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I Want To Pump…Me Up

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Jul 212011

The other day, I was going down several flights of stairs. Despite my extra bulk, I am still fairly light-footed (or light in the loafers, depending on your point of view) and I was flying down the stairs at a fairly decent clip. About halfway down the stairs, I noticed something: My manboobs were bouncing up and down. (And don’t worry…I just added the word manboobs to my computer’s dictionary)

Well, I have two word to say to that: Not. Okay.

I’ve given up my delusions of ever looking like an Abercombie and Fitch model. I don’t even need to look like Chris Evans post-transformation in the trailers for Captain America. (Seriously? How is that man even possible?) But I am just not okay with bouncy manboobs. Or plumber crack, which is another malady with which I have been struck recently. I tell you what: between my saggy manboobs and my plumber crack, I’m looking all kinds of sexy these days.

And I FLAT OUT refuse to buy bigger jeans. I’m just NOT going to do it. I will walk around naked from the waist down before I go up ANOTHER jean size. In fact, I’ve decided I’m not going to buy any more clothes at all until I can get my weight back down to around 180-185.

So yesterday, I finally buckled. I broke down and renewed my membership to the YMCA gym here in Bellevue. It’s actually a very nice facility, and unlike most of the commercial gyms, I can go to the gym without getting an inferiority complex. Because most of the people who go there are older and fatter than me! Huzzah! (In case you were wondering, yes, I really am that petty in real life)

One of my all-time favorite Simpson lines: “Gym? What’s a Gym? Oh. A Gym.”

The main reason why I chose to go to the YMCA, though, is because of their pool. Of all of the forms of exercise, I loathe swimming the least. I used to swim competitively in Jr. High and my freshman year of High School before I discovered theater, and ~~ruined my life forever~~ chose that over athletics. In all honesty, though, it was probably for the best. Suppressed gay feeling + uncontrollable hormones + swim team = potential public humiliation and lifetime emotional scarring.

Anyway, most of the swimming pools around here are salt water pools instead of chlorine pools. And the gyms keep them around 88 degrees so as not to shock the systems of the dinosaurs who think that water aerobics is real exercise. (PS: It’s not.) Having swam (swum?) in chlorine pools my whole life, it doesn’t feel like swimming if the water’s not cool and I don’t come out of the water with an eau du stale chorine clinging to my skin and hair. The YMCA has a decent, clean chorine pool that they keep at a nice, cool temperature. So, while it is a little more expensive that a membership to 24 Hour Fitness, and there’s not as much eye candy to look at, the pool more than makes up for it.

As much as I like swimming, though, it’s got one major problem: swimming laps is boring as hell. The whole time, you’re chasing walls while hearing nothing but the roar of water rushing past your ears and the sound of your own thoughts. And I go out of my way in life not to be left alone with my thoughts. Those little buggers are destructive and hateful, and they should be kept locked up at all times so as not to wreak havoc on my delicate mental sensibilities. If you’re really unlucky, you get a song stuck in your head, and spend the entire session swimming to that song. Currently: Turning Tables by Adele. Perfect tempo for stroke rhythm. But hearing it in your head for an hour would be enough to drive Adele herself off the deep end. (Pun Intended)

Once I had decided that I was going to re-up my membership, I decided to see if perhaps I couldn’t come up with some alternative to an hour of mental Turning Tables. My sanity is already hanging by a thread. I didn’t want to start carrying around proverbial scissors. So, I went to Amazon and searched for “Waterproof MP3 Player”. How very fortuitous. A company called H2OFriendly buys off-the-shelf iPods, opens them up, and waterproofs them from the inside using a proprietary process. Then you just clip this little thing on the back of your goggles, use one of several different varieties of waterproof headphones, and you’re good to go.

So, after renewing my gym membership yesterday, I decided that today I would take the new iPod for a spin. Or a swim, as the case may be. I loaded it up with an Audiobook, and went to the gym.

Cue the freakin’ choir of angels, y’all.

This. THIS. This is the device I have been waiting for all my life. And I just didn’t know it. It was SO AWESOME to go swimming with an audiobook playing the whole time. I swam for 30 minutes straight, and hardly realized that any time had passed at all. I finished my 1000 meters, looked up, and was shocked to see how long I had been swimming. It was amazing. AND, the waterproof headphones make a water-tight seal in your ear canal and block out all the sounds, so it was very peaceful and quiet.

