Call him Ishmael

Happy as an Elk Sitting on Its Own Portrait

2011-11-07T21:25:00.001-05:00

It’s the people, not their paraphernalia, that carry the real value in an episode of Antiques Roadshow (not that I’m an expert). One lady, for instance, has a carefully honed eye for ornately carved desks, such as one by Dr. Niblack, who fashioned entire desk-and-chair sets, in the style of Western Americana. The proud owner discovered it in a hotel where she stayed on her way back to Montana. She made the hotel an offer, but the hotel mangers’ counter-offer was too high—for the moment. She promised she would get the money, and she asked them to hold the item for her. The managers, suddenly growing fond of the set, refused; they said they would have to sell it to the first person to cough up three thousand dollars, or not at all. The woman, determined not to miss this rare opportunity to bring something of value into the state of Montana, ran upstairs to her and her husband’s hotel room to “ask him for a loan” (her words, not mine). The husband, however, delicately informed her that he would not let her waste one Canadian cent on a piece of junk like that hideous desk or its obnoxiously bovine chair. A sympathetic, loving conversation ensued. Then the woman, not to be outdone, hustled across the street to a bank, where she immediately obtained a loan, offering her wedding ring as collateral. Cash in hand, she ran back to the hotel, whose managers were (as a joke) contemplating carving their names into the desk they would never see again. Fortunately for Dr. Niblack’s handiwork and its admirers, they refrained. The woman bought the thing, wrapped it, hauled it onto her truck, and drove to her mountain cabin, happy as an elk sitting on its own portrait. Although she never saw her husband again, she did later in life appear on the Antiques Roadshow, whose appraisers proudly informed her that Dr. Niblack’s desk was now, after thirty-five years of appreciation (and inflation), worth—wait for it—three thousand dollars. You have to give the husband credit for calling that one. The man accurately appraised an original Niblack with no information but that his wife wanted it. I’d like to see a Roadshow worker try that—not that I’d pay to see it.

Hot Potato, Part V: Moving Morning

2011-07-14T08:24:00.003-04:00

So for days now I've had this whole thing going in my head where I present the different "paths"--options for hiring movers, and how many, and for how long, and every other detail imaginable under the sun--as if each was a friend sitting around a poker table. It was going to be great. I was going to find innocuous ways to make jabs at Trevor, and say things like:

To help things along, let's call these options Alex, Bernie, Chuck, Dale, Ethel, Fred--etc. Alphabetizing our friends helps us a great deal. Not only do we stay organized when talking about our friends behind their backs--it also helps us to number them. We know that once we get too far beyond a J or a K name (#10 and #11), we're probably nearing our limit of friends we can handle. Unfortunately, this means that we can't be friends with Trevor, whose "T" name, at #20, is just way beyond our social networking skills. Fortunately (for us), he married an "M" (#13), and since we do not have a mandatory spousal waiver clause, we get him, too.

Anyway, no time for that. The fact is that in addition to being somewhat preoccupied of late, I am such an annoyingly meticulous writer--"backspacer" is probably a more precise term--that molasses describes itself as "slow as Hamilton."

So, as Hamlet's mother commands, "More matter, less art." Translation: Spit it out, you bumbling fool. So here is the plan.

As I explained in Part IV, we need to move on Thursday (today), which means we need to hire movers for some or all of the day, because our friends are at work. Initially every plan I came up with involved me paying the movers for the 45-minute drive from our apartment tot the ABF terminal, but, happily, my radiant wife, who, unlike me, does not need spreadsheets to think clearly, came up with the plan we pulled the trigger on. We are hiring movers for 2-3 hours, but rather than loading and unloading just the heavies, they will load EVERYTHING, in reverse order, from our apartment into our Budget truck, and then they will go home (or somewhere I don't have to pay for them to be). Then tonight, once our friends get off work, some of us will drive our HHG down to ABF, run the ramps directly from truck to trailer, and make the transfer. I'll return the Budget truck after dark.

So that's it. Simple. You would never have thought I needed to do a cost-benefit analysis of every alternative to arrive at the above sensible plan. It's a good thing I married an M.

Hot Potato, Part IV

2011-07-11T08:17:00.001-04:00

Here's one for you.

If a 24' Budget truck arrives in Malden, MA at 9 a.m. on Saturday and leaves for the ABF terminal in West Bridgewater, MA (35 miles south-southwest) at 1 p.m. on the same day with 19 linear feet of cargo, when will the boys be home for supper?

Probably never. (Not a feasible option.)

This is because the boys would arrive at the ABF terminal sometime before 2 p.m. Saturday, when ABF is closed. The company (which on the whole I am pleased with and would recommend to friends without low-hanging wires on their streets, cf. Hot Potato, Part III) has great hours most of the time. They do, however, win the Excellence-In-Strangest-Hours Award for opening for the week on Sunday NIGHTS at 8 p.m., and staying open 24 hours each day until Friday NIGHT at 7 p.m. The boys would be arriving at an empty but eerie trailer park on a sultry July Saturday afternoon, with a full load of household goods ("HHG"). The disappointment they would acquire in this event would be enough to propel their 24' truck all the way to Atlantic City, where they would indiscriminately liquidate said HHG. Then they would go fishing.

But suppose they loaded on Friday instead of Saturday. What time would the boys be home for supper then?

Still never. (Still not feasible.)

To load Friday, the boys actually need to be boys. I don't mean males as opposed to females, but males (plural) as opposed to male (singular & yours truly). To pluralize me, loading the super-heavies would have to start around 6, because most people's jobs take up 9 hours of a given weekday. For exceptions to this, see notable characters in "Hot Potato" Part I and Part II. Assuming that one of the boys, the one on summer break and who happens to own the HHG, loads all the one-man items that afternoon, the boys would have to eat, load the heavies, drive through Boston in typical flee-for-the-weekend Friday evening traffic, unload the truck into a trailer, and leave ABF premises by closing time at 7 p.m. In reality they probably would not get there before 8:30 p.m., and by that time Dave and his baritone voice are home sawing logs while the boys are halfway to Connecticut on their way to you-know-where. Then they would go fishing.

But suppose they do the Friday scenario, same times, on Thursday--when would they get home?

Maybe 11 p.m. (Not feasible.)

This would require that people show up after a full day of work in to put in several hours of manual labor up and down multiple flights of stairs, each with at least one awkward turn, then drive to West Bridgewater and unload two to three times as much as the just loaded (because the non-heavies would have already been in the truck before they loaded the heavies). Then they could go home, except for one guy, who the first guy would need to help drop off the Budget truck. Then everyone except me goes to work the next morning.

Well, fine, then. I see you are extremely brilliant and have much foresight. Suppose you do it Sunday? You said ABF opens Sunday nights at 8. Why not be waiting for them when they open?

Nice try. (Not even possible.) Budget and U-Haul are closed on Sundays, or else they do not have trucks available.

Okay, I give up. What do you propose?

I propose that we go to Atlantic City and then go fishing.

Sold.

I am going back to Thursday. I can't ask people (I should say I am not comfortable asking people) to show up in the evening after work and start moving, or even to spend an hour or so on the heavies, then drive to West Bridgewater, unload, drive back, etc. But I can have all of it loaded by the time they get here--then we can just eat and go. When I switched my ABF service from door-to-door to terminal-to-door, I saved about $280. That's cash I can put toward movers. If I use ABF's professional movers hotline, the online price for 2 men for 2 hours drops from $395 to $314, plus $60/hour thereafter. Overall, the 2-hour price is just $34 more than I was going to spend, except now I (and my friends) don't have to sweat dropping our colossal dresser, desk, couch, old-fashioned sewing machine, dry sink (don't ask), washer, or dryer on our tight door frames and angling stairways. Of course, once I jump for $314 for 2 hours, what is to stop me from adding a third hour for $60? Or more? If the hours seem to too long, I could reduce them by adding a third mover, which spikes the price-per-hour to $90 but is sure to go faster. And I can't forget that I am paying for the 45-minute drive. Still, something in this ballpark seems the best choice.

Is this cost-effective?

That depends on which path you choose, young Padawan. Choose wisely, and soon you will be a Jedi.

Hot Potato, Part III

2011-07-09T00:23:00.000-04:00

As I was saying, just when the oakish, baritone voice of Dave, my contact at the local ABF (moving company), had me thinking at one point that moving is fun as long as you get to work with this company, he struck a discordant note.

The serpent didn't enter the garden until we were about to hang up.

"You don't have telephone wires, or anything hanging low, do you?"

"We do have wires . . . but I don't think they hang that low. How much clearance do you need?"

"It's a 13'6 truck, so we say 14'."

"Hmm. Well, I'd better check. I'll call you back."

"Sure, and if it doesn't work, you might just load terminal to terminal."

"What's that, like, I rent a Budget Truck and unload my stuff at your storage facility?"

"Exactly."

"Hmm. I want to avoid that. I'll check the clearance."

"Great. I'm here until 12 noon."

Noon, of course, that's reasonable for a weekday. "Okay." Click. It's te... that clock is wrong. I go into the kitchen for a double-A and reset it. It's 10 a.m. I shower, dress, and (naturally) hunt for a 7-foot pole. I figure I am 6 feet, plus my arm is 7, plus the pole is 14. Then I can just walk down the street like an inverted Stylite and see if I electrocute myself.

A 5' wooden rod that was in my apartment long before I was is the closest I get. This increases my chances of survival but diminishes accuracy. From the intersection nearest our apartment I hold the pole sky-high and holler at my wife, who has a better vantage than me as she looks from the upstairs windows.

"Oh, plenty of room. I think. Mom?" (Her mom is visiting.)

"Oh, PLENTY of space."

I have little choice but to agree. But there are lower wires nearby. I ask Maggie to come outside and help me with the ones out of sight of the windows. I need to see this for myself, and Maggie is a good sport as she holds the pole straight up while standing in the middle of the street as I walk down 10 paces for some perspective. (If only perspective were that easy to come by. . . .) When I turn around, she sums the whole experience up with archer-like accuracy:

"This is dumb."

We rule out most of one of our streets because of low cables. Then we walk toward a nearby street that the truck would be forced either to arrive or depart by (or both), no matter the route, because it is the only two-way street that is two-way the whole way. We walk up to an especially low cable and I reach the pole almost all the way to it.

"Game over," my wife says. Yep.

But lo, see thou yon garbage truck, off yonder hill? It is colossal. If that thing can clear the wires, I think, surely our moving truck can. I walk up the street and ask one of the guys what his clearance is. I lay the wooden pole against my landlord's fence and start walking. One of the workers stops, throws down an empty blue recycling bin, and rest his hands on his hips as I tell him my story. It is wicked hot and he is sweating.

"12'6"," he says. "How much do you need?"

"14'," I say.

Here I witness what we all have seen before in other people, and have no doubt been guilty of ourselves: extremely well-meant presumption, calculated to help one's neighbor, but even more so to flaunt one's own expertise. The worker shakes his head and gives a quirky, knowing smile, like that of the fluffy-haired guy on SNL--you know who I mean--and declares, as if exposing both ABF's fraud and my naivete:

"Nah nah, see, they don't make a truck that big. Before this I was a trucker, till my company folded, that's the only reason I'm doing this. The highest they make 'em is 13'6"."

I appreciate the accuracy; the man knows his trade. But a "nah nah," etc., over 6 inches? If I'm ABF, I'm telling my customers I need the whole 14'. There are just too many yahoos out there who will fudge the measurements, or screw them up. I know; I almost did both. But what do I know? I'm not a trucker, and low wires don't concern the former trucker:

"Look, just take a picture of the street beforehand. If the wires are low, the truck will take them out, and then you have art to prove it's the city's fault for not having their wires at regulation height. It's no big deal." Maybe. But more of a hassle than I want. "Or you can just take a pole and walk in front of the truck, pushing the wires out of the way. No problem." That's not happening. We're talking about a few different streets here, amigo. I'm moving to Ohio, not leading an elephant through a parade.

I walk back to pick up my pole. Before I go in I decide to wait and watch the moving truck go by, just to see how close he cuts it. When the worker sees me he stops and shouts some advice over the engine, but I can't really hear it. I nod and say thanks. Then his coworker sees me. Apparently the first guy filled him in on the 200-foot drive from up the street to my corner, because when the first guy drove up a few feet, out of sight of us, this second guy says to me,

"Look, man. You're screwed. Don't even think about bringing a truck like that back here. That guy doesn't know what he's talking about. This isn't even his route. Good luck."

I thank the guy. What a weird day.

Dave's noon deadline is coming up fast now. I have 17 minutes (if I want to lock this down today) to find an alternate route for this behemoth of a truck or to abort Operation: Door-to-Door and replace it with the less appealing Operation: You've Got To Be Kidding Me. In a desperate attempt to land this trailer at my house without putting Comcast out of business, I take the minivan for a spin around the neighborhood, remembering that there just may be another way out to the main drag besides the two-way street with low wires--but no luck. Play it again, Sam. We're just a city with low wires.

I go back upstairs and break my news to Dave's voice. It doesn't sound as disappointed as mine when I tell him that I must drive to him, not him to me. Clearly we have different objectives.

Where does this leave us, exactly? A familiar place I like to call "square one." I have gone from having a trailer but no legal place to put it, to having a legal solution but no clearance, to having clearance but only because I've canned the truck that needed it. And still no plan for moving our things from A to B.

That was Thursday. Thursday began and ended with the drawing board. Today is Friday (by now Saturday). The interim has seen many drawings, and I must show you on or two.

Hot Potato, Part II

2011-07-07T14:19:00.000-04:00

I woke up at 4 this morning thinking about this stupid moving trailer situation (Hot Potato).

That's a little odd, since it didn't actually become a "situation" until 10 this morning. But all of us are, I think, by right or curse of nature, owed an occasional premonition--some inkling that sets us on edge until we groan, between dreams, "My mind misgives / Some consequence yet hanging in the stars / Shall bitterly begin this fearful date."

Since Tuesday I have been awaiting the impressively narrow 8:30 to 9:30 a.m. Thursday window in which my Contact-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named at the Malden Public Works told me to call back for Jeff, whose work schedule curiously resembles mine on summer break. Jeff was to issue a ruling on whether rectangles can, in fact, roll.

But today at 8:34 a.m. my Contact apologized, because I am one of the many people she said should, on this Thursday morning, throw pebbles at Jeff's narrow window, when in fact Jeff will not be at his window until 8 a.m. tomorrow.

I say, "I understand, but that perhaps you still can help me--"

"Well, I tried yesterday, lemme--" [Holding. . . .]

"Yeah, I was saying maybe you can help me. I suppose I had some trouble describing the trailer to you when we spoke on Tuesday. It is not a pod or a dumpster or anything else you described that might roll [as dumpsters are wont to do . . . ]. Since we spoke I have seen a picture of it online. It looks like a non-rolling rectangle."

"Oh, you mean it's hitched to a truck?" my Contact asks.

"Exactly." Technically.

This seems to do the trick. My Contact asks if this rectangle has a license plate. It does, and she says that anything with a license plate is a registered vehicle, so I don't need a permit--I'm all set.

"That's great," I say. "But should I get a permit just in case? I can't afford to pay tickets over this."

"Hmm, well, Jeff's the kinda guy who'll just say, 'Sure, I'll take 75 bucks,' so you don't want to ask him. Let me ask the Chief Traffic Officer.

[Holding. . . . I'm so close to being home free!]

"So you don't need a permit. But the Chief Traffic Officer reminded me of a law in all of Malden that you can't park a commercial vehicle overnight. Not even a taxi."

"But it's not a vehicle, there's no driver's cab."

"But it has a license plate. It's a vehicle."

"So . . . I'm cool though to park it for the day and make sure it's gone by nightfall?" [Nightfall? Yes, my liege, before the dawn in russet mantle clad / Strides o'er the dew of yon far eastern hill.]

"You got it." "Thanks." "Yep." Click.

No problem. I'll call ABF U-pack to see schedule an early drop off for next Thursday and a same-day pickup by 5 p.m.

My new contact is Dave. Fortunately, Dave has an incredibly soothing baritone voice, just one more reason I like working the ABF. Unfortunately, Dave's voice is smoother than the debacle that follows, and which is still developing, and from which I have taken a break from to write this post and shore up against my ruins what fragments of sanity remain available and legal.

Hot Potato

2011-07-05T16:28:00.000-04:00

I need to get a parking permit for a 28' moving trailer, to be delivered by a semi and parked (without the driver's cab) on our street for the 5 days leading up to and including our departure date. Otherwise I'll probably get fined for having a big thing like that outside my apartment. The number the moving company has on file for me to call is the Malden police.

On Friday afternoon the police say I have the right number but that most personnel leave at 12 on Fridays. Call back Monday.

Monday is of course a holiday.

I call the police back today (Tuesday) and they say they don't do that there. Call the City Clerk's office.

The City Clerk's office says they don't do that there, call the Malden Public Works.

The Public Works say they don't know. What's the trailer look like?

I say it looks like the cargo portion of a semi, without the cab portion.

They say, oh, so it has a driver with it?

