About this Team In Training thing I keep talking about…

My training shirt.

So I may or may not have joined a cult.

I have started training for a half-marathon (to take place in San Diego in June) with Team In Training, to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of Canada. It’s something I’ve been meaning to do for a long time, but I finally signed up this year, and then I went to the first group training session on Saturday and I am embarrassingly unprepared and humiliatingly out of shape.

But I’m going to do this. I’m going to run the half-marathon and raise lots and lots of money for the LLSC on the way.

In fact, thanks to a bunch of you, I’m already well on my way. I’d been aiming to hit $1,000 by the end of January, but as I write this, I’m only $45 away from that and the month isn’t even half over yet.

So why am I doing this?

1. Because fuck cancer.
2. Because I wanted to do something really cool and going to San Diego for a half-marathon and doing it for a good cause is really cool.
3. Because I’ve never done any kind of fundraising before.
4. Because fuck cancer.
5. Because challenge.
6. Because I put it on my list of things I wanted to do before I turn 30.
7. Because fuck cancer.
8. Because I want running to become my happy place again and right now it feels like nothing but torture.
9. Because need to get back into shape and I want it to be about more than my own vanity.
10. Because fuck cancer.

So, how can you help?

1. Donate. Here’s the link. Every little bit helps.
2. If you can’t donate, there’s still lots of stuff you can do to help. Like helping me spread the word. That’s really, really, big-time help.
3. RUNNING MUSIC SUGGESTIONS OMG. I suck at music. I don’t know anything. And I’m going to be running so many hours for so many weeks. And then the event itself is going to take me a couple of hours. So any and all running music suggestions are a huge huge huge huge huge huge help, you have no idea. Email me at theactivestick@gmail.com People usually say, “well, what do you like?” I don’t know. I’ll try anything to see if it works. And I will be so grateful.
4. Fundraising ideas. I’m a n00b at this but if you’ve ever raised money for charity before and have suggestions for what worked for you, please let me know. Over at Eyes on The Prize, Berkshire and I are writing blog posts of your choice for donations. Any and all other ideas are always appreciated.

Thank you!

A perfect moment I’ve been thinking about

I’ve been reading Fever Pitch. I haven’t seen the movie, and I think I’m just going to refuse to, forever. If you’ve read the book, here’s a question for you. How far into the book did you get before you thought, “this book is about me. This book is totally, totally, about me, and most of the people I know?”

(The second page.)

I have been trying to explain, to myself as well as other people, why I love sports venues so much. Smelly, crumbly hockey rinks. Decrepit ballparks. The quiet, sterile Air Canada Centre. The Bell Centre, which is beautiful and loud and home.

Fenway.

Very shortly after I learned the meaning of a word I never wanted to know, my friends Andrew and Sarah and I jumped into my car and drove down to Boston for the weekend. I spent the weekend in my favourite city, with some of my favourite people. Most of it didn’t really register, for obvious reasons. I wish I’d been better company at the time, but I know that wasn’t going to happen.

There are lots of perfect moments, don’t believe anyone who tells you you can’t have them all the time. Mine happen everywhere, but disproportionately so in hockey rinks.

And a ball park one time.

That weekend, Saturday evening, in the middle of a game between the Boston Red Sox and the Kansas City Royals, of all teams. Between my lovably loud friends and a group of very nice, very drunk people from Maine. I don’t know what the score was at the time. I don’t even know what the score was at the end of the game, just that it went into a million extra innings and the Royals won. I’m pretty sure people on both sides of me were talking to me. I couldn’t hear them.

For the first time in two weeks, for the very first time in two weeks, for a second, one second, the grief let up a little bit.

Fenway.

 

Leggings as pants

TAS Warning: another slightly uncomfortable post to follow. Not about the Fat or the PTSD, but if you’re not into feelings, skip this one and wait for the next post, I’ll make it more fun, I promise.

This doesn’t have anything to do with the subject matter. It’s just one of my favourite moments from 2012.

The concept of leggings worn as pants has always fascinated me. Not the act itself of wearing leggings as pants, but rather, the way we talk about leggings as pants. There’s so much debate about whether leggings are pants but then there’s also so much vitriol directed towards women who wear leggings as pants.

Why? Why can’t we just admire or applaud women who feel good enough in their own skin to wear leggings as pants? I would give almost anything to feel comfortable enough in my own skin to wear leggings as pants.

Which brings me to my 2013 “resolution.”  I’m calling it my self-acceptance project.

So… if you’ve known me or read TAS in the last little while you’ll know I’ve been working on a lot of self-esteem stuff and if you’ve known me long enough you’ll know I’ve come a long long way on that front. But here’s the thing. I’m not where I want to be, and I’m pretty mad about that. It took me a long time to learn to separate my self-worth from the way that I look, and it’s done wonders for me, but I also don’t think that not defining myself with my looks means it’s okay for me to hate my looks.  And I am so angry that I hate the way that I look.