And yes, I know that 30 minutes for 1000 meters isn’t very fast, nor is it very much. But the last time I went swimming after having not been swimming in years, I overdid it and ended up barfing up my lunch in the locker room after about 600 meters. Not something I wanted to reenact this time around. I’m very, very out of shape. It’s going to take a while to work back up a shape other than manbooby blob.

I also found out that the gym now has a hip-hop dance class on Saturday afternoons, which I’m excited to take. I’m going to look like a mega-idiot, but that’s okay. It’ll be fun. More fun that the new age hippie that teaches the yoga class, anyway. “When I am in that place in me, and you are in place in you, then we are one. Namaste.” Yeah, well, namaste this, Earth mother. I just want to stretch out, not become one with you or any of the other 80 year old Korean women in this class.

Anyway, I’m super excited for getting back into some sort of exercise regiment. I’m even going to try to start going to the gym BEFORE work most days. I’m going to see if perhaps being physically fit and active again will help me to not be so cranky and crabby at work.

And who knows: maybe I’ll get my body back to some semblance of sexiness so I can attract something other than mosquitoes, self-esteem issues, and chubby chasers. I’ll be holding my breath. (Get it? It’s an underwater joke!)

And now apropos of absolutely nothing at all, I provide you this awesome clip.

It’s totally immature and juvenile, and I’m not even remotely ashamed to say I nearly peed my pants from laughter.

The Maple Kind?

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May 032011

I apologize to those who saw this on Facebook, but this needs to be shared.

I love this video more than I can express in words.

The Photo Meme: Day 13

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Mar 132011

Day 13 – A Picture of Your Favorite Band or Artist

This one is a battle of the ladies. There is no possible way for me to choose only one favorite band or artist, but these three women are as close as I’m going to get to musical perfection

1. Sara Bareilles

Sara’s new to the music scene, with only her second major label album out now. Sara’s got a great voice, but where she really excels is in the area of songwriting. Her latest album, Kaleidoscope Heart is probably one of the most well-written, well-produced pop albums I have ever heard in my life. It’s rare that a young artist’s sophomore effort matches the initial album, but she managed not only to meet the same bar of quality, she’s exceeded it. She’s an extremely talented artist, and I think/hope we’re going to see a lot of her in the future.

Best Representative Song: Uncharted from the album Kaleidoscope Heart

2. Jane Monheit

Jane comes to us from NYU and world of Jazz. I have never in my life heard a woman with such flawless vocal control and ability. She doesn’t have the loud, brassy Broadway style, but in the world of Jazz, she’s perfection. If Kristen Chenoweth and Diana Krall had a baby, that baby would be Jane Monheit. (Speaking of which, how did I skip Kristen Chenoweth on this list?) Love, Love, Love, Love, Love her voice. If I was independently wealthy, I would hire Jane to live in my house and sing me to sleep at night.

This is a stunning take on the classic Somewhere Over the Rainbow. (You’ll probably have to turn up the sound on your computer a little.)

3. Eva Cassidy

Sometimes there are people whose talent is so transcendent that it becomes impossible to put it into words. And Eva was one of those people. She died at a tragically young 38 years old of cancer, denying the world access to a voice that has yet to be matched by any other. Rather than try to describe her voice, let me just show you.

This is her uh-maz-ing version of Oh, Had I a Golden Thread. Any of my old MDT friends who read this blog, if you want to hear the PERFECT belt, make sure you get all the way 2:50. Then go change your underwear.

A Week Without Facebook

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Nov 232010

So, as I mentioned a blog post or two ago, I decided last week to stop visiting Facebook and Twitter for a week. I just wanted to see what it was like. What have I learned over the last week? This cat picture can probably sum up my opinion of Facebook the best:

It’s been an interesting (almost) week, to be sure. I guess I hadn’t realized how pervasive Facebook had become in my life until I removed it from my life. The first couple of days were a little difficult. I found myself going to Facebook or Twitter automatically without even realizing it. I’d click on the bookmark icon, and would watch the page load before I realized I was even visiting the site. And if I’ve learned anything in my life, I’ve learned that once you reach the point of doing pretty much anything out of sheer habit rather than out of deliberate action, you’ve probably passed the point of moderation.

