My butt is getting bigger. This is not exactly a new complaint for a 39 year old but what is slightly new is that I don't mind at all because it seems to be growing because of my workout routine.
This fall I decided to add on a bunch of leg exercises to my routine: Leg curls, leg extensions, leg raises, and squats. Mostly this was just because it seemed like the right thing to do - the upper body workout definitely was motivated in large part by vanity but I am perfectly happy with my butt and leg aesthetics. However, it seemed like it would be better for my health and fitness if I diversified a bit, so I added in 2 leg days a week.
Initially I tried doing 20 squat sets and I ended up the way a lot of overzealous beginners do. I spent a few days limping around, barely able to walk because I overdid it. I found that I could do 10 squat sets consistently and I have been ramping it up from there so that now I am using the same weight but doing 3 sets of 20 comfortably. The improvement is real and I can feel it both in my exercises and in my daily routine. My legs are a *lot* stronger.
But when I looked at my butt one day recently it was a bit of a surprise. I was expecting my arms to get bigger from working out and so when that happened it was a not a surprise and in fact my reaction was "Good, good, now I need MORE." My butt getting bigger was just weird though. Rationally I knew this was an expected consequence, but emotionally it was bizarre.
This illustrated the huge difference between my perception of upper body and lower body strength. No matter how big my arms and chest get I still see myself as a skinny teenager and it isn't enough. I doubt that any achievable amount of size will change this feeling. It intrigues me to look at myself because I can simultaneously note the changes in size in my arms and still react to myself as if I am as thin as I ever was. Somehow I can perceive myself as both big and tiny at the same time. Brains are so cool!
For some people, mostly men, this sense of being too small is a serious problem and is called muscle dysmorphia. It leads to people throwing their lives away to spend more time in the gym to fend off guilt and feelings of inadequacy. They also often abuse all kinds of muscle building drugs in pursuit of the unattainable goal of being the absolute biggest. There are enough parallels between muscle dysmorphia and eating disorders such as anorexia that many people call it bigorexia instead. Even the way society reacts to it can be an issue because many people with either a problem trying to get small or trying to get big will get compliments on their bodies and feel guilty as though they have to do even more to earn that praise. In watching a bunch of fitness and weightlifting videos over the past while I have seen far too many enormous men with astounding bodies who feel despair over not being big enough; it is clear that this desire is completely uncoupled from reality.
I am not facing real problems in this regard though because even though I have that basic perception of myself of not being big enough my response to it has been to be in the gym for 40 minutes a day and eat a lot of protein and other food in general. I am stronger and healthier than ever before and it hasn't been hurting the rest of my life in any appreciable way so it isn't a mental health problem, just a thing I do.
Getting bigger legs and a bigger butt have actually been an annoyance in one way. It is hurting my numbers on exercises that use my body weight. My overall weight is going up faster than my arm strength so I am stagnating or even regressing on exercises like pushups, dips, and pullups. Hauling all that extra ass up into the air is tough work!
Monday, October 30, 2017
Thursday, October 26, 2017
The big man
Over the past couple of years I have watched Narcos and El Chapo on Netflix. Both are dramatized stories of true events focusing on drug dealers of a few decades past - Pablo Escobar in Colombia and El Chapo in Mexico.
It turns out I really like stories about drug dealers, at least in part because I get to watch stories about people who live in worlds I have never touched. The thing that really blows my mind is the henchmen. I watch stories where the military attacks a place where a drug lord is hiding and the drug lord's bodyguards stand there and fight the military to the death. The henchmen are facing an enemy that has more people, bigger guns, armour, communication, and even helicopters and tanks for backup. The henchmen are just dudes with guns.
And yet they stand there and fight, dying like flies.
It isn't just the dying. There is an attitude there that I find totally baffling - like somehow it is an honour to fight and die for the boss. The bosses clearly expect people to place themselves and their families on a pedestal and be eager to die to protect them. It is a class thing, I think, like the bosses are one class, their henchmen are the next one down, and below them is everybody else. Like royalty before them these bosses think that they somehow deserve people's undying loyalty and gratitude.
That loyalty boggles my mind. I mean, they can see that the boss doesn't have loyalty to them. They know that the boss regularly murders anyone he wants to, including any of his henchmen who annoys him. I guess I can understand loyalty a little bit when it goes both ways, but when one person clearly thinks of the other as disposable, expendable, interchangeable, it is hard for me to understand that willingness on the part of the henchman to die.
Certainly some among the henchmen are just evil, violent people who thrive on being part of a power structure that lets them hurt other people with impunity. But some of them spend their days just standing around protecting the boss, doing nothing, knowing that the only thing they are there to do is to die to protect someone who will be running away.
It doesn't make any sense to me.
I know that there are tremendous differences between these men and me. They are mostly drawn from desperately poor group of people and had little in the way of options. The choices available to them were likely manual labour, unemployment, or crime and in that situation crime starts to look pretty good.
So there is an element of economic sense for many of the henchmen because they had so few options. They just hope that they are one of the ones who makes a good living working for the boss and doesn't end up catching a bullet.
But there is something in them that isn't just necessity or desperation. There is some love for the boss that transcends mere employment. Stockholm syndrome, almost, where once you work for a violent, selfish, evil man for long enough you eventually come to love him despite the fact that he would kill you for any reason at all and not think twice about it.
My parents always told me that while I might make a good general I would never make it through the military because I don't have it in me to obey. I think being the henchman of a drug lord is pretty much the same thing.
Though clearly it works for an awful lot of people, following orders just isn't my thing.
