365 days

On Saturday - I've been in San Francisco for a year.

While not the year I had in mind - it's been a tremendous adventure. I've learned a lot about myself - and done a lot of strategic things for MYSELF - that have propelled my career and my personal life forward in incredible ways. It's thrilling to be here - and affording to live on my own; and finding my own uniquely muffinesque path.

This morning my trainer and I started a whole new workout routine. and on top of it - my friend David (sensory depravation dinner guy?) started as my new gym partner this morning. SO - we were taught a new strength building core workout this morning that David and I have committed to doing five days a week. It starts with 30 minutes of cardio with a sustained HBrate of around 120. Then serious stretching - then 120 reps of back excercises with weight, 10 minutes of crunches in the crunchitizer bench (no counting allowed - just 10 sustained minutes of crunches), then more stretching - then shoulders and chest. It's a real gift to have met David - who is going to make a remarkable new gym partner. Then Saturdays - I'll come in and warmup with Tommy notdefined - and do some lower impact cardio - and hour on the bike or treadmill. The goal is to reduce my tummy and reveal abs by Christmas. That'll be a right fine christmas gift to myself.

I almost posted a picture of Rick and I from this day last year - and posted about having lost 197 pounds (42 pounds from weight watchers and 155 from asking Rick to excuse himself from my life). It's getting easier and easier to live life without discomfort over that part of the last year - and experience is teaching me that I'm better off.

And most recently - I've started to discover a community of like-minded kindred spirits. It's been interesting - like they've been there all along - but my "harmonic" is changing - and they are now available to me. It's been very remarkable. I am finally meeting people here that speak my language - instinctively.

The major difference - is that I'm not meeting people and measuring them up for anything other than who they are. No - "Would he be a good boyfriend?" or "I wonder what he's like to fuck". It's not that I don't want a boyfriend - or that I don't like to fuck. and it's also NOT about lowering my expectations. not at all. It's about engaging people authentically and seeing what happens - and keeping my personal and external expectations at the right level. and folks that don't meet those? don't stick around. It feels like a major climate change in my life in that regard.

It'll be most interesting to look at this entry in September of 2008. and see where the NEXT cycle takes me.

request....

scream4noreason says "post a picture of yourself on your journal"!

Ya'll are VERY familiar with how I look but who am I to resist?