A few days went by however, and I actually felt better. I noticed several things:

I was spending FAR less time on the computer. There were days at home when I didn’t even bother turning on my computer at all.
I used the internet far less frequently. I had allowed the Internet to move from being a tool to being a destination. Take Facebook out of the equation, and its appeal as a destination vanished.
I was getting more accomplished around the apartment. Several times during the end of last week and over the weekend, I found myself with extra time. I spent more time playing the piano, cooking, and cleaning. I didn’t stay up as late. Some nights, I even went to bed early.
I was much less stressed
I was far less aware of what was going on in the world. (Some people may consider this a good thing, others a bad. I actually rather like not being riled up about anything and everything.)

I decided about four days into the experiment that I was pretty much swearing off Facebook for good. I’ll still keep my account, and will check on it occasionally. I’ve set up my blog to automatically post a link to my new blog posts on my Facebook feed. But other than that, I’m probably not going to get involved with Facebook much anymore.

I may still post on Twitter every now and again, but I’m not going to leave my Twitter client open all day long and check on it several times a day like I normally have in the past. Nor am I going to click on every link that gets passed along.

I’m actually rather glad I did this little experiment. I’m enjoying my break from Facebook. I can’t say it will be permanent (it probably won’t be) but for the time being, I’m more than happy not to spent hours of my day on FB/Twitter/Links provided therein.

***

On a completely unrelated note, it snowed in Seattle today. About 1-2 inches. And the city has ground to a complete and utter halt. I left work at 4PM today…about 1.5 hours earlier than normal, and I was one of the last three people in the office. Everyone else had scampered home as soon as the snow started to stick on the ground. They freaked right out. Now, I’m pretty confident driving in the snow. One thing that I’ve learned as I’ve lived in several places around the country: the people in Michigan know something about how to teach their children to drive. They know how to drive in all kinds of weather conditions. They’re courteous when they need to be, but can also be aggressive when they need to be.

I was having a conversation with a co-worker about my frustration with the four-way stops on my way to work, because it seems like nobody in Washington knows the rules of the four-way stop. He actually said to me, “I never learned those rules. What are they?” This is a man in his mid-30s. He’s from the area, and he never learned the 4-way stop rules. Not. Okay.

Pedestrians always have the right of way
The first person to the intersection has the right of way.
If more than one vehicle gets to the intersection at the same time, the vehicle to the furthest right has the right of way.
If two vehicles approach opposite stop signs (north/south or east/west) at the same time, both my proceed through the intersection at the same time as long as both of them are going straight. If one is going straight and the other is turning left, the one going straight has the right of way.
Use your @#$@#$@#$@ turn signal! IT’S NOT THAT FREAKING HARD TO TURN ON YOUR TURN SIGNAL. If you’re too busy to signal when you’re driving, put down your cell phone, your chalupa, and your mascara, and drive.

Anyway (whew, that was a tangent) the roads are slicker than snot out there right now, and then it got super cold for here, so now everything’s frozen. There aren’t salt trucks or very many snow plows, so the roads aren’t getting any better. It’s pretty darn ugly. I could handle driving on the roads, because I understand how to drive in the snow, but I don’t trust the other drivers around me. My neighbor drove his car into the ditch trying to get out of the apartment complex, and over the course of the next five minutes, caused five other cars to also drive into the ditch because none of them were able to adequately adjust their driving to deal with the conditions. So, chances are that I’ll be working from home tomorrow. Which is fine with me. All this snow really sets off my Christmas decorations.

***

I’m laying in bed writing this blog post, and my dog is laying at the foot of the bed expelling farts that are so foul that the plastic lid of my laptop is melting.

***

I’m a huge fan of impressionists and parody as a comedy form. A friend of my posted this amazing video of a woman singing the song “Tomorrow” from Annie as several different “divas.” Most of them were pretty good, but her Burnadette Peters was uh-ma-zing, and her Celine Dion was so spot on I could hardly believe it. Also, this is very funny.

