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Archive | fitness

Treadmill licking; stylish jeans; other important stuff

One of the things Tobey likes to do is squeeze his little body in between the space between the treadmill and the wall and then lick the treadmill. (I tried it once, didn’t see what was so great about it.) He was doing this just now and I looked over and our eyes met and I’m pretty sure he looked back at me with a look that said, “I’m sorry, but I have to do this.” Other things he has to do? Eat Kleenex, come running when he smells turkey (even if he’s asleep), bark if he hears dogs and occasionally try to seduce computer chairs.

In other news, yesterday I went on an audition held at the building where Chelsea Lately is taped and it was the single most fashionable place I’d ever been. Every single person looked like they had a stylist. Some were in jeans but the jeans were in saucy color and looked brand new. My jeans are just in regular colors and look medium old to acid washed.  Ok I don’t really own acid washed jeans anymore but you get what I’m saying. I did once own an entire denim outift that was white with black polka dots. I looked like a Holstein.

Now you might be thinking, “You? Looking like a cow? STFU,” unless you know me well or have known me over the years enough to know that I used to be fairly bovine. Sometimes I like to hide this fact because I’m worried if people know I used to be fat they will then look at me now and think, “Oh yeah, I see it!” however I’m also still mentally scarred enough from all the years of being the fat kid to think it might do me some good to just say it instead of trying to hide it.

Also something which started in New York which always amused me is people thinking I must have it so easy because of how I look. To me this is sort of like if someone got mad at me for being a small Asian woman. I would hear the words but wouldn’t take them in because the person being described just isn’t me. I also occasionally get, “Oh, like you’ve ever had trouble getting a boyfriend?” as if I was the prom queen. Some day I will dig deep into my past and barf photos and stories all over you. Look forward to that day!

In other, other news, I just wrote back to a message I received on Facebook and now I’m receiving all sorts of replies which is making me realize the message I responded to was a group message. I didn’t realize this. That story had no point.

Also yesterday after the stylish audition where I forgot that wearing dresses to an audition gives the mic guy nowhere to hook the mic battery pack so you’ll end up essentially getting naked in front of a room full of people while they search for a place on your undergarments to clip the thing, I went to Teresa Strasser’s book reading. I met a lot of very nice ACS fans who said a lot of very nice things and now I have a big head and am a total dick.

Perhaps you are wondering what Adam said to me on my first day on the job? So I’d auditioned the first week of January and found out I got the job over the weekend and was to start that Monday. Monday rolls around and I’m sitting in the studio and Adam walks in and I wave and he sees me and then says, loudly, “That’s Alison?” I’ve been giggling about this ever since. [Do I need to explain that he was making a joke? Pretending they’d hired the wrong person? I think it’s clear however maybe the italics don’t really get across the exact tone of voice.]

Did I have anything else to tell you? Ummm… Ummmmmmm….. I’m going to be on The Film Vault this week… um… and I haven’t been able to individually respond to everyone who’s said really nice things to me but I just want to thank you all.

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Exciting news; static cling; clarification

Teresa Strasser, Adam Carolla, me

So much to tell. First of all, yes, I am the new news girl on the Adam Carolla Show. I got the word over the weekend but it was a secret which is why I didn’t do my own show on Sunday. I debated and while I knew I would be able to pretend not yet to know I just didn’t delight in the idea of having to lie to my viewers who would be asking if I knew yet, and so I did the next best thing: went sweater shopping.

How’d it go? Fuckloads of static cling is how it went. And then I had that moment of pulling off a sweater and hearing the crackle and looking in the mirror and seeing my hair look like this

and knowing I was in for a painful shock the next time I touched anything metal.

But back to more pressing matters. I’d like to just take this moment to clarify two things no one has really landed upon yet. They both involve today’s podcast.

The moment where we’re talking about my old band and Adam asks the name and I say The Angoras and he says “There’s a sheep and a rabbit?”and then I say, as if I’m some kind of moron, “On my amp?” What I was referring to was our singer’s practice of draping our amps and hardware with plastic animal figurines or stuffed animals when we played live. During the podcast recording we were staring at a photo of me playing live in the band which the producers dug up and there was a pony on my amp, hence my confusion.

