Stuff's been happening lately. Big stuff. Stuff that makes me go back to smoking like a chimney. I was really proud of my healthy eating (I wasn't even drinking diet coke anymore!), and how much work I was doing, getting up early and going to Muay Thai.

Most of that has gone to shit for now. I know I'll get back to it, but right now, I have to sort some shit out.

Remember playing dodgeball in elementary school PE(gym) class? If you didn't, you either didn't grow up in this country, or I went to a way more WASP-y school than I thought. I was awesome at dodgeball. Most of the time, I was the last player standing after everyone else had been tagged out. If we were playing the 'prisioner' version of dodgeball, I was usually able to 'rescue' most of my team, because I played softball, and I could throw accurately. I loved playing dodgeball because I wasn't terribly awesome at any other sport - ever (yeah, I was pretty bad at softball too).

Though, despite all my aweseome feats, I dreaded the beginning of class when it came time to pick the teams. Since I wasn't popular in just about any group, I was picked last every time. You know, the last two people are a) the most unpopular girl in class, and b) the smelly/weird girl. Usually the smelly/weird girl got picked first. I'm sure everyone's been the last one picked at some point, and it sirs up a host of insecurities that you thought you got over in high school.

I call it the Dodgball eEffect.

I've been going to Muay Thai 3-4 times a week for a steady 2 months now, and you would have thought by now that most of the guys in the class wouldn't be scared to hit a girl. Yet whenever our sensei, Marcelo, tells us to pair up, I know that if there's an odd number of students in the class, I'll be sparring against Marcelo for the first round. As soon as I look around me to non-verbally ask, 'You wanna pair up?' with anyone, their eyes dart away and search for someone else. This happens a few more times. The Dodgeball Effect. I hate it. I am left without a partner and Marcelo steps in to spar with me.

I guess I can't blame it all on the fact that I'm the only girl in class, it could be because I'm new. But I know most of the guys there at least by name by now. And I should be excited to spar with Marcelo, after all, it's practically like I'm getting a private lesson from him, but sparing with anyone who is a black belt or above is terrifying. Not because I'm afraid they're going to hit me (black belts have more control over their movements; and as I've discussed before, sparring is not code for being the crap out of someone), but because I feel like every second I'm being judged. I know I'm not, and I know no one expects me to do practically anything right because I'm a white belt. But since I am overly critical of myself and I always expect the worst, no rational argument has been able to keep me from thinking that all Marcelo is thinking is, 'This girl sucks.'

I know I'm getting better though, because everyone from Marcelo to the other instructors in class have told Sean (he does Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu there) that I'm doing well. And Sean doesn't ask them how I'm doing, so there'd be no reason for them to say that if it wasn't true. It sounds stupid, but I really do feel the need to be better than 'average.' And yes, mainly that's because I'm surrounded by boys. Even though I'm a total tomboy and I've always run with the boys, this feels different. This is competetive. Fun, yes, but competetive. I'm already thinking about how I might want to fight in a year or two. Though I'd be fighting only against other girls, they also would be as tough as the boys, and that's what i want.

Toughness. It's not enough for me to be 'tough for a girl,' just tough.

Sidenote: I weighed myself in the morning and right before I went to bed last night(yeah, i know i shouldn't weigh myself so much, but i just couldn't help it), and I actually weighed less in the evening than I did in the morning! Thank you Muay Thai practice and 5 mile run!

It helps a lot to have a dog who can adapt to a new routine like clockwork within a week.

For the past few days I've been getting better at getting up at 5:30 and going for a short run. Most days, I took the dog with me, to kill two birds with one stone. I still don't really like taking Snow out on my runs. Picture yourself getting out of bed and lazily putting on your running clothes and shoes. You're just about out the door when your 8 year old starts crying and begging you to take him with you on your run. You agree begrudgingly (pretend you're a really slow runner and you're not going far at all). You and your kid start running, and all goes well for about a half mile. Then the kid gets bored with running. It stops to look at something, darts in front of you making you lose your stride, at one point the kid just starts sprinting towards a busy road and you have to run after it to stop your silly child from being flattened (or pretend you've put the kid on a leash, you still get pulled every which way by their movements). This continues for the next mile or so. After that, your kid gets tired, they fall behind, they use any excuse at all to slow down or stop completely. You tell yourself that you'll never take your kid on another one of your runs. The next morning, the kid comes into your room, 20 minutes before your alarm goes off, jumps on your bed and starts whining about why you haven't gotten up and taken him to run yet.

I have no idea why I had to use a kid in the above scenario. I could have just told you about what my dog does and it would have made perfect sense. I've been told that I compare children to dogs a lot. Before you get huffy, think about it. They really do share a lot of the same qualities.

I guess it's not as bad as it sounds, because he gets a little better with every run, but it's tough right now. Hopefully one day he'll be a dog I'll barely notice during my runs, and maybe one day after that I'll really look forward to running with him.

However, he adapts to one thing quite well. For the past few mornings, if I'm not already out of bed and on my way out by 5:50, he whines and cries and begs me to get out of bed. I don't know if he wants to go for a run or he just has to pee, but either way, it gets me up when the snooze button is so tempting to keep hitting (even though Sean hates it when I do that).

And getting up in the morning is actually easier than I thought. I've been feeling better and happier in general, and I wouldn't say I have more energy throughout the day, but it's not as much of a struggle as it was only a few weeks ago. I'll bet there's a lot of other circumstances that have helped attribute to my change of mood, but hey, I'll take what I can get.