***

So, I read and watch a lot of very funny thing on the Internet, but I don’t think that, in my nearly 20 years of using the Internet I have ever read anything in my life that made me laugh as hard as this blog post. Seriously, I think I’ve read it 18 times, and every time it makes me laugh so hard I nearly puke. This is especially funny if you have, like, or are ever around dogs. But it’s funny for everyone. So, without further ado, the funniest thing on the Internet,

Dogs Don’t Understand Basic Concepts Like Moving

New Song (And video!) – Choosing

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Aug 152010

Since I got a new piano, I figured I’d try something a little different with this song: Rather than recording and produce it all up, I though it might be a fun little change of pace to do a videotaped performance on the new piano. So, thanks to my (awesome) digital SLR, a nice little shotgun mic, and my rockin’ new piano, here’s the video of Choosing.

This song was inspired by a friend of mine who’s been stuck in a very unhealthy relationship for a couple of years. She knows that she needs to move on, but is terrified of what that means. So, as a result, she’s essentially chosen not to choose. I can relate.

I’ve decided that I wanted to start writing some songs in a little more theatrical of a style. I have such a background in musical theater, it just makes sense. Plus, the emotional, soaring ballads are my favorite anyway. This is very much a rough draft of the song…I may change the structure or melody still, but I like the basic feel of it so far.

Choosing
Music & Lyrics by Matt Armstrong

Now that I’ve chosen
I can’t decide
If, in the choosing, I chose wrong
Or I chose right
If my decisions
Cast me aside
Now that the choosing’s done
Am I the one
Who has to abide
The choice left behind

Now that it’s over
Now that it’s done
I can stand here feeling guilty
Or move on.
Another decision
Step off or postpone
Now it’s time to wake life
Step forward and taste life

Time to shout it from the rooftops,
"I am here.
There is something deep inside of me still living."
Raise the curtain just in time for my premiere.
I’m breaking down walls I’ve built
Of all of my anger, guilt, and fear.
The choices are clear.

So, this is choosing.
Why so resigned?
Choosing to choose is, well, not easy
But it’s time.
Choosing a future
Free from my past
Wow. I can’t believe
I finally chose
At last.

So, I Got Contacts…again.

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Jun 152010

I’ve had bad eyes for a long time. I got my first pair of glasses when I was in 6th grade. (I VERY mistakenly thought that getting glasses was cool, and I was proud of them. I have since learned.)

About the time I hit my sophomore year, I decided I was tired of glasses and I wanted to try contacts. So, we went to NuVision in Albion, and I got my very first pair of contact lenses. It was hate at first sight.

See, I’ve got this thing about my eyes. Call me crazy, but the thought of purposely sticking my fingers into my eyes twice a day just doesn’t do it for me. I can’t even put in eye drops. And when I get that stupid glaucoma test where they shoot a puff of air into my eye…forget about it. To the casual observer, it looks like I’m being tased. In my eyeball. By Satan.

On top of that, I’ve got hooded eyelids, which will probably get worse with time. Some members of my family have even had to have corrective cosmetic surgery because their hooded eyelids were beginning to interfere with their vision.

All of this adds up to one major thing: I HATE contacts. I hate putting them in. I hate the itchiness in my eyes when I wear them. I hate it when they fold in half, roll back behind my eyeball, and cause my eyes to water so badly that I appear to be watching Elijah Wood in The War when he finds out his father is dead.

Eventually, I just stopped wearing them. Glasses were so much easier to deal with, and, since my eyebrows are invisible, they gave some definition to my face. I eventually discovered that there was a specific shape of glasses that I should wear that would complement the shape of my (giant) head, and eventually, I grew to like the way that glasses looked on me.

When I was ~~mentally ill~~ performing, contacts became a necessity again. I could either deal with the contacts or I could be blind onstage…so contacts it was. I bought my last pair of contacts just before starting performances of Crazy for You, which turned out to be my very last theatrical performance. After that, there just wasn’t much need for contacts.

I even went so far as to purchase prescription sunglasses. Normally, I would wear my contacts on road trips and when I went to amusement parks and the like, because otherwise I wouldn’t be able to wear sunglasses. But once I got my prescription sunglasses, that became a non-issue as well.