And another note about that photo. It was taken in 98 or 99 and I was carrying around a good 30 more pounds, apparently in my legs. Not that it’s important that I issue this disclaimer but I’d just like to start our relationship (the one where I overexplain stuff) on the right shallow foot.

And also, I’m not loving the way my dress looks in the photo of me, Teresa and Adam. Ok done!

Wait, one more thing: You should read Teresa and Adam’s books. I read both and loved them.

Oh wait, another thing I want to make clear. During the audition process I referred to myself as a “polyglot” when discussing my practice of counting to twenty in French and Spanish while I’m at the gym on the treadmill. I was joking! I was not actually bragging about my ability to count to twenty in foreign languages as much as making fun of the idea that that would be something to tout. Did that make sense? I didn’t think so.

Ok, see you guys every day!

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Wintry mix

It’s officially that time of year. That time when weather turns wet and gloomy and I put rollers in my artificially straightened hair (for volume, duh!) even though it doesn’t do a damned thing. Okay, actually that happens year round, but moreso when it’s cold. It’s also the time of year when jeans wick moisture from the ground which is great exercise because the denim becomes very heavy and so pretty soon you’re walking around with weights on your legs. The downside is that you’ll sink like a stone should you happen to fall in any body of water or end up in a pair of concrete shoes in the Hudson. Concrete shoes, it should be noted, also function as excellent free weights for toning your glutes and your triangles. One time I wore concrete shoes during a sprint on the beach and by the end I could have sworn I had the body of a 22 year old… trapped in the tangle of kelp I was dragging around along with some tin cans and a desert boot. You never know what (or whom!!!!!!!!)  you’ll find at the beach!

But back to this weather, it’s also the time of year when weather people give you their forecast, which I’m pretty sure they make up (no offense to meteorogolists! Some of my best friends are umbrellas!) and they will employ the term “wintry mix” to describe a blend of slush, rain, wind, snow, carob chips and sometimes yogurt chips or dried cranberries. By the by, I’m not using the word craisin because I decided one second ago that I didn’t feel like it. I’m fickle.

Onward! The word fickle makes me think of pickle which reminds me that last night my friend and I had a long talk about our hopes and dreams and then an even longer talk about foods and flavors we like or don’t like. It also veered into smells. To be fair, we didn’t talk about our hopes and dreams. I don’t like the smell of distilled vinegar, for example. She doesn’t like the smell of Rosemary. I don’t like the smell of Edith. I don’t like octopus, but not because I’ve tried it and made an informed decision, more like because there is a part of me that’s five years old and thinks it’s grody. Also grody? A fair amount of innards and entrails including but not limited to brains, testicles and insects. I guess I’m not that unusual really. But when I was in preschool I ate gizzard and I think I even liked it. I suspect I’ve already written about that here. Is it ringing a bell? For “nutrition” which is what they called “recess” different parents would bring in a snack and it was usually kid friendly fare and if you ate all of it you were in the “clean plate club.” This was back in the 1820s before everyone was worried about obesity. Clean plate club = Precocious fat ass club. Anyhoozers, someone brought in gizzard and I ate it and was praised for being in the clean plate club and to this day I wonder why someone’s parents brought in gizzard for a bunch of preschoolers. You know? Did I mention it was human gizzard? It wasn’t because humans don’t have gizzards, and also the preschool was staunchly anti-cannibal (this was conservative Orange County in the 1820s after all) but just wondering if I’d mentioned it.

I guess that’s all I have to say. What foods or flavors (or smells) do you guys like or dislike?

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Fake egg white pasta type thing

So I’ve been eating Shirataki noodles which are made out of tofu and mung bean paste and then infused with fart smell and pressed into a noodle shape. They’re not bad. I had to google the hell out of them though because I began to wonder if they were really as low calorie and low carb as they claim and my biggest fear in life, after death of my loved ones, is that uninvited calories are creeping into my food. While googling I read about a low carb pasta alternative made with eggs. You just pour a really thin layer of eggs (I used egg whites) into a pan and cook it and then chill it and then roll it up and cut and make something pasta-esque. I tried it and it was pretty good.