No . . . there's no driver--there's not even a cab.

What's it look like, they says.

Like a big rectangle, I says.

Does it roll, they asks?

It's a rectangle, I says.

You mean like a trailer, they says?

Yeah, I says, like trailer--exactly like a trailer. It is a trailer.

Call back Thursday and talk to Jeff, they says. He's in between 8:30 and 9:30 a.m.

Okay, I says. Thanks.

Sure, they says. Yeah, that sounds fine. Just call Jeff and find out whether you even need a permit for that at all. It should be no problem--if it's even allowed on the street to begin with. Click.

It's the incongruous juxtaposition of "whether you even need a permit for that at all" and "if it's even allowed on the street to begin with" that I find so endearing. Endearing, of course, is not the word.

Only in Malden. (And everywhere else.)

Colbert Recites the Nicene Creed

2011-06-07T22:03:00.000-04:00

Love it. Thanks to Zach Good for this one. This is from a few years ago, so many of you (I'm sure) have seen it already. I had not.

The Colbert Report
Tags: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

Such Knowledge #2

2011-04-06T19:54:00.000-04:00

Well, this proved a lot harder today than I thought it would.

But the good news is, God is real, alive, and loving. Just saying that is worth the day’s length and exhaustion. That’s a lot more than my existentialist students can say—and by the way, I praise God that I got to talk through existentialism with them today. This is, I hope, a critical week for many of them, as I try to help them discover--gently, fairly, and rationally through some great literature, the logical end of their I-create-my-own-meaning-of-life-and-so-do-you worldviews. I’m beat, l’m distracted, and I’d like nothing more at the moment than for my wife to get called off work early so she can sit and sip coffee with me. But in spite of everything I am happy finally to sit here, rest, and take joy in my undeserved relationship with the God of Psalm 139—or (I should say) in his knowledge of me.

Such Knowledge Is Too Wonderful for Me

2011-04-06T06:25:00.000-04:00

Join me today (every hour of it) in choosing to rest in God’s complete, unabated, undiminished knowledge of me and of you:

Psalm 139:1-18, 23-24 (NIV)

¹ You have searched me, LORD,
   and you know me.
² You know when I sit and when I rise;
   you perceive my thoughts from afar.
³ You discern my going out and my lying down;
   you are familiar with all my ways.
⁴ Before a word is on my tongue
   you, LORD, know it completely.
⁵ You hem me in behind and before,
   and you lay your hand upon me.
⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
   too lofty for me to attain.

⁷ Where can I go from your Spirit?
   Where can I flee from your presence?
⁸ If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
   if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
⁹ If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
   if I settle on the far side of the sea,
¹⁰ even there your hand will guide me,
   your right hand will hold me fast.
¹¹ If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
   and the light become night around me,”
¹² even the darkness will not be dark to you;
   the night will shine like the day,
   for darkness is as light to you.

¹³ For you created my inmost being;
   you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
   your works are wonderful,
   I know that full well.
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you
   when I was made in the secret place,
   when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed body;
   all the days ordained for me were written in your book
   before one of them came to be.
¹⁷ How precious to me are your thoughts, God!
   How vast is the sum of them!
¹⁸ Were I to count them,
   they would outnumber the grains of sand—
   when I awake, I am still with you.

²³ Search me, God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
²⁴ See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.

Day 42: Anchors Away

2011-03-20T15:29:00.000-04:00

If you read my P90X re-entry post (Day 41: Prep for Defib.), or if you simply have a pulse and happened to check the Thought Stream in the last month or so, you noticed that life bested my X-efforts for a short time. My reasons for this I will not disclose at the moment (though I alluded to a couple in Day 41). Suffice it to say that I spent much of the interim writing. I am eager to pass on one fragment in particular.

I was asked to reflect on the books I had read in the last twelve months, and then to write a brief report on the book that had the greatest effect on me and why.

John Dryden called Shakespeare a man of comprehensive soul; I am tempted to dub Herman Melville the same for having created Moby-Dick. No work so keenly or accurately portrays man’s ache for a fulfilled, meaningful life, or so thoroughly conveys the tragic heroism of those who get life’s meaning wrong. While all great literature has arisen from a form of soul-searching, Moby-Dick is unique in its depiction not only of an individual’s search, but of how that search dominates a divided yet bound community of men who also are searching. Moby-Dick is, therefore, the literary flagship in man’s hunt for knowledge and meaning. Its subject is man searching amidst seas of doubt and grief for the truth that surrounds yet eludes him.

Moby-Dick is Melville’s story of a depressed man (Ishmael) who, seeking an alternative to suicide (“pistol and ball”), boards the whaling voyager Pequod; who dissolves his prejudices in the conglomeration of races aboard, which swells into one Human Race; and who narrowly survives his captain’s monomaniacal quest for revenge against the white whale that “dismasted him” by taking his leg and his sanity. While the novel is indeed about hunting Moby Dick (which Melville hyphenated only in title), many readers are crestfallen to learn that the white whale himself is submerged until the last ten percent of the book. The novel’s real action lies in the spiritual anguish of Captain Ahab, the consequent angst he incites in his mates, and the inexplicable sway he holds over his crew. As these three conflicts churn throughout the hunt, Melville raises question after question about the human condition. He answers them, painfully and partially, through the dimly lit gaze of the pagan, transcendentalist, hedonist, existentialist, nihilist, and (to some extent) Christian (which Melville was not). Amidst this wreck of ships and souls, in a novel that the author himself could barely control, Melville poetically and aphoristically unfurls wit and wisdom comingled with truth and terror.

Little wonder, then, that Andrew Delbanco, of Columbia University, writes in Melville: His World and Work, “In Melville, men ashore gaze to sea and men at sea gaze to shore. The deck, as much as the ground, burns under their feet.” This gazing is the composite of man’s marveling at his own existence, his suspicion that his existence means something, and his yearning to grasp that meaning. Moby-Dick is thus a landsman’s chase as much as a sailor’s.

- ### -

Read the whole P90X Thought Stream here. . . .

P90X Thought Stream, Day 41: Prep for Defib.

2011-03-19T15:49:00.002-04:00

What's this . . . ? The blog is looking a little dusty. . . .

P90X Thought Stream, Day 41: Back and Biceps. Curls, pull-ups, mowers. 52 minutes.

I have many oysters, even more mussels, and one full lobster in me right now. What better place to store that protein than my biceps?
Shout out to all P90Xers who have not taken a wicked-long break from the program.
Shout out to Laurel Good for feigning P90X Thought Stream cravings amidst real cravings for who knows what (Laurel is having a baby . . . like any minute now).
Shout out to superstar Jeff Clark, the sheer force of whose presence jolted a 40-day habit of working out to a program known as P90X. Perhaps you've heard of it. Nota bene, Jeff by no means forced or asked me to take a hiatus. The urge to hang out with him is just that irresistible (Cf. Day 15: Hear Me Roar)
Shout out to Oscar nominee Jeff Clark, whose presence also occasioned a curious spike in my liquid carb intake. We even brewed some liquid carbs of our own during his memorable stay. Great times with Jeff; here's a vignette from a previous trip: The World Our Oyster.
Shout out to my trophy wife, who made possible today's defibrillation of my P90X adventure by recently buying me a higher quality heavy resistance band, one which may just last longer than Day 15: Hear Me Roar, Day 30: Groundhog Day, or Day 33: In Blank Verse. Two weeks off the wagon and Maggie hands me one of these bands. I think she may be trying to tell me something.
A pull-up simulation with bands, however, is now impossible, as I cannot fit my much better band through the hole in the overhead wooden rafter and avoid a nearby dainty pipe that, I fear, will break if I put too much pressure on it (like so many people I know). I have found another way to bring it, though. Doubling my band in half (a paradox), I wrap it across my back like a shawl (relinquish man-card here) and pull across my chest, kind of like Neo in the hallway at the end of the first Matrix. I've never seen this move done on any P90X DVDs, but then again, I've never worked out with a guy named Bobby, or with cirque du Soleil trapezist, so I'm not going to let that bother me.
Speaking of trapezists, this new move gives my trapezius a great workout. Cirque du Soleil, here I come.
Shout out to my kid sister, Rebecca, who made her foray into P90X by doing the Cardio X workout with me last Tuesday during her Boston trip. This marks my first time Xing with someone other than Tony and His Cronies. This workout was off the books--I'm not counting it as part of the regimen. (Let's face it, I owe some.)
My wife promised me that when I finish P90X I can get a tattoo across my chest of Moby Dick attacking the Pequod with Ishmael clinging to Queequeg's empty coffin in the distance. See http://www.callhimishmael.blogspot.com for a sketch.

X. Shout out to Jonah, my son, whom I love. He turned one yesterday. One if fun. Fun is one. Cf. March 18, 2010: Day of Days. Thanks for having me as your Daddy, Jonah Boy. You're neat (cf. Fatherhood)

Read the whole P90X Thought Stream here. . . .

P90X Thought Stream, Day 40: Grin Like You Mean It

2011-02-20T20:25:00.001-05:00

Woke Saturday after 7 hours, 45 minutes of sound sleep; I never felt a thing. Was going to push the X till the afternoon, but once the boy was down for his 8 a.m. nap and my lovely wife was off to run errands, I just couldn't resist diving in early. Glad I did, too, because there turned out to be zero time later that day to do it, because it was to filled with things even better than P90X (hard to imagine, I know).

P90X Thought Stream, Day 40: Kenpo. Punches, kicks, blocks. Cf. Day 6: Foolish Mortal; Day 13: "Mime" Has a Silent "X"; Day 20: X-treme Marriage Challenge; Day 24: Baby Kenpo; Day 34: Heroine.

Oh hello there . . . stretches never felt so good. I know I say that a lot. Don't believe me? I know a great workout program you should try.
I'm warm, I'm loose, and I'm ready to fight. If only I had an enemy. . . .
Here there are: Right Hook, Left Uppercut, Switch Feet, Left Hook, Right Uppercut, Switch Feet . . . x20. Cue the Crash Bandicoot music.
The boy stirs in his crib. . . . It is now a race against time. Can I finish before he grows bored with Herm the Worm?
I notice that all of these models, ahem, I mean Tony Horton's workout partners, are all grinning, I say, grinning, from the first punch to the last kick of this workout. I give it a try. It helps a little but all in all I feel like an idiot.
Last night I skipped dinner and instead filled my maw with cheese, carrot cake, and cheesecake. Call it a protein dump. Call it whatever you like. And know that I'm upping the intensity on everything to day to make up for it.
The socks come off. . . . This is getting serious.
Don't rock the clock! Soft landings after my X-jacks were never so needed. I'm having flashbacks to Plyo as I try to engage my inner feline (cf. Day 37: Linen Pants).
Youch! My left (standing) foot just locked up in a Charlie horse during front/side/back kicks of my right foot.
Jonah boy's up and watching me. He thinks X-jacks are hilarious--in fact he's laughing audibly. As every boy should be.

X. I have a big few weeks coming up. This blog is getting harder and harder to maintain, but the discipline of it is so refreshing for me. I'll hang with the X, and meantime I'll keep this writing rolling as best I can--so keep checking back--even if sometime I have to man up and drop the aXe on a post here or there. . . .

P90X Thought Stream, Day 38: In Haiku

2011-02-17T22:33:00.000-05:00

Haiku have three lines.

Syllables go five, seven,

Five. Rhymes are bonus. (Cf. Day 33: In Blank Verse)

P-Ninety X Thought

Stream, Day thirty-eight: Yoga;

No time for cf.s.

Starting Yoga X

While my son eats Cheerios:

This could prove complex.

Haven't bought new bands,

So can't do curls as scheduled;

Namaste instead.

Tickling my brown brow,

Icy beads of sweat cascade,

Moistening my lips.

My wife's home early

(Happy Valentine's Day twice);

We exchange our gifts:

iPod Nano! Sweet!

With one wrist she elevates

Pearl’s and ruby's worth.

She, in plaid P.J.s,

Joins me for hamstring stretches.

(Not a metaphor.)

I just tweaked my arm

Trying to impress my wife.

Successful. Worth it.

Fill your chest with air:

Ribs and abs expand in bliss-

ful separation.

My measuring stick:

Vinyasas with optional

Push-ups: thirty-five.

10.

Progress retrogrades

On Crane Pose. What's my problem?

I need a haircut.

"Order a pizza?"

"Yes." "'Roni and Salami?"

"Yes." (Must replenish.)

---

Read the whole Thought Stream

Of my Power Ninety X

Undertaking here.

P90X Thought Stream, Day 37: Linen Pants

2011-02-16T09:00:00.002-05:00

End of a long but good day. Enjoyed a dynamite dinner, compliments of my wife, and helped myself to thirds of pot roast, mashed potatoes, corn, and gravy. Slammed a doppo afterward. Would be nice to turn in early tonight . . . but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.

P90X Thought Stream, Day 37: Plyometrics.

I have put off Plyo long enough. I'm about to put a hurt on my cement basement floor. One of us is going to bleed, and it's not going to be me.

Today Minton told me that one of our mutual students, a freshman, heard that Minton just started P90X. Then she asked, "Huh? Mr. Hamilton is also taking P90X? I don't see any results." Well, my dear, perhaps if I had not had to wake you up twice today. . . .

My gym shorts are in the wash. What to do, what to do. . . . It’s going to be Plyo in Linen Pants tonight (but no wool socks, cf. Day 10: My Feet Are So Hot). Porque? Because they breathe, man, they breathe, while my athletic pants actually are more of a portable sauna, and I don’t know about the rest of yous guys (cf. Day 12: Shark Park), but when I’m in the sauna, I try to move as little as possible (so as not to attract the human eye). So I’d just as soon work out in something that won’t make me feel like I need to sleep with one eye open. Plus, these linen pants give me the advantage of instant readiness should I need to attend an emergency polo match.

Tip of the day: "Think like a cat." This is going to be awesome.

Seriously? That guy has a prosthetic leg? A real prosthetic leg? I need to remember that next time I teach oxymorons. For now all it means is that I have zero excuses for wimping out on jumps.

Alright, I cannot finish every exercise, but I can get pretty close. When I can’t finish, it’s not usually because of the pain, but that my muscles simply won’t push myself up any further. It’s not painful to try and lift something immovable; it’s just futile. This is tough, but it's not the torture chamber everyone said it would be—but then again, I’m in my 6^th week of "taking" P90X, having chickened out for the first 5 weeks and switched this out for Cardio X. Were this my first week, I would have been sent home packing after warm-ups.

Aha, but herein lies vindication for the Plyo-Criers: I’d rather do Cardio X than this bad boy, so those who jump and grump are right. I just joined their club.

Once again I’m enjoying the added challenge of trying not to impale myself. I am careful to aim my jumps so that my head threads the needle between the low ceiling rafters (cf. Day 13: "Mime" Has a Silent "X"; cf. Day 36: Dearest Freshness).

I’ve fallen over twice. Still 27 minutes left.

The next 60 seconds are dedicated to my sister Rachel, who let me play hopscotch with her when we were kids. It was more fun when we were kids. What are just as fun now as when I was little, though, are these wicked cool Indiana Jones leaps, straight out of the opening scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark. These count as exercise? Glad I didn't know that as a kid or I wouldn't have done them.

X. I'm taking the bonus round option today; in retrospect I was caught doggin’ it, as the Hort says, on more than a few of these jumps, so I’d better do the bonus round to compensate.

Read the whole P90X Thought Stream here. . . .

P90X Thought Stream, Day 36: Dearest Freshness

2011-02-15T09:14:00.002-05:00

[Valentine's night]

What's this? Where am I?

Oh, I remember: back in the saddle.

P90X Thought Stream, Day 36: Chest, Shoulders, Triceps. 56 minutes. Cf. Day 29: Back to Begging.

With this many days off, does this even count? [Contemplative silence] Absolutely. No shame, no apologies. Man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. And now he's gotta bring it.
Let's be honest. My main reason for getting back on the horse is because 30 minutes ago I traded in my last man card when once again pronouncing strawberry my favorite ice cream flavor. I thought I had a few extra cards stored up, having forgotten that I lost another one the other day (cf. Day 34: Heroine).
Thirty seconds into jogging warm-ups, a smile breaks wide across my face. It is so good to be back. I know this is going to hurt, but I'm craving this X-stasy.
How great it feels to want to return to my workout rhythm not out of guilt (for once), but out of knowing how good it makes me feel in the other 22.5 hours I'm not lifting. I may not look it (too much), but after a several days off in a row, I feel squidgy. I notice the difference when taking stairs at school, pacing in front of the classroom, and even standing. I need a little sharpening. I know just the thing to do it.
With all my bands broken and now lying helplessly like overworn scraps of rubber (for that's what they are), I'm driven to inventing new balance postures to create the proper resistance. My favorite is Kung Fu Fighting Shoulder Press: standing on your right foot, bend your left leg and hook your longest scrap around your elevated toe, ankle, or knee as a fulcrum. Then hoist your arms skyward until fully extended. Repeat.
When fast push-ups and slow push-ups become the same thing, you know you're maxed out.
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things ("God's Grandeur," Gerard Manley Hopkins)
No matter how hard this gets, at least I know it will be easier than teaching poetic meter to a room full of 9th-grade relativists . . . (cf. Day 33: In Blank Verse)
No matter how hard this gets, at least I know it will be easier than teaching poetic meter to a room full of 9th-graders whose standard for melody is Lady Gaga's monotonous "Bad Romance" . . . .
Did not miss Ab Ripper X. But it was waiting for me, and I couldn't stand it up. I did 18 Oblique V-Ups on my right side before falling asleep. I was rewarded, however, with 30 Mason Twists followed by a 10-second break and 10 more MTs. Not bad for my first day back (cf. Day 9: Dog Pound; Day 15: Hear Me Roar).