It turns out I really like stories about drug dealers, at least in part because I get to watch stories about people who live in worlds I have never touched. The thing that really blows my mind is the henchmen. I watch stories where the military attacks a place where a drug lord is hiding and the drug lord's bodyguards stand there and fight the military to the death. The henchmen are facing an enemy that has more people, bigger guns, armour, communication, and even helicopters and tanks for backup. The henchmen are just dudes with guns.
And yet they stand there and fight, dying like flies.
It isn't just the dying. There is an attitude there that I find totally baffling - like somehow it is an honour to fight and die for the boss. The bosses clearly expect people to place themselves and their families on a pedestal and be eager to die to protect them. It is a class thing, I think, like the bosses are one class, their henchmen are the next one down, and below them is everybody else. Like royalty before them these bosses think that they somehow deserve people's undying loyalty and gratitude.
That loyalty boggles my mind. I mean, they can see that the boss doesn't have loyalty to them. They know that the boss regularly murders anyone he wants to, including any of his henchmen who annoys him. I guess I can understand loyalty a little bit when it goes both ways, but when one person clearly thinks of the other as disposable, expendable, interchangeable, it is hard for me to understand that willingness on the part of the henchman to die.
Certainly some among the henchmen are just evil, violent people who thrive on being part of a power structure that lets them hurt other people with impunity. But some of them spend their days just standing around protecting the boss, doing nothing, knowing that the only thing they are there to do is to die to protect someone who will be running away.
It doesn't make any sense to me.
I know that there are tremendous differences between these men and me. They are mostly drawn from desperately poor group of people and had little in the way of options. The choices available to them were likely manual labour, unemployment, or crime and in that situation crime starts to look pretty good.
So there is an element of economic sense for many of the henchmen because they had so few options. They just hope that they are one of the ones who makes a good living working for the boss and doesn't end up catching a bullet.
But there is something in them that isn't just necessity or desperation. There is some love for the boss that transcends mere employment. Stockholm syndrome, almost, where once you work for a violent, selfish, evil man for long enough you eventually come to love him despite the fact that he would kill you for any reason at all and not think twice about it.
My parents always told me that while I might make a good general I would never make it through the military because I don't have it in me to obey. I think being the henchman of a drug lord is pretty much the same thing.
Though clearly it works for an awful lot of people, following orders just isn't my thing.
Tuesday, October 24, 2017
Youtoo, 2
In reading posts on social media with the #metoo tag I saw some sad and disturbing things. Some of those things were in the primary posts themselves of course, but some of the sadness was men charging into threads that were started so women could relate stories of abuse and saying awful things. Some of these men decided to start a debate about the exact difference between sexual assault and sexual harassment. One decided to talk about how he was groped a couple times and he liked it.
It doesn't fucking matter if you liked it when you got groped. It matters if the women in question liked it, and if people should stop groping people without being sure that they want it. (Hint: Yes, you really should make sure people want to be groped before groping them.)
This past Saturday I was dancing in a club downtown. A bunch of friends were with me and one of them, a man of similar size to me, danced all sexy with me and at groped at my crotch a couple of times. I was dancing sexy right back at him, so the groping wasn't out of the blue but it was unexpected.
I didn't mind. In fact, I was amused.
But even though a person randomly groping me (who I am not sexually interested in) didn't bother me that doesn't mean it shouldn't bother other people! I am a large man. I am stronger than him, and could make him get off me if it came to that. I don't think there is any chance it would come to that because the guy in question is a reasonable sort of person but just knowing that I *could*, if I had to, completely changes how the interaction feels.
It is also different when I don't think the person in question actually has any intention of pursuing more sexual interaction. Knowing what he wanted and the limits of what he was interested in changes the situation drastically. It also matters that we were in a public space around lots of other people, as that can add a layer of safety.
Afterwards The Flautist asked me if I had ever had a sexual interaction that was scary or felt like assault. I honestly answered no - I have only ever turned down sex a couple times and it was never of the type where I was shoving someone off of me. I just used my words and they were respected. (Being big generally means your words get respected, so this isn't such a surprise.) Then she asked if anything I had experienced would probably be taken as sexual assault if I were a different person. That is an important question because there are plenty of things that could happen to me that I would just brush off where other people might be traumatized for any number of reasons.
I guess the groping in the bar would qualify. There are a lot of people who would be quite upset or at least unimpressed with such a thing. I suspect that the guy that groped me wouldn't have done so to a woman or to many other people but he figured I would be fine with it, and he figured rightly in this case.
So yeah, I bet there are a lot of men out there who have been groped but it didn't really do much to them. That doesn't matter. Their privilege, size, strength, and other factors can easily change something they don't mind into someone else's horror story. They should not assume that their feelings are universal because who they are and how they fit into society drastically changes the situation, even if it seems superficially similar.
I got groped. It made me laugh and I was not bothered. But that doesn't mean that other people aren't justified in being upset by being groped, and I sure as hell shouldn't use my experience as a weapon to try to trivialize the hurt they feel.
When someone talks about how they have cancer, for example, everyone knows that you shouldn't step in and say "hah, cancer, what a joke. I lived through cancer!" Even if you did, and even if it wasn't that bad, shut the hell up. You also shouldn't say "Well, *your* kind of cancer isn't that bad. Other people have it much worse, you know." Even if that is true, shut the hell up.
The same goes for sexual assault. Don't minimize other people's suffering, and don't try to shut down their conversation because it makes you feel uncomfortable.
It doesn't fucking matter if you liked it when you got groped. It matters if the women in question liked it, and if people should stop groping people without being sure that they want it. (Hint: Yes, you really should make sure people want to be groped before groping them.)
This past Saturday I was dancing in a club downtown. A bunch of friends were with me and one of them, a man of similar size to me, danced all sexy with me and at groped at my crotch a couple of times. I was dancing sexy right back at him, so the groping wasn't out of the blue but it was unexpected.
