Over the past six weeks, I have being doing the Body For Life program, in a highly overdue project to regain my physical fitness. I was hungrily looking forward to gaining something that resembles pectoral muscles, and maybe develop "abs," instead of my former, singular "ab."
But, man, this process takes way longer than I thought.
Of course, the lack of seeing the results that I want to see doesn't diminish the glimpses of progress I occasionally do witness, usually the morning after I get back from working the upper body, when my muscles have a little more blood pumping through them. I hear we males have this "issue" anyway, where we look in the mirror and almost always think that we're pretty much the bomb-dot-com. I don't know why that is -- maybe it's physiological, or some kind of DSM-IV category -- but suffice to say that I rarely have a less-than-glowing review of my reflection ready to print.
Kinda full of myself, I guess.
I'd never really thought about that phrase before this morning: "full of myself". I mean, really thought about it. But this morning, for whatever reason, I was keenly aware that I was entirely full of myself, in the "no room for anything else" sense.
And that bothered me.
I don't want to be so crowded with myself that I cannot even find room for others in my margins. I don't want my world to be filled with clones of me. I don't want my bus to be standing room only. I don't want to be filled to the brim of nothing but me, me, me.
I want to be able to give, generously and passionately.
But who would even want what I have to give? Someone I consider to be very wise once said that we do and say is actually just a reflection, an extension, of what's going on inside us. So, if that's the case, who's going to want more of me: sick and ugly and only taken with, well, me?
I'm fairly certain that swallowing too much narcissism will make us throw up; maybe a little regurgitation is exactly what I need. Maybe I can fill up on something else.
//
I guess you could say that I've been practicing "The Secret" for the last couple months. Kind of.
I'd been meaning to watch/read/experience the "magic" for probably almost a year now, and also been putting it off, putting it off, blah blah. But when I flew back to Colorado for Gabe's wedding in April, in a stroke of brilliance (or habit), I took my blessed MacBook on the plane, and decided to buck up and watch the damn thing.
Despite the apparent torture required to catalyze my viewing, I really did enjoy it. It was inspirational and empowering, if not occasionally hokey.
So, when I arrived back at LAX, Allison and I got into one of those little deathtraps they call "airport shuttles" so we could get back to the parking lot where we left our car. We lugged our borderline-weight-limit Samsonite up both little shuttle stairs and heaved it onto the storage shelving. On my way in, I noticed that Jesus was going to be our driver.
Of course, he was a hispanic gentleman — correct pronunciation: Hey-soos — but as I normally feel just a little scared for my freakin' life when circling the Los Angeles airport (if you've ever done it, you know what I mean), I instantly felt a little better knowing that the Savior would be my driver that day.
But it turns out that Jesus' driving: not so good.
He screamed around corners, scraping bumpers and inciting all sorts of hostile honking. He ran red lights and stopped abruptly, causing baggage to fly angrily off the rack.
With my newfound Secret, I, of course, was "attracting" safety.
Pure, unadulterated safety.
I caught the gaze of the middle-aged business-suited gentlemen across from me, and knew he was thinking the same thing I was: "Sorry I didn't learn your name before we both died in a horrific shuttle crash."
Things I never thought I'd say: "Man, Jesus needs to go to driving school."
But I made it out alive... guess The Secret works. ;-)
//
A Fine Frenzy, "Ashes and Wine"
Jeremy Lister, "Ready To Fall"
Iron & Wine, "Boy With A Coin"
Hem, "Half Acre"
Griffin House, "The Guy That Says Goodbye To You Is Out Of His Mind"
Michael Buble, "Everything"
The Weepies, "Gotta Have You"
Marty Sampson, "Landslide"
Robert Randolph & The Family Band, "Ain't Nothing Wrong With That"
Mario Spinetti, "Resurrection"
//
Have you ever noticed that people do stupid things? Of course you have; we've all seen it... and been active participants ourselves, from time to time.
How do we sort through the…
So, if you are a regular reader, you probably already know that I write freelance articles and movie reviews for RelevantMagazine.com. It's been a lot of fun for me; I've really grown to appreciate the brilliance of the medium of film for communicating ideas of all kinds.
About two months ago, I reviewed Spider-Man 3. I rather liked the movie and, apparently, the rest of the world seriously did not, so upon reading some of the comments that got posted below my article I felt very much like, oh, what do they say... a whore in church. Yes, that's it. (Of course, the fact that that phrase means what it does saddens me on another level, but that's probably another day, another post, eh?)
I'm not going to retract anything I said about Spider-Man 3; I still agree with myself. I'd like to see the film again, actually, and will definitely buy it when it comes out on DVD (widescreen, please). But it has occurred to me that I did, perhaps, omit a few things from my review that should have been said. Forgive me, dear readers, for missing it the first time (and for it taking me two months to write it down):
THE PARAGRAPH MY REVIEW WAS MISSING:
Unfortunately, there were just too many villains. Yes, in a sense, it made the editing even more impressive (because despite the 80+, give or take, bad guys it was still quite understandable), but it's also true that the overall movie would have been vastly improved by simplifying the myriad villain storylines. Specifically (sorry Thomas Haden), we could've done without Sandman. The effects were a lot of fun, if not slightly exaggerated, but I think almost every Spider-Fan would agree with me when I say, "Give us more Venom!"Fin. //