I hate exercise. A lot. But Patrice and I have been walking every day in Prospect Park, and at first (probably because of denial) I didn’t think too much of it, and I certainly didn’t call it “exercising”, “working out” or anything else that would suggest to my brain or body that I was doing something healthful. We just went to the park, around the loop and came back home, no sweat. Literally no sweat: we walk like grandmas and talk shit about the people around us jogging. Show offs.

WHAT? It’s how I get through it.

Then I mapped it and realized that if we did the little loop, we were doing 4.5 miles and if we did the big one, we were doing a solid 5. That might not sound like a lot but when I realized this, I strutted around like some sort of Olympic athlete and spent a solid 24 hours feeling like a superior human – like I imagine marathon runners feel all of the time.

I didn’t think the walks were doing much, although it didn’t stop me from pulling my shirt up over the weekend and demanding Patrice inspect my doughy midsection for any hint at an ab. Just one.

“Maybe right here?” I said, poking my squishy stomach. “Like, sort of. Almost. You see it?” I twisted around and back, hoping to catch the light just right.

She shook her head and laughed. “You’re an asshole. Put your shirt down.”

But my thighs? They definitely look different from hauling my body all over the park every day, and I’m starting to feel stronger in my back.

No abs, though, not yet. But they’re coming.

This song is 10 years old, but I first heard it when I was packing to move to Brooklyn in 2008. To me, it will always sound like flipping the page onto New York City.

It came on during brunch Saturday, causing me to momentarily abandon my eggs and and raise the roof. Couldn’t be helped.

image by Peter Baker

According to the comments on this post, I am in good company with a whole bunch of self-poopers and pissers. You are all gross, but bold, so I like you. Thank you for the stories.

May we all go about un-soiled this weekend.

P.S. My keys were in my living room the whole time. They had fallen to the side of the couch, and all I needed to do to find them was vacuum. Am-ber.

This thing happens: I really have to go, but am fine holding it until stepping into the bathroom where it suddenly reaches the level of OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD I’M GONNA PEE MYSELF! and then I have to perform a series of calisthenics to wiggle out of my pants at lightening speed. That’s happened to me my whole life, this weird, Pavlovian response to being near a commode, and I hate it. It’s like my bladder is playing a game of chicken with my brain.

It’s gotten worse: it’s started to happen on my front stoop, and it happened Friday night when my shoe hit the top step of my building.

I grit my teeth against the uncomfortable, sharp desperation that suddenly pummeled into me, hopping around and wriggling while I stuck my hand in all the pockets of my bag looking for my keys. They weren’t there, though; and as of writing this, they’re still either floating around Union Square, at one of the two bars I swung by that night, or endlessly riding the N train without me. New York City ate them, as it does sometimes with stuff.

I sighed and called my neighbors, pacing the street while I tried to not pee my pants.

“We’re away.” said my neighbor, but she called their roommate, who said he’d be home in an hour. I called everyone who has keys to my apartment and got nothing. Meanwhile, I broke into a cold sweat and wiggled around some more.

“I can duck behind this garbage can…” I thought. But no. I am not homeless. I’m a damn lady. I started to walk to my local bar… and then my body just gave up. Gave in. Betrayed me, on the sidewalk right outside my apartment, thirty fucking years old with rivers pouring down my thighs, out of the back of my heels, and down the street. It was like an out-of-body experience: I literally couldn’t believe it.

And then I laughed. What else was there to do?

When I recounted this story to Jen on Saturday, she said (after she caught her breath, having doubled over in hysterics in her kitchen) “You’d think being an adult would be more dignified than this.” Right. One would think.

It is worth noting that I was stone cold sober this whole time; I haven’t decided if this makes it worse or better. I hobbled to my car parked on the street and set my bag on the hood, determined to find those damn keys. While I was standing there, I could feel my body gearing up to go again. I just let it happen this time (at this point, I figured, it can’t get any worse.) and finally, I called Patrice while leaning on the hood with my head in my hands. In between sobbing and laughing equally as hard, I managed to tell her what happened.

“Oh no! Come over. I have soup. Take a cab.”

