Shorts and Sexually Charged Music.

I had hoped that I could have a better jog today then I did yesterday.

I decided I would jog earlier, 9:00 a.m. to be exact.

I decided to wear shorts. Jogging shorts. 

I decided to do it shortly after I woke up and before I had breakfast.

I was actually able to finish the route that I had planned for yesterday. It’s a 3 mile route. No, I didn’t jog the whole thing. That would be exciting, but not yet. For some strange reason I have yet to jog 30 minutes without stopping like I did twice in California. It’s upsetting. I’m assuming that I have to work my way up again. I jogged my first mile in 11 minutes. I think that is probably my record so far. 

I’m terrified of stray dogs. Well, dogs with unaccompanied owners. There at the end of my first mile was a stray dog. I suppose I ought not to call it a stray since it had a collar around it’s neck. But he looked mean. I told it in my sweetest high pitched voice that it needed to go home. It decided to run along side of me and eventually ahead of me every once in a while looking back at me. Needless to say, he didn’t bite me.

I finally had to stop and walk and 19 minutes. I walked for about 2 minutes and then jogged some more. The whole route took about about 40 minutes. Three miles in 40 minutes. 

Meh, I can do better. 

One of the things that I kept thinking to myself was, “Wow, I’m glad nobody I know can see me. I’m wearing shorts!” And then I realized how idiotic that sounded. Why would anyone be offended if I’m wearing shorts? I’ve always prided myself on not caring too much what other thought of me. But, I think part of that has been a lie. I don’t wear bathing suits or shorts in front of anybody who isn’t my family. All in the thinking that my body will offend somebody. And then I realized that I don’t get offended when I see girls my size or bigger wearing shorts. I actually get pretty excited when I do see them. I’m all like, “Yeah, you go girl! Be proud of yourself!” Why can’t I do the same for myself?

I’ve got to change my thinking.

Something else I’ve noticed. I jog better to sexually charged music. Haha. They ALWAYS have a better beat and are nice and fast-paced. I need to make a jogging play list. I usually just put my ipod on shuffle. Which can get annoying, cuz there are a whole ‘lotta songs I have no desire to listen to when I jog. 

Does anybody have any great music that keeps them motivated when they jog or exercise? I’m looking for some good upbeat stuff. It’s a plus if it’s sung by a handsome black man. 

Humidity is a *Insert Profanity*

If you’ve never been to Southeast Georgia, or Georgia, or The South, then I’m morally obligated to educate those who’ve never experienced Georgia’s humidity.

Humidity is something I forgot about while I was in California. Well, not entirely. I would reminisce about how great my skin felt on the East Coast as opposed to the dry, flaky skin I experienced on the West Coast. 

You see, jogging was, (dare I say it?) “easy”. I’ll settle with easier. Jogging was easier on the West Coast. Here in Georgia we have humidity. 

Humidity is clingy. (My high school teachers would be proud to know I’m using personification in my writing.) Humidity won’t leave you alone. Humidity is a warm, wet blanket that covers you from head to toe. Humidity doesn’t care if you’re standing still in the shade to cool off. Humidity doesn’t care if you’re jogging or trying to radically change your lifestyle. Nope. She’s always there. Yeah, I think humidity is a woman. A needy woman who won’t leave you alone even though you’ve given her clear body language that you don’t want her there. 

Yesterday, I decided to run for the first time in my parents’ neighborhood. In Cali, I jogged at night after 8:00 because it was cool outside then, but I decided to do it in the morning-ish this time. It was about 10:40ish. 

It’s interesting to me, because this is the house I grew up in. I remember jogging the same route and not being able to do it. I’m sure most people do this, but I would pick up landmarks such as a telephone pole or a tree and tell myself that I would start or stop jogging when I got to those points. When I’ve jogged this route before I was never able to jog a mile. Jogging yesterday was exciting for me because in that first mile I passed all of those landmarks that I used to have to stop at. Goodness, I was such a pansy. 

However, after I finished my first mile yesterday Humidity was caught up with me. I was already sweating profusely. The hot Georgia sun was beating down on me. I was wearing my loose Walmart Danskin faux yoga pants. To say, “it was hot,” would be a complete understatement. It was miserable. I started slowing down. And finally I had to stop and walk whenever there was shade around. I was planning on going for 30 minutes. But I said, “Screw this!” I got home after 22 minutes. I don’t think I even jogged two miles. 

Give me water. 

Athens and the Hills of Purgatory.

Home Sweet Home

I love Athens, Georgia. 

I truly think it is one of the greatest cities ever. Unfortunately, I graduated from UGA and no longer have a good enough reason to stay in Athens. 

Call me when there is a film company started here, and I’ll move in a heartbeat. 