X. Happy Valentine's Day. Xo.

Read the whole P90X Thought Stream here. . . .

P90X Thought Stream, Day 35: Isaiah 40

2011-02-11T15:26:00.001-05:00

[Yesterday. . . .]

Yet another day of rest! I've poached a couple extras here and there, but am still hanging with the schedule pretty well. Soul Care tonight was refreshing, healing, and full of worship. I have another Thought Stream to write and errands to run, so I'll cut this one short (what's a day of rest for?) and commend this passage to you--one of the most beautifully poetic in all the Bible. It's message is simple: The long-awaited good news is this--"Behold your God;" put differently, God is here: here is God (i.e., here is what he is like).

Isaiah 40

[Comfort for God's People]

[40:1] Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.

[2] Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,

and cry to her

that her warfare is ended,

that her iniquity is pardoned,

that she has received from the LORD's hand

double for all her sins.

[3] A voice cries:

"In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD;

make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

[4] Every valley shall be lifted up,

and every mountain and hill be made low;

the uneven ground shall become level,

and the rough places a plain.

[5] And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed,

and all flesh shall see it together,

for the mouth of the LORD has spoken."

[The Word of God Stands Forever]

[6] A voice says, "Cry!"

And I said, "What shall I cry?"

All flesh is grass,

and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.

[7] The grass withers, the flower fades

when the breath of the LORD blows on it;

surely the people are grass.

[8] The grass withers, the flower fades,

but the word of our God will stand forever.

[The Greatness of God]

[9] Get you up to a high mountain,

O Zion, herald of good news;

lift up your voice with strength,

O Jerusalem, herald of good news;

lift it up, fear not;

say to the cities of Judah,

"Behold your God!"

[10] Behold, the Lord GOD comes with might,

and his arm rules for him;

behold, his reward is with him,

and his recompense before him.

[11] He will tend his flock like a shepherd;

he will gather the lambs in his arms;

he will carry them in his bosom,

and gently lead those that are with young.

[12] Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand

and marked off the heavens with a span,

enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure

and weighed the mountains in scales

and the hills in a balance?

[13] Who has measured the Spirit of the LORD,

or what man shows him his counsel?

[14] Whom did he consult,

and who made him understand?

Who taught him the path of justice,

and taught him knowledge,

and showed him the way of understanding?

[15] Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket,

and are accounted as the dust on the scales;

behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust.

[16] Lebanon would not suffice for fuel,

nor are its beasts enough for a burnt offering.

[17] All the nations are as nothing before him,

they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness.

[18] To whom then will you liken God,

or what likeness compare with him?

[19] An idol! A craftsman casts it,

and a goldsmith overlays it with gold

and casts for it silver chains.

[20] He who is too impoverished for an offering

chooses wood that will not rot;

he seeks out a skillful craftsman

to set up an idol that will not move.

[21] Do you not know? Do you not hear?

Has it not been told you from the beginning?

Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?

[22] It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,

and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;

who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,

and spreads them like a tent to dwell in;

[23] who brings princes to nothing,

and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness.

[24] Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown,

scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth,

when he blows on them, and they wither,

and the tempest carries them off like stubble.

[25] To whom then will you compare me,

that I should be like him? says the Holy One.

[26] Lift up your eyes on high and see:

who created these?

He who brings out their host by number,

calling them all by name,

by the greatness of his might,

and because he is strong in power

not one is missing.

[27] Why do you say, O Jacob,

and speak, O Israel,

"My way is hidden from the LORD,

and my right is disregarded by my God"?

[28] Have you not known? Have you not heard?

The LORD is the everlasting God,

the Creator of the ends of the earth.

He does not faint or grow weary;

his understanding is unsearchable.

[29] He gives power to the faint,

and to him who has no might he increases strength.

[30] Even youths shall faint and be weary,

and young men shall fall exhausted;

[31] but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength;

they shall mount up with wings like eagles;

they shall run and not be weary;

they shall walk and not faint.

(Isaiah 40 English Standard Version)

Read the whole P90X Thought Stream here. . . .

--
MTH
www.callhimishmael.blogspot.com

P90X Thought Stream, Day 34: Heroine

2011-02-09T20:51:00.001-05:00

[Day 33's Thought Stream is written entirely in blank verse. Enjoy it here.]

Early to rise at 5:15. Chug some agua, make for the dungeon.

P90X Thought Stream, Day 34: Kenpo X. Punches, kicks, blocks. Cf. Day 6: Foolish Mortal, Day 13: "Mime" Has a Silent "X"; Day 20: X-treme Marriage Challenge; Day 24: Baby Kenpo.

Slept like a baby, thank you. Just not like my baby. I tossed and turned much of the night. I think I was up for a good hour at some point. Mags thinks it was the double tall, extra hot, skinny caramel macchiato I had around 6 last night [Surrender man-card here], but of course that is silly. Obviously it is the ninja inside me waiting to drop some Sword-and-Hammers.
Oh--my--goodness--this basement is FREEZING! Come, Spring, come. [Cue inaudible voice of conscience] Okay, that's enough. Time to quit stalling and hop to.
Time for my weekly amazement at stretches. Given my enthrallment with these morning wake-up poses, you wouldn't think that I'm seeing this DVD for the sixth time. Even I am befuddled at my need for these stretches at this stage in the X-track, but that's just a testament to the crushing power that Day 33 held over my legs and back. I'd give almost anything for the DVD to start skipping here just to repeat these stretches. All. Morning. Long.
Donde esta mi flex? Donde esta mi balance? I'm getting no height out of my kicks, and I'm stumbling a lot. C'est la vie.
There it is: the endorphin rush. Took 30 minutes to find it. It's like a power-up in Area 51, Mario and Luigi's mushroom, the shield in Halo. [Just permanently lost half my readers.]
Fast-forwarding the blocks: I have miles to go before I sleep today, so must get a move on. I compensate by settling lower in my horse stance and upping my vertical punches from 100 to until right before my arms fall off, picking up speed all the way. I lose count around 130 but do several dozen after that, I'm sure, so I call it even.
Savor it: the blast of cold air that knocks you over while raising you skyward in that euphoric instant in which you emerge from the basement into the stairwell that, one hour earlier, almost froze you out.
Strangely, I'm the only shirtless guy in gym shorts taking out the trash on this 17-degree morning. Where is everybody?
My wife is my heroine. [Just lost all the web surfers who clicked this post title looking for a powder hook-up.] Not only does she join in my morning rush with poise and aplomb, but packs a lunch, makes me oatmeal with honey in it, puts my laptop in my bag for me(!), and helps me out the door in time to catch the 108. All this after saving my life with just a glass of water and a handful of Saltines (cf. Day 3: Black Ice; Day 4: Namaste)
See, Genius here (that would be me, for less alert readers) decided he was too X-INTENSE to eat before pounding punches--he thought he'd just tap into that "stored energy" (fat) he's been saving, which wasn't so dumb in itself. But then he took care of the trash and recycling. Then he showered. Around 6:50 a.m. he starts to feel a little funny while lathering on the shaving cream, and a few seconds into his shave, he starts to feel seriously weak. Then nauseated. Then shaky, very shaky. Genius's wife, codenamed I'm With Stupid, sweetly asks what she can do, and Genius says, "Will you please bring me some carbohydrates?" First of all, who talks like that? Secondly, could I sound more melodramatic? Nonetheless, our heroine brings him a pancake she's made, which Genius begins to chew before changing his mind and spitting it out (which reflects his good breeding) because he is going to hurl or faint. But before he knows what's happened, our heroine has returned with crackers and water and that look that says, "You're going to have to try a lot harder that this to get me to leave you" in her eyes. I eat, I drink, I sit . . . I recover. I'm in love.

X. I'm astonished that not a single one of my students asked how I got such a wicked nick on my left (facial) cheek. I would have told them that Kenpo X got a little too real this morning and that Tony Horton actually kicked through my screen and landed one just inches from my million-dollar* smile. By my troth, though, I had the razor to my face when my hands started shaking, and I must have depressed it when I tensed up to brace myself. My wife helped me fix that, too. This post is for her. Just like the rest of them.

*Insert English teacher salary here.

Read the whole P90X Thought Stream here. . . .

P90X Thought Stream, Day 33: In Blank Verse

2011-02-08T17:56:00.000-05:00

Find the X

A blank verse line has five iambic feet,

The last of which is usually unrhymed,

Though poets have been known, from time to time,

To seize on sounds that sound so much the same

That one might think it were a chiming game.

To rhyme internally is no offence,

And hence one frequently will hear a note

That someone wrote a hundred thousand ways,

Yet stay oblivious to melody.

That's when (although the reader does not know)

The poet has ensnared him in his tune--

For just as he who dreams thinks he's alert,

He who thinks he's hearing manly prose

When manlier poetry lies under his nose

Can't dodge what he does not know to avert.

A Thought Stream, Power 90; it's Extreme:

Day 33 worked out my back and legs

And took my everything (except the dregs).

Squats and lunges, pull-ups, chin-ups, bands,

For 55 grim minutes, plus a few

To catch my breath, and drink a little, too. (Cf. Day 5, Day 12, Day 19)

1. These bands are crap. My light resistance red

One snapped in two, then three, then four, before

I managed to accomplish one half-dozen

Repetitions of my X-press squats. (Cf. Day 15, Day 30)

2. But to its credit, every shorter strap

Increases its resistance; I suppose

A math equation made to solve for X

Could demonstrate how Joules accumulate

And by what magnitude they dissipate

When stretching something long or something short.

3. That does it. When I broke my heavy band

Last week by flexing both my arms,

Enough remained for me to use the scraps

For chin-ups and (perhaps) a Congdon curl,

But *SNAP!* It's done. I've burst the thing in half.

To get cash back, do I need my receipt,

Complete with original packaging?

Or will it be enough to tell the clerk

That these bands found me irresistible?

4. Too fast my body uses what I drink;

I've turned myself into a human sink.

So I'll be back in five minutes or less.

5. Remember that deplorable December

Obligation from your youth--the church's

Teen retreat to skating rinks? I do.

I guess it taught me mostly about grace,

With my face bleeding there upon the ice,

Mingling frozen white with mortal red,

Just like that band that broke (but it's my head).

But stationary skating's not so bad:

The best I've ever done, I guarantee,

And all because I'm not preoccupied

With trying to impress some junior high

Coeds who laugh at boys who cannot turn.

6. When up against the wall (in any sense),

And both your quads are screaming for a chair,

Ignore the sixty-second timer's tock,

Replacing it with your internal clock

Which beats (just like your heart) in increments

Of ten, then switch, and wait another ten.

7. These Sneaky Lunges are, if they're done well,

Precisely what blasphemers do in hell. (Cf. Dante, Part 1: Why He Left Your Cocktail Party)

8. Working out with friends is much more fun:

Some mornings, I can talk Kenpo with Scot,

Then walk downstairs, commiserate with Tim,

Hear Carlos tell what most demolished him,

And hear from Chris that Yoga made him cry.

Today I heard that Minton's joined the X,

Or almost has; I hope he follows through.

At church, Paul Ha, a P90X vet,

Is on his second round and crushing it

(And getting crushed), while just the other night,

Steve called to chew the fat that I just shred.

And half across the country, Zach and Brad

And Leroy race to finish their first phase.

My cousins Lyd and Eric bring it still;

My sister Rachel and her hubby, too.

It makes you wonder when it will be you.

9. Um, what does "Iso" stand for, in this case?

Could it mean isolated? Isotope?

Or is it isometric? All I know

Is these low-iso-somethings make me hate

The lunges that my toes accentuate.

10. "I wake to sleep, I take my waking slow,"

Says Roethke, in a villanelle I teach.

Meantime, I wake to work, to kiss, to pray.

To sleep, perchance to dream--well, that's been scarce.

And so with eighteen minutes left to push,

With all my muscles yearning for a rest,

I force my undulations to a crest,

I flex my calves, my hams, my back, my feet,

And how I'll finish--that I do not know.

I learn by going where I have to go.

X. It's time for dinner with my wife and son,

Then Kenpo and a movie when we're done.

You might begin this Thought Stream at its start. . . .

P90X Thought Stream, Day 32: Scratch Your Ankle

2011-02-06T16:00:00.001-05:00

Rushed home after school to get a jump on Yoga X and knock it out before my bride and son get home. Would love not to burn an hour and a half on P90X that I could be spending with them. But I'm still greeting them with a "Namaste" when they get home. No one can take that away from us.

P90X Thought Stream, Day 32: Yoga X. 92 minutes of blurred reality. Cf. Day 4: Namaste; Day 11: Sno Dei; Day 18: Don't These People Have Jobs; Day 22: Noga; Day 27: Feel Your Oats but Earn Your Aums.

Nervous in the service, here. Just 18 hours after crushing and getting crushed by last night's double trouble (cf. Day 30: Groundhog Day; Day 31: It's Still Just Once a Year, Isn't It?). Do I have 92 more minutes of the X factor in me?
Let's start by making absolutely sure that the webcam there by the TV, leveling its murderous, cyclopean eye at me, is decidedly disconnected from that series of tubes that some call the internet. Wouldn't want to unveil my wicked flexibility before the world is ready for it. Which reminds me:
Which reminds me further (thanks for this, Zach):
Hilarious workout so far. The first two minutes are always like that.
I feel huge after last night's double. Literally--rather, physically. I'm hulking. Awesome.
The next 20 minutes, though, prove that my body is wrecked from last night. I've had about all the hero I can take: no need to play one now. In the first 48 minutes, I made a slight compromise on roughly six of the I-don't-know-how-many Upward Dogs by going into Cobra (the same as Upward Dog but letting my knees touch). The rest were clean. I felt good about that.
I just invented a new Yoga pose, and I am very protective of it, so just remember, you heard it here, first folks. It's called Scratch Your Ankle. You can fit it into pretty much any other Yoga move by reaching one hand toward the floor, making contact with your leg approximately one foot from your inferior digits [Crickets], and enacting a vigorous raking motion until anomalous discomfort is relieved.
How do you spell relief? I actually had to pause at one point to go eat 6 Tums. These poses are hard enough without previously digested tomato sauce springing back up to visit your throat.
Bad news first: no progress on Crane this week (cf. all previous Yoga X days).
But check it out. Here is the same Vinyasa + Push-Up Challenge chart from last week, plus today's latest results. I'm giddy:

Week 1 - Lasted 20 minutes through Vinyasas; couldn't finish;

Week 2 - Lasted 42 minutes through Vinyasas; couldn't finish;

Week 3 - Finished Vinyasas with no optional push-ups, and banged out 5 at end;

Week 4 - Finished Vinyasas WITH optional push-ups, and banged out 5 at end;

Week 5 - Finished Vinyasas WITH optional push-ups, and banged out 17 at end.

Week 6 - Finished Vinyasas WITH optional push-ups, and banged out 30 at end.

X. We had to cancel dinner with good friends this night to help our teething, snotty-nosed (literally--this isn't my attitude talking), but very sweet, hilarious, sleepy son, but with Yoga X out of the way, Mags and I still had a great time watching Armageddon, which she had never seen, and which I hadn't seen since Kristin Welch's Super Bowl party in 8th grade. Question: was it weird for Liv Tyler to kiss Ben Afleck with her own father (Steven Tyler of Aerosmith) singing about that during the kiss? Nota bene: this is an incredibly realistic movie with nothing made up. And welcome home, Mags and Jonah boy. Namaste.

Read the whole P90X Thought Stream here. . . .

P90X Thought Stream, Day 31: It's Still Just Once a Year, Isn't It?

2011-02-06T08:07:00.001-05:00

[Yes, "It's still just once a year". . . .

But anyone who's seen the immortal Groundhog Day knows that the post after February 2 has to be a second Groundhog Day post (cf. Day 30: Groundhog Day). All the more fittingly, too, since today was a double workout.

Meanwhile, I'm still going X for X with the Hort but am catching up in the Thought Stream. I missed out on Plyo this week because of some obligations (cf. Day 18: Don't These People Have Jobs?), so I implemented my contingency plan: proceed to the next day with Biceps and Back, and follow it up immediately with Cardio X, which people doing the P90X-Lean Program do as a second workout anyway.

Once again, some may need to click the title of this specific post to hear its audio.]

Finished Biceps and Back about 9:45 p.m. Started Cardio X about five minutes later.