Egg white pasta

Fake egg white pasta type thing

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At the gym; reality tv

I’m at the gym not taking an abdominal class because yesterday I decided to get on some machine and do a few crunches and then the gym asked me to stop because I was doing it so well the other gym patrons were getting discouraged. “Save it!” I said, holding up a sculpted arm. “Story of my life.” It actually is, and the first line is, “Call me sculpted arm.” Catchy, right? It’s been ripped off left and right, which is also the story of my life. That one starts, “It was the best of arms, it was the worst of arms.” Around that time Hemingway came out with Farewell to Arms, which I took as a personal affront, so I went into witness protection. Ernie was always doing stuff like that, and I realize that now, but at the time I was really trying to be safe. Anyway, that’s why I’m not in that class, but damn you, that’s not what I was planning on talking about today! You’re just too distracting, you know that? When I look into your eyes I see myself. Very tiny in your pupils. There I am! Waving! Wait hold still I think I have something in my eye. Sorry, am I making you uncomfortable? I can almost make it out.

So I’ve put up with a lot of shark jumping from Keeping Up With The Kardashians and I’ve loved them all the same, refusing to see the obvious contrivances, because such is my love. But last night they just pushed me too far with the completely impossible to believe calendar mix up. For the uninitiated, which is probably all of you, I will briefly recap:

For her boyfriend’s bday, Kim Kardahsian decides to make a sexy calendar exclusively for him and she even gets her butt sucked by a vacuum in advance so her cellulite will be lint free. Then she has this photo shoot and her boyfriend actually shows up and is made slightly uncomfortable by the sexy factor but Kim tells us when he realizes it’s for his eyes only it’ll be okay, nevermind the fact that she posed in Playboy and there was a sex tape. So the big thing is that he can’t know it’s a surprise for him—he has to think it’s a magazine photo shoot. So then Kim is somewhere off screen and a package arrives at smooch, the children’s clothing store that the girls run. Because you’d obviously send your racy photos to a children’s clothing store. So then Kim’s mom Kris ‘where’s my nose’ Jenner, wife of Bruce ‘I don’t know, but I can’t find mine either’ Jenner opens the package addressed to Kim because she’s her manager. Might I say that is a really poor system? Upon seeing the racy calender, Kris thinks that obviously this is some project of Kim’s that she forgot about and she doesn’t want Kim to think she dropped the ball as a manager so she gets the thing published and puts it in four stores in Calabasas because she is a publishing magnate and that’s how it works. Mind you, all this happens in the time it takes freakishly small Kourtenay and or-is- she-freakishly-large Khloe to have a few drinks and realize Bruce is inspirational. They had some drinks at a sports museum in orange county and I have no idea where this place is, but that’s a side note.

So then Kim freaks out when she realizes her calendar is at the Stop & Go or wherever it is and also at the newstand and she has to buy up all the copies paying full price each and the guy selling doesn’t even seem to realize that the girl buying up all the calendars being followed by cameras is the same girl in the calendar. That is some good acting. Everyone else’s though was terrible.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

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At the gym; Red Eye party report

Greetings my little tortillas, I’m back on the bike after half an hour on the elliptical machine where I didn’t blog for all the reasons I listed yesterday. So it occurs to me that I’m overdue for giving you the exhaustive run down of Wednedsay’s Red Eye party which someone here asked for. Of course I will deliver this, however my hands are sweating something fierce and my little blackberry is sliding all around. It’s almost as if I’m getting ready to hold my own hand for the very first time.

Anyway, the party was held at a sleek downtown boite. I almost couldn’t find it because I was looking for a chic dowtown loft and well, I had my boites and lofts confused as one will do. Anyway, the guest list was quite exclusive as you can imagine. I was numbers one to twenty of the three hundred and I spotted myself in a number of situations running the gamut from surprising to dowright indecent! I was a veritable who’s who of the television elite. Also, I was shorter but even more beautiful in person. Blind item alert! Blind item after the jump!

[Whee!] (I just jumped)

Blind item! (I’ll wait while you cover your eyes) okay, what known canoodler was seen canoodling with a canoodle while canoodlers canoodled? Allegedly?