I am so angry that I’m going to be 30 this year and I haven’t ever had a day where I’ve felt beautiful since shortly after I turned 16. I am so angry that the self-talk is louder than the words of the people who love me. I am so angry that I’ve wasted a lot of time trying to forgive other people, when it turns out, I’m under no obligation to ever forgive anyone at all, other than myself. I am so angry that I should feel good in my own skin and I don’t feel good in my own skin. I am so, so, so angry. I am mostly angry that I haven’t been this angry all these years.

So, back to the self-acceptance project. I’m going to do one thing every day that’s the opposite of my instinctual self-loathing head mess. I don’t know what things yet, for the most part, but I’ve been picking people’s brains and scouring the internet. Obviously a lot of these things will feel silly, but hey. I am determined.

I am determined to spend this year having pretty days instead of ugly days. I want to see myself like the people who love me see me and like I see the people I love.

I’m not sure how much of it I’ll be documenting on here, though. Some things are too personal and private to share, even for me, and you know I’ve tried my best to write honestly and openly about this stuff. There are just some things that can’t be talked about. I also don’t want to bore you all, or write more about myself than about hockey or baseball or other sports-related things.

So I bought one of them old fashioned journals (sorry, Environment, it’s just this one time, I promise). I’m going to write about my feelings (or, you know, whatever that day’s Thing was) in it each day. If I have any thoughts that I think people might want to read I’ll try to blog about them. The Fat Post got an amazing response from all sorts of people going through the same thing, so if there’s ever anything else about this stuff that I can share I’ll definitely do it.

So that’s a thing I’ll be doing in 2013, in addition to trying to become educated in beer, getting to a football game (TAILGATING), running for charity (more on that in the next couple of days), and did I mention becoming educated in beer?

As for the leggings as pants – if you feel beautiful in them, wear them, and tell everyone who has a problem with it to fuck right off, without feeling remotely bad about it. It’s their problem, not yours. Maybe one day when I stop carrying my pain around in these extra pounds, I’ll do the same thing.

Have a great New Year’s Eve, and an amazing 2013, everybody. Don’t drink and drive. Don’t ever drink and drive. Ever.

huhwhat

That search term thing was a creepy revelation.

Cuddles and cookies and Pollyanna

@theactivestick as a society, it seems we enjoy ridiculing what we don't like over praising what we do like.—
David Lasseter (@davidlasseter) December 27, 2012

I’m probably opening myself up to a world of ridicule for this post but I’m starting to get really sick of being an internet person thingy. Part of it is because I’ve been spending too much time on the internet lately, but the other part is, for whatever reason-the lockout, narcissism, boredom, whatever-people have turned into the biggest jerks.

I don’t know if there ever was a time when we simply ignored things we thought were stupid, but I feel like there was and I miss it. I don’t know if there ever was a time when we disagreed with each other without bullying each other, but I feel like there was and I miss it. I don’t know if there was ever a time when you could do something that was poorly-thought-out or even not very smart and not have internet torches and pitchforks descend on you and pile on you relentlessly for days, but I feel like there was and I miss it.

I feel like people say and do dumb things all the time, without intentionally hurting anyone or being racist, sexist, homophobic or otherwise bigoted. I mean, if someone is hurtful or a bigot they deserve to get called out on it. But if someone has a momentary lapse in judgement and says something dumb, I don’t see how being a dick to them all day is going to make them anything other than defensive.

I miss “I disagree with you and I’m going to respectfully tell you why without implying you’re the stupidest human being on earth.”

Did we ever have that? I don’t know.

I miss “I don’t like what you write so I’m just never going to bother reading your work again and I’ll just leave you alone and forget you exist, wish you the best, smooches.”

Did we ever have that? I don’t know.

I feel like all we do now is actively try to make people feel bad. And I wish it would stop. And maybe it’s Internet Pollyanna of me to think it ever could, but really, can we please stop being such massive douchebags to each other over the stupidest shit?

2012, etc

I think, although I’ve been so flakey at this blogging thing that I don’t really know anymore, but I think I do a year-in-review of life stuff at the end of every calendar year. I’m working on a different kind of post for New Year’s Eve, though, one I really really hope you read, so here’s my year-in-review blurby thingy.

A mini-review of 2012, for me? This was the year of trips. I went on a whole bunch of trips. Road trips, plane trips, train trips. Ten in all, seven of which included sports-related events. Why so many? I don’t know. I used to think that I hated Montreal and always wanted to leave it, but then I realized that Montreal was not the problem. I was. Montreal is an amazing city and even though I’m resigned to the fact that I may have to leave it in the future for career opportunities elsewhere, I’m unbelievably happy I live here. I just keep leaving here because there’s so much stuff I want to see and do elsewhere. I’ve had an amazing year in terms of that stuff.

Which brings me to this. I am all out of money and have a bunch of things I need to do in 2013, including saving up for a 2014 Europe trip.

So it’s your turn to come visit me, all of you. Say yes.

Christmas Wishlist 2012

So I’m only posting this because I do one every year. There’s only one hockey thing on my list this year and you guys all know what it is already.

So I will just say: Merry Christmas, you guys. I love most of you and like almost all of you as a friend and secretly hate none of you. Thank you for everything.

Enjoy this picture of my aunt’s Christmas tree. I think it’s gorgeous.