I didn't mind. In fact, I was amused.
But even though a person randomly groping me (who I am not sexually interested in) didn't bother me that doesn't mean it shouldn't bother other people! I am a large man. I am stronger than him, and could make him get off me if it came to that. I don't think there is any chance it would come to that because the guy in question is a reasonable sort of person but just knowing that I *could*, if I had to, completely changes how the interaction feels.
It is also different when I don't think the person in question actually has any intention of pursuing more sexual interaction. Knowing what he wanted and the limits of what he was interested in changes the situation drastically. It also matters that we were in a public space around lots of other people, as that can add a layer of safety.
Afterwards The Flautist asked me if I had ever had a sexual interaction that was scary or felt like assault. I honestly answered no - I have only ever turned down sex a couple times and it was never of the type where I was shoving someone off of me. I just used my words and they were respected. (Being big generally means your words get respected, so this isn't such a surprise.) Then she asked if anything I had experienced would probably be taken as sexual assault if I were a different person. That is an important question because there are plenty of things that could happen to me that I would just brush off where other people might be traumatized for any number of reasons.
I guess the groping in the bar would qualify. There are a lot of people who would be quite upset or at least unimpressed with such a thing. I suspect that the guy that groped me wouldn't have done so to a woman or to many other people but he figured I would be fine with it, and he figured rightly in this case.
So yeah, I bet there are a lot of men out there who have been groped but it didn't really do much to them. That doesn't matter. Their privilege, size, strength, and other factors can easily change something they don't mind into someone else's horror story. They should not assume that their feelings are universal because who they are and how they fit into society drastically changes the situation, even if it seems superficially similar.
I got groped. It made me laugh and I was not bothered. But that doesn't mean that other people aren't justified in being upset by being groped, and I sure as hell shouldn't use my experience as a weapon to try to trivialize the hurt they feel.
When someone talks about how they have cancer, for example, everyone knows that you shouldn't step in and say "hah, cancer, what a joke. I lived through cancer!" Even if you did, and even if it wasn't that bad, shut the hell up. You also shouldn't say "Well, *your* kind of cancer isn't that bad. Other people have it much worse, you know." Even if that is true, shut the hell up.
The same goes for sexual assault. Don't minimize other people's suffering, and don't try to shut down their conversation because it makes you feel uncomfortable.
Monday, October 23, 2017
Just watching
This past week I got an invitation to an event the likes of which I have never seen. I was invited to attend an all woman orgy - strictly as an observer. Voyeurism was a deliberate part of the event, and I was informed that I could attend but would absolutely not be taking part.
This is my life now, I guess...?
I wasn't at all sure what I should do. Much like my post about burlesque a couple weeks ago, I thought that watching a sexy show but not being able to participate wouldn't be much fun. Lots of people really enjoy that sort of thing but so far in my life it really hasn't been my thing. I don't ask people for strip teases because I don't want to be teased, I just want to touch and grab and GO.
I also had another far more mainstream event I could attend. I could get a dance lesson and go dance with a bunch of people, some of whom I know. That had some appeal too.
But if I went to the dance I knew how it will go. I would dance, that will be fine, and I would always wonder what would have happened if I had chosen differently. I am not likely to receive a great number of invites to orgies where I am expected to be a voyeur only and although I *thought* it won't do much for me I wasn't completely sure.
You only learn new things about yourself if you push yourself to try new things, and there are some things I have done in recent years that I definitely never would have thought I would enjoy.
Plus I can always spend my time telling people about how I went to an orgy for science, and just saying that makes me smile.
I went to the orgy.
For science.
I liked the people I met there. We had a bunch of stuff in common and I enjoyed their company. On the other hand the orgy itself was ... meh. Often boring, if I am being completely blunt. I think the people involved had a good time and I am not knocking them at all. The whole voyeur thing just didn't work for me.
At points I got introspective and thought how funny it was that there were two extremely attractive women 69ing each other not two meters away from me and I was staring off into space thinking about playing video games.
Time is the key. If someone said I could watch a all woman orgy for five minutes, jerk off and have an orgasm, and then get on with my day I would be perfectly happy about that. It would be much like porn.
But if they ask me to watch said orgy for two hours then it would be quite boring for most of it, in the same way that I wouldn't watch porn for two hours.
Maybe if it was a distraction off to the side it would work. For example, if I was at a board game night and the orgy was happening on the other side of the room I could focus on my game and be entertained whenever the board wasn't grabbing my attention.
In any case now I know new things about myself. Sex is the best, group sex is the best of the best, and watching other people do it while I just sit there is ... not the worst, really, but it ranks below sitting at home playing video games at the very least.
Science!
This is my life now, I guess...?
I wasn't at all sure what I should do. Much like my post about burlesque a couple weeks ago, I thought that watching a sexy show but not being able to participate wouldn't be much fun. Lots of people really enjoy that sort of thing but so far in my life it really hasn't been my thing. I don't ask people for strip teases because I don't want to be teased, I just want to touch and grab and GO.
I also had another far more mainstream event I could attend. I could get a dance lesson and go dance with a bunch of people, some of whom I know. That had some appeal too.
But if I went to the dance I knew how it will go. I would dance, that will be fine, and I would always wonder what would have happened if I had chosen differently. I am not likely to receive a great number of invites to orgies where I am expected to be a voyeur only and although I *thought* it won't do much for me I wasn't completely sure.
You only learn new things about yourself if you push yourself to try new things, and there are some things I have done in recent years that I definitely never would have thought I would enjoy.
Plus I can always spend my time telling people about how I went to an orgy for science, and just saying that makes me smile.
I went to the orgy.
For science.