Send in your best guesses! In other news I overheard myself talking in hushed tones excitedly about things. The drinks were flowing which made the names bolder. My middle initial may have made out with my last name! Quelle gumption!

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

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At the gym: heroin

Well here I am on the bike and I’m not even going to tell you what I’m working on because I think its quite clear I’m working on my valvolines, my trundle beds and my knapsacks. See, I was taking a break from the bike because I was getting this weird pain in my lower back that was strangely sharp and wet feeling. Were I back on the space station I would wonder if I’d wet myself, or worse, if I were hanging out with Doug, the drunk astronaut who was always spilling his freeze dried and then reconstituted maitais, as well as wetting himself. In fact we used to joke about how he’d ‘reconstitute’ anything freeze dried you gave him, if you know what I mean. But sadly I’m earthbound for awhile and so I could rule out the idea of the wetness being space maitais or urine. But there was pain and half of me half expected (that’s about a quarter expectation rate) that I’d reach back there and find blood. Have I been literally stabbed in the back, I wondered? Et tu, LifeFitness 95ri? But there wasn’t blood. No backmata or backcarriage or backstruation. Clearly I’m still working on that one.

Anyway, I decided to take a break for a day, which I did yesterday and maybe also the day before? Yes! And then I came here and did the elliptical machine for awhile and the did the stairclimber for less than awhile because that shit is hard and boring, like scrabble. Oh yes, I went there. I don’t like scrabble very much. I know this will surprise you because people expect I would be good at it, and oh I am, but I don’t enjoy it.

Right so the thing about the other machines is that you really can’t blog on them because you might fall off so all you can do is count forwards and backwards in your head in other languages and then you can count out the drum beat of whatever song you’re listening to in your head and then you can play drums in your head along with the music. My friend told me that while working out, men fantasize about calamity hitting the gym and then saving all the women at the gym. What about the animals, I ask? Man, what kind of humanitarian wouldn’t build an ark? But that’s where I came into all this, I was emailing at the gym and he said it sounded dangerous and I said I would die of boredom otherwise, as I did on those machines today. Those other machines.

So now I’m back on this bike. It’s like heroin only if I try to inject it and there’s an air bubble, I won’t die from the air bubble, I’ll die from the huge piece of exercise equipment I just shot between my toes. Truthfully I never thought I’d get to this point, stealing giant spoons (really they’re more like industrial ladle shaped forklifts. Do those exist? I need a joke intern asap), wrapping bikes in tin foil and smuggling them out of the gym.

Whoa, where am I? I felt like I touched God and also like I was in the womb and also like I was glowing and just warm. You know? And tired, so tired.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

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Still at the gym; reality tv

Still at the gym where I’m thinking about reality television, more specifically my unironically beloved keeping Up With The Kardashians and I have to say that it’s weird to me how much the sister fued chronicled in the last two episodes really stirred up my own emotions. Did I ever tell you that my own sister and I once went to couples counseling? It didn’t work unfortunately, she just couldn’t get past the fact that were related, and no matter how many times I tried to explain that our shared background was a plus, not a minus, she just couldn’t. Said she thought of me like a brother. But I don’t see it as a failure of the psychiatric community. Nay! On the contrary I really feel like we got to know ourselves from the experience and think we’re only stronger. But really, I found the kardashians resonating on a level deeper than I would have liked and I may have squeezed out a few sympathy tears along with kim which surprised me. I was thinking about when you get to that point, or someone gets to it with you where the empathy just dries up and they’re clearly going through something or they think they are and all you can do is laugh because it doesn’t seem authentic to you. Or because you’re so hurt you feel like until they understand you, you won’t try to understand them. You know? No! Okay nevermind. But I do wish khloe had sounded a little more compassionate on her message to kim before kim pulled the storm out psych out maneuver which I thought was some grade A malarkey. And what was with her makeup being off and on and off and on? First I thought they must not have brought their makeup artist to colorado, but apparently he flew in between the crying jag and kim going in the hot tub.

I take no responsibility for this post. My blackberry seems to have fallen into the hands of a fourteen year old girl. Please forgive her. She’s easily exciteable because she just got braces tightened.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

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