Anyways, I’m in Athens for a few days. I am going to take a test to get Final Cut Pro Certified. (I’m nervous.) The one thing that makes Athens beautiful is it’s hills. However, those devoted to the art of exercise, Athens is Hell, well, I’ll settle for Purgatory. I could never call Athens “Hell”.

So, today my friend Lorraine and I decided to go for a jog. She had just moved into her apartment and doesn’t know her neighborhood well. After some making split second decisions on where we would turn and jog next and  some good conversation, we came across it. 

The biggest. Hill. Ever. 

Hyperbole. 

In all the summer that I’ve been jogging I haven’t had to jog up any hills. 

This was a new experience for the both of us. 

It was rough. 

We decided to cut our jog short from 30 minutes to 20. I say that since we jogged up the hills it's the physical equivalent of jogging for 30 minutes. 

We’ll have sore booties in the mornin’. 

I didn't jog last night. 

I didn't want to bring sweaty clothes in my suitcase and they had a lovely lil going away BBQ for me. I loff my family. They are great.

The next time I jog it'll be in Georgia. I leave for Wisconsin August 25th or 26th. So, then I'll be jogging in Wisconsin. That should be fun. 

So, I'm at the airport right now. 

Adios, California. It's been fun. 

I want to make Dianna Zheng laugh.

Today was a mediocre jog. I’ve done worse. I’ve done better. I jogged the first mile in 13 minutes. Wasssuppp! But that second mile was, as my lil brother likes to say “re-dik-uh-lo”. I was going at such as snail’s pace and I had to walk about a minute twice. If my math serves me correctly I walked about two minutes of my 29 minute jog. Yeah, 29 minutes. Can you say, “FAIL”? Okay, I’m being a bit dramatic.  I mapped out my route tonight and it was 2.21 miles. 

It’s starting to get dark earlier. I’m sure this happens annually, but I’ve never noticed before. At the beginning of the summer it started getting dark at 9 p.m. Now it’s dark by 8:30. As I’m jogging under the creepy fenced in overpass, I can almost hear my grandma’s voice screeching at me that I “just don’t understand California,” which is some sort of cryptic message that reminds me to be careful. You know, I’m just a naive Southern Peach from the land of sweet tea and “yes, ma'ams”. But I digress. My point being, I don’t like to jog in the dark, but if I jog any earlier my dinner is probably not digested. I’m too much of a pansy to jog in the morning. 

I feel morally obligated to have an awkward jogging montage scene in the next film I make. Art imitates life. 

Nope.

Yeah...I'm way too sore to exercise tonight.
In other news I can't hear out of my left ear. I went swimming yesterday with my cousin Jeannie and her kids and I think the pool water got in my ear. I've been ferociously putting hydrogen peroxide in my ear. It was done nothing yet.

Hot girls jog with their hair down.

Last night I went to the club with my friend Sukhi. I had a lot of fun. I danced. A lot. I danced so much that my legs are super sore. 

But, I needed to jog tonight. 

I think I made up a stereotype in my head. Which is hot girls jog with their hair down. So, I decided I was going to defy my made up stereotype and jog with my hair down. The headphones I wear when I jog are my grandfather’s. For some strange reason I still haven’t invested in a decent pair to go jogging in. His headphones fit behind my head. But what I didn’t realize (until it was TOO LATE) was that my ponytail holds up the headphones on the back of my head. As I was jogging, my headphones kept falling from around my ears and to my neck. I was forced to sport that douche-bag look of headphones around the neck. I could hardly hear my music. It was more like a few rhythmic beats was all I could hear. I did not feel like I was jogging in the montage sequence of a hilarious romantic comedy.

Anyways, so I couldn’t hear my music. And the more I jogged the more my poor legs were killing me. I probably should’ve had a day of rest for my poor body. I’ve been working it really hard. My jog was a fail. I think I jogged a total of a mile and half. I had to start walking after 17 minutes. I didn’t even try for more than 30 minutes. 

I don’t want to talk about it. 

I think my jog would’ve gone better if I hadn’t tried to be a hot girl.

Just stick with what you know, Becky.


I'm exhausted. I'm going to bed. And it's not even 10:00 p.m.

A little less conversation, a little more action, please.

I decided that it would be in the interest of prudence to not jog again in my Harry Potter shirt. Maybe I’m using prudence incorrectly.

I decided to wear a tank top. Not that it makes a difference. Only today the general populace were privy to my pasty white shoulders accented by freckles that glistened like  diamonds when mixed with sunlight and sweat. I just tried to make myself sound cool for being pasty white. Did it work?