I liked the people I met there. We had a bunch of stuff in common and I enjoyed their company. On the other hand the orgy itself was ... meh. Often boring, if I am being completely blunt. I think the people involved had a good time and I am not knocking them at all. The whole voyeur thing just didn't work for me.
At points I got introspective and thought how funny it was that there were two extremely attractive women 69ing each other not two meters away from me and I was staring off into space thinking about playing video games.
Time is the key. If someone said I could watch a all woman orgy for five minutes, jerk off and have an orgasm, and then get on with my day I would be perfectly happy about that. It would be much like porn.
But if they ask me to watch said orgy for two hours then it would be quite boring for most of it, in the same way that I wouldn't watch porn for two hours.
Maybe if it was a distraction off to the side it would work. For example, if I was at a board game night and the orgy was happening on the other side of the room I could focus on my game and be entertained whenever the board wasn't grabbing my attention.
In any case now I know new things about myself. Sex is the best, group sex is the best of the best, and watching other people do it while I just sit there is ... not the worst, really, but it ranks below sitting at home playing video games at the very least.
Science!
Wednesday, October 18, 2017
Youtoo
I have seen a lot of women posting on social media with the #metoo tag. They are talking about their experiences with sexual harassment and sexual assault, and the sheer number of them that I know who are sharing their stories is hard to deal with. It is made far worse by the fact that so many have terrible stories to tell who aren't telling them for one reason or another - the stories I have seen are just the beginning. Of course there are men (and people who are neither men nor women) posting these stories too, but the ones that I know whose #metoo posts have affected me are women, so that is the thing I will focus on.
Awareness is great and useful but the real key is a commitment to change and that has to happen from men or little will change since men are the great majority of the offenders. We have to step up and make it clear that we believe these stories, that we want the world to be different and better, and that we will take the steps we can to change it.
So I will join my voice to the chorus and say that I want a world where women are not sexually harassed and assaulted, and that I believe them when they say they are. It is not their fault, it is the fault of those harassing and assaulting them.
I will refuse to make excuses for predatory behaviour because the predator has other traits I admire. Just because I like what you make does not mean you are not doing something evil.
I will call out catcalling and other harassment. I will not let it slip by. I will not ignore misogyny when I see it, and I will examine my actions and thoughts for internalized misogyny to do my best to catch myself.
I will work hard to educate people, particularly young boys, to try to show them a better way to be so that they may do less harm than the generation before them.
When I screw up I will own it, apologize for it, and not do it again. I will not ask women do the emotional labour of coping with my apology or atonement.
I wish the world was a better place and these stories were not true. But they are true, and we must work to make there be less of them. I will work to recognize the mistakes of my past and do what I can do nudge the world toward a better future where people don't need to take to social media by the millions to post their stories of trauma and heartache just to get people to believe that there is a problem at all.
Awareness is great and useful but the real key is a commitment to change and that has to happen from men or little will change since men are the great majority of the offenders. We have to step up and make it clear that we believe these stories, that we want the world to be different and better, and that we will take the steps we can to change it.
So I will join my voice to the chorus and say that I want a world where women are not sexually harassed and assaulted, and that I believe them when they say they are. It is not their fault, it is the fault of those harassing and assaulting them.
I will refuse to make excuses for predatory behaviour because the predator has other traits I admire. Just because I like what you make does not mean you are not doing something evil.
I will call out catcalling and other harassment. I will not let it slip by. I will not ignore misogyny when I see it, and I will examine my actions and thoughts for internalized misogyny to do my best to catch myself.
I will work hard to educate people, particularly young boys, to try to show them a better way to be so that they may do less harm than the generation before them.
When I screw up I will own it, apologize for it, and not do it again. I will not ask women do the emotional labour of coping with my apology or atonement.
I wish the world was a better place and these stories were not true. But they are true, and we must work to make there be less of them. I will work to recognize the mistakes of my past and do what I can do nudge the world toward a better future where people don't need to take to social media by the millions to post their stories of trauma and heartache just to get people to believe that there is a problem at all.
Sunday, October 15, 2017
Giving Thanks
Thanksgiving this year had a new thing for me. It has been 15 years that I have been attending Thanksgiving events with Wendy's family and this year I did that again. But I also went to The Flautist's family Thanksgiving dinner too.
I don't care about Thanksgiving at all. I like the usual food that accompanies it but the day itself is utterly meaningless to me. Most holidays are that way for me, with the possible exception of Christmas since I have so many positive memories associated with it.
There are all kinds of things swirling about in this. I really like the idea of being a part of the family for someone I am dating but not married to. Doing this sort of thing makes me feel like I am part of a larger web and also that my relationships that don't include living together are more ... real somehow. Like there is an added legitimacy to it once you do things like go home for Thanksgiving dinner with a partner. I don't place all that much importance on that sort of recognition, but it is a thing I can't ignore. Meeting the family adds a level to a relationship that has impact whether we want it to or not.
The odd thing about that though is that I can't easily return the favour. My family lives far away and inviting someone for a family get together would usually involve a full week staying up north. That has the trouble of costing a bunch of money, requiring a serious time investment, and requires everyone to be around each other for a week.
Inviting partners home for family things has appeal but these logistical issues do make it a tricky affair. Plus there is always the potential struggle of navigating people's attitudes. Lots of poly people find that their partners are not invited to family affairs to cater to people's bigotry. I didn't feel that at all at The Flautist's Thanksgiving because people were welcoming to me, though of course I don't know what is actually going on inside their heads.
If I invited somebody home I don't know exactly how it would go. I know mostly everyone would be fine with it and most of the rest would be weirded out but polite. But there is at least one person who would not be okay with it, and I am pretty sure that no discussion on the matter could be fruitful. I won't hide and I won't lie, but I don't want to have a giant mess during a family get together either. My instinct is to just charge in and tell everyone to bloody well cope but inviting someone home for a week saying "Want to meet a ton of new people all at once, and oh by the way, this might be full of awkward tension." isn't ideal.
