Where Are We Now?
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December tends to be crazy, more like two or three months in one: the month following Halloween and Thanksgiving, the month winter descends, the last month of the old year, the month before the new year, the month bearing Christmas and all the shopping and decorations, praise and celebration, and, finally, there's Auld Lang Syne, parties and New Year's resolutions.
Like a fuse ignited, December sparkles wildly with an exciting hiss until Christmas Day, when there's a spectacular burst of joy, and New Year's Eve, when a grand explosion is heard 'round the world.
And now we find ourselves past all that and into 2018.
But who wants to miss the hullabaloo, as if that was possible, and why should we? We simply needed to be a set and a rep ahead of the crowd around us, training generously with a warm heart, a jingle and a clank -- eating the right stuff regularly and the left stuff sparingly.
And remember, like hunky old Santa said, just cuz muscles don't grow on trees doesn't mean you're bound to have twigs for arms and sticks for legs.
Seriously, I never could get into the Santa thing, or the elves and the reindeer. Rudolf? Really? But the dude has a point about the sticks and twigs. I suspect he would go on about growing round and fat, but that's his image, and he, like you and I, is a slave to his image.
Sooooo, bombster... What's your image of yourself these days?
ERRRRRRRRRT... ERRRRRRRRRT... ERRRRRRRRRT...
That was the mind-numbing blare of the Image Warning Alarm System (IWAS) sounding off across the planet Earth. Saved by the blast? Not exactly. You can run, but you can't hide. The blare only serves to expose image duckers. ERRRRRRRRRT... There's no escape, Daffy. You can waddle, but you can't duck.
An assortment of self-images ricochets though our minds like a 22-caliber slug. One is a companion, another is a burden; one depresses and the other inspires.
The image you perceive when you're in a good mood, a steadfast and robust athlete, is a good companion indeed. The self-conscious slug sagging your shoulders as life happens is a burden indeed. The downcast shadow that follows you around when you're feeling bad, the insecure mope, is depression.
And, last but not least, the lean, lithe and admirable character you pursue while training enthusiastically is a mighty inspiration.
These characters have step-cousins running around your mental playground; Happy, Lumpy, Slappy, Pumpy, Hunky, Clunky and Clinky and Clanky. Sort out the good and ship out the bad. Permit only the daring, bright and swift to share your aspiring facility. Each of us has work to do in our backyards.
Thus far we've addressed twigs and sticks, elves and reindeer and the IWAS -- profound, insightful and constructive. Now I offer the steely and stern law of the month: Absolutely no less than two assertive workouts this week -- three is better -- and no more than one mini-menu-splurge in the same period of time, which is seven days by my last count.
Beware: January is payback, the month of the girl-dog.
Some of you are in better shape than others and can slip 'n slide with more agility and tolerance. Two workouts a week will serve you well, providing you stay busy each day and avoid sluggishness and pigaciousness, aka pigacity. You've got years of old-time muscle time invested. Or you have that incredible, enviable metabolism that makes the rest want to torture you, you miserable muscular wretches.
Get the UTT (Underarm Tickling Thigamajig).
Some guys and gals will continue to flog themselves as they need to be the last to leave the gym on Christmas Eve and the first to blaze a trail at the park on the first day of the New Year. You did that yesterday, right?
Get a job.
Some are squeezing the Holiday Season, which they claim officially started on Halloween, of every conceivable excuse to afford them excess comfort and gratification. Cruising and snoozing, boozing and losing, taking a bruising and singing the blues thing. But, look, we're done with all of that now.
They'll get theirs.
Aren't you glad you work out -- know how to, that you should, and where and why and when? Here's another trick question: How many days in the gym under the iron does it take to make up for the lost workouts and over-consumption during the months of December?
Get a calculator.
It gets worse. What's more painful, destructive, unbearable: the guilt you harbor, the grief you bear, the departure of those big guns, the arrival of these big buns or the listlessness of fit-less-ness resulting from slothfulness? How about your sinking purpose and will, the mounting stress and irritability or the absence of rhythm and rhyme in your life since you surrendered to evil?
Get ye behind me, devil dude.
Put the negative considerations behind you, as today, the beginning of this new year, they are mute 'n moot.
You will train with quiet zeal and continued determination. Zeal and determination are not things an ironhead discards easily, like empty tuna cans and plastic water bottles. They are certain, always and forever, like a shiny brass nose ring or a multicolored tattoo of a venomous snake coiled around the bis and tris.
Another thing for sure: Life is unpredictable.
Go... God's Power... The Drapes
*****
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