I couldn’t bear to get into a cab, though, so I walked squished the mile to her house on foot where she met me with a towel and let me throw everything, sandals included, directly into the wash. I took a shower and borrowed jammies while everything got clean.

You need friends like this.

“We might be married now.” I said, sighing into my glass of wine.

When I told this story to Rob, he said that he guessed about 40% of people our age have some sort of story like this, and, so: do you?

FESS UP.

You’ve probably heard this by now, but in case you have not.

There needs to be a special name for the nap that happens when you’re changing the sheets and you have to put the bottom sheet on the far corner of the bed, so you flop across the bed to tuck it in and then you just sort of lay there on the brand new, laundry-smelling sheet, and put your cheek against it, just for a minute because it feels so nice, and then you wake up two hours later.

It can’t be just me.

Happy weekend.

It was a rough go for a few weeks there in January and February, but I don’t wallow. My baseline, the place I always return to after highs and lows, is “pretty damn happy”, and I’ve come to really like this about myself; it’s served me well and kept me sensible.

I’m not quite up to the baseline yet, honestly, but it’s coming as life swirls on. It’s mostly in friendships that I’m finding joy (girls night woot woo!), but some in work, hobbies, making plans for the future that are happy, and in rearranging this apartment to better suit a life solo.

In the house I grew up in, the light switch to the basement was in the kitchen at the top of the stairs and the laundry was in the basement across from the stairs, so if someone flicked it off absentmindedly while you were down there, you’d have to stumble all the way over and then up stairs to give yourself light again. If you were folding clothes and suddenly found yourself plunged into darkness, it was just easier to start hollering that you were down there so they would flick the light back on.

This whole thing has been scary, but when it happened and I started screaming “Light! Light!” and pounding on the walls, the response was a dozen little beams snapped on, held by good close friends, and oh, hey look. There’s a light in my own hand, too. And they are growing steadily brighter. Although it’s still dark, I’m no longer afraid.

I’m not broken or bitter, either and that’s it. That’s all I got right now. That’s my bottom line.

It’s a pretty good one, actually.

***

In other news: IT’S SPRING TIME!

You might need a smoke after watching this one. (It’s probably “less safe for work”, but you won’t get fired unless your boss is a total prudish douchebag.)

Thanks, Jared!

p.s. If you don’t want to watch the steamy video, you can just listen here:

Who let me drink and then use a big knife?!

It turns out that 30 isn’t so bad.

I headed to my favorite bar the night before around 11:30 and counted down to midnight there, surrounded by a handful of friends who all wore goofy party hats, bought me way, way too many shots (fuck you all), and made elderly jokes. We stayed out pretty late, and I got this text at 9 am:

There is a direct relationship between how much I love you and how much I hate today. Happy birthday, old girl.

At the spa they booked me with Richard, the world’s hottest masseuse. He introduced himself by asking me, “Are you ready to feel good today?”

Why yes. Yes I am. Richard.

Whiskey & Salt is a quirky supper club run by my friends; they told me I could pick whatever food I wanted, which was easy: soul food, the kind my grandmother (the black one) used to feed me. Fried (organic, free-range, humane certified) chicken, collard greens, green beans, yams, biscuits, corn bread, sweet tea (with vodka – my grandma left that out, but I thought it was a splendid addition), and the best goddamn mac and cheese ever. Plus four cakes. (Conversation post dinner- Me: Am I supposed to be able to bend? Kathryn: No.) And then they went Pinterest on my backyard with the decorations.

photo from Lara

photo from Christina

They showed up with supplies at noon and served dinner at 8, and while they bustled around my kitchen all day, I did the following: had a nap in the hammock, had a nap on my bed, fixed my hair, took my annual birthday photo, and occasionally wandered into the kitchen to get in their way and stick my finger in whatever was around that looked good. Usually frosting.

Friends arrived at seven – there were 16 of us at dinner all told -  bearing wine, balloons, cards, gifts, flowers, and sweet toasts that made me cry into my cake. It is an amazing thing to be loved.

This is my 30′s? I’ll take it.

And so ends my twenties.

I can honestly say I didn’t see most of that coming.