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Greetings from the Golden State…

I’m back home in California. This is my first rant of the month. I just haven’t been writing. Swimming for 4.4 miles and then not swimming for two weeks, took a toll
on me. Adjusting from the life in the middle of the city, living with three other bachelors, to living with my sixty year old parents, in the middle of suburbia has taken a toll on me. Going from being an outsider, based on economic options and race (I lived near the projects and a homeless shelter, not to mention living on a former crack house block, and a half block from a shooting, while I was living in the area) to being an outsider because of my lack of family (of my own) or a job has been tough too.

I found out yesterday that I can continue my graduate study in statistics at Cal State East Bay. A relief.

Now I just have to get a part time job, so I can move out on my own and I’ll be set.

And I have started swimming again. Training for my next swim around Lake Tahoe (assuming it isn’t engulfed in fire) at the end of July.

I find it very funny that although I just swam 4.4 miles, because I didn’t swim for two weeks, I’m out of shape. I’ve always thought that I lose my shape very quickly for the continuity of working out that I have had since the seventh grade. when I won a plaque because I participated in the most after school sports of any seventh grader (all of the after school sports except track. I didn’t repeat to win the award in eighth grade. I decided to give the glory to someone else.

Basically I didn’t have any friends in seventh grade, (weep, weep), so to fill my days I went out for every after-school sport that there was. as for why I didn’t pursue theater or music: I failed to make a flute have sound in the fourth grade, and never touched another instrument until college. I never thought of singing, Rory Henderson was the only guy with enough balls in the sixth grade to join choir,
and yes, he was always surrounded by the hot-sixth grade ladies. At the time, I didn’t have any theatre talent and was scared to be on stage. Sports were low pressure. Not much you can screw up when you are sitting on the bench.

Reminiscing…

The same boredom came in high school. My first day, I went to classes and then home alone. I was bored. I didn’t know what to do with myself. The second day too. The third or fourth day I went out for water polo. I had tried it briefly during the summer, but found it too tough. But it was better than being home and bored. JV wasn’t as tough. Wrestling was different. I looked forward to wrestling in high
school, since the seventh grade. Wrestling was the sport for short guys, small guys, skinny guys who weren’t tall or coordinated enough for basketball. Because you only wrestled against guys the same weight as you. Wrestling was also the one sport, I had had some success at in junior high (remember, I had tried them all [except track]).

At Stanley intermediate, I was the top wrestler in my weight group in 8th grade and lost to A.J. Buhl in the final tournament (A.J. wrestled for four years at Campo and always kicked my butt). Wrestling was the sport of champions (and pansies and fish). Wrestling was about control. Wrist control and weight control. It was about losing five pounds in a week and then gorging right before a match or a tournament. It was
about running in a sweatsuit with a garbage bag around you in a gym with the heat turned up. Trying to draw every ounce of H20 out of your body. Wrestling meant that each time you took a dump you were one or two pounds closer to making weight.

MK took a spitter (used for chewing tabacco with him) every Thursday before weigh ins. Hit Petrini’s for a Mustard sandwich (never remembered what meat he ordered. Just that there was always lots of mustard(I’m mustard-phobic, FYI). MK would be spitting into the spitter, for two hours, hoping to lose the last ounce of weight before weigh-ins. Salivating over the sandwich, probably helped him drop over an ounce of spit over a three-hour period. DH would complain about how painful it was to watch TV commercials for food-related products and restaurants, while fasting before weigh-ins. We weren’t the brightest then….

Now we know that water helps you lose weight and jogging a little probably would get all the sweat out
of you, without torturing yourself by exposing yourself to food that you couldn’t eat until after
weigh-ins.

It was only years later, that I realized that if I didn’t gorge myself right after weigh-ins, I might have wrestling better. For me, making weight was a lot more of a challenge than the actual wrestling. I don’t think I ever failed to make weight. Sadly, I rarely won my match. I did beat a girl once, and a few freshmen (when I was a senior).

I did letter in two sports. Water polo and wrestling (both my junior year), but never got a lettermen’s jacket. It was worth-it as a freshman or sophomore, when you had years of use of it. Unless of course you want to frequent high school football games as a thirty year old and check out the cheerleaders and impress your fellow thirty year olds (bare with me, fellow thirty year olds , who are also at the high school football game. I guess that being that I’m home, maybe that will be me.).

I guess that is kinda of old school. It might be nice to have that then. Who knows maybe it would have got me laid in high school. Would have been 0 for the 20th century in that case. Some freshman girl, might have thought I was a big-man on campus with a letterman jacket.

So that’s how I started to work out....FYI, after my Lake Tahoe swim, I need another athletic event to train for..

anyone interested in doing a century-ride or half-marathon?

Peace out- GCNOF