Congrats to Seph and Jen!

My pals Seph Smith and Jen Flannery got their brown and purple belts, respectively, from Felipe Costa last night! I spoke with Seph very briefly, and he was incoherent from the brutal hour of rolling with maybe 30 different people. I'm sure Jen felt similarly. But these promotions were well-deserved; Jen has been placing in every competition she has entered this year, and Seph is a monster. A perfectly safe, friendly monster, but a monster nonetheless.

I'm very happy for them!

To Anonymous who asked about the Murph: I have done that workout 3 times, all as prescribed (so, run the mile, do all the pullups, do all the pushups, do all the squats). The first time was in the fall of 2007. I did the pushups from my knees and assisted pullups. It took me about 62 minutes. The second time I did it was maybe 6 months ago. I did the pushups from my toes and unassisted pullups. It took me about 60 minutes. The third time was Memorial Day, same as the second time. It took me about 58 minutes.

It is a grind. But it's always fun to be done!

As for all the comments on the hero part of the post, thanks for those. I am still conflicted, but I am just going to continue doing what I'm doing and hope it shakes out for the best, for as many people as possible.

More later!

It is finished.

I know, pretty presumptuous to quote the last words of Jesus Christ to describe the completion of my project to empty out the storage locker I have been renting lo these 3 years since I left Chicago for grubbier, grapplier pastures. But as of about 2pm Tuesday (today as I write this longhand, perhaps later in the week as I type it in), that’s what the project is: finished. I also thought about saying, “Now we finish it,” like that one kid in the Seinfeld episode right before the entire pee-wee karate class beat the shit out of Kramer in the alley as payback for him tossing them around. But that’s not quite as accurate, at least not anymore.

Maybe I should go with, “I’m done mucking around in my past and feeling an overwhelming mixture of nostalgia, regret, love, fear, anticipation, hysteria, sadness, and even shame. May I please be excused? I have to go curl up in the fetal position and engage in a soothing, repetitive behavior.” Only that’s not entirely accurate either, because I’m not done with the feeling part, much as I’d like to be (not even today, as I type this in.).

I’m having trouble pinpointing exactly what I’m feeling and why this exercise, of finally getting rid of a bunch of stuff I haven’t missed in 3 years anyway, is dredging up quite so MUCH feeling. I guess I don’t really need to know—or what I need to know will become evident when I need it to, but I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t try to pick it apart and ascribe some meaning to it. I’m sure it’s about roads not taken, and sometimes wishing desperately that the untaken road were the right one for me because it would make life so much more straightforward, and of course about feeling like the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Coming face-to-face with that storage locker brought the memories flooding back of me, 3 years ago, contemplating the gaping maw of my existence, knowing that my journey was the right thing, but feeling terrified, alone, and worried about money, identity, and whether I was going to get the things I want(ed) in life. Three years later, that storage locker conjured the same feelings in me. Only I know it’s not only the storage locker. It’s that I’m back there again feeling that way about my life again.

There are some notable differences between the me of 3 years ago and the now me. I know this. I’m not THAT worried about money; worrying about that after all the synchronicities I have experienced related to money is now more of a habit. I am a crapload better at BJJ now. I can break parallel on a squat. And I know, even during the hard times, that the life I have been choosing since I started my vision quest is a much better fit than the one I left behind.

But that’s where I start to feel like nothing has changed. I am feeling pretty much exactly these days the way I did when I was in the final month of planning for my trip: scared, alone, unsure of what’s anchoring me, like I’m behind where I’m supposed to be at this stage of my life, but simultaneously like I have to do what I’m doing because I don’t know what else to do. Back then, it was plan for my trip and trust that it would lead me to my next step. Now, it’s work on my proposal, train, CrossFit, teach conditioning at New Breed, and trust that it will lead me to my next step.

I’m drained, though. In the past couple weeks, no fewer than 10 people have told me that they, or someone they know, consider me their hero. Nora (my channel, whom I’ve been consulting lately because the past couple months have been pretty hard) says it’s because I need the reminder that my journey and I are awesome. That’s a truly nice sentiment. But it makes me feel like a fraud. I don’t feel very heroic right now.

