Ten Things I Learned from Gymuary

Well, it's the final day of Gymuary, and I still have bronchitis. That sort of knocks my big 5K running goal finale on the head…but no matter. Maybe I'll do that on March 1. Get it? 3.1 miles on 3/1?

I wouldn't quite call Gymuary an epic failure, despite the fact that I fell flagrantly short of my goal. Thirteen days out of thirty-one! Not even a fifty percent completion rate. Stupid blizzards. Stupid dangerously low temperatures. Stupid bronchitis. Stupid injury…oh wait, that one was my fault. But onward! To assure myself that the experiment was not a complete flop, here are ten things I learned from this first month of Discipline Year:

1. January is poor month to pick if you're looking to go to the gym every day in New England.
2. I like Zumba! And it's okay to look a sweaty clod while learning something new.
3. The busy, walk-signless street that I cross to get to my gym, the one which gives me disproportionate anxiety when I haven't been out of the house enough, loses much of its scariness after a few days' exposure (hermitic writer alert).
4. Locker 118 sucks. Request a different one when they hand you that key.
5. I am not immune to the Katie Perry virus. Teenage Dream in now on my running shortlist.
6. I can run as fast or faster than nearly all the dudes in my gym, if not for long distances.
7. I need to listen to my body more, and less to my adrenal glands. Not all twinges are the sensation of normal, spirited exertion.
8. It's okay to give up on Revolved Triangle pose. Some things aren't meant to be.
9. You can indeed go to gym dressed like a total schlub and no one will look at you funny.
10. A more reasonable goal would have been, "I will go to the gym every day I am physically able." That one I would have met!

So tomorrow kicks off Face-Off February, the dreaded month of no-makeup. Swing by and see what I look like, all naked up in the face!

Sunday Puzzle

It's Sunday again, and you know what that means—time for me to rip off the puzzle segment from NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday!

Mustachioed enigmatologist

extraordinaire, Will Shortz

If you're a newcomer, each week on Weekend Edition Sunday, Will Shortz (the hardcore crossword puzzlers' almighty God) comes on the radio to do three things: share the solution to the previous week's puzzle, invite a winner who entered the correct answer to play another puzzle (usually word-related) on the air for word-nerdy prizes, and present everyone with the next week's puzzle (answers due in by Thursday afternoon via the WES website if you want a chance to play on the air).

Note: I never post the solutions on this blog…at least not before the submission deadline. I see lots of keyword traffic coming from people looking for the answers, which is at best impatient, and at worst, cheating. For shame.

Now without further ado, here's this week's new puzzle:

From Alan Meyer of Newberg, Ore.: Think of a common word that's six letters long and includes a Q. Change the Q to an N, and rearrange the result to form a new word that's a synonym of the first one. What are the words?

Click here to see the original puzzle posting, check the answer to last week's challenge, listen to the segment, or find the link to enter your answer.

Gymuary non-update

It's been a while since I've brought everyone up to speed on how Gymuary is progressing, and I'm sad to say it's not because of my deep appreciation of how boring it is, listening to people talking about what they did at the gym.

As it turns out, January is a pretty lousy pick if you're determined to go to the gym every single day for a month. At least in New England. We're now twenty-nine days into January, and I've only gone thirteen of those days. As a consolation to my overworked guilt gland, I never once failed to go to the gym simply because I didn't want to. The spirit was willing. Those gym-fails were due to two blizzards, two days of dangerously low negative temperatures (I walk to my gym), one injury, and now bronchitis. I'm bummed. I'm also just a little impressed with myself for having not wonked myself up worse than I may have out of blind determination. As one of my yoga instructors likes to tell me as I'm triangle-ing, I hyperextend.

Basically, it'll be a miracle if my bronchitis goes away by Monday and I can make it in for a final Gymuary workout. Trust me, I'd love nothing more. I have cabin fever like you wouldn't believe, plus I do my best story brainstorming while I'm exercising. I'm itching to work out. And so sadly, Discipline Year's first month is sort of a big fat FAIL, but for legitimate reasons.

