Sweat, and Darcy v. Jamie

Bike Time: 45 minutes 

Distance: 7.5 miles (I rode at the YMCA yesterday. Different bike.)

I rode the stationary bike at the university sports center today. I rode my favorite bike, which is in the northeast corner on the fourth floor. The entire corner is made of windows, like a corner office for exercise. It the morning, there is a decent amount sun that comes in, especially on a warm, clear day like today. I was riding along and I felt a strange sensation: sweat. Not just a little of mild perspiration, but sweat dripping off the back of my neck and down my back. I though I might have broken a sweat the other day, but not really. Today was the real deal. I think this is the first time I've sweat while working out since my surgery seven weeks ago. Part of my sweating might have to do with me sitting in front of a sunny window, but I'll take it. I've exercised in front of this window before and not sweat. Normally, I could run (I mean walk at a very slow pace) an errand after exercising, but today I was officially too gross. Woohoo!

I was tired, thirsty and hungry while I was working out, which was also unusual. I always bring a water bottle with me, and I actually needed it today. After my bike ride, I did my weight work out. It was about 11:30, and I was doing my leg curls. As I was counting, I began to dream about lunch. After about 18, I started thinking "cheeseburger" instead of counting. I had half burger leftover from last night's dinner that I was going to eat for lunch today. Ah, the joy of earning your calories!

Today on the stationary bike, I was reading Curtis Sittenfeld's Eligible, a modern retelling of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Even with a juicy book to read, I find forty-five minutes is the max I can ride the stationary bike before boredom gets the best of me. Outside, I can ride forever. Inside, forget about it. My dad has his stationary bike set up in front of a television. As much as I hate watching television during the day, perhaps he is on to something.

Sunday morning, I finished reading Outlander.  Now, I am in the middle of this retelling of Pride and Prejudice, which brings me to the question: who is the best romantic male hero*--Darcy or Jamie? I am torn, and I never thought I would be. I have way too much time on my hands to read and ponder such important questions. Overall, I prefer Elizabeth Bennet to Claire Beauchamps. Claire is kind of grumpy, as I might be if I found myself alone and in a place 200 years before today. The men pose a different challenge. Jamie is new and interesting, the Scottish Highlander who appears to be just a regular guy who in fact is not only strong and brave but educated. In the mid-1700's, it didn't seem like there were many men who were both. In P&P, Darcy is the aloof, stubborn one who comes around to being civilized. In Outlander, Claire is the aloof, stubborn one. Jamie is like a masculine Elizabeth Bennet, which is lovely. 

I have a friend who has been divorced for a few years, and is getting back into dating. She is choosing between two men, and I thought of this comparison between Jamie and Darcy. In many ways, both Jamie and Darcy are perfect. The one major flaw they both have is they aren't human--they are fiction. Great and interesting fiction, but fiction nonetheless. It is easy to get lost amongst the pages while I am riding on the stationary bike, and think these guys might exist in the real world. I wish every woman could have her Darcy or Jamie, whichever she prefers. At best, we can read about these not real men while riding not real bikes.

* Atticus Finch is the best male literary character overall.

Spring Break and Prophet from my Future

Bike Time: 50 minutes 

Distance: 9.05 miles on interval training (i.e., not no resistance)

Today is the last day of Spring Break. I went on Facebook, which was a bad idea. I saw pictures of my friends hiking the Grand Canyon, visiting Red Rock, frolicking with dolphins in Cabo, and seeing Broadway plays in New York. I got a big case of FOMO (fear of missing out), as this is what my FB Spring Break post would look like:

Hey! Here are the great books I've read and I am reading. I've done some sewing, and shipped off a blanket to my mom. Made some napkins too using this pattern! Never mind my teenage daughter thinks making napkins is an economic waste. "Consider your hourly rate at least $15 an hour. How long does it take you to make a napkin, plus the cost of supplies and driving to the fabric store? Those napkins are $17 each and you buy one at Mrs. Cooks for $5." Who says high school kids these days don't know anything? She doesn't know my billable rate when I was at the consulting firm. If you took all of the napkins and other stuff I've sewn since my injury times my billable rate, they would cost more than I paid for the dining room table and chairs! Ha!

"Love the first 50 pages! Bitchy! but in a good way!" -- Lauren

"Steamy." -- Lauren

Yes, I am getting to the point where what used to be a hobby is now a major form of entertainment. Did I mention I have limited mobility and it is driving me nuts? My physical therapist said if I went to New York for vacation six weeks after the surgery, my knee would be mad at me. Instead, the rest of my body is mad at my knee for keeping me home. 

There was some good news. My friend Vicki from college sent me text saying she wanted to chat and she was hoping I was having a good recovery from my surgery. She lives in California, but has family in the Pacific Northwest who she visits frequently. When we connected in real time, she asked how I was doing. I took a deep breath. I feared boring her or being Debbie Downer. She seemed sincerely curious. She is an old friend, but most people who haven't been through a knee surgery think "You can walk now, right? All's good." I told her how I am working out, and I can't walk up and downstairs normally--my usual list of stuff.