P90X Thought Stream, Day 31: Cardio X. Yoga, Kenpo, and other goodies. 42 minutes. Cf. Day 2: Ouch, Day 9: Dog Pound, Day 16: Fiery Fat Furnace

So let me get this straight: I missed Plyo on Week 5, Day 2, which I have now switched out for the shorter and more manageable Cardio X, but am moving Cardio X to immediately after Week 5, Day 3, Biceps and Back, which I just finished, so that Week 5.2 is really more like 5.3.1? And now I am . . . what do they call this . . . oh yeah, "stalling." "Today is tomorrow"
Commencing double-header. Wouldn't be the first time (cf. Day 17: My Feet Are So Cold). I should be fine, right? "Again"
Shout out to our principal, who supplied a few extra carbohydrates today via some Dunkin' Donuts' bagels and munchkins after our non-snow day (cf. Day 30: Groundhog Day). "Talent"
Halfway through this workout I'm realizing that my body is wonderfully broken. Turns out that I paced myself mentally for tonight's double strike, but physically, I gave Biceps and Back almost all I had. "Killed"
The X-er doth protest too much, methinks. Engaging emergency fuel reserves now.
I stumble several times during snow tires jumps. I'm sure that's just because, my first workout made me exceedingly top-heavy. "Doozey"
Dreya Rolls! I reject you! (This is a move, not a person. It's like a reverse burpee, cf. Day 29: Back to Begging) "My rules"
Why does it seem that everyone but me gets a high off these infernal Superman Bananas? "Hicks"
That is enough of the Hort for one night. I'm shutting him down pronto. After all, I have an hour and a half with him tomorrow for Yoga. "He's gotta be stopped."
Damage control, or controlled damage? I won't know until tomorrow whether I have just helped myself or pushed too far. "He might be OK"

X. No Pyrrhic victories allowed. I shall rinse, repeat, and revive. Go. But first go to bed. "That about sums it up for me."

Read the whole P90X Thought Stream here. . . .

P90X Thought Stream, Day 30: Groundhog Day

2011-02-05T11:03:00.001-05:00

[Nope: I haven't quit. In fact, at the moment, I'm where I should be for the week, and that's on top of shoveling, which I am coming to respect more and more as a real workout (cf. Day 12: Shark Park). Unfortunately, the person who has been writing all of these blog posts on my behalf split when he decided he could reach fame much faster by bumming around Jersey Shore. Not that I can blame him; that's where I see myself in five years. This gig just wasn't glamorous enough for him ("Future"), so it looks like I will have to write the rest of this P90X Thought Stream myself.]

And I have some catching up to do. . . . Here is the post for Wednesday, February 2.]

That's right, woodchuck-chuckers. It's Groundhog Day ("D.J.s"). And in its honor I'm going to prove that every P90X Thought has a corresponding Groundhog Day movie quote.

To hear the audio, most will have to view this post itself, rather than the basic "callhimishmael.blogspot.com" address. Just click the title and you'll be all set.

P90X Thought Stream, Day 30: Biceps and Back. Curls, chin-ups, and lat exercises. About 50 minutes. No cf.--brand new workout!

I love how my wife tells me to be careful whenever I head down to the dungeon to X out. That means she knows this is man's work. Highly effective, and potentially dangerous (for mere mortals . . . cf. Day 6: Foolish Mortal). "Caution"
Today I learned the art of snow-day denial. Why? Because you're not hardcore if you don't live hardcore (cf. Day 26). We had a 37% student-attendance rate today due to the roads, but, by golly, our doors were open, so it counts as a day of school, which means we don't have to extend (yet) into summer, so I'm not actually complaining. At the moment. "What blizzard? It's a couple of flakes!"
It's impossible not to hear my students moaning about school during this workout, since most who were present felt cheated. It was not a great day for high-schooler attitudes ("What's the point, Mr. Hamilton?" Or my favorite: "Are we doing anything today?" Thanks, guys. Since we don't typically do anything. . . .) "This is pitiful. . . ."
I had almost this exact dialogue today with a colleague: "Early spring?"
The Hort: "Now move your arms like this, like a big Pterodactyl. CAW!! CAW!!! Ha ha." MTH: Morons, your bus is leaving. "Morons"
[Thinks between hammer curls] MUST--EAT--PROTEIN! The fitness guide says that if I want to bulk up, Phase 2 is the time to do it. While upping the carbs just a little, based on how aerobic my workday or my workout are, I'm being especially intentional about downing everything meaty in sight. "Dinner"
These bands are killing my hands (cf. Day 3: Black Ice). The strain and burn on my palms and fingers is pain without gain, since they are not making them stronger and are diverting the mental energy I must summon to bust our more curls. But what option do I have? Only to up the intensity. I turn my pain into anger, and anger into bicep-bulking Congdon Curls. With this much emotion, though, I need to be careful of my form. "Angry"
I just broke my heavy resistance band. That's two bands broken, one to go. Cf. Day 15: Hear Me Roar. "Deja vu"
That woman is either highly medicated or highly certifiable. Did she just ask for "more pain"? Not more wight--more pain. "Upbeat"
I could just take a pass on the double workout today and fit it in tomorrow. . . . NO! Go. Now. "No tomorrow"

X. I walk upstairs to show Mags the resistance band, and she gets the camera and starts snapping my 30-days-of-P90X pictures (to be taken every 30). I've lost about 10 pounds by now, give or take, I'm wearing pants I wasn't before, and my belt is on its tightest notch. Something is different. "Different."

Read the whole P90X Thought Stream here. . . .

P90X Thought Stream, Day 29: Back to Begging

2011-02-01T22:04:00.000-05:00

4:30 a.m. . . . 5 . . . 5:15 . . . each ellipsis a finger or thumb or button on a cell phone alarm. I lie still and pray for my wife, thinking to myself that if I don't get in a good five minutes of that now, it won't happen until the end of the day . . . 5:20 . . . Hmm. I'm pretty sure I prayed a good 30 seconds before dozing off.

Up and at 'em. It's a new day, new week, new phase, new disc. X-cellent.

P90X Thought Stream, Day 29: Chest, Arms, and Shoulders. Variations on push-ups, dips, and shoulder-presses. 54 minutes. Cf. . . . none! All new.

Let's see what Tony has on tap for today.
All I can think about a mere two minutes into warm-ups is how much I don't want to do this today.
Ugh, I'm back to begging. Begging for the strength to squeeze out even a handful of push-ups. Haven't done that since Day 1.
Note: these here push-ups ain't regular-like. We're alternating between super slow push-ups and normal ones, side lunge push-ups (this is not what they're called . . . perhaps I blacked out when he said the name), and the ill-fated one-arm push-ups.
List of people I have seen do one-arm push-ups:

Rocky Balboa
Sylvester Stallone
Rambo
Judge Dread
The guy from Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot

I'm writing a song called "Down on My Knees to Squeeze Out Three Reps"
Sequel: "Just Like the Ripe Old Woman on the Left"
Shout-out to Tim Jones for hopping back on the X train, lean version, today. Welcome back. Enjoy Core Synergistics tomorrow (cf. Day 23, Day 26).
Finish line in sight. I think of my trophy wife already working on the next morning challenge, one of her own: disguise the taste of egg whites.
Most frequently uttered phrase of the last week, from almost a dozen people: "Yeah, that P90 program keeps your body guessing, eh?" Yeah.

X. Success (of sorts!). I'll give the Hort this: his P90 program keeps my body guessing, eh? [Crickets.] But seriously, folks: there is no matching the sense of achievement and elation I feel when I drain my last ounce of water, switch off my laptop, and march upstairs. Please pass the turkey bacon. Feel free to just drop it in my coffee.

Read the whole P90X Thought Stream here. . . .

P90X Thought Stream, Day 28: Stonewall Jackson

2011-02-01T13:42:00.000-05:00

[Yesterday]

"Let us cross over the river, and rest under the shade of the trees." --Stonewall Jackson

Rest day #4. This concludes Phase 1 of my P90X undertaking. I am approximately 6-7 pounds lighter than when I started, and at least a little stronger. I've seen some strengths and weaknesses I didn't see before,and I've had to learn a lot about balance--not just physical balance. Here's [raises another cup of half-caff coffee] to harder but better roads in Phase 2 (and by roads, I of course mean Xs).

Another post coming soon on Week 5, Day 1, which took place this morning.

Meantime, check out a favorite P90X Thought Stream post, or read the whole string here. . . .

--
MTH
www.callhimishmael.blogspot.com

P90X Thought Stream, Day 27: Feel Your Oats but Earn Your Aums

2011-01-30T22:05:00.001-05:00

(thehoneskitchen.com)

Slept in till 8, hit up Seven Mile Road Church for worship with my brother and sisters in Christ, lunched with friends, kissed Mags goodbye (thanks for working hard, babe), prepped a lesson, played/cuddled/ate with the boy for 3 hilarious hours, read his Bible story, said goodnight to Brownie the Bear and Morris the Moose, tucked him in with Herm the Worm, turned on the flameless candle (cf. Day 18: Don't These People Have Jobs), which is a few chunks of wax lighter after young William the Conqueror got to it (hope your boy is OK, Dave and Cari . . . if so his immune system is a little stronger now . . . or else more likely to melt), quick-brewed some liquid courage in the form of a doppio espresso, waited 10 minutes for that to kick in (thanks again, Grant, cf. Day 8: Two Is Better Than One), and turned on my second Yoga X for the week, fifth of all time.

P90X Thought Stream, Day 27: Yoga X. 92 minutes. Cf. Day 4: Namaste; Day 11: Sno Dei; Day 18: Don't These People Have Jobs?; Day 22: Noga.

Better check the workout guide to make sure I'm not about to do Yoga out of turn. I don't want to cause myself unnecessary pain. . . . Dang it.
Still not quite sure about the hype? Are we X-men and X-women just being dramatic? First of all . . . yes, probably. I know that I personally traded what little mental balance I had left for physical balance when I started P90X. Just ask Betty (cf. Day 12: Shark Park). But you can know that this actually is hardcore intensity (even redundantly so!) by considering this: most of us X-persons-of-gender still get really nervous when Yoga X is on the horizon.
But oh, thank goodness for our new area rug. With the living room's feng shui finally right, I'm sure I'll easily just slide in to all of these moves. . . .
As I am going into toe-lock on my right leg extension (cf. Day 18), some kid sets off a round of firecrackers down the street. Oh wait--that's not a kid with recreational explosives, that's the report of my right knee crackling from a former injury. And on that note I thank God for having zero knee trouble during the last 27 days. With my history, that is nigh unto miraculous. Morning by morning new mercies I see (Lamentations 3:22-23; cf. Reflections on a Just God Who Is Love: Limping Is Good).
New Crane result: 15 seconds! New personal best. First time was 3 seconds, second and third were multiple 10 seconds, fourth was non-existent because I had to ensure that I would remain gainfully employed (you see, it is important to serve one's country, and you just can't pay taxes if you're not working . . . ) and tonight was one 15-second bout, followed by a 5-second bout ending with a head-first collapse into a conveniently placed pillow, just in case. Total seconds were down this week, alert readers and advanced mathematicians are, I'm sure, eager to point out--but I think--can't be sure--that the following thought is both a reason and an excuse for that.
Let's talk about my first P90X Throw-Down. Read the terms of engagement here (Day 20: X-treme Marriage Challenge). Sadly, I didn't hear from my brother J-Wing about whether he would go head-to-head with me here (but fortunately for me, because I'm sure he would have rocked me!). Nobody taunt this guy though--I'm sure he's insanely busy and bringin' it in other areas of his life right now, or he would have been all over it. Maybe in the future? Meanwhile, I proceeded to wage war against myself, which, since I am an English major, I am quite accustomed to. And I was victorious! I am exceedingly pleased and thankful to announce that after doing two push-ups every single Vinyasa (the usual Chaturanga going into Upward Dog, plus the optional one going into Downward Dog), I STILL managed to bang out 17 push-ups before literally collapsing on my mat, regrouping for two seconds, and heaving into my final Downward Dog! (Note the exclamation point, almost always forbidden by English majors.) EXtremely pleased, eXtremely glad, eXtremely Xed. Thanked God for this one when I managed to stand up straight.
Quick chart:

Week 1 - Lasted 20 minutes through Vinyasas; couldn't finish;
Week 2 - Lasted 42 minutes through Vinyasas; couldn't finish;
Week 3 - Finished Vinyasas with no optional push-ups, and banged out 5 at end;
Week 4 - Finished Vinyasas WITH optional push-ups, and banged out 5 at end;
Week 5 - Finished Vinyasas WITH optional push-ups, and banged out 17 at end.

[Numbering restarts here for those getting the RSS feed . . . apologies]
I went most of the way from bridge into wheel. Also new ground for me. Couldn't sustain it though--actually pulled my left oblique and needed some extra stretching. I'm coming for you, wheel. . . .
Have you ever been engaged in something so painful that you know the release is going to hurt more? That is what Yoga Belly 7 does to me. It's like burning yourself--you pull your finger away, but the real pain comes one or two seconds later. It's also like walking up a 5.4 mile hill because the bus never came (cf. 5.4 Mile Road).
Jonah, you were right all along, son. While in Happy Baby pose, Daddy feels so good that he actually hears his voice say, "I am a happy baby." Awkward. (Cf. Day 24: Baby Kenpo)

X. I earned my aums today. Goodnight everyone. Thanks for reading.

Read the whole P90X Thought Stream. . . .

P90X Thought Stream, Day 26: Because You're Not Hardcore Unless You Live Hardcore

2011-01-29T22:58:00.001-05:00

P90X Rule #1: Think. If you show up to a "moving party" (my wife's term for anybody's moving day, to make moving sound fun) after most of the furniture is loaded, but still talk about P90X all the time to anyone who will listen, you do not actually ever have to prove that you are the beast you are supposedly becoming.

Today I was a rule abider.

Of course, there was still unloading to do. . . .

P90X Thought Stream, Day 26: Core Synergistics. Cardio, stretching, resistance, and all kinds of funky push-ups. 57 minutes. Cf. Day 23: And Throw Away the Core.

Who invented the push-up? Or worse, the first variation of the push-up, setting the precedent for an infinitude of other variations? Cf. Job 30:12.
Jump to minute 1:30 to get inside my head for this hardcore 57-minute synergy. I heard this the whole workout. Because You're Not Hardcore Unless You Live Hardcore.
I had forgotten that in this DVD, Tony Horton becomes Michael Scott. "Meet Pam. Pam the BLAM! I'm not gonna call her Pam the BLAM! that often, but sometimes she's BLAMTASTIC, because she does so man crazy X moves." I could go without hear that again in the next 64 days. Tim Jones: you were right.
Just doubled my Sphinx push-ups from 4 to 8, in only three days (cf. Day 23).
Shout-out to Aaron Minton for taking on the Burpee Challenge. This is a burpee. These prison-cell push-ups are for you:
To increase intensity, have a golden retriever jump over your ankles while in Plank position.
Don't tell the guys, honey, but I left my resistance bands downstairs, and even the sexy people on the TV are using light weights today, so I'm going to borrow your Zumba sticks for just a little more weight on this exercise.
Just lost all steam before even halfway through Steam Engine. Add more water.
Holding Plank position (top of the push-up, for those unfamiliar) reminds me of the time Hank Chafin and I squared off in Plank at the end of one of Mr. Link's seventh-grade Bible classes, to see who could last longer and therefore whose hair was cooler. I think we both lasted 4 minutes and some odd seconds before Mr. Link called it for fear of us getting hurt. We let down at the same time. Then we went to lunch and tried to convince the other (and whoever else was listening) that the other guy released a nanosecond sooner, and that we ourselves only released because Link made us. Hank, I'll confess: I was totally lying at lunch. Your hair is cooler. I think I did drop a nanosecond sooner.
But only because Link made us.

X. Jared B.--heard you say several times today between lifting the Mandys and the Trevors' furniture that you're seriously thinking about jumping on the X train . . . I hope you do it!

Read the whole P90X Thought Stream here. . . .

P90X Thought Stream, Day 25: Gumby Camp

2011-01-29T10:39:00.002-05:00

[Last night. . . .]

10:15 p.m. Day is done. Boys are in bed--Jonah and his friend William, whose mommy and daddy (Dave & Cari) are on a much deserved date night. Movie is watched--Wit, starring & co-written by Emma Thomson; a brilliant movie for all; especially winsome for John Donne fans, or for people who know but do not understand John Donne fans and would like to find them less annoying; and yet another monument to my wife's excellent taste. And now there's only one thing left to do.

Str-r-re-e-e-tch-ch-ch.

P90X Thought Stream, Day 25: X Stretch. Sun salutations, sundry neck, spine, arm, hand, leg, and foot stretches. 58 minutes.