At the moment, I have heartburn because I have been relaxing my Zone habits in favor of expediency. I am soul weary from the cumulative effect of a couple months of confusion, sadness, anger, and befuddlement from a variety of Life Occurrences such that I could easily fall asleep on my feet right now if I allowed myself to. I am covered in scrapes—burns on my shins from rope climbs and on my wrists from muscle-up practice, and rips in my palms from pullups—that make it look like I barely said the safe word in the nick of time. And at inopportune times (like while waiting in El stations or while chatting with some of the friends I have gotten to see while I’ve been in Chicago), I frequently start to laugh or cry, as being back in the place where I first started to go crazy and hatch my vision quest plan reminds me of important people, intentions, and assumptions, some of which I have taken with me, and some of which poke at my heart because they stayed behind.

That doesn’t sound very heroic, I’m afraid. I don’t know why people think I’m a hero. I have more gray hair than the average hero (is “average hero” an oxymoron?), and my handwriting is messy and illegible like a doctor’s. Or a serial killer’s. I’m flattered, but I’m also pooped. It doesn’t compute. Heroes don’t eat ice cream for dinner or watch Judge Judy to make themselves feel better about themselves.

Well, hero or not, I confirmed some things. One thing I know for sure is that I don’t belong in Chicago. It isn’t my home anymore. I love so many people there, and it was good to me for the first part of the time I was there. But it's not the right fit now. This is a great thing to know, and I’m thankful that I do. It’d be even greater, though, to know where I DO belong, which I don’t anymore because this trip, among other things, is giving me perspective. (“Too much fucking perspective,” to quote David St. Hubbins.). But like I said, another thing that I do know is that the thing I need to be focusing on right now is my proposal. The rest should fall into place if I focus on that. That at least has been the formula since I went walkabout—whatever is the thing I’m preoccupied with is the thing I must do; even if it seems like a detour away from the things I feel I need to accomplish next, it is usually the express train directly to those things.

Okay, enough heavy stuff. Next entry will be how the week has been going and all the annoying things I’ve had to deal with, turned into witty, self-deprecating anecdotes, of course.

My visit to CrossFit Chicago

http://www.crossfitchicago.com/post.php?post=1241

I'm a pretty pretty princess!

A picture says a thousand words. I have to open my hips more at the bottom of the kip instead of bending my knees (at least until I get the butterfly kip, which I tried for the first time at a gymnastics seminar a couple weeks ago).

It was a fun workout: front squats and then handstand pushups, one-legged squats, and pullups. Ivy, the instructor, took great care of me, and the students were great too. CrossFit is like grappling in that the people are just awesome.

Anyway, I'm recovering from my walk down Memory Lane and am still processing it all. Writing one of my usual witty, brilliant posts. Stay tuned.

I meant San Juan Capistrano

I'm in Chicago. Have been since Sunday. Those of you who have been with me since I started this blog know that I lived here for 6 years before going off the grid and taking my vision quest. This week I have been cleaning out the storage locker I have had here since I left; it contained all kinds of vestiges of my former life. So I spent 2 full days going through the stuff, and the accompanying emotions, to put a close to that chapter once and for all.

Feeling/thinking lots of stuff about it, and the timing, as always, is fascinating. More soon.

Moving on...

I got a letter from my insurance company saying that they are unable to locate the person who hit me, which I assume means the information he gave me is outdated or falsified. So I won't be able to get the deductible from him. Again, draw your own conclusions.

There's plenty more I could say about Anonymous' comments and the subsequent discussion, but I'm not going to bother. Moving on...

Tomorrow is a tourney in San Luis Capistrano. I'm not competing, but I'll be coaching our students and being a mat coordinator. Should be fun but a long day. And then on Sunday I leave for a week. I'm headed to IL; I'll be in Chicago for a bit cleaning out my storage locker. The one I left behind when I left Chicago THREE YEARS ago. Whoa. In some ways I am a completely different person, and in some ways, not much has changed. I'll be getting everything out, jettisoning some things, and giving the rest to my friend Adamarie, who is meeting me in Chicago. She just moved into a new house and needs furniture. So I'm giving her a couch and whatever other things she wants, and then the rest of it will go into her basement. Yeah, I'm just changing storage areas, but I'll get to clear some stuff out and I'll also not have to pay anymore.

Plus, I think it will be important for me to get rid of my last connection to Chicago. It's kind of like a security blanket, maybe, like if this life doesn't work out I can just unpack the storage locker into an apartment back there. But I know I won't be going back there to live. I don't know if I'll be staying in LA, but I won't be going back.