She told me about her knee surgery in her thirties, which I had forgotten about. I remember her having knee trouble, and finally getting it fixed. I was probably one of those people who thought "All's good." In my thirties, I probably wasn't used to dealing with people with ailments. Now, I keep a mental register for injuries and infirmities. For example, my friend Karen's husband tore his achilles tendon, and Tanya's husband has his appendix out. Tanya was mugged in her early twenties, and the attacker stabbed her hand. She went through months of agonizing physical therapy to be able to touch her fingers to her thumb.

Vicki was now a prophet from my future. I've talked to other people who've torn their ACL, but here one of my oldest friends had gone through it, too. "I thought that I would never get better. I thought I might get stuck like this forever. But now I can dance and walk."

We talked about physical therapy. She'd go to the gym before work, ride the exercise bike for ten minutes, and then ride the bike for ten minutes afterward work. She was impressed that I was up to forty-five minutes on the bike. We talked about the differences in recovery between being in your thirties versus forties, and how it would only get worse the older we get.

My favorite part was when we talked about crossing the street, and the million micro-decisions that are made. "I can't do a mini-jog when I cross the street, so I try to walk as fast as I could so I can make before the 'walk' sign changes. But I don't want to walk so fast that I trip and fall. That would be worse," I said.

"I took my time," Vicki said. "I didn't care if cars had to wait for me." I laughed. She was right, but then I remember the time a guy in a white muscle sports car let me cross the street, not realizing there are tortoises at the zoo who move faster than me. He tried to clip me as soon he had enough room to pass me.

"You'll be better soon," she said. "Before you know it, you'll be dancing." A call from an old friend was worth a thousand FB posts.

Outlander: Biting and Sad Romance

At the end of each physical therapy session, Evan ices my leg. While my leg chills for fifteen minutes, I usually read a book. I have been reading a lot lately, as I have a lot of down time since my surgery. A few weeks ago, I ran into a friend, Theresa, at the grocery store and she recommend I read Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. Theresa had previously recommend I watch "Bletchley Circle," so I took her advice.  She said Outlander was a little steamy, but I wasn't deterred. "My book club read it and all of the husbands seemed to appreciate it," Theresa laughed. "They said we should read more books like this."

I was in the middle of another book I has bought, and decided to reserve Outlander from the library. It is the first book in a long series of adventures of a time traveling English woman who leaves 1945 and visits Scotland in 1743.

Yesterday, Evan iced my leg. He wandered off to take care of his next patient, and I got out my copy of Outlander. Before I cracked it open, the woman on the bench next next me said, "Oh I love that book! Have you seen the tv show?"

Before I could answer, the physical therapist working on her chimed in, as did another patient on the exercise bike. Three of the three women in this small area had both read the book and watched the television show. These women ranged in age from late twenties to mid-forties. I didn't realize this book had such a following.

"It is like Game of Thrones for women," one of PT women offered. "They show both men and women. Game of Thrones just shows women." Interesting.

I guess that explained why I had to enter my birthday into the Starz website before I could watch the show. I had watched the first episode earlier in the week. While the book was written in 1991, the television series started last year. I entered my real birthday, not just random date that would show I was older than twenty-one. After I was the show, I thought maybe this show is just for middle age women and the website folks had to make sure I was middle-aged. I am surprised I didn't have to check my gender because this is show is chick-flick central. Sure, almost all of the main characters are men and there are lots of battle scenes that take place in the Highlands of Scotland, but this is mostly a romance.

Claire, the main character, has a husband back in England, but she meets up with the younger and much hunkier Jamie in Scotland. Gabaldon, the author, was married with three young kids living in Arizona at the time. A woman back from serving as a nurse during WWII gets to leave her boring life and face dangers and adventures in another era. She can hook up with someone else scot-free (pun intended) because her husband hasn't been born yet. The young buck thinks she is brilliant and adores her for it. This is pure cougar fantasy. Sign me up.

I am not a regular romance novel reader. The closest I get to romances are Jane Austen novels. (Next on my list of books is Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld, a modern take on Pride and Prejudice.) I am getting to the point where I am closer to the age of the mothers and aunts in these books than I am to the heroines. What is a middle-aged woman to do? It is sad when I can relate to Elizabeth Bennet's Aunt Gardiner better than I can to Elizabeth. I suppose that is why romances are so popular, and yet so difficult to read. For middle-aged women who have already been in the game and settled down, this gives us a chance to live vicariously through fictional characters. It still brings on a certain sadness to know that those days of young love are far, far behind me. I guess after I got married I was so busy having kids I didn't really think about romance. Now my kids are older and I am recovering from my knee, I have more time to ponder.

Time travel in a way dissolves age, I think this maybe one reason why Outlander reaches to out so many readers. In one sense, Jamie, the hot young Scotsman, is five years younger than Claire. In another way, he is 197 years older. Time travel smoothes out those kind of wrinkles.

Oh and the biting. This is the second book I've read during my recovery/convalescence where women have bitten men on the lower lip and drew blood during amorous times. I don't really get the lip biting thing. It seems both gross and mean. I asked Jack about this.

"Have you ever been bitten while having sex?" I asked.

"That is the strangest question someone who has ever been married for twenty years has ever been asked," he said.

"Seriously," I asked.

"Have you ever bitten me?"

"No," I said.

"Then no," he said. "I would get a canker sore or two and that would not be fun."