Was ist das? Last time I put this disk in I shut it off at the first sign of Downward Dog (cf. Day 14: Shabbat), but now it's just no big deal--actually looking forward to the push-up here . . . oh--yeah--feel the--X stretch----ah!
Ailment: Sore from lifting. Cure: Stretch it out. Ailment: Sore from over-stretching. Cure: Stretch it out.
That woman is freakishly flexible--even the Hort says so. Oh no, look how she's twisting her arms! [Gasps] This is getting gross.
I can almost touch our ceiling standing on my tippy toes. That's new.
Best line of the night: Get sexy with it, people!
Oh, Tony, if only you'd been watching my workouts, you know such instruction is redundant.
Am I . . . yes, I am chewing my t-shirt collar during Frog position: proof that relaxing as this workout is, it is full of the good kind of hurt (cf. Day 24: Baby Kenpo).
Child's Pose - n - a crouching position common to worshipers of kings of Siam
Hold it right--there. This move is poetry.
This post is dedicated to the immortal Charles Bronson, who is most definitely impersonating a man named "Phil" on the back yoga mat. Nice of you to join us, "Phil."

X. And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

Read the whole P90X Thought Stream here. . . .

P90X Thought Stream, Day 24: Baby Kenpo

2011-01-27T19:49:00.001-05:00

Last night the weather seers were calling for 12 inches of snow to fall by six this morning. I set my alarm for 5:45 to shovel for the better part of an hour before work, bumping P90X to this evening. But that won't be necessary, says the text message time-stamped 5:47 a.m. School is cancelled. I get this message just as I am praying for God to somehow make a way for me to meet all my obligations today. I close my phone and think, He couldn't have answered that one any more perfectly.

After 3 bowls of multi-grain Cheerios and a glorious hour with my wife and son, I don my new boots (thanks, Mom and Dad! cf. Comment) and enter the Shark Park: that is, the streets of Malden nearest our front door. Two hours of shoveling, one movie (RED), 5 pages of Anna Karenina (got distracted), and one baby boy's nap later, it's Kenpo time.

P90X Thought Stream, Day 24: Kenpo X. Punches, kicks, blocks. 59 minutes. Cf. Day 6: Foolish Mortal; Day 13: "Mime Has a Silent "X"; Day 20: X-treme Marriage Challenge & Calling Out Jason Wing.

Shout out to my friend Jesse F., who, I learned on Tuesday, has a Judo belt to his name. This one is for you, my friend.
This is an awkward but wonderful opening stretch. Gird up thy loins, O man (cf. 1 Peter 1:13).
If I go any lower in Frog position my groin will quite simply explode. Yet every week I watch the tall guy in the back touch both inner thighs to the floor, while I have a good 5-6 inches of clearance. Some Do, and Some Don't, as Eeyore said in last night's bedtime story.
I'm through opening stretches, and the boy stirs. . . . Now I'm twenty minutes in, and the boy is unignorably awake. I'm going to move this pony show from the dungeon to the living room, because this workout just became about entertaining Jonah. I hereby award myself one X Bonus point for every silly grin I earn from him.
I am stunned that I am keeping up with this so well after shoveling. Gotta be the great night's sleep and the delectable home-brew-and-cheese soup Maggie had ready for me after the morning snow-down (that is, show-down with the snow).
Jonah, watch Daddy do 50 Sword-and-Hammers right in front of Brownie the Bear!
Big win: I finally coordinated the blocks (cf. Day 13). They were so bad last week that I didn't even mention them (cf. Day 20).
At last--we are going to be rich and famous. My son is the least motivated person ever to not crawl--well, not crawl forward--but this kid can sense a beat a mile away. Whereas I am barely aware of the music on the DVD, between punches I notice his "human metronome" trick. America's Got Talent, here we come. Pretty impressive, son. Do you do nights and weekends?
I know, I know, you think Daddy's kicks are hilarious. Let's hope they are as powerful as they are ridiculous.
Anyone else surprised to see jogging and flying jumping jacks ("X Jacks") as activities for the break? Maybe we should move some furniture while we're at it, or shovel some more snow, or go do another P90X workout so we don't get bored . . . nothing too strenuous, though, of course.

X. Dear Baby Einstein, I salute your Neptune DVD. Off to the showers with me; Jonah boy, take a 20-minute breather and watch these puppets play in water in rhythm to classical music. It's good for you. And you know you love it.

One more day to vote at the top. . . .

Read the whole P90X Thought Stream here. . . .

P90X Thought Stream, Day 23: And Throw Away the Core

2011-01-26T21:49:00.002-05:00

fanpop.com

Woke up at 5:35 a.m. hungry for something . . . what was it? I can't put my finger on . . . oh yeah:

Intensity.

Especially because today brings something completely different: X Core Synergistics. This one is brand spankin' new, still in the plastic wrap.

P90X Thought Stream, Day 23: X Core Synergistics. Funky push-ups, lifts, twists, and rolls. 56 minutes.

Frag that half-gallon carton of O.J. And let's see what adding three sips of freshly brewed coffee to the pre-workout regimen will do. [Drinks] Ah. That is a delivery truck load better than really old apricots on really dry crackers, even if it is my addiction talking (cf. Day 3: Black Ice, Day 4: Namaste).
Today the Hort has selected a harem of four women to work out with him.
I feel like I am intruding.
[Ten minutes later] Never mind, that's a dude.
How many different ways are there to kill a man with push-ups? Try the Sphinx ones (video). They're almost impossible. I do only 4. But I do 4.
Nota bene: Deep fried Chinese appetizers and pizza from last night's Soul Care isn't exactly rocket fuel. (Confession, Lyd: I broke the diet yesterday . . . I was famished, and our friends brought awesome food. Back to the grind now though!)
The cardio portion of today's core workout has persuaded me that I will absolutely destroy any man, woman, or beast in a fight, just as long as he/she/it stands perfectly still and doesn't make any sudden movements, show any aggression, or make me run either from it or toward it.
That seals it: I have gone face-to-face with my salty-sweat-seasoned yoga mat today more times since Day 1. I think I'll just lie here a little longer and dwell on that. Wake me tomorrow. Or don't.
Rinse and repeat. [Tries again, falls hard.] I think I am going to throw up. [No--no--don't do it--you don't want to clean it up!--swallow a lot, swallow a lot--drink, drink.] Ah, haha, ha. Oookay. I think I'm fine. You had me at "you don't want to clean it up."
A good 40% of the things Tony said today would have gotten him instantly fired from my place of work.

X. Walking up those three flights to home room this morning with a stronger core reminded me how immensely good X-ing in the morning can make you feel going into the rest of the day. Today pulled the trigger that eluded me the length of yesterday's Yoga (cf. Day 22: Noga).

Read the whole P90X Thought Stream here. . . .

P90X Thought Stream, Day 22: Noga

2011-01-25T23:25:00.002-05:00

Set false alarm for 4:15 a.m., real alarm for 4:30, emergency alarm for 5:00. . . .

Morning comes. I count one alarm. Sleep. Two alarms. Pray for five minutes and (who are we kidding) cuddle (that's right, cuddle . . . today I'm X on the outside, pudding on the inside). And then . . . are those. . . ? Yes, it's the coffee pot's "finished brewing" beeps.

Something is wrong.

[Flashback to last night:] Mags: I set the coffee. MTH: Thanks! Mags: What time you getting up tomorrow? MTH: 4:30. Mags: Really, that early? MTH: I need 90+ minutes for Yoga.

[Flash forward to morning:] Why would I be hearing the coffee pot at 4:35 a.m. if she didn't think I was getting up until later?

I roll over to my cell phone. It's 5:35 a.m. I have no idea what happened. For 10 seconds I'm frantic like the mom in Home Alone 2: I've done it again (cf. Day 5: Redemption).

P90X Thought Stream, Day 22: Yoga X. Cf. Day 4: Namaste, Day 11: Sno Dei, Day 18: Don't These People Have Jobs?

Free my mind, just free my mind. Like in this clip. (Cf. Day 13: "Mime" Has a Silent "X").
What . . . happened? I am INCREDIBLY tight this morning! It's like I'm spring-loaded and can't find the trigger.
Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall (Proverbs 16:18).
I have sneaked by without a Yoga block the last 3 days, but I am so tied up today that I reach for my son's canister of Lincoln Logs. It doesn't work well, but I am desperate.
That woman is cheating! She is in Cobra, knees on the ground, while the rest of us are in Upward Dog, nothing touching but the tops of our feet and palms!
Speaking Upward Dog, I knew I'd have to eat a little crow at some point after calling out JWing (cf. Day 20: X-treme Marriage Challenge), and that would start now. Turns out that my 2 push-ups max-per-Vinyasa stipulation is bogus. I realize this morning that the first "push-up" is the motion leading into Upward Dog, not an additional push-up done before U.D. So the challenge, correctly stated, is for one true "normal" push-up per Vinyasa, to be taken after U.D. going into Downward Dog. My bad, JWing (by the way . . . are you game? Busy times, I know . . . but let me know).
Turns out the better you get at Yoga, the more you are able to keep your eyes open while straining, and the more likely you are able to see what on earth you are supposed to be doing, hence the above.
I am not at all having the home run Yoga I thought I would have after Day 18. With 1 hour, 16 minutes left to do, I'm drinking water and (worse) noticing the time. This could be disastrous.
Praying position, sheesh. I am praying that a gigantic praying mantis would crash through my wall in about 3 seconds and eat me head first.
But a win is a win, no matter how ugly. Last Yoga day, I busted out 5 push-ups at the end of the Vinyasa segment. Today, I actually did a push-up every Vinyasa and banged out 5 at the end. This would have been impossible 3 weeks ago.

X. My next goal this morning is to make it to the bus stop quickly for the trusty (or not) 108. Need to get here. Today, I realize upon walking out, is the morning that was forecasted to be -1 with the wind chill. I drip a little coffee on my hand while closing the front door, and when the first breeze hits, I work my polar fleece hat onto my hair, which, to my astonishment, is suddenly crunchy with the beginnings of frozenness. Next the gloves. The left one goes on okay, but the right one . . . I can't get it on. It's the spilled coffee--somehow it has impeded whatever motion is necessary to work my hand into the (rather tight) glove. I realize after a minute that I have slowed my pace to fix the glove thing, and in my mind's eye, Horatio, flashes a dozen 108s that I have missed because of stupid mistakes just like this one. Come--on--glove--I have to go! I think. Shoot, if O.J. can get away with murder, the least I can do is make it to the bus on time.

Read the whole P90X Thought Stream here. . . .

P90X Thought Stream, Day 21: " . . . And I Will Give You Rest"

2011-01-23T21:00:00.000-05:00

"Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Matthew 11:28

Enjoying this truth today, on Rest day, as it overlaps with a great day of worshiping my Lord and Savior Jesus with my wife and brothers and sisters in Christ at 7MR Church, followed by an excellent dinner (man can my wife cook) and outstanding evening with our dear friends Jesse, Denise, and little Jeremy. We thank God for his work in our lives and hearts and for the people he has brought into our path.

I know, I didn't bring the funny on this post. So you'd better get off this page fast to one of these (quick, hurry, now!):

The whole P90X Thought Stream. . . .
The poll at the top left: How far can Hammy Follow the Hort? Place your vote. . . .
The first Call-Out! Read it in case it is you. . . .
Reflections on a Just God Who Is Love. . . .

P90X Thought Stream, Day 20: X-treme Marriage Challenge // CALLING OUT JASON WING!

2011-01-22T22:35:00.002-05:00

We slept from 11 last night to 8:50 this morning, punctuated by a few wake-up calls by our boy, who, it seems, just needed a couple reps of 10-minute hugs in the middle of the night. You got it, kid.

After some delicious sticky buns ("gooie rolls," my wife is calling them) and a little writing (cf. Day 19: Brock Hamilton), my wife started some Baby Yoga, and because I am more terrified of her workouts than from mine, I headed down to the dungeon.

P90X Thought Stream, Day 20: Kenpo X. Punches, kicks, blocks. Cf. Day 6: Foolish Mortal, Day 13: "Mime" Has a Silent "X."

Welcome to my dojo.
Can it really be true that after this workout, I will be 3 weeks deep into P90X?
Once again, how to do all four of these blocks while walking forward and backward eludes me (cf. Day 13). By the time I have figured out how to do all of this once per side, my Senseis have finished and gone onto X jacks.
Speaking of X jacks, last week I said I could barely do these because of an iron pipe in the way of my jumps (cf. Day 13). I don't know what my deal was. Too little sleep, perhaps, on an early morning; it is now obvious that I was half comatose. Today (novel idea) I moved my yoga mat a few feet forward and did the X jacks, no problem. Brilliant.
Shouts-out (cf. Day 17) to Zach, Brad, and Leroy--all new to the P90X train! They are on Day 5.
This workout is ROUGH today. I am guzzling water between almost every exercise.. .
. . light . . . head . . . ed. . . .
With date night tonight, my marriage is on my mind throughout this workout. I recall between punches that while walking to the bus stop yesterday morning during our latest snowfall, a certain idea challenged me: Do I bring the same intensity to my marriage that I bring to P90X? Do I bring that same intensity toward loving her sacrificially as an Ephesians 5 kind of husband? Leading, protecting, or providing for her needs, just as Christ does the Church. . . ? If so, great, but if the answer was yes in a P90X workout, the response from the Hort would be, "Then up the intensity." And if the answer is no . . . well, bring it. I have had many opportunities in the last month to dwell on Ephesians 5:22-33, and thinking of these verses in this light is a welcome, if convicting, challenge.
But as loving our wives sacrificially is also a command, I challenge my fellow P90X-men--scratch that--all men--who are married, engaged, or who one day hope to be, to join me in striving to bring the same intensity of P90X to their marriages for the next week (and beyond of course . . . but we have to start somewhere). Chime in if you accept the challenge, men.
And speaking of challenges, I forecasted a P90X throw-down on Day 9: Dog Pound, and that promise has just been dangling out there. The suspense has been killing me, and probably my one reader in Ontario, whom I imagine to be very bored all the time. So this one is for you, O Canada. I have made my selection:

JASON WING! YOU HAVE JUST BEEN CALLED OUT FOR A P90X THROW-DOWN.

X CHALLENGE: EACH MAN, ON HIS OWN DAY 27, YOGA X, WILL ATTEMPT TO PERFORM THE MOST PUSH-UPS DURING HIS VINYASA EXERCISES (BEFORE AND/OR AFTER UPWARD DOG) BEFORE TAPPING OUT.

RULES:

1. A TAP-OUT OCCURS AT FIRST MUSCLE FAILURE, OR AT ANY UNUSUAL OR PROLONGED BREAK IN THE WORKOUT, EVEN ONCE THE VINYASAS ARE FINISHED (I.E., WE MUST FINISH THE WORKOUT PER NORMAL).

2. MAX OF TWO PUSH-UPS PER VINYASA (THE FIRST IS THE USUAL CHATURANGA INTO UPWARD DOG, THE OPTIONAL SECOND ONE IS GOING INTO DOWNWARD DOG), EXCEPT ON THE LAST.

3. IF STILL IN IT FOR THE LAST VINYASA, BANG OUT AS MANY PUSH-UPS AS POSSIBLE AFTER THE FINAL UPWARD DOG.

X. CHIME IN BELOW IF YOU ACCEPT. I HOPE YOU BRING IT.

Have you voted yet? Read Day 19: Brock Hamilton, or skip to the top left of this page. . . .

Read the whole P90X Thought Stream here. . . .

P90X Thought Stream, Day 19: Brock Hamilton

2011-01-22T12:01:00.001-05:00

[Movie time with my bride immediately after X Fest last night. Here is yesterday's post.]

Week 3 saw the second interruption of my P90X undertaking (cf. Day 18: Don't These People Have Jobs), an occurrence which may incite many to wonder, Hmm . . . the man has started the X, but can he bear to finish? He can start the grill . . . but can he cook the meat? High time it is, then to poll the wide world of alert blog readers. But also some other people.

A couple of weeks ago, around Day 3 or so, in the first week of the new year, I offered, in an exemplary display of narcissism (almost as much as is having one's own blog), a detention hall full of captives a choice between two writing prompts for their mandatory one-page handwritten essay, due 40 minutes into the period. Most students chose door #1, an essay outlining their resolutions for 2011. A handful, however, included in their essays anywhere from a sentence to a page in response to door #2: How far will Mr. Hamilton make it through P90X? Here is what a few had to say.

Courtesy of mmaspark.com

P90X Thought Stream, Day 19: Legs and Back. Lunges, wall squats, calf raises. 59 minutes. Cf. Day 5: Redemption.