If my family was close by this would have been resolved by this point one way or another but the raw logistics have made it not a thing so far. Makes me wonder how long it will be before I have to really sit down and navigate the challenge of family vs. living outside the norm.
I don't care about Thanksgiving at all. I like the usual food that accompanies it but the day itself is utterly meaningless to me. Most holidays are that way for me, with the possible exception of Christmas since I have so many positive memories associated with it.
There are all kinds of things swirling about in this. I really like the idea of being a part of the family for someone I am dating but not married to. Doing this sort of thing makes me feel like I am part of a larger web and also that my relationships that don't include living together are more ... real somehow. Like there is an added legitimacy to it once you do things like go home for Thanksgiving dinner with a partner. I don't place all that much importance on that sort of recognition, but it is a thing I can't ignore. Meeting the family adds a level to a relationship that has impact whether we want it to or not.
The odd thing about that though is that I can't easily return the favour. My family lives far away and inviting someone for a family get together would usually involve a full week staying up north. That has the trouble of costing a bunch of money, requiring a serious time investment, and requires everyone to be around each other for a week.
Inviting partners home for family things has appeal but these logistical issues do make it a tricky affair. Plus there is always the potential struggle of navigating people's attitudes. Lots of poly people find that their partners are not invited to family affairs to cater to people's bigotry. I didn't feel that at all at The Flautist's Thanksgiving because people were welcoming to me, though of course I don't know what is actually going on inside their heads.
If I invited somebody home I don't know exactly how it would go. I know mostly everyone would be fine with it and most of the rest would be weirded out but polite. But there is at least one person who would not be okay with it, and I am pretty sure that no discussion on the matter could be fruitful. I won't hide and I won't lie, but I don't want to have a giant mess during a family get together either. My instinct is to just charge in and tell everyone to bloody well cope but inviting someone home for a week saying "Want to meet a ton of new people all at once, and oh by the way, this might be full of awkward tension." isn't ideal.
If my family was close by this would have been resolved by this point one way or another but the raw logistics have made it not a thing so far. Makes me wonder how long it will be before I have to really sit down and navigate the challenge of family vs. living outside the norm.
The end of 100
I just finished binge watching The 100 Season 4. (Massive spoilers ahead). While I was watching it was entirely clear to me that the show was ending. The last few episodes saw main characters being killed off at a rate that would make George RR Martin proud. All the plotlines were resolving themselves. Romances were coming to fruition. They even set up an ironic twist to how all the characters who were going to survive would manage to make it.
Then in a massive explosion filled final few minutes nearly the entire population of the earth was wiped out, the most important character in the series died saving her closest friends, and the story finished on a hopeful note despite all the tragedy.
And then somebody said "Oh shit! We have enough of an audience to keep cranking this stuff out for more money. Quick, find some way to have the main hero not die, and make up some ridiculous stuff to have a new season of the show!"
This show has had major changes in it every season, so massive shifts at the end of a season are the norm. Season 1 was Teenagers vs. The Wild. Season 2 was Teenagers vs. High Tech Underground Dwellers. Season 3 was Teenagers vs. Evil A.I. Season 4 was Teenagers vs. Wall of Fire. Each time the scope of the show shifted drastically and the characters' struggles were quite different. I liked that! It kept things fresh and new and while the later seasons were not nearly as tightly written as the first one I still enjoyed them.
But this is a whole different level. The story was done, finished. The ending felt right to me.
And here's the thing: I don't object to more seasons categorically. I enjoy the show, I want more of it. It is just that if you set up heroic deaths for characters and then have them shrug those off, and if you set up Total Apocalypse and then just fast forward past it, the big things you have set up fall completely flat.
A lot of the big emotional moments in this show, like any show, don't have world shattering stakes. When Finn dies in season 1 it is a big deal and the audience feels it despite the fact that it is just one person. You don't need an apocalypse to make us care, so if you use one you really ought to let it have the proper impact. What I am saying is, you don't need a wall of fire a kilometer tall that stretches from horizon to horizon to get me involved, but if you conjure up said wall of fire then you had damn well better let it burninate the countryside.
If I had just forgotten to watch the last four minutes of the show everything would have been fine! I would have been quite happy with the resolution and gone away thinking that finally somebody had the guts to end a show correctly. Faugh.
Then in a massive explosion filled final few minutes nearly the entire population of the earth was wiped out, the most important character in the series died saving her closest friends, and the story finished on a hopeful note despite all the tragedy.
And then somebody said "Oh shit! We have enough of an audience to keep cranking this stuff out for more money. Quick, find some way to have the main hero not die, and make up some ridiculous stuff to have a new season of the show!"
This show has had major changes in it every season, so massive shifts at the end of a season are the norm. Season 1 was Teenagers vs. The Wild. Season 2 was Teenagers vs. High Tech Underground Dwellers. Season 3 was Teenagers vs. Evil A.I. Season 4 was Teenagers vs. Wall of Fire. Each time the scope of the show shifted drastically and the characters' struggles were quite different. I liked that! It kept things fresh and new and while the later seasons were not nearly as tightly written as the first one I still enjoyed them.
But this is a whole different level. The story was done, finished. The ending felt right to me.
And here's the thing: I don't object to more seasons categorically. I enjoy the show, I want more of it. It is just that if you set up heroic deaths for characters and then have them shrug those off, and if you set up Total Apocalypse and then just fast forward past it, the big things you have set up fall completely flat.