Onward and upward! It's nearly Face-Off February, and luckily, I can't fail that challenge due to circumstances beyond my control. A cosmetics tsunami won't sweep through and force foundation onto my face. The only thing that can cause me to fail is an acute attack of vanity. In fact, February is one of few challenges this year that will actually save me time, and demand less of my effort and energy than normal. I've got my before-and-after mugshots ready to go, so tune in on Tuesday as I kick off the next Discipline Year challenge.

Thrusty Thursday: Tina Fey

Several months ago it was suggested to me by the #1 Fun Blog's Special Correspondent Mike Myers (special because he can pee standing up) that I ought to consider thrusting against a woman one of these weeks. Alrighty then! You got it. The thrusting will be more platonic than it might be toward, say, Vincent Regan, but I'm game.

There is really only one choice for the inaugural lady-thrustin'. Tina Fey. Or more specifically, Liz Lemon. If you enjoy comedy and haven't seen 30 Rock, you are truly doing yourself a disservice. It's a great sitcom (no laugh track, hallelujah) that's stayed incredibly consistent in tone and quality for the past five seasons (and every single one of those seasons is on Nexflix Instant Watcher, incidentally).

For the uninitiated, Tina Fey plays comedy writer Liz Lemon, a character who is equal parts Cathy (of the infamous comic strip) and Mary Richards (of the Mary Tyler Moore Show). She is impossibly flawed, but in wonderful, atypical, original ways for a female TV character…she eats cheese late at night, she drunk-dials her prospective condo association board, she makes terrible romantic choices, she is petty, mean, pathetic, hopeless, conniving, hypocritical, weak, and lazy, yet you can't help but love her. It's really rather remarkable. In fact, I suspect 30 Rock may be the only show I can think of wherein I'm more excited for a certain female character's scenes than a male's. I can even forgive that the audience is supposed to overlook Tina Fey's rather striking good looks and believe that Liz Lemon is a fairly average woman, physically. For everything else 30 Rock delivers, I will happily buy in to that fantasy.

As I've said before, I find few things more endearing than when someone is unafraid to be seen at their most unflattering—making weird faces, owning up to bodily functions, generally being a flawed human being. And so I'll leave you all with this, the genius of Tina Fey, montaged:

Does everyone get it, now?

I take a lot of flak from my extended family-in-law for my desire to squeeze round birds. Not to hurt the birds, mind you. Just to, you know…squeeze them. Gently. In my cupped hands. My cousins like to paint this as sexual deviance, but that's because they themselves are perverts. Ignorant perverts, trying to shift focus from their own issues. My bird-squeezing inclinations are one hundred percent nurturing. I mean, look at old Huggums up there, and tell me you don't want to give him a little squeeze. Just look at his thumbs!

Okay, technical stuff: this bird is not called Huggums, he is actually called a buff-breasted sandpiper. He does not have thumbs. He is not actually looking to get squozen, but rather he's performing his species' [hilarious] armpit-flashing mating dance. Photo credit to the talented Gerrit Vyn.

Awww, so sweet.

From YouTuber blau111. Thanks to my lady-cuz for the linkage:

Sunday Puzzle

It's Sunday again, and you know what that means—time for me to rip off the puzzle segment from NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday!

Mustachioed enigmatologist

extraordinaire, Will Shortz

If you're a newcomer, each week on Weekend Edition Sunday, Will Shortz (the hardcore crossword puzzlers' almighty God) comes on the radio to do three things: share the solution to the previous week's puzzle, invite a winner who entered the correct answer to play another puzzle (usually word-related) on the air for word-nerdy prizes, and present everyone with the next week's puzzle (answers due in by Thursday afternoon via the WES website if you want a chance to play on the air).

Note: I never post the solutions on this blog…at least not before the submission deadline. I see lots of keyword traffic coming from people looking for the answers, which is at best impatient, and at worst, cheating. For shame.

Now without further ado, here's this week's new puzzle:

Name a nationality. The third, fourth, fifth, sixth and 10th letters in order name a country. Also the fourth, fifth, seventh, ninth and 12th letters in order also name a country. Neither country is related to the nationality. What nationality is this?

Click here to see the original puzzle posting, check the answer to last week's challenge, listen to the segment, or find the link to enter your answer.