Student #1: Although I have never seen what P90X is like, I am pretty sure it is pretty tough. As Mr. Hamilton said He looks in shape but really is not, although he did say he had a fast metabolism which goes for something. Since P90X is over a 90 day period, it may be difficult for some people to complete, but Mr. Hamilton will be able to go mildly far.
Student #2: I would have to say He would make it to day sixty-nine. Mr. Hamilton seems determined to be fit, but will only go as far as he feels he needs to go which would be day sixty-nine, because by then he will be in mildly good shape. P90X is a great thing to do, but it is not for everyone.
Student #3: I think that you will last another few weeks because I have no idea what to write so I guess you can last a few more weeks. Also I don't really know what P90X, but I heard of it. I guess if I knew what it was then I'd say you would last one month and two weeks. Also my other new year's resolution is to cut my hair.
Student #4: My dad did P90X.
Student #5: I think that Mr. Hamilton is going to finish the P90x trial. I believe that Mr. Hamilton has the potential to work at the P90x and accomplish his goal. Thats all I have for my thoughts on his goal with the P90x. I have a few New Years Resolutions. . . .
[Same student, end of essay] Those are a few of my New Years Resolutions. So Mr. Hamilton is going to do the P90x schedule plus more and become a huge ripped version of Arnold S. in his prime when your done with the P90x. Good luck! Than you will be a movie star than move to California to become governor!
Student #6:I think that Mr. Hamilton can make it through the P90X program. I think the determination that he shows when teaching students can also be displayed in the P90X program. Also, this year I would like to save a lot of money.
Student #7: You are very nice but you will never make it. It is just too hard for you like it is for most people. Sorry.
Student #8: Mr. Hamilton will last forever while doing the P90x. There is no way he will stop getting his rage on while working out. He will be absolutely jacked by the end of the work out. His muscles will become so big that he would need to make names for them. His muscles would have a mind of their own after he is done working out.
Student #9: Not only to I firmly believe that Mr. Michael Hamilton will finish P90X, I believe that he will (gracefully stride across) the finish line at full force, and with ease of breath. Unfortunately, his extensive vocabulary and remarkable ability to write the best letters of recommendation will not prove useful this time. Oh no, this time . . . this time Mr. Hamilton will not stop at anything until he absolutely crushes this workout, like the measly low carb sticks of celery that he will be indulging in over the next 6-8 weeks. By the end of the workout, Mr. Hamilton will be frequently mistook for Brock Lesnar. Beads of sweat will run dry before making it down the massive canvas known as his pectorals. He won't even be able to go on any more of his outrageously and hilariously animated classroom rants. Not because of the fact that he won't be able to bend his arms, but because his shirt would shred if he should flex the wrong muscle. Walking down the hallways, Hamilton will be followed by whispers asking, "When did Mr. Connolly come back?" When he's done with this workout, they'll call it the P90 Hamilton. AND THAT! Is how long I think Mr. Hamilton will last during the P90X workout.

X. Gee, guys, thanks. You know you don't get a grade for detention, right?

How far can Hammy follow the Hort? Take the poll at the top left!

Read the whole P90X Thought Stream here. . . .

P90X Thought Stream, Day 18: Don't These People Have Jobs?

2011-01-20T23:44:00.000-05:00

A flameless candle burns in the other room. Go to it; it beckons you. Stare at it; it lulls you. Stare into it; it transfixes you. Stare at it again. Now it looks a lot like Tinkerbell flickering to life in the original Peter Pan, the one in which Peter is played by a chick.

Tink?

No, says a voice. It's me, Tony.

Tony who?

Doesn't matter.

Okay.

Aren't you going to ask me why not?

Am I supposed to?

Yes.

Why?

Why are you supposed to ask, or why doesn't it matter?

Why. . . ? Hmm?

Doesn't matter.

Why not?

Because today is a very special day. Today is Yoga day.

Again?

Again.

So soon?

It's been a week. Eight days, actually, since you had to run away like a little girl for a day to go "grade papers" and "submit quarter grades," like a--do they still call people with jobs commoners?

Yes.

Like a commoner.

I am going back to sleep now.

No no, Peter, you have to wake up.

Why did you just call me Peter?

. . . .

Doesn't matter. Okay. But Tink--

Tony.

Tony--I'll get up. But before I go any further, I have to tell you one thing.

Go ahead.

Namaste.

P90X Thought Stream, Day 18: Yoga X. 93 minutes. Cf. Day 4: Namaste, Day 11: Snow Dei.

Don't these people have jobs?
Last time I kissed Jonah boy goodnight my lips were numb afterwards because I had just put Orajel on his gums and some didn't make it in. Does that Orajel work only on mouths? Because I can think of about two dozen places I'd like to numb right now.
Okay, now we're cooking--but why don't my quads hurt? We've done Crescent Pose, Warriors 1, 2, and Reverse Warrior . . . and my arms are still on fire, but my thighs feel great. I check my position several times, because I must be oversimplifying something. I find no mistakes. So I actually settle in a little lower in my stance. This is an incredible moment.
I am finally able to take hold of my wrist on the extended right-angle pose and grab.
Moment of truth! This is where I had my first muscle failure last time, 42 minutes in, on the reverse half moon facing right. And now I see why: the Hort has chosen to hold this pose to give a sermon on why this move is so hard! We're holding it 10 seconds longer than the other side! This is critical! Made it. This move, by the way, looks ridiculously easy in every image I have found with Google, but I have no shame. Try it after 42 minutes of Vinyasas and Warriors.

Twisting Half Moon (yogaartandscience.com)

Check it out: I have taken no unscheduled breaks this time, and my only scheduled break so far has been to refill my water bottle and jot down one-word reminders for the five preceding thoughts (this little deed tremendously helps me clear my head, which, I have come to believe, is vital to success in Yoga X).
It's not pretty, and my back is not as straight as it should be (will be), but I have just achieved "toe-lock" on the standing leg extension. No picture. I'll have to take my own.
The latest Crane Pose results are in. I went up four times, first for 7 seconds, then 10, then 10, then 7. I reset the clock whenever a toe brushed or touched down on my yoga mat (cf. Day 11).
My back cracked 6 separate times during Yoga X today. Each was glorious.
Went 79 minutes, 20 seconds without muscle failure today. Praising God for this one.

X. After my shower and before writing this, I microwaved a bowl of egg whites tossed with enough salt, pepper, Tabasco, and Market Basket-brand salsa to. . . . On second thought, no amount of any of these items enables one to do anything except make a whole lot of what I did, and that is never happening again. My wife has managed to invent new ways for me to choke down egg whites by masking their flavor, and she does this even on mornings when I need her to drive me to work. Maggie, please come home.

Reflections on a Just God Who Is Love: Finding the Personal in the Universal

2011-01-20T11:37:00.003-05:00

Last post on the subject, I brought in two musts for anyone truly intent on resolving the apparent tension between God's love and God's justice: 1) "Taste" correctly—read the Bible to get to know its God, rather than superficially cadging a verse here and there; and 2) "Taste" it yourself—don't forget that, abstract as this conundrum can seem, the struggle to understand it is deeply personal.

The question on the table is this: "If God is love, why does he demand a penalty? Why doesn't he just forgive?" I think it is a fair one. But I notice that in working through it many err in thinking they must solve this problem in the abstract--for mankind, if you will--before they allow themselves to be personally confronted with it. This mistake is as popular as it is pernicious. C.S. Lewis points out that it is also illogical:

. . . if you are worried about the people outside, the most unreasonable thing you can do is to remain outside yourself. Christians are Christ's body, the organism through which He works. Every addition to that body enables Him to do more. If you want to help those outside you must add your own little cell to the body of Christ who alone can help them. Cutting off a man's fingers would be an odd way of getting him to do more work. (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Book 2.5: "The Practical Conclusion").

Our anguish over the condition and fate of all mankind could not be more deserving. But we must not forget or ignore that mankind's spiritual problem is also our own. One reason it is very enticing to consider "the salvation of the world" is because it offers a distraction from "the salvation of me," a disagreeable subject for any number of reasons, not the least of which is that it implies "my" guilt and need for salvation. But the universal is also personal. If the world must be saved, so must you.

With this in mind, let us pitch our nagging problem once more, not, as it were, in the coliseum filled with masses, but in one's living room. What penalty does he demand of me? None, Jesus paid it. Yes, but Romans 6:23 says the wages of sin is death. It does; Jesus died. But Jesus suffered. He did, terribly, as you merit, and he chose to, selflessly. But please, be serious. If he's so great, why doesn't he just forgive? Follow Jesus, you're forgiven. Try to pay God—he does not accept your currency; that is your problem. But try to cancel your debt—he has beaten you to it. That is your forgiveness. He made your problem his own, and he solved it. He has already done the work. As surely as God demands a penalty, He has forgiven you. God is love.

Missing something? Catch the intro to the string A Just God Who Is Love, followed by "Dark Night, Joyful Morning" here, "Limping Is Good" here, and "Context is Everything" here.

--
MTH
www.callhimishmael.blogspot.com

P90X Thought Stream, Day 17: My Feet Are So Cold

2011-01-18T19:49:00.004-05:00

Last night I followed up Cardio X (cf. Day 16: Fiery Fat Furnace) with what would have been this morning's workout, making this my first true double X workout, not to be confused with my pseudo-double (cf. Day 12: Shark Park). The thinking here was to make this morning easier so I could just focus on grading. After finishing around 10:40 p.m. I was so wonderfully spent that I immediately showered and went straight to bed. Just before killing the lamp on my night stand, I jotted down on a sticky note a few symbols and fragments for this Thought Stream. Apparently, however, I was either too euphoric from the double or else too wiped out, for when I first sat down to write this, I couldn't understand a blooming thing I had written.

Fortunately, though, once you hit Week 3 of P90X, your mind is just a few spokes away from becoming a steel trap.

P90X Thought Stream, Day 17: Shoulders and Arms. Curls, shoulder presses, twist-grip kick-backs. 59 minutes. Cf. Day 3: Black Ice, Day 10: My Feet Are So Hot.

I would like to apologize to my red (light resistance) band for not using it for the first 46 minutes, 30 seconds of this workout. But it should get used to being left out.

I do not understand how there is even a market for regular deodorant. I swear that twice a year I accidentally buy the non-antiperspirant, plain old perfumy Old Spice, and right when I am about to put it on, I realize that all this will do is make my sweat smell beautiful, but that, because of the rules of double-negatives, this may as well be a perspirant causing me to sweat more. Who is buying this stuff (besides me)? I should say, who is using it? This was one of my final thoughts last night, because I have had a stick of useless perspirant staring at me from my dresser for a month now, sitting atop the receipt that will enable me to return it, should I ever decide to take that plunge.

Is my right middle finger bruised, or just dirty? Yes. P90X.

Must keep lifting . . . must keep lifting . . . I have to get bigger if I want to stay in my gang (cf. Day 12).

It occurs to me that I could not be doing any of this without my wife's support. Wife! Rock on.

Consumed half a bag of sunflower seeds waiting for the 108 bus today (cf. Day 3, Day 4: Namaste).

While waiting in line to buy said seeds, I stood watching a scene from a Salvador Dali come to life. This woman, whom I have named "Hilda," is cashing in and buying new lotto tickets, plus three Snickers bars, and just as she is finishing up her transaction, she starts berating the cashier for shortchanging . . . wait for it . . . himself. "I don't want that money! I only want what I won! Look, man, count. I gave you this ticket worth this much and you gave me this and. . . ." On and on, with real fury. Lady, you're integrity is self-defeating. I'm watching this poor cashier (poorer than he knows!) try to assuage Hilda as she prepares to kill him with kindness. Hey, man, I've been there, I want to say (cf. Day 12). It is what it is. It will be over soon. Don't try to make sense of it. Try to make cents of it. . . . (Sorry).

Shouts-out to Steve Christian and Paul Ha, both of whom just started P90X in the last couple of days (not together . . . that I know of).

Pulled yet another Groundhog Day move trying to ford the river across the street to get to the bus stop after school today. I stepped ankle-high into a puddle of slush water. But because I am so speedy, I had both feet in before I knew it.

What actually happened is I stepped on a solid patch of ice fit to hold man or beast, but I was radiating so many BTUs because of my geeped-up metabolism that I instantly melted the ice, as well as the rubber soles of my leather shoes, and what do you know, I was instantly wet, because water-walking is one of those things not even Tony Horton can teach. Fortunately, this experience only validated what we all know to be true and what, frankly, I am growing rather tired of hearing from everybody--that my feet are so hot. Well, things change.

X. Doubting the wisdom of double X workouts! So sore, but man, it did feel SO good to conquer two in one night. Yoga tomorrow. I will need it after all this grading.

P90X Thought Stream, Day 16: Fiery Fat Furnace

2011-01-17T21:30:00.000-05:00

New variable today: ate a lot of fat. At least it is flammable.

P90X Thought Stream, Day 16: Cardio X. Cf. Day 2: Ouch, Day 9: Dog Pound

Oh man. I'm feeling good. I might try for a double today (Cardio X + Arms & Shoulders). That will really free up my morning tomorrow, because, let's face it, am I really going to work tonight? Haven't yet.
Should I be concerned that my legs hurt more than my abs from yesterday's Ab Ripper X?
I'm making an executive decision here to do this whole workout shoeless.
Actually palmed the floor today from a standing V! This is a big deal for me, since I could barely touch my fingertips to the floor two weeks ago. Cirque du Soleil, here I come.
"And now for some chair kicks to burn off that fat, that gristle." You mean those three pieces of blissful pepperoni pizza from Neapoli's I had today--the first bites of pizza my wife and I have had in the new year? If I must. . . .
74 more days until I join the Rockettes. . . .
What!? Did I miss the "switch feet" whistle on these creepy little Neanderthal Man runs? No wonder my left leg is burning.
Why, why, do I keep forgetting about these asinine superman bananas? Also, does anyone know how to erase this part of the workout DVD? (Cf. Day 2, Day 9, above).
Check this out, upward-downward-everywhichwayward dog: I just added one push-up per Vinyasa exercise. You'd better schedule a trip to vet. (Cf. Day 2, Day 9, above).
Don't know if it's the pizza, the long weekend, or the smell of delicious recipes wafting down from the kitchen, but this was especially intense tonight. But I did everything & finished everything.

X. Okay. I'm going again.

Read the whole P90X Thought Stream here. . . .

P90X Thought Stream, Day 12: Shark Park

2011-01-17T13:03:00.001-05:00

[No, you're not seeing things: This is the post for Day 12, though today is Day 16 of my workout. But this story needed told right, hence the delay. Here is why.]

So about that snow shoveling after my second Yoga workout (cf. Day 11: Snow Dei). . . .

Let's just say that I, who have experienced the intensity of P90X, and who am a little wary of other things being idly compared to P90X, am going out on a limb to pronounce yesterday's snow shoveling, on the heels of Yoga X, a "double" X workout.

Oh yes I did.

Here's what happened. For some reason our having a garage the last two years utterly erased my memories of snow shoveling--how long it takes, why it's important to get out there early even if it's still snowing, how heavy snow can be when compacted, etc. So instead of shoveling like the rest of Boston, I stayed inside with my family, graded, Yoga'd, and then thought I'd do a few minutes of snow-pushing before dinner, you know, like a cool-down exercise.

What a moron (cf. Day 3: Black Ice, Day 6: Foolish Mortal). After 5 minutes of shoveling some 18 inches at a time, two guys come along looking for work. "Nah, Ah'ma stay," I say (cf. Day 11). "I can't throw any money at you. Maybe next snow fall, though!" Haha, I laugh. Hehe, they giggle. I keep shoveling. At one point my friend Brent arrives and clears off most of our front steps (thanks again). Now we're up to our minivan, and I begin to realize that I've grossly underestimated this snowstorm. Snow is everywhere, and there is nowhere left to put it. Pretty soon I'll be holding up dinner, and I need to free my car while my neighbors' Kia is gone, so that I don't smash their front end backing out. So when two more guys, Sean and Sam, come along looking for work, I hire them. They want $20 to dig out my car, and they have picks. "Ten, I'm working with you," says I. Deal.

We clear it pretty fast with Sam and me on shovels and Sean on the pick. Brent runs upstairs to get cash from Maggie to pay these guys, and then does a great job offering encouraging words while enjoying a Dominican cigar I got for Christmas (as he should be, since shoveling was not in our plans tonight, and the evening would soon be overtaken by it). We're all chit-chatting, etc. . . . Sean and Sam are both chefs at MIT. They couldn't work today (apparently there's been some bad weather lately), so they're out here compensating. It is immediately evident, however, that this job is worth more to me than $10. I'll keep my mouth shut to see that they actually free my car, but I'm thinking about bonus bucks and a couple of home brews. All is well at six o'clock. So it seems.

But then our proverbial igloo starts to melt. See, Sam and Sean have parked halfway in my neighbor's spot for 10-15 minutes to dig me out, and this neighbor (whose boyfriend is out somewhere with the Kia) pops her head out her front door to reclaim her parking space.

"Hey, that's my pocking space. Did yous guys spend three howas digging out that space? Cause we did. Why do yous think we put the trash cans and the couple a crates there--to hold the spot, eh, cause we shoveled it. And now you go and pock in somebody else's space? Is that what you think?"

Before the wide world of blog readers lines up against this upset, aggressive neighbor, who, it seems, has declined to examine the situation from all angles, I should throw a couple of defensive sandbags her way. I really wouldn't know what her deal was had I been watching this scene unfurl from Crescent Pose through my upstairs window two hours earlier. But in this moment I am now fully awake to the burden of snow shoveling after a Nor'easter, and had myself just come to realize that were it not for the services of Sean, Sam, and Brent's cigar, I would be the one spending three hours on our minivan. And parking can be sticky on our street even without snow; with snow, forget it. One must guard one's space. If you're renting your home, keeping this parking space is the closest you have ever come to owning land.