A lot of the big emotional moments in this show, like any show, don't have world shattering stakes. When Finn dies in season 1 it is a big deal and the audience feels it despite the fact that it is just one person. You don't need an apocalypse to make us care, so if you use one you really ought to let it have the proper impact. What I am saying is, you don't need a wall of fire a kilometer tall that stretches from horizon to horizon to get me involved, but if you conjure up said wall of fire then you had damn well better let it burninate the countryside.
If I had just forgotten to watch the last four minutes of the show everything would have been fine! I would have been quite happy with the resolution and gone away thinking that finally somebody had the guts to end a show correctly. Faugh.
Wednesday, October 11, 2017
Getting the guns out
Recently there was a mass shooting in Las Vegas. 58 people died and hundreds were injured by a single person with a huge collection of guns. Gun control has been a huge topic on the internet as a result, and stocks in gun companies have shot up on the assumption that people will buy guns trying to get ahead of possible gun control laws.
The debate is a mess. Talking about it is tough because we get bogged down in details, when what most people want is for action to be taken that will change the status quo. For example, people will call for bans on assault rifles, not realizing that 'assault rifle' is not a well defined thing. What differentiates a semi automatic rifle from another one that is classed as an assault rifle but which is pretty much equally dangerous? Random details in the gun laws, that is the only practical difference. Ban assault rifles and gun manufacturers will just make new guns that are outside the definition of assault rifle and you are back to where you started.
It is true that 'ban all assault rifles' is nearly worthless as policy, but the trick is that gun regulations in general aren't particularly effective as policy. 25% of Canadian households have guns, and 38% of American ones do, and yet the mass shooting rate in the US is somewhere between 4 and 6 times higher, depending on how you count it. Most shootings don't include really powerful, large, military grade weapons either. The difference is less in the number of guns or who owns them, and more in the culture.
You can't legislate away the toxic masculinity that goes along with gun fetishization. You can't write a law that tells people that going out in a hail of bullets is pathetic rather than brave. You can try to write laws to get the most dangerous of the guns out of people's hands, but those are only going to be modestly effective, especially in a country like the US where there are already more guns than people.
What is actually necessary is a change in thinking.
The US needs it especially, but the rest of the world could use a dose of venerating nonviolence. The culture of honour that demands that you be able to defend yourself violently from attackers is incredibly destructive and it leads to all kinds of deaths, both deliberate and accidental.
We will get modest results at best from legislating away guns. We should still do it, but that isn't actually the thing that needs changing most urgently. The real culprit is the belief that having guns and using them makes you a big shot, powerful, worthy of respect.
"Ban assault rifles" is not useful policy. This is true. But the appropriate response to such a statement isn't "Bah, we can't define this correctly, so we shouldn't bother."
The appropriate response is "Guns are a problem, so I am going to get rid of my guns, and so should everyone else."
When people minds have changed, and guns are seen as the problem rather than the solution, then the laws will change with them pretty nearly effortlessly.
As to how to convince the gun enthusiasts to come around en masse and advocate for a gun free society... I don't have a lot of good answers for that. I wish I did.
The debate is a mess. Talking about it is tough because we get bogged down in details, when what most people want is for action to be taken that will change the status quo. For example, people will call for bans on assault rifles, not realizing that 'assault rifle' is not a well defined thing. What differentiates a semi automatic rifle from another one that is classed as an assault rifle but which is pretty much equally dangerous? Random details in the gun laws, that is the only practical difference. Ban assault rifles and gun manufacturers will just make new guns that are outside the definition of assault rifle and you are back to where you started.
It is true that 'ban all assault rifles' is nearly worthless as policy, but the trick is that gun regulations in general aren't particularly effective as policy. 25% of Canadian households have guns, and 38% of American ones do, and yet the mass shooting rate in the US is somewhere between 4 and 6 times higher, depending on how you count it. Most shootings don't include really powerful, large, military grade weapons either. The difference is less in the number of guns or who owns them, and more in the culture.
You can't legislate away the toxic masculinity that goes along with gun fetishization. You can't write a law that tells people that going out in a hail of bullets is pathetic rather than brave. You can try to write laws to get the most dangerous of the guns out of people's hands, but those are only going to be modestly effective, especially in a country like the US where there are already more guns than people.
What is actually necessary is a change in thinking.
The US needs it especially, but the rest of the world could use a dose of venerating nonviolence. The culture of honour that demands that you be able to defend yourself violently from attackers is incredibly destructive and it leads to all kinds of deaths, both deliberate and accidental.
We will get modest results at best from legislating away guns. We should still do it, but that isn't actually the thing that needs changing most urgently. The real culprit is the belief that having guns and using them makes you a big shot, powerful, worthy of respect.
"Ban assault rifles" is not useful policy. This is true. But the appropriate response to such a statement isn't "Bah, we can't define this correctly, so we shouldn't bother."
The appropriate response is "Guns are a problem, so I am going to get rid of my guns, and so should everyone else."
When people minds have changed, and guns are seen as the problem rather than the solution, then the laws will change with them pretty nearly effortlessly.
As to how to convince the gun enthusiasts to come around en masse and advocate for a gun free society... I don't have a lot of good answers for that. I wish I did.
Tuesday, October 10, 2017
Sleep is dangerous
Yesterday I was looking at a picture of myself from my wedding day. The difference in my appearance from then to now was momentarily shocking. The usual things have changed - my hairline has receded a lot, my hair has gone from solid brown to salt and pepper, and I have a few extra lines on my face. Like a lot of people I guess these changes snuck up on me, and only seeing an example of myself before I really had any signs of aging made it hit home.
Those things don't bother me though. If a beautician fairy showed up and offered to give me back hair and make it brown again I wouldn't take them up on it. This is me now. Those changes are the marks of my life, the way my body has become different in response to all the things I have done and experienced. That younger version of me isn't really me anymore. (If the fairy offered to get rid of my acne, I would take that in a *second*. Other things, probably not.)