Well, this last weekend, I finally broke down and decided to give contact lenses another go. I went to the optometrist’s office, got assaulted in the eye by the air compressor of doom, and walked out with a prescription for contact lenses. And I’ve had a headache ever since. Apparently (I didn’t know this) when you first get contacts, you’re only supposed to wear them for a few hours a day until you get used to them. The first day, I wore them for four hours. The next day, I wore them for 10. And now my eyes are so tired I can’t focus them anymore. I wore them another 10 hours today, and it was all I could do not to snap, and go off like Elvadine in The War when she tells Miss Strapford what’s what.

(I don’t know why I’ve got The War on my mind, but now I need to go watch it again.)

Anyway, suffice it to say, right now, "I’s can’t even see good, so I’m prolly not gunna graduate this year neither." It’s hard enough spending your whole day under flickering fluorescent lights in front of two computer screens. But add evil contact lenses on to that, and I’ve got a headache this big, and it’s got @#$% you @#$%ing @#$%ers written all over it.

And why might you ask, have I decided to torture myself with this miserable horrendousness. Is it masochism? Preparations for a suicide bombing attack? Mormon guilt? No. I’m doing this all for art. On Friday, I’m going to see Toy Story 3 at the nicest theater in the area. And because it’s only playing in 3D, I will need to wear 3D glasses. And Hell will sprout Otter Pops before I sit through that movie with glasses over my glasses. A’int Gunna Happen. Also, my glasses are at the point of falling apart, and it was either this or buy new glasses, and the contacts were cheaper.

So, if I seem crabby (or, more accurately, crabbier than usual) for the next couple of days, it’s probably because I’ve got a headache going behind my eyeballs so severe that it’s making my teeth hurt.

Seems that no matter what I do, I still have to suffer for art.

First Day at a new Job

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Jun 072010

So, today I started my new job. For those of you just tuning in, I was recently hired as a Program Manager for a company called Datasphere Technologies. They do hyper-localization. That’s okay. I don’t expect you to understand what it means either.

I realized that this job was going to be a step above what I had been doing at Microsoft, and I was right. However, after today, it feels less like a step and more like I need a pole vault pole to reach it. I’m sure I’ll be able to pick it up, but I feel like there’s so much to learn so quickly, trying to pick it up is rather like trying to get a sip of water from a firehose.

Yeah…it’s kindof like that. I really like the folks in the office and the folks I’m working with, but it’s been a big change of environment. I instantly went from being one of the oldest people on the team with the most understanding of what was going on behind the scenes to being one of (if not the) youngest, and completely without a clue in the world.

At one point, I had such a bad headache I thought I was going to pass out…and I couldn’t tell if it was from the tiny screens I was using (it’s hard to go from three 24" widescreen monitors to a 19" non-widescreen monitor), the flourescent lights, or the fact that my brain had effectively been turned into Jello. Plus, now that I’m no longer an hourly employee, I get to stay at work later, which I hadn’t prepared for in terms of edibles.

Right now, things just feel a little unsettled. I get like this every time I experience change, though. I don’t have any doubt that I’m going to pick up everything I need to in a timely manner, and will be able to be quite successful in my work. And I don’t doubt that I will really enjoy what I’m doing. I just always have a few shaky moments as I get on my feet.

On the plus side, I just filled out the paperwork for my very first big-boy insurance today. I’m actually on a group policy! It’s a really good group policy, too. It almost makes me want to get seriously ill just so I can test it out. But not really.

So, after the first day of work, I’m a little wiped. I think that a nice dip in the hot tub will be in order this evening, then maybe the remainder of the pint of ice cream in my freezer. Then bed. Definitely bed.

This blog is your blog, this blog is my blog. Actually, no…it’s just my blog.

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May 112010

As I’m sure you’ve noticed (or not noticed, since you’ve probably stopped coming here and probably aren’t even reading this post), I haven’t been posting as frequently on my blog as I have in the past. I usually go through phases throughout the year where I will post or not post for a while. The last couple of months have been relatively light on the posting front. The reason? There are, I believe, several:

There’s not much interesting going on in my life
The weather is starting to turn nice and I’d rather enjoy it than blog
I’ve been busy finishing an audiobook, producing music, watching TV, and playing through a couple of video games.
I’m no longer listening to NPR or podcasts, so I’m having a hard time getting worked up over any hot button issues
I’ve not been taking many photos
I’ve been working on a re-design of my MattArmstrongMusic.com website (it’s nearly ready. The design is done, now I just need to populate it with content.)
I just haven’t had anything that I wanted to / felt I could say on my blog.