(By the way, the next night someone actually took our spot. Maggie had the van at work, and from the moment I came home (via the 108 bus, cf. Day 3, Day 4: Namaste), I was peeking out the window, probably some two or three dozen times, waiting to see what nincompoop had just lifted our space. Did he spend three hours digging it out . . . ? Never did find out who, and he didn't move, so we managed to squeeze between the Kia and a snow bank. Our landlords think it was someone's car from the street over whose own space got taken. Dominoes, anyone?)

But I digress. What makes this night a little "warmer" than it should be is that this neighbor's defenses were, well, impenetrable. Eventually all four of us took a brief turn explaining (Brent between puffs) that no ma'am, they are not parking in your spot, they're just digging this physically fit idiot's minivan out, they're leaving soon, just a few minutes, etc. But everything we said elicited further incendiary rhetorical questions: "Did yous guys spend three howas . . .? "

Then someone pulls the pin. "Wow, you'd think they owned the street--but they have a good point, you gotta guard your spot!" A little hyperbole, followed by a lot of sympathy. That's all it was. The sympathy, though, was returned unopened by the neighbor. She opened up some other things instead. On and on, oh boy is she mad, dig dig dig, can we please be done so I can go eat and these guys can get out of her spot, that cigar smells good, dig dig dig. But Sam has had enough. Straightening up from the pile of snow he is julienning, he steals a glance over his shoulder and offers our antagonist some neighborly advice: "Go in and cook your ham, Betty."

Until this night I did not realize the simple math behind playground quarrels. Here I discovered that the inaneness of an insult is directly proportional to the extremeness of the reaction it draws. Consider: someone mocks you intelligently, with true wit and wisdom--a bit of satire, that is all--and you can wear your wound almost as you would a badge. After all, "there is a vast difference betwixt the slovenly butchering of a man," says Dryden, "and the fineness of a stroke, that separates the head from the body, and leaves it standing in its place." To have one's head sliced so professionally is almost to feel one has been done a favor, and one's reaction is (at best) cunning in itself, or (at worst), quietly humiliating. But "cook your ham, Betty"--this make no sense. It is not witty. It is not cunning. It is not smart. It is not even clever. It is a little funny--but only because it makes the circumstances more grotesque and absurd, and therefore funnier, not because of any wit or wisdom in the phrase itself. This is closer to Dryden's "slovenly butchering," and Sam does it so poorly that he might as well try to dice chicken with a long wooden spoon. But the math holds: the most asinine insult always elicits the most vehement response.

Amidst the sparring match that has sprung up to my left, soon a sixth voice joins our ensemble. It is a less aggressive neighbor who has stepped onto her front porch, asking me to please stop letting chunks of snow fall into her driveway from the snow pile boxing in my minivan. It took her three hours (her too?) to shovel it out, she took great pains, etc. . . . Yes, yes, certainly, ma'am, I am planning to survey the scene after my vehicle is free (horse first, then cart, you know) and do whatever cleanup is necessary, would never think of undoing your hard work. Bomb defused. Next.

Soon the flames die down enough for us to finish the job. We back the car out fine (thank the Lord). I run upstairs and holler to Maggie to please bring down two home brews. They're not cold, but that's okay, these guys won't be drinking them until later.

Sean and Sam are glad for the bonus and eagerly take the home brews, pointing and saying, "Hey, look Sam, that's an IPA, you love those," and I of course say it's actually just an IPA bottle, these are wheat beers, and they of course say, that's okay, beer is beer, and I say, that's almost true, and I add, they're not cold yet but you're not drinking them now any--

Doth mine eyes deceive me? Sean had disengaged immediately after pointing at Sam's non-IPA, and I notice that he has given up trying to twist the cap off and has instead clamped the thing between his teeth and ripped it off. The bottle is practically empty before the bent aluminum cap hits the lately exposed pavement.

Okay. . . .

Sam is more moderate, placing his in his pocket and shaking his head as if to say, "Silly Sean." I suspect there is math reflecting a correlation between temperance and fondness for IPAs. Think about it: the night before trash pickup, when everyone's recycling is out front, have you ever seen a 24-pack of empty IPA bottles? No--but who has not seen an entire bin full of empty Miller High Life bottles? That is because the former is made for enjoyment, the latter for another thing.

These guys get back on their horses and ride into the sunset (Sam drives). I decide we have time for a little damage control before quaffing our own thirst. So Brent and I reposition the one neighbor's place-holding crates and trash barrel just so, and I scoop up the ball or two of snow that has invaded the property next door. Then I go to the one neighbor and ask if her driveway looks satisfactory, knowing it does. I offer my hand, but she says hers is wet from dish-washing, and I say mine is freezing from shoveling, so we're even, ha ha ha okay we're fine. Next.

The walk across the street seems longer. Brent has finished his cigar and is deciding in whose bushes, if any, he should deposit the stub). We ring the doorbell; no cigar. (Sorry.) We knock. At last the neighbor opens the door, and I ask if her crates and trashcans look satisfactory, knowing they do. And . . . wow, we're still not done. . . .

Yes, the crates and barrel are fine. But my neighbor want Bonnie and Clyde's names, phone numbers, and addresses. I don't have them. Still don't have them. I don't know them. MIT. Chefs. Shovelers. They hate parking spaces. If they could, they would never park anywhere, not even in their own parents' driveways. It was wasn't personal, it wasn't permanent, it was barely even business, and I only wish to assuage the offense you have taken. The peripeteia here (critical change in events from either good or bad fortune to its opposite) was telling my neighbor that I have her back--that I will help guard her space if she'll help guard mine. This, on reflection, was key. Now we're not just neighbors, we're allies. We're practically in a gang.

Brent and I are sitting down to dinner twenty minutes later when the doorbell rings twice. Nota bene: ringing a doorbell twice without letting time elapse between rings is unspeakably patronizing. Brent follows me downstairs, sensing what was coming.

It is Miguel. My alter ego. Miguel has recently returned with his girlfriend's Kia and, in an inspiring display of chivalry and slang, seeks the scurvy knaves who so vaingloriously "was disrespectin [his] girl." We go through it again: Chefs, MIT, with our forces combined we will save each other's parking spaces, nay, the world . . . we're fine.

Poor Miguel. See, Miguel is smart, but trapped. He is not here to make enemies where none is to be found, and he probably suspects that the version of the tale his girlfriend (known to some as "Betty") has told him on his Metro PCS phone is just that--a version. But men must do what men must do, and his eyes seem to plead with a voice his speech cannot: Please, man. You know why I'm here: because I am going to catch hell if I walk inside my girlfriend's apartment without reporting to her that I have searched for these two dudes who did you an awesome service and who were out of my parking spot long before I needed it. So let me just drop a few more f-bombs in earshot of her, because you know she is listening, and vigorously nod my head up and down, because you know she is watching, so that she can discern my ardent passion for her . . . do this for me, and I'll be out of here in two seconds. Miguel insists on shaking my hand three times during this 90-second interchange.

So concludes the before-dinner events. By the time I finally sit down to my wife's delectable homemade soup, I am a slightly more experienced, seasoned, humbled, annoyed, allied, and flexible man. Plus I'm in a gang.

What's that? Caught, you say? I have not reported on my P90X legs and back workout? You do not see how hiring two dudes and a cigar smoker after Yoga X constitutes a P90X double?

Good point. Suffice it to say that after dinner, Brent and I went back outside and began to dig out my landlords' cars (I owed them one from the last snowstorm). After helping significantly for awhile, Brent had to take off, so I finished up in the next couple of hours. This seriously was the heaviest snow I have ever lifted, and the job was complicated by the need to move part of a snow dune created by some of the plows that had cleared the street at the expense of my landlords' driveway. This was good, honest, exhausting work for my hams, quads, gluts, obliques, lats, and tris, and I woke up the next day (cf. Day 13: "Mime" Has a Silent "X") feeling more sore from this than from last week's formal P90X legs and back workout (cf. Day 5: Redemption!).

And with that--but look at the clock. Almost time to start Week 3 (cf. Day 15: Hear Me Roar). Thanks for reading. More to follow. . . .

Read the whole P90X Thought Stream here. . . .

P90X Thought Stream, Day 15: Hear Me Roar

2011-01-16T23:10:00.009-05:00

8:30 p.m.: The boy sleeps . . . the wife works . . . the X stirs.

Week 3 starts . . . now.

P90X Thought Stream, Day 15: Chest and Back. Push-ups and pull-ups + Ab Ripper X. 53 minutes. Cf. Day 1: Bring it., Day 8, Two Is Better Than One.

I notice I have been psyching myself up for this routine all day . . . in order to prevent myself from getting psyched out. Am I nervous? Yes. Why? Because I really, really want to do more push-ups today than I did last week, and don't know. . . . OK stop, man up, it's go time.
Now this is interesting . . . usually I work out and then spend the rest of the day looking for time to blog, but today I have written all afternoon (finishing the story of Day 12: Shark Park, coming soon) in order to work out tonight. Which formula works better for me? We'll see.
This has been the kind of day that makes me think I should have more bananas in my diet.
Just checked on the boy. He is sleeping fine, but he is sweating more than I am.
Sweet! Here is the new push-up breakdown. KEY: Day 15, [Day 8], (Day 1) . . . Day 15, 2nd set

Standard: 35 [30] (20) . . . Second set, Day 15: 22
Military: 12 [8] (8) . . . Second set: 7
Wide: 15 [15] (10) . . . Second set: 16
Decline: 8 [6] (5) . . . Second set: 6
Diamond: 6 [7] (4) . . . Second set: 6*
Dive-Bombers: 8 [8] (5) . . . Second set: 7
That's a total of 148 push-ups in 53 minutes. Not a bad day.

*Note on my second set of Diamonds. Every time I do these, I fail to touch my chest to my hands and get back up more than once or twice. This week I took the Hort's advice for achieving greater range of motion by scrapping my ego (only temporarily of course) and banging these out from my knees. I'll see if I can touch from my feet next week.
I just broke my medium resistance band. Hear me roar.

Did all 25 reps for the first 4 Ab Ripper exercises. That's improvement. The walls came tumbling down after that, but still had some gains. I have no "pulse" on the pulse sit-ups, for those who know & care. I was doing well on leg-grabbers until my friend Jeffy texted me to tell me that Claire Danes just won a Golden Globe for Temple Grandin, a must-see in our book (and in Maggie's). Jeff: Boston awaits you.
As for the Mason twists (cf. Day 8)? I had 22 in me before my feet hit the cement. After a 10 second break, I did 10 more. After a 10 second break, I did 1 one more. And then I concluded that any more would just be bragadocious. . . .
I am missing the Golden Globes.

X. Attention, Hollywood Foreign Press Association: If Colin Firth does not win a Golden Globe award for The King's Speech, then I will be declining all future invitations to the Golden Globe Awards (cf. Day 13: "Mime" Has a Silent "X").

Read the whole P90X Thought Stream here. . . .

Reflections on a Just God Who Is Love: Context is Everything

2011-01-15T23:20:00.000-05:00

[If you missed the previous three posts in this string called A Just God Who Is Love, you can catch the Intro here, "Dark Night, Joyful Morning" here, or "Limping Is Good" here. . . or, of course, just jump in below.]

What follows is not systematic enough or thorough enough to debunk misinterpretations of “God is love” (1 John 4:8b) that maintain a loving God to be incompatible with a just God. But I do think reading the phrase “God is love” in context may give pause to many who toss it around when trying to prove a contradiction between God’s love and God’s justice.

Interpreting the three words “God is love” in a vacuum can lead to claims about the God of the Bible that the Bible itself does not make (such as “Love is God”; see the opening pages of C.S. Lewis’s The Four Loves for a brief but pointed analysis of the danger of this seemingly harmless perversion).

You can read the verses surrounding “God is love” here. You’ll find that John’s go-to example in support of his claim that “God is love” is that God himself paid the penalty for our sins. In John’s mind, these two are inextricable. God’s grace in paying down our debt is the quintessential expression of his love. Discard God requiring a penalty, and one loses God paying the penalty, and right behind that one loses “God is love”—at least in the sense the author says it.

In using such an illustration, is John therefore saying that God’s love is contingent on our sin? —that God would be incapable of loving us were it not for our sinfulness, because our sin furnishes a debt for him to cancel? No: i) given, a priori, the authority of Scripture, such contingency would violate the biblical teaching of God’s sovereignty. But since not all debating this question of a Just God Who Is Love maintain Scripture’s authority, here is another reason: ii) John writes these words to people who believe (as he does) that their sins separate them from a holy God, and that this God has sacrificially taken their punishment upon himself, in the person of Jesus, in order to spare them. “God is love” was true before God did anything to save sinful mankind; but with such an example of divine love as Christ’s sacrifice on hand, it seems absurd that John should teach “God is love” without using it.

God is love! Infinitely and utterly and completely! But how to reconcile this claim with the sin and pain in our universe, or with death (sin’s “wages” (Rom. 6:23))?

A man would not try to make sense of quantum theory by speculating from his couch (unless he was only pretending to want to learn it), but by submitting his poor Newtonian mind to the finest physicists and experts, their writings, and even his good friends who understand it better than him. Just so, one can grow in knowledge* of “God is love” only through a submissive study of the Scriptures and of Scripture’s God.

Unfortunately, many would rather wiki quantum from their couches, and many are quick to pontificate in some discussion on “God being love” without interpreting this biblical claim in light of other biblical claims. Fragmented from its context, “God is love” begins to mean whatever a speaker wishes it to mean. I have seen this lead to some worthy conversations, but have noted that these conversations do not long remain about the God of the Bible (though the participants seem to think they do), but only about “god” and “love” in general, as each man conceives of them.

Fragmenting biblical truth leads to a fallacy I encounter all the time (sometimes because I am the perpetrator)—that of expecting the God of the Bible to live up to the Bible’s descriptors even while segmenting those descriptors from their biblical context.

Suppose a man claims that he would like to know the God of the Bible; it does not necessarily follow that he wishes to understand God on God’s own terms. This is like accepting an invitation to an exquisite dinner but refusing to hear the host’s address or directions, then getting vexed with the host for making his house impossible to find, and insulting his cuisine to boot. Better for the man to take the host’s directions and at least arrive, knowing he can leave whenever he wants. Whether he will like the dinner, upon arriving, who can say? He may not. But he will have at least tasted it as it is meant to be served: with its own wine, on its own plate, with a host and company who can better explain its sweet, savory, and even bitter flavors more lucidly and honestly than any wandering critic or cynic who has left halfway through the first course, to say nothing of the mass of critics and cynics who declined the invitation to begin with.

But must I taste a meal which all people around me, some of the brightest minds I know, folks with tastes similar to mine, despise? Is it not wiser to trust their judgment and save myself the trouble? I do not know; taste whatever you want. True, some will never hear the virtues of such a meal extolled, being surrounded by people who denounce it; but that is no reason for you, who have heard it is good, to refuse a taste. And—to retrace this benign dinner “parable” to knowing the God of the Bible—I say if there is but one friend of yours who actually claims to have tasted and seen that the Lord is good, who has believed the Bible and all its miracles and resurrections and promises, and yet whom, despite these beliefs, you do not deem a lunatic, but whom you rather hold sensible and grounded and knowledgeable and logical in other parts of life—I say if you have one such friend, that is sufficient reason to turn a fresh eye toward the Scriptures for the purpose of understanding how they may be true, not with the aim of proving that they cannot be.

*Here I speak only of rational knowledge. Experiential knowledge—i.e., from having benefitted from acts of God’s love, one need not read the Bible to receive, although I suppose it will be very difficult if not impossible to arrive at a correct understanding of one’s experiences without interpreting them biblically.

Day 14: Shabbat

2011-01-15T18:02:00.000-05:00

Two weeks down already? When is this going to get hard?

Soaking up my day of rest . . . great times with the wife and boy. Watching Baby Einstein for the 3rd time (with Jonah, Mags is at work), and I just may very well let it run all night. Okay, probably not.

Reading Anna Karenina. . . .

Rebuffering the P90X Thought Stream. . . .

Next post coming soon (later tonight?) in the Just God Who Is Love string. . . .

Worship tomorrow at Seven Mile Road Church. . . .

Back at it tomorrow. Thanks for reading. I appreciate it.

P.S.: I did actually put in the Stretch DVD this afternoon, but the Hort was starting out with Vinyasas (downward dog, upward dog, &c.), and Jonah was waking up anyway, so I called it. Tony should know I don't do Vinyasas on days that are multiples of 7.

P90X Thought Stream, Day 13: "Mime" Has a Silent "X"

2011-01-14T23:12:00.000-05:00

[Looking for the Thought Stream for Day 12? Check back soon. It's snowballed into a longer story I haven't finished writing yet. Working on it, more to follow. . . .]

Five-twenty-five a.m. Get up, Trinity. Just get up. Get--up. (Confused?)

