder if I'm just really stupid, really clueless, or really repulsive. So we hung out a few times, had fun, connected, had some nice lil kisses, flirted, etc etc. Um...we made plans to have dinner and see a couple of shows and I get the "Oh, I should mention I'm dating someone text". REALLY?! WTF!!! You couldn’t have mentioned this sooner????!!! I seem to have the problem of hitting it off with some guy then driving him into the arms of someone else. I don’t get it. I'm not gonna lie - it fucking hurts. It’s like taking my already bruised ego and kicking it right in the face. Hi! Fuck you! Luckily we only hung out a few times, so the getting over it process lasted about 2 days. Remember the Sex and the City episode where Charlotte says getting over someone takes exactly half the time you were with him or something like that? Well...there ya go. But it still hurts. But it hurts because I have no idea what I'm doing wrong, or why I end up with dudes that feel the need to be all into me then magically have someone else. Sigh.
Moving on.
I'm hitting rough patch. (Yes the prior paragraph was also a nice kick me while I'm down). I'm ddddddyyyyyiiiiinnnggggg to start smoking again. Last Tuesday was my 4month anniversary of stopping (NOT EVEN A PUFF!). Yet it’s not getting easier! My nic withdrawals are getting a bit easier thank GAWD. I haven’t projectile vomiting in at least 2 weeks! Yay! It’s fascinating how much my body reacted. I'm thinking of writing a mini short. Maybe a horror. Anyway...hello focus. Losing alot of that lately! (Oh ya...thats a fucking withdrawl sympton) I'm trying so hard to be good. To be positive. To be healthy. To be...well I don’t know....me..but happy? It’s harder then I want to admit. One thing I have noticed about myself, is I've stopped apologizing for who I am. I'm a tomboy. I'm strong. I'm independent. I'm mouthy. I'm not negative but I'm realistic. I have more balls then most men I know. And I'm not sorry. I'm not a girly girl, I never will be. I can’t try to change that anymore. Now the challenge is finding a guy who likes that, loves that actually and a guy who doesn’t feel the need to run off with someone else 2 seconds after we start hanging out. Sigh. Did I mention EVERYONE is pairing off with someone now of course?!. Sigh again.
Moving on.
I still heart my boss. My job is super boring and annoying at the moment, but my boss is awesome and I do love working where I work. It makes such a difference when you’re working for an organization that actually gives a shit about their employees. Well at least in my department anyway. I'm still acting, but being way way more choosy. I loooooooooooooved my burlesque show - and those of you who came out - THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! You know how nervous I was. And I did it!!!!! You got to witness me actually dancing in front of people and not falling on my face!!!! My father who is Mr. Critical (and actually came to an 11pm show in LBC with mom, Shane and D!) loved my performance. I mean LOVED it! I was so stoked that those of you who came out enjoyed my stint. I did too, and I remember how much I love to make people laugh. It’s been so long since I've done a comedy and I'm reminded how much I love it. Sadly, I looked into a few to audition for, but they actually aren’t that funny
:( But I'm joining up with this burlesque troupe and I'm sure it will have more interesting challenging situations coming up! I do feel good with the acting right now, since I was criticized a bit too much for a while, and realized I need to not take certain people's opinions as truth. I was pleasantly surprised to get some awesome feedback as of late on my acting abilities. By quite a few people!! This made me feel better, and much more confident.
That being said, I HAVE TO get on the creativity train again. I'm torn. I'm trying very hard to share myself with creativity and active lifestyle. I have found my nitch in being active again which is awesome, and I'm also going to embrace my tomboy strong nature and pursue martial arts, or capoeira, or something where I’m hitting something. Because you know what? I love it. I do. That’s me. (Note to self...get 85lb ever last back from old roomie....)
On a good note, another thing I realized about myself, is I think one of my purposes in this odd life we have here is that I'm to bring people together. It happens all the time, and I'm actually now trying to make an effort if I see people who have similar interests I try to at least introduce then they can go from there. Its kind of rad actually because its happening.
So I'm trying folks. I'm running into some very interesting walls, but I'm bashing through them. I'm becoming more accepting of who I am and I think that’s good. I may be looking into therapy tho...so if I do I will of course try my best to humorously report on it!
Wish me luck my comrades!