I really think things will start to get interesting once I begin to shop my book proposal around. My agent has it now and is going to read the draft this weekend. And after that I will probably have more revising to do, but my goal is to have a circulate-able draft by the end of July.

So those two things, cleaning out my closet and circulating my proposal, are going to be pretty momentous, I predict. I'll be moving on in more ways than one.

I knew this would happen

Every time I show a side of myself on this blog that I'm less than proud of--an angry, petty, or frightened side--I can be sure that somebody is going to judge me for it.

And the person(s) who do the judging is/are INVARIABLY Anonymous.

Draw your own conclusions.

Car-ma

It's apt that I'm writing about my bumbling attempts to learn to express my anger in my proposal. It seems I have lots of opportunities to practice lately. The most recent is the fender bender I was in this morning. It was not yet 5:30am and I got rearended. (Some friends have already told me that the moral of the story is that I should never get up that early.) I was waiting to make a right at a red light when it happened. For those of you keeping score, this is the third accident I have been in in 18 months. It is the third accident that was the other guy's fault. For a change of pace, it was the first accident that was not a hit and run.

I'm sure the guy was wishing he had run, though. I got really pissed off, especially when he 1) tried to introduce himself to me and shake my hand (I just looked at him and said, "I'm not interested in meeting you." This wasn't a play date.), 2) suggested about 3 times that we move off the street we were on--and onto one that was far busier (I said, with increasing force each time, that we weren't going anywhere; it was 5am so there wasn't much traffic, and the other street was busier anyway; and I'm realizing after the fact that I didn't want him getting back in the car because that's what the other two guys did--said they wanted to pull over to a safer spot--right before they took off), and 3) started calling me Valerie after I gave him my information (okay, pal, we are NOT on a first name basis, and using my first name is not going to endear you to me regardless of what you might have read in your Psych 101 textbook. It's actually going to make me want to rip your face off. It always makes me cringe a little when I hear people use a server's name if they see it on the name tag. I don't know exactly why I don't like it, but I don't.).


I am very grateful that I'm not hurt, which I'm not, and that it looks like the damage to the car is mostly cosmetic, though I have to get that checked out. Well, let's rephrase that. I know it's appropriate to be grateful; let's put it that way. I'm just not FEELING grateful yet. I'm trying to get there, but this is the latest in a long line of things that are making me feel put upon the past couple months.

The whole situation and the way I've been feeling lately makes me wonder about my karma, what I'm doing to bring this crap to me. I guess I don't get a pass on having to deal with bad stuff even though I am working hard on understanding myself and evolving, blah blah blah, but it still sucks to have to deal with. I've decided to try to shake things up a little bit. I'm going to Ojai on Thursday to get some reiki from my friend Jon. I'm going out of town on Sunday for a week to clean out my storage locker in Chicago. (I had a session with Nora the other day, and she said that's going to be huge for me energy-wise.) I'm having ice cream for dinner. (Okay, that's not really that unusual.)

In better news, I finished the latest draft of my proposal and am going to send it to my agent after one last proofread. I like it, I think. It's hard to tell because I'm so mired in it. But there are parts that are funny. We'll see what Jason says.

Also, HUGE congrats to Marcel and Jenny, who are expecting their first angry, slanted baby late this year! Thus continues Marcel's evolution into Cuddly Teddy Bear Man.

To Jenn S. and Anonymous

Jenn S: Thanks for the support!

Anonymous: Who's asking? I'd like to know who I'm talking to before I go into that, if I decide to go into that.

I should be writing

I want to report on the Mundial, and I want to finish the next draft of my proposal. I'm not really doing much of either, though. (You know this about the Mundial; you can take my word for it about the proposal.) I was feeling sort of deflated before the tourney, and now I think I'm dealing with let-down. Meh.

Some random thoughts:

1. The Saturday of the Mundial, when I won one and lost one (to Gabrielle Garcia, the big woman) in the open and then won two to make it to Sunday's final for my weight class, was the one-year anniversary of the day I received my brown belt. So that was kind of cool.

2. Lots of people have told me in the past week that I am their hero. This is flattering, obviously, but also a bit disconcerting. I don't know what I do/am to make that the case. It made me think about who my heroes are and why. And then I think about "real" heroes and how they seem lonely.