The thing I really notice though is how slowly I heal. Near the end of August I slept oddly on my hand and it has been messed up ever since. In the time span from then to now I have done lots of really heavy physical labour, worked out to the point of failure and exhaustion many times, paddled a canoe for hours and tossed a canoe up on my shoulders, and any number of other things that might hurt me. But no, the injury that continues to plague me is a sore wrist I got from sleeping wrong.
In years gone past this wouldn't have stuck with me like this. A silly injury like that would have just faded away in no time. But now it takes me a long time to get past it and even though it has been a month and a half the healing isn't done. I am nearly there, I think, but I can still feel it when I stretch my hand around to test its boundaries; the injury isn't gone yet.
It makes me wonder about my workout regimen, and how it will affect me long term. Being in shape is a good way to avoid injuries, but lifting heavy weights and really pushing myself to greater feats of strength is likely to cause injuries instead.
Anyone that knows me well probably assumes that I am not the least interested it taking it easy in my workouts and just maintaining what I have. That assumption is correct. I am going to push myself to get bigger, stronger, and more, or I am going to not bother. That isn't what a doctor would advise I expect, but I know how I am.
I suppose I ought to be thinking about this whole healing thing carefully though. Injuries I would have laughed off fifteen years ago are likely to be a lot more of a problem now, and trying to avoid them makes sense.
If only I was the sort of person who was willing or interested in doing that.
Which, to be sure, I am not. I am kind of stupid that way.
Those things don't bother me though. If a beautician fairy showed up and offered to give me back hair and make it brown again I wouldn't take them up on it. This is me now. Those changes are the marks of my life, the way my body has become different in response to all the things I have done and experienced. That younger version of me isn't really me anymore. (If the fairy offered to get rid of my acne, I would take that in a *second*. Other things, probably not.)
The thing I really notice though is how slowly I heal. Near the end of August I slept oddly on my hand and it has been messed up ever since. In the time span from then to now I have done lots of really heavy physical labour, worked out to the point of failure and exhaustion many times, paddled a canoe for hours and tossed a canoe up on my shoulders, and any number of other things that might hurt me. But no, the injury that continues to plague me is a sore wrist I got from sleeping wrong.
In years gone past this wouldn't have stuck with me like this. A silly injury like that would have just faded away in no time. But now it takes me a long time to get past it and even though it has been a month and a half the healing isn't done. I am nearly there, I think, but I can still feel it when I stretch my hand around to test its boundaries; the injury isn't gone yet.
It makes me wonder about my workout regimen, and how it will affect me long term. Being in shape is a good way to avoid injuries, but lifting heavy weights and really pushing myself to greater feats of strength is likely to cause injuries instead.
Anyone that knows me well probably assumes that I am not the least interested it taking it easy in my workouts and just maintaining what I have. That assumption is correct. I am going to push myself to get bigger, stronger, and more, or I am going to not bother. That isn't what a doctor would advise I expect, but I know how I am.
I suppose I ought to be thinking about this whole healing thing carefully though. Injuries I would have laughed off fifteen years ago are likely to be a lot more of a problem now, and trying to avoid them makes sense.
If only I was the sort of person who was willing or interested in doing that.
Which, to be sure, I am not. I am kind of stupid that way.
Tuesday, October 3, 2017
Pushing and Pulling
One of the standard ways to go about organizing your weight lifting is Push, Pull, Legs. That is, you operate on a 3 day cycle where you focus on exercises that involve pushing with your arms, pulling with your arms, and then leg exercises of all sorts. For my entire eighteen month workout career I have been trying to do all of my upper body exercises in a single day and it eventually became a problem. As my weights went up the amount of time it took to do everything kept increasing and my state when I was done kept deteriorating.
Over the past little while I would finish my upper body day in about 90 minutes and just collapse in front of my computer for an hour. I was stunned, unable to do much of anything. My muscles were strong enough to handle the new weights, but the amount of energy I was outputting had become a problem.
I decided to split up my exercises into two rough Push / Pull groups and see if I could get them done faster and feel better afterwards. When the weights were smaller I could get the whole routine done in an hour so I assumed breaking it up like this would mean I could do my 90 minute workout in two 30 minute chunks over two days. Heck, with doing half of the work on any given day I felt like maybe my weights or reps would go up.
It turns out I can't, and they didn't. I get through it in 30 minutes no problem but I can't do the same number of reps I was before. Even though I am doing half the work in a given workout I am compressing my exercises much closer together and this is a problem. I do circuit style training where I do a single set of every exercise and then do another single set, so my sets of dips, for example, would be about 30 minutes apart. Now that I am doing dips 3 times in 30 minutes my dips sets are only 10 minutes apart and I just can't keep up my rep numbers.
I certainly found that the 30 minute workouts leave me feeling more energized. Instead of feeling like I need to just stand there like a zombie for an hour I need only a few minutes and I can get back into whatever it was I was doing before.
I find it funny that I am so bad at predicting my body's limits. I would have thought that after all these years I would have developed some kind of decent ability to know what tires me out and how, but apparently even something simple like figuring out whether splitting out my pushes and pulls will tire me out more or less is beyond my ability to know.
I suppose it is an opportunity to know myself better. I could just spend a full 90 minutes doing my pushes and see where my reps numbers are at, obviously with a huge amount of resting in between each set. Then try it at 45 minutes for the full workout.
Time to do some more science.
Over the past little while I would finish my upper body day in about 90 minutes and just collapse in front of my computer for an hour. I was stunned, unable to do much of anything. My muscles were strong enough to handle the new weights, but the amount of energy I was outputting had become a problem.