A little OJ for my engine today (the juice). Find the Yoga mat, a shirt, my laptop, in that order. Feeling every bone in my body, but that's OK, I've come by it honestly. Redeeming last week's Kenpo X debacle by 5:40 a.m. (cf. Day 6: Foolish Mortal).

P90X Thought Stream, Day 13: Kenpo X. Punches, kicks, blocks. Cf. Day 6.

Why is it that both days before Kenpo X, I have given myself only 6 hours sleep? But I have covered this subject (cf. Day 6).
Went for a little scale action this morning. What's that, five pounds gone? I'll have to eat those back on date night tonight. . . .
Gym shoes are still wet and cold from shoveling . . . let's see what these Madden sneaks can handle.
Confirmed: Shoveling all that snow was in fact a serious workout of my quads, hams, gluts, obliques, traps, and tris. I haven't been this tight since Day 3: Black Ice. Looking forward to punching out some kinks this morning.
X Jacks - n (plur.) - jumping jacks done with a leap, so that one's legs achieve serious hang time, esp. when one emulates a large tortoise-like head-tucking motion, so as not to incur a concussion by colliding with one's low basement ceiling or 3-inch (diameter) iron pipe leading into one's house's central drain.
"Don't turn your back kick into a side kick" (The Hort). Does he have a camera on me? How did he know that?
Hello, I'm Michael. You can't hear me because I'm a mime. You can tell I'm a mime because of the way I'm moving my arms for these defensive blocks. See? They look nothing like what a Kenpo master would do.
This whole workout would be much cooler with knives.
The price of my P90X almost just went up from the $65 I bought it for (cf. Day 1: Bring It!) to $565. My front kick just missed my laptop by an inch.
Little wonder why Kenpo X is my friend Scot Barry's favorite P90X workout. It's becoming one of mine, too. All this fierce air-punching is incredibly stress-relieving, and this week has needed a release valve.

X. Date night tonight! It was great. Ate at home, dropped off the boy, bought a grande Italian Roast and sugar-free caramel macchiato (Maggie's), saw The King's Speech--exceptional flick, amazing acting, cinematography, and screenplay--and had a fabulous time talking with my lovely wife about it on the drive home. That's always my favorite part of seeing movies with her. Day of rest tomorrow (cf. Day 7: Sabbath). Can you tell I've already started?

Read the whole P90X Thought Stream here. . . .

P90X Thought Stream, Day 11: Sno Dei

2011-01-13T21:45:00.003-05:00

http://intheraw.unplugthesun.com

"Rise and shine, campers, and don't forget your booties, 'cause it's cold out there today." Five points to the first person to name the movie.

School closed. Slept in. Graded online paper submissions from 10 to 1:30 p.m.

Yoga X could not have chosen a better day. . . .

P90X Thought Stream, Day 11: Yoga X (cf. Day 4).

Namaste, Tony. Let's see what you're made of.

This--this is extraordinary improvement! I have made it a full 42 minutes without experiencing that sensation so aptly termed "muscle failure" by the P90X workout guide. In other words, I lasted almost to brink of half of this most excruciating of workouts, keeping up with Tony and the sexy people on the TV, before my limbs suddenly dissolved like Marty McFly's in Back to the Future 1 and I came crashing down on my Yoga mat. And lest the ridiculousness of this image undermine the achievement this is, let me remind alert readers that in my first try at Yoga I was taking breaks at 20 minutes, going halvesies on the exercises at 30 minutes, and all but giving up at 42 minutes (cf. Day 4)--whereas this time, I don't stop even to hydrate until 30 minutes, when the Hort gives the green light for a break, and I'm in the thick of it till I fall. Namaste that.

Vini, vidi, vici. I stretched. I searched. I found my inner thigh.

I think the milk I drank yesterday might have gone bad.

Mommy, what is Daddy doing . . . he's scaring me (Jonah, baby talk).

Is it, ya know, wrong, to use my son as a Yoga block? I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Of course it's not wrong. . . .

Still kidding. But I am using him as a handle for these last deep torso twists. It's okay, he thinks it's a hug.

I did a crane pose! 7 seconds at a time, several times, (up from one second, one time last week).

"Okay, beginners can stay at bridge pose, extreme people will go into wheel pose," says the Hort. I'm feeling extreme. I'll try the wheel . . . okokok flat tire so sorry I forgot my place.

Namaste, accurately translated: Nah, Ah'ma stay. Ah'ma stay riiiight here.

X. Time to shovel snow now that I'm all loose.

P90X Thought Stream, Day 10: My Feet Are So Hot

2011-01-12T14:34:00.002-05:00

[Still on schedule with the X. I wrote down but couldn't type up my thoughts yesterday . . . here is Day 10. I'm about to work out for Day 11 . . . more to follow].

Five-thirty reveille this morning. No pre-wake-up water run. No saltines, apricots, or juice. This will be a low-cardio workout, and I'm on the clock from the second my "Rainforest" cell phone alarm ringtone starts making me want to cut down all the trees in the jungle (5:30:01 sec.).

Go.

P90X Thought Stream, Day 10: Shoulders and Arms. Curls, shoulder-presses, twist-grip kick-backs. 59 minutes. Cf. Day 3.

I am wearing woolen dress socks. Charcoal gray. Gift from my mother. Too small. Shrank in dryer. Searched and searched for white ones with the emergency flashlight: dresser, dryer, Jonah's room . . . nothin'. Almost borrowed Maggie's thought about taking 10 of Jonah's (one per toe).
Bah, bah, black sheep, have you any wool?
Wait . . . where is it? Where is the Hort's token inappropriate sensual comment toward his token female workout partner? Ope, there it is.
Charlie horse from my right mandible to my right shoulder!
These final side-tri-rises are dedicated to the Mandys ad the Trevors, because without my having sneakily borrowed their whey protein for longer than I said I would, I would only be able to watch this guy do them rather than do them myself:
Do the Smiths know that I never call them "the Smiths" in casual conversation, but always "the Mandys and the Trevors?" I'm glad we had this talk.
My feet are so hot.
If I had a nickel for every time someone told me that. . . .
My friend Grant Murray (not to be confused with my friend Grant Smith) says resistance bands are for women. Either he is wrong or I am a woman.
Day 10 and I don't yet find Tony Horton obnoxious. Let's see if tomorrow's Yoga changes that (cf. Day 11, Day 4).

X. Wow, 8 hours between last night's Cardio X and Ab Ripper X (cf. Day 2, Day 9), and this morning's workout. Would have been impossible a week ago! Glory to God.

Read the whole P90X Thought Stream here. . . .

P90X Thought Stream, Day 9: Dog Pound

2011-01-10T22:34:00.001-05:00

Life happens. I had to push P90X a day to meet some grading deadlines for work. I'm hoping this will be one of only a few times in the next 3 months that I have to break schedule. Couple of options here: Do I resume where I left off, with Cardio X, or should I proceed as if I had worked out yesterday, and do Arms and Shoulders (cf. Day 3)? Pros for Cardio: I'm due, and it's only 45-50 minutes on a night I am tired and still grading. Pros for Arms & Shoulders: I'm stressed, and lifting relieves stress. In fact punching and kicking sounds fabulous. Maybe I should open up a can of Kenpo (cf. Day 6).

Cardio X it is. But let's add the Ab Ripper.

P90X Thought Stream, Day 9: Cardio X + Ab Ripper X. 45 minutes + 16 minutes. Cf. Day 2.

Call the dog pound! I just made it through ALL of my upward dogs and downward dogs. Don't get cocky . . . you know this is just training for Yoga X (cf. Day 4).
Did Mandy know I was kidding when I said to snap the Yoga DVD in half? P.S. - I owe Trevor some whey protein.
The vibrations from my X Squat Jumps just shook a small but heavy clock off our DVD shelf onto the floor. Awesome.
Wonder if the landlords heard that.
I think I just discovered the joy of endorphins.
Cool-down exercises stopped 44 minutes ago. Drank water, sat at table with wife, showered, drank whey protein, relaxed. Have not stopped sweating.
I am definitely getting more flexible. My alert reader was right. Still a long way to reach, though. . . .
My problem with superman bananas is that I don't have a 9 X 9 foot mat. [Crickets.] OK, my problem with superman bananas is that I have to do them.
Who is Mason, and how did he get a twist named after him?
I feel a P90X Challenge coming on. Stay tuned. Somebody is about to get called out.

X. This was the perfect night. Worked Friday, worked from home Saturday and Sunday, held my sleepy son on the couch while I graded a student project, worked like a beast all day and feel good about that (cf. Ecclesiastes 2:24-25), came home to a Proverbs 31 wife who worked like a beast with 3 babies (ours included but not all ours!), laughed at Jonah while he smashed food that may or may not have ever made it into his mouth, had a delicious dinner sitting next to my wife (yes next to, Saved by the Bell style), read Green Eggs and Ham, plopped the boy in the bathtub, and prepared to go down to the dungeon when Mags suggested I do this workout upstairs. Great workout, plus the Ab Ripper, so now I don't have to dread it tomorrow (Tuesdays are impossibly busy). Now my wife sleeps on the couch while C.J. Craig from The West Wing yells at a wayward Congolese ambassador and while I cleanse myself of some final waking thoughts. Chest and arms tomorrow. Soul care tomorrow. Morning by morning new mercies I see (cf. Lamentations 3:25, cf. Limping Is Good). Thank you Lord & goodnight.

Read the whole P90X Thought Stream here. . . .

Reflections on a Just God Who Is Love: Limping Is Good

2011-01-09T20:03:00.000-05:00

Quick follow up on the last thing I said on the subject:

(And if you missed them here are a brief intro to this string and the post before this one.)

I am now totally persuaded (for reasons I promised I would only allude to) that Scripture does overwhelmingly present the Just God Who Is Love as one who requires propitiation for our sins. This is not to say I no longer have difficulties with it, sometimes a great many. It is to say I no longer doubt it. But a thousand difficulties do not necessarily make a doubt. Although I was really teetering on an excruciating metaphysical edge for awhile, God is faithful to redeem us from the pit, for “he who began a good work in you will carry it through to completion” (Phil. 1:6). Jacob wrestled the angel for a night; I had the doctrine of penal substitution. Like Jacob, I still limp. But just as Jacob was blessed, my "angel" blessed me. I wear my limp like a trophy to God’s mercy, wisdom, love, and forbearance towards me; “therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (read II Cor. 12:7-10).

Truly "The LORD is good to those who wait for him,

to the soul who seeks him.

It is good that one should wait quietly

for the salvation of the LORD.

It is good for a man that he bear

the yoke in his youth."

(Lamentations 3:25-27 ESV)

P90X Thought Stream, Day 8: Two Is Better Than One

2011-01-08T23:58:00.005-05:00

Woke at 8:45 a.m.! Mags took the boy and I made up the rest that yesterday's wall-to-wall work day failed to provide. By 9:58, we were on our way to Newbury St. brunch with Dave, Cari, and baby William at Joe's, a favorite of ours introduced to us by our impeccably dressed and well-mannered friend Grant. Fantastic day of napping, playing with the boy, and grading tests. When Mags went to work and Jonah boy went to sleep the second time, it was time to start week 2 of P90X. Bring it (again).

P90x Thought Stream, Day 8: Chest and Back. Just shy of an hour of push-ups, pull-ups, and something for the lats.

I just drooled on my yoga mat. The program is working.
Great, great news. P90X is not a practical joke that yields no results. No, no. P90X is a practical joke that yields results. Joke: I just worked out from 9 to 10:30 p.m. on a Saturday with a piece of foam and a concrete floor after doing that very thing the previous week. Result: I am drinking a protein shake.
But seriously: I am actually stronger this week! I did more push-ups than I've ever done in one hour, even one day, and I made the most of the pull-up simulation after figuring out how to make my heavy resistance band heavier. Praising God for this.
Quantify. Push-ups went as follows:

Normal: Day 1/1st set--20. Day 8/1st set--30.
Military: Day 1/1st set--8, lousy form. Day 8/1st set: 8, good form.
Wide: Day 1/1st set--10. Day 8/1st set--15.
Decline: Day 1/1st set--5. Day 8/1st set--6.
Diamond: Day 1/1st set--4. Day 8/1st set--7? 8?
Dive-Bombers: Day 1/1st set--5. Day 8/1st set--8?

Second set was much lower all around, but still much better than Day 1's. For instance, I could actually do second sets of each of these this week, whereas last week I could not do even one diamond in round 2. This week I fell near the end of my 5th (so call it 4). That was gratifying. The sexy people are still doing 30 at the end of the workout--even on declines and diamonds. Maybe some day. . . .
Set my sights on 6 dive-bombers at the end. I fall midway through 6. Lay on floor. Stare at wall. Get back up for the last one . . . nope, fall. Floor. Rinse and repeat. Finally, I nail it and feel pretty good! It's all mental! Let's do one more! Smack. Pride goeth before a fall (Prov 16:18).
Leaning over the shiny white porcelain sink that my wife just cleaned to wash my hands after this workout turned it a charcoal gray. My iron latissimus dorsi implants must be leaking again.
Dear Ab Ripper X: That is quite simply impossible. What am I supposed to do, push off of my kidneys?
It's not that the Ab Ripper X tires me out . . . it's that God decided to spare me those muscles I need to perform these moves in order to get tired out. Maybe I do have them and they're hiding. They have good reason to.
Will I be up for Cardio X 7 hours from now?

X. Great start to this week. Feeling good, and while I'd like to think that's because "it's working," today saw a host of new variables: I X'd it at the end of my day rather than morning; I had a ton of calories in me to burn as energy; I had a solid day of rest under me. Still, not a bad day. And now my wife is home from work. Even better.

Read the whole P90X Thought Stream here.

Reflections on a Just God Who Is Love: Dark Night, Joyful Morning

2011-01-08T09:36:00.002-05:00

You can catch a brief intro to these thoughts here.

I’ll start with a fragment of my original post to my smaller gospel community (“Soul Care Community”), a group of Christian brothers and sisters with whom I live closely as we try to obey New Testament commandments to bear one another’s burdens, encourage one another, and live in light of the good news about Christ.

Matt’s sermon on God’s perfection in justice was the best I’ve heard preached at 7MR. It takes someone who really gets the gospel to articulate God’s justice in such a way that God comes out looking merciful—because that is what the gospel is! All others are false! God is just . . . he punishes sin . . . I am sinful . . . I am not punished . . . God himself bore my punishment. Justice. Mercy. Thank God.*

*OK, maybe it’s not so simple for everyone. God’s judgment of sin, and his punishment of the innocent Jesus (even if on my behalf), is problematic for a lot of Christians and non-Christians alike. I have struggled—intensely—with reconciling a Just God with a God Who Is Love. This problem constituted the “dark night of my soul” for a period of about 6 months. In case anyone else is walking that road, I’ll soon be posting a few observations on my own intellectual and spiritual struggle with this fundamental doctrine.

During my last semester in college, I was about ready to cash in Christianity as I knew it because of this conundrum of a loving God also being a just God—a God who punishes sin. I lost entire nights of sleep over it. Over several months, I read, prayed, cried, and nearly despaired that I had been beguiled by teachers from my youth into twisting God into a bloodthirsty hatemonger, when the Scriptures “actually” don’t teach that a Just God Who Is Love requires any “propitiation” (“blood payment”) at all. This internal struggle followed me from MI to MA. Many Sundays I’d have to stop singing when we came to lines like, “The wrath of God was answered,” and “Jesus paid it all.” Wrath? Payment? Are these part real Christianity, or hijacked Christianity? If the former, is Christianity consistent? If the latter, then to hell with this doctrine.

Seriously, the sermon linked above, which re-awakened this line of thought, is worth hearing at least once, no matter where you stand in regard to Jesus, if this subject is at all interesting or perplexing to you. Definitely don’t miss this if you are troubled by God’s destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah; I’ve read that story (Genesis 18) many, many times in my few days under the sun, but I learned some stunning things from it this time around. Give it a go sometime during the next week or so of these posts. Listen or download: Matthew Kruse, “God As Perfectly Just,” In All Things Perfect Series, 5 Dec 2010. 44 minutes.

Months, months, of prayer over this. Books, articles, and counsel were only marginally helpful, with a few exceptions. What didn’t seem like it was helping but actually was, was blunt honesty with God, even in moments when I was livid with him.* My participation in 1Track at 7MR was, like all things, timed by God’s sovereignty; it was as challenging as it was reparative for my soul and intellect. Truly the Father does not give a stone when his son asks for bread, nor a serpent when asked for a fish (Mat. 7). Even if sometimes the Father waits to prove it.

* In my experience, yelling at God because you don’t understand whether or how he exists, if he exists at all, or what he’s like, or what he wants, is a lot more ballsy than just telling someone else those feelings toward God, just as it’s a lot more gutsy to tell someone you’re mad at him to his face than to gossip to someone else about him. When I have taken my anger to God himself, I’ve been struck most often by two things: (i) an overwhelming sense that God does exist & is listening, and (ii) an overwhelming sense of my general sinfulness, and God’s concurrent patience with the sinful college or post-college kid irate with him.

More to follow. . . .