I did pretty similar jog much the same jog I did yesterday, but I went a different route towards the end. Today I jogged a straight 27 (about 2.2-ish miles)minutes without having to stop and walk. When I stopped and looked at my phone, I was disappointed in myself. I mean, come on Becky, is jogging for 30 minutes REALLY THAT HARD?! But then, I thought about it in light of everything else. I’m making pretty amazing progress. This is the girl who had never ran a mile before a couple of weeks ago. I mean, on tuesday, I could only jog for 15 minutes, and if my math serves me correctly, I added 12 minutes on to that. 

To people who don’t jog but want to or are afraid to, I offer you this encouragement: just do it. If you have to stop and walk, don’t get angry or upset. If you keep “practicing”, it’ll happen. 

I’m still waiting for my pink unicorn to bring me a bag of endorphins. I think I’ll write a letter to the tooth fairy and ask her to put them under my pillow. 

This is a shout out to Lindsey Kay Rodgers. 

Magic Powers? Thanks, Harry.

I think it was my new Harry Potter shirt. It had to have been bewitched. 

I did what I’ve NEVER done before. 

I jogged for 20 minutes without stopping, waited for a stoplight to change and jogged the last 10 minutes home. 

I actually teared up a little on my jog. I’m so proud of myself. I may tear up as I write this. hah. 

Let’s see, what did I do differently today. I mean, yesterday pretty much sucked. Well, I jogged a route that I’ve never gone before. I jogged down a sort of highway route to a Greek Baptist Church, (interesting I know...), I cleared my mind almost completely, I kinda became a zombie, and I was wearing my new Harry Potter shirt. 

Honestly, I don’t have anything clever or witty to say. I’m just super proud of my body tonight. Let’s keep doing this, Becky.

Maybe I shouldn’t wash my Harry Potter shirt...

Post Script --

I found this really cool site called mapmyrun.com. I was able to see where I ran and how many miles it was. I jogged exactly 2.19 miles tonight. That's what's up. 

Dear God, thank you for black people.

I left my house at 8:20 for my jog. 

I was really excited. 

Because, I was planning on having the most epically awesome jog of my life. 

And I was going to blog about it. 

And I was going to inspire people. 

I even started thinking of witty titles for tonight’s blog.

But I must confess, this jog was nothing of the sort.

I started off on a really good pace. I wasn’t sprinting, but I was going a bit faster than usual. Steady. It felt good. I clutched my iphone and jammed along to the goodies on Shuffle. 

I finally started to feel like I need to start walking.

I’m quite sure it’s been at least 20 or 25 minutes, I thought to myself. I’ll just stop at the stop sign. I checked my phone. ONLY 15 MINUTES HAD GONE BY! WORST DAY EVER! haha. 

I decided to walk the end of the street where I would continue jogging again. I think I walked for 3 or 4 minutes.

And then, I heard him singing to me. No, not Jesus or Angel, but Taio Cruz. How could I let this beautiful black man with his catchy dance song down? I couldn’t. So I slowly jogged some more. Oh, I was aching. I didn’t dare look at my phone. Because if I did look at my phone then somebody will have probably created a machine that distorts time ensuring that only something like 60 seconds had passed instead of 15 more minutes. I kept jogging until I couldn’t go anymore. 

Rats! I had only gone 6 minutes. I skipped back on my iphone and let Taio Cruz sing to me again. It was just what I needed. I jogged until the song was over. 

I looked at my phone. 

It was 8:49. 

Yeah, somebody created that machine. 

I wanted to vomit. 

I didn’t even do my cool down walk. 

I collapsed on the living room floor of my grandparents’ living room. 

The room was spinning.

It was only after a few minutes that I could sit up and stretch. 

Boy, that was rough. 

And I still can’t come up with a clever title for today’s post. 

Ingrid Michelson and the 6 marry murderesses of the cook county jail.

I decided to jog Sunday morning instead of Sunday night because I was going to a family BBQ. 

I put my ipod on shuffle. The first song that came on my ipod was a weepy song by Ingrid Michelson. Something about losing her man. I listened to it all the way because it had a good beat. But, I was slightly perturbed. I wanted to hear something empowering to women. Not something crying out for lost love. Well, I got my wish, because the next song up was the Cell Block Tango from Chicago. I’d say, that was by far the polar opposite. “He ran into my knife. He ran into my knife ten times.” Yes, a song about 6 women who killed their lousy husbands. Now that’s empowering. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to completely empower me. Because my jog sucked. I dunno if it was because I jogged at 8:30 a.m. instead of 8:30 p.m., or if I forgot to take my iron supplement, or I hadn’t eaten anything that day. But it was uber  difficult. I barely could jog a mile, and I took turns jogging/walking back the second mile. 

Somehow I feel like it’s all connected. Self-worth, exercise, sex, men, attraction. I don’t want it to be connected. 

I decided that it won’t be.

If only I can convince my brain.