I decided to split up my exercises into two rough Push / Pull groups and see if I could get them done faster and feel better afterwards. When the weights were smaller I could get the whole routine done in an hour so I assumed breaking it up like this would mean I could do my 90 minute workout in two 30 minute chunks over two days. Heck, with doing half of the work on any given day I felt like maybe my weights or reps would go up.
It turns out I can't, and they didn't. I get through it in 30 minutes no problem but I can't do the same number of reps I was before. Even though I am doing half the work in a given workout I am compressing my exercises much closer together and this is a problem. I do circuit style training where I do a single set of every exercise and then do another single set, so my sets of dips, for example, would be about 30 minutes apart. Now that I am doing dips 3 times in 30 minutes my dips sets are only 10 minutes apart and I just can't keep up my rep numbers.
I certainly found that the 30 minute workouts leave me feeling more energized. Instead of feeling like I need to just stand there like a zombie for an hour I need only a few minutes and I can get back into whatever it was I was doing before.
I find it funny that I am so bad at predicting my body's limits. I would have thought that after all these years I would have developed some kind of decent ability to know what tires me out and how, but apparently even something simple like figuring out whether splitting out my pushes and pulls will tire me out more or less is beyond my ability to know.
I suppose it is an opportunity to know myself better. I could just spend a full 90 minutes doing my pushes and see where my reps numbers are at, obviously with a huge amount of resting in between each set. Then try it at 45 minutes for the full workout.
Time to do some more science.
Sunday, October 1, 2017
Take most of it off
Yesterday I went to a burlesque show. I think most people would assume it would be the sort of thing I would like. I like sex, I like naked people, and this show was about women taking off most of their clothes and singing raunchy songs.
It didn't do it for me.
This has nothing to do with the performers. I think they did a good job. It has nothing to do with them, and everything to do with me. The first burlesque show I saw many years ago was the same thing - I went to see Spins and she did a fantastic performance that I enjoyed because it showcased her talent and athleticism. But the rest was a total bore in that it did nothing for me though again the performers seemed to do a fine job doing a thing I just don't care about.
I think the problem here is my dual nature again. Director is pretty much asexual, and just doesn't care about naked people. He likes the theory of nudity and the destruction of social norms surrounding clothes but the sexiness of the show slides right off. Director can admire the skill of the performers or the structure of the show but the sex just fails to sell.
Passion loves sex. But Passion has no interest whatsoever in sitting passively while a sexy show occurs. If I could masturbate, or have sex with somebody else while the show was going, or have sex with the performers, any of these would make it all work quite well. But to just sit there? Fuck that noise. No interest. Call me when it gets exciting.
The problem is that one of the two has to be in charge. Director gets nothing out of the show, but Passion isn't interested, and when that happens Director ends up driving. I end up watching the show disinterestedly, clapping at the points I know I am supposed to, but mostly watching a show that is trying to do one thing simply doesn't work on me. I end up being Director, coldly examining the show, bored.
I suppose it doesn't help that the two times I have seen burlesque the volume was cranked up *way* too high for me and I found it quite unpleasant. I often cringed at a peak of noise and it felt almost like physical pain. I am way more sensitive to noise than most people I guess, and this certainly made the experience a poorer one. I doubt though that a quiet show would have worked for me but it would have been less jarring.
Perhaps this also explains why I have never had interest in stripteases. I don't like teases. Director doesn't get it, and Passion has no fucking time for just sitting there. He wants to DO, not observe.
Long term I guess it is good to know what I want. I am one of those people who loves sex, but isn't interested in vaguely sexy things, or sexy teasing, or sexy shows. I want sex, itself, in all its meaty goodness. Or not. But the halfway in between thing really isn't my cup of tea.
It didn't do it for me.
This has nothing to do with the performers. I think they did a good job. It has nothing to do with them, and everything to do with me. The first burlesque show I saw many years ago was the same thing - I went to see Spins and she did a fantastic performance that I enjoyed because it showcased her talent and athleticism. But the rest was a total bore in that it did nothing for me though again the performers seemed to do a fine job doing a thing I just don't care about.
I think the problem here is my dual nature again. Director is pretty much asexual, and just doesn't care about naked people. He likes the theory of nudity and the destruction of social norms surrounding clothes but the sexiness of the show slides right off. Director can admire the skill of the performers or the structure of the show but the sex just fails to sell.
Passion loves sex. But Passion has no interest whatsoever in sitting passively while a sexy show occurs. If I could masturbate, or have sex with somebody else while the show was going, or have sex with the performers, any of these would make it all work quite well. But to just sit there? Fuck that noise. No interest. Call me when it gets exciting.
The problem is that one of the two has to be in charge. Director gets nothing out of the show, but Passion isn't interested, and when that happens Director ends up driving. I end up watching the show disinterestedly, clapping at the points I know I am supposed to, but mostly watching a show that is trying to do one thing simply doesn't work on me. I end up being Director, coldly examining the show, bored.
I suppose it doesn't help that the two times I have seen burlesque the volume was cranked up *way* too high for me and I found it quite unpleasant. I often cringed at a peak of noise and it felt almost like physical pain. I am way more sensitive to noise than most people I guess, and this certainly made the experience a poorer one. I doubt though that a quiet show would have worked for me but it would have been less jarring.
Perhaps this also explains why I have never had interest in stripteases. I don't like teases. Director doesn't get it, and Passion has no fucking time for just sitting there. He wants to DO, not observe.
Long term I guess it is good to know what I want. I am one of those people who loves sex, but isn't interested in vaguely sexy things, or sexy teasing, or sexy shows. I want sex, itself, in all its meaty goodness. Or not. But the halfway in between thing really isn't my cup of tea.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)