I lay in bed last night, wincing with every lactic-acid-filled movement and unable to get my knee into a position where it wouldn’t throb like a toothache, while my CPAP SCUBA mask occasionally leaked bursts like an air-duster in my eye, and I thought to myself, “Holy crap. Pretty good week.”
And on a Wednesday. So no, that makes no sense at all.
It’s painfully clear by this age that my sense of “good days” versus “bad days” depends less on circumstances and more on the mysterious tidal pulls of my emotional…moon.
(I feel like “emotional moon” should be the phrase for when people try to tease me until I explode. I need to work on an “emotional oil-check” maneuver.)
(Well, hello coffee, you are fond of tangents, aren’t you. You shall be called “The Segue Maker.”)
(Dammit, now I have Foo Fighters’ “Big Me” in my head.)
ANYway, it can suck that otherwise decent days and weeks might be overshadowed by my personality thunderstorms, so I rejoice in a week like this—busy, exciting, taxing, frustrating, painful, exhausting, and yes, good—that feels pretty awesome because…well, let’s say my homicidal moods have been kept to a minimum, and I haven’t bludgeoned anyone. Yet.
I? Am a ray of sunshine.
You start with free baseball tickets, courtesy of CCB’s cousin, for three consecutive days last weekend. And even though I missed hanging out with the major leaguers Saturday night (I was obliged to lose a soccer game, instead), I was still excited—and only a little bit mad with envy—to hear CCB bust out with random anecdotes as they occurred to him. “And then, as Jason Heyward stood up, Dan Uggla said the funniest thing!”
Bottom of the ninth…
Plus, I am again reminded of the awesomeness that the stadium, crappy though it is, is just a half-hour drive from us.
Then we won a hockey game, which is basically a miracle of miracles. Linemate Captain Beerslinger turns to me in the locker room and says, “Y’know what? That was fun.” Dude, I was thinking the exact same thing.
Monday’s Monday, but not too bad. I started the week with my usual anxiety regarding projects to be done—in this case, a number of small but still significant tasks—but lo and behold, I plowed right through. That’s a great feeling, getting stuff done, once and for all, checking it off the list. I like it.
Boxing workout was good, too, and even though CCB had a mussel catastrophe for Monday’s dinner, I got to see some extended fam and talk about their success (and one failure) with local restaurants. And playoff hockey, and sleep.
And Tuesday was good, too—Tuesday!—as I spent the day looking forward to grilling hamburgers and hanging around in the back yard being productive and feeling relaxed, all at the same time. (P.S. We had the hamburgers on garlic bread. Awesome.)
CCB grill. Hammer…chill. (Oh and yeah, our lawnmower is broken.)
Which brings us to Wednesday—another relaxed-but-productive workday that saw me transition from immediate-deadline things to longer-term projects. Look at me! Working ahead! Then our third visit to Fit Crew: squats and hops and rows and sit-ups and face-planting on exercise balls and the worst assisted ring dips ever. But I climbed the rope! (Once! When I was supposed to do it at least six times! But I did it!) With a mid-hour headache and just overall overdoing it, it was also the closest I’ve come in a while to fainting (and/or puking) in public.
But once you get past that feeling that you’re going to die, lying there on the couch with iced knees and a cool chocolate milk, there’s a great sense of satisfaction—feeling that much stronger, knowing that I won’t feel guilty taking a day off from exercise.
In fact, we will get a good walk in this evening—to and from the single-A baseball game with the ‘rents. Got a great package deal: $50 for 10 tickets to be used whenever throughout the season (normally $6 apiece), plus a hat and a $15 gift card to a local sports bar.
Sure to be one of these kinda nights at the field.
And that’s what I’m looking forward to right now—a minor-league baseball evening (and my hat!). And beyond that, a pre-holiday-weekend Friday (getting out of work early?), the cool balm of late-night hockey practice in the hot summer and knowing there’s no reason to go to bed early. More extreme exercise in the form of Saturday evening soccer, to be followed as quickly as possible by a jump in Krazy Kevin’s pool, and then a cozy UFC evening with friends, and then a Sunday with no agenda whatsoever—not even a worry about Monday, which is also agenda-less.
Yep, pretty good week.
BananaHammer 