So, to those of you who actually go to my blog address to check whether or not I’ve posted something new, I have to, first, apologize, and second, reprimand you for not using a feed reader like Google Reader. (Seriously, if you read more than a few blogs, you really need to use Google Reader or some other similar feed reader.) You’ve probably stopped even checking to see if there’s been anything new since, well, there hasn’t been.

The past several months have been…interesting. I feel as though, in many ways, I’m turning some sort of corner. There’s nothing major that I can point to and say that my life is better or worse. There’s no inciting incident to say that, somewhere, there’s something big, important, terrible, or life-altering. My day-to-day activities haven’t changed much.

My status in life hasn’t changed much. I’m still middle class. I’m still single. Still balding. Still slightly overweight. Still love to shop. Still have credit card debt and student loans. I still cook. I still have and play with and love my dog. I still go to work.

But despite the similarities of my day-to-day, week-after-week existence, I feel as though my priorities are starting to shift a little. Again, nothing major, but things just seem to be slotting together slightly differently than they did before. For example:

I don’t really enjoy watching TV all that much anymore. Lost has nearly ended it’s run. The Biggest Loser only has two more weeks left in the season. Glee continues to be hit or miss (with far more misses than hits…although tonight’s episode was fantastic. It actually made me a little teary…but that’s nothing new. I’m a crier when it comes to sappy emotionality). I’m not interested in watching any new shows or getting invested in anything new.

I’m eating out way less than I used to, and I’m not missing it all that much. I’m bringing my lunch to work every day, and eating at my desk rather than getting food at the cafeteria. My grocery bill has gone way down through no particular effort put forth on my part. I’ve become a little more okay with eating the same thing for three or four days in a row. I don’t find myself craving foods the way I used to.

My spending has just stopped, again through no major effort on my part. I have practically no desire at all to go shopping. For clothes, for musical instruments, for studio equipment, for electronic gadgets. I’ve saved more money in the last six weeks than I did in the whole of 2009–but I’m not trying. It’s just kind of…happening. I actually had to force myself to go out and buy some new tennis shoes this week because my old ones finally fell apart. I can’t remember I actually let my shoes fall apart before buying a new pair.

I’ve found myself using the things I’ve already bought more thoroughly. I’m making due with what I’ve got more than I ever have before in my life. I’ve been puttering around the house without the TV on as background noise. I’m making my bed.

These are all little things that didn’t used to be part of my repertoire, but have now just settled into my life. The funny thing is that, overall, I’m rather ambivalent toward it all. I don’t really have feelings about these minor differences one way or the other. They’re neither good or bad. They just are.

And I don’t know what to make of it all. I think, if I had to consolidate these disparate thoughts into a single unifying thread it would be this: I find myself wanting less…that is to say that I find myself less-frequently wanting something I don’t have. I don’t know if I’m becoming more contented with my life, or if I have actually gotten what I want. Or maybe, I’m finally starting to come to peace with the fact that getting my wants fulfilled doesn’t necessarily equal happiness any more than not getting my wants fulfilled had to equal unhappiness.

Because of my life detour through the pothole-ridden road of the performing arts, I feel like I got started on my "grown-up" life later than most. Perhaps this routine that I’ve established is what it’s like for "normal" people most of the time. I’m still an emotional person, and hope I always will be. But it feels as though the dynamic range of my emotions has been reduced. I’m becoming accustomed to routine, and am learning not to abhor it. I’m actually rather learning to enjoy it.

I realize this is a strange blog post…but I’ve been in a strange place. It’s not good. It’s not bad. Maybe this is "normal," if such a thing actually exists. I just know that, while I’m in this weird phase of my life, whether it be temporary, transitional, or becomes entrenched in my life, it doesn’t really make for coherent and interesting blog posts.

So, until then, here’s a video that’s so cute it’ll make your ovaries essplode.

Luke Wipes Out

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Apr 112010

I promise I won’t overload this blog with puppy videos, but I had one more I wanted to share. (Apologies to all the folks on Facebook and Twitter who saw this already. This is for those folks who visit my blog, but don’t do the social networking thing. (HI MOM!)

This was Luke at the dog park today. Such a model of grace.