3. My dad noticed that my calendar was still on May and went to change it. But then he thought better of it and said, "Let's wait till after the tournament is over." Reminded me that when he played football and lacrosse and rowed in college, he had his own rituals, and I guess he didn't want to jinx it. (I managed that all on my own. Meh.)

4. In the same vein, my parents kick ass. They were amazing troopers for the entire weekend. They seemed to enjoy the tournament, and they even bothered to learn how to pronounce "Rickson" and the like properly. They got to meet some of my friends, who now understand why I am the way I am.

5. I started teaching a conditioning class at New Breed. The first one was Monday, the second one yesterday. And the next one is tomorrow. I think people are "enjoying" it, which is to say that they are miserable during the workouts, which is as it should be, and then they realize they are addicted and come back for more.

6. My friend Traver is opening a CrossFit affiliate-slash-acupuncture clinic in Santa Barbara. Trav is the one who cured my alopecia. Check him out at http://www.crossfitpacificcoast.com. Congrats, Traver! Can't wait to visit you next month!

7. My friends Rick and Anahi are opening their own MMA academy, called East Coast MMA, in New Jersey (YAY!). I don't know the URL yet, but I will post it soon. Congrats to Rick and Anahi! I'll look forward to visiting the next time I'm on the right coast.

News travels fast

Sounds like some people have heard that I took second in my weight class at the Mundial. I lost to a very game Penny Thomas, whom I welcomed the opportunity to compete against. (Be careful what you wish for, eh?) Congrats to her!

It was a great tournament experience; I had 5 fights, which means my parents got to see an eyeful of me competing, and I feel like I held my own against the black belts in my weight class. I'll write more soon; right now I'm sleepy and weary.

Before I go, though, I need to thank Johnny, Cristian, Vince, Eben, Paul, Ouano, Andrew, Seph, Ryan, Jen, Felicia, Rudy, Jimmy, Jason, Chrissy, Natasha, Kelly, Traver, Alyssa, Eddie, Mike, Kathryn, my stalwart parents, and everyone else who helped me prepare, supported me, and cheered me on. I'm only as good as the people I get to train with; fortunately for me, I get to train with some amazing people. What a great world, the grappling world.

Calm before the storm

People are starting to arrive for the Mundial. Everyone at the academy is cranky, most people because they are trying to cut weight. I don't have that excuse, but I'm cranky anyway. My parents arrive tomorrow. It's rainy, which is rare for LA. The brackets are up, as is the schedule. I compete on Saturday, both in my weight class and the open, and if I make it to the final, I also compete on Sunday. I haven't made time to work on my proposal this week, which bothers me. I will try to work on it for an hour tonight after class and a trip to the airport. I have to fold some laundry and otherwise straighten up. I set aside two clean gis and sets of stuff to wear under the gis. I have to see if someone has printed out the directions to the event or if I have to do it myself. (You'd think I'd remember by now how to get to the Pyramid at CSU Long Beach, but I don't.) I am weary and nervous and excited and feeling the "dress rehearsal" blues. Let's hope that means a good performance.

I am really, REALLY trying to remember what normal people do with their weekends. I can't, for the life of me.

Congrats to Marcel! And thanks to recent posters

Marcel, aka Letmbleed, got his black belt on Sunday! He's a whiny, sexist punk, and I love him and am very happy for him! Marcel, I bet it looks great on, and I'm going to avoid you from now on so you can't lord it over me.

Also, happy belated birthday to Natasha and Cynthia, two grapply friends who are funnier and smrter than I could ever hope to be. I hope you had wonderful days!

Re: Lynn's plan to read my entire blog, I don't know whether to be flattered or to fear for your sanity. But thank you for your interest, and be sure to stop and rest if you start to feel lightheaded or nauseated. That will mean you have absorbed more of my life than is healthy for anyone except me; I'm used to it, so I have a higher tolerance for my own nonsense than most other people. But thank you for your kind words! I am very flattered with the comparison to David Sedaris. I can only strive to be that amusing.

Re: Anonymous' long and thoughtful post, thank you. I have more to say on your comments, but right now I'm gonna go train for one of the last times before the Mundial this weekend. My parents are coming to town to watch me, which adds a layer of anticipation and oddity, but I am very excited to see them. More soon.