Jun 19 2012

Law Firm Walking Challenge: Part 2

Friday morning, Chooch had to follow me around the house just to have a conversation with me. Poor kid. But he knows that mommy is trying to win, you guys. So he doesn’t complain too much. Besides, he’s known me for 6 years. If he doesn’t know by now that his mom isn’t normal, then I want a refund because this kid’s defective. And then Henry drove me to work, so since I missed all those crucial steps walking to the trolley station, I made Henry drop me off a retardedly far-away distance from the Law Firm so I could try and make up for some of that. There was a time when I would have been concerned about getting sweaty before work. But then I got this fucking pedometer.

Toward the end of the night, my sanity suffered a schism and I just lost it, completely cracked up alone to the point of tears, and then I realized that I hadn’t eaten anything other than an apple, almonds and air all day. Amber2 tried to give me an apple but I turned it down because:

  1. It was green
  2. The last time I ate two apples back-to-back, I got sick
  3. It was green

Henry and Chooch met me downtown after work that night because Chooch wanted to see some furries at Anthrocon; thanks to all the furry-chasing that day, I accumulated 23,000 without even trying,  because in addition to walking to and from the furries, we also had to walk home from the trolley stop. The downside to this was that it was after 10:00PM and I had still barely eaten. I wanted to get something to eat downtown, but Henry kept saying, “There’s nowhere down here to eat!”

Oh. OK.

I guess all those places we passed walking down Liberty Avenue were just selling food-scented oxygen to taunt all the hobos and psychotic girls with walking obsessions.

There’s an Eat n Park down the street from our house, so Henry said we could just eat there since we have to walk right past it after getting off the trolley. By this point, Henry’s face was looking like a fine protein substitute, but I followed him into Eat n Park anyway, where I then ended up sitting for an embarrassingly unacceptable amount of time waiting for one of their lethargic waitresses to take our drink order. Henry knew it was coming, he had to have known, after 11 years of being my lesser half. In a terse, yet highly enraged tone, I demanded that he hand over the house keys, because it was no longer humanly possible for me to sit there another minute without food in my face.

“Please don’t do this,” he begged. “Oh god, not here, please not here.” But then I flew off the handle about how he was trying to control me (three days later, I can now see the absurdity in that claim) so he quietly handed me the keys before everyone in the restaurant became privy to the dysfunction at table 15 and I stormed off, marching like a strung out maniac the whole way home, where I made a sloppy and highly uninspired cheese sandwich which I ate so fast I didn’t even taste it, not even the eight times I choked on it. Then I collapsed into bed and was asleep before Chooch and Henry even came home.  I can’t remember the last time I went to bed before 11:00PM, but I can guarantee it would have had something to do with a fever and/or rufies in my drink. So that is how exhausted I was.

***

I had been anxiously awaiting Day 6 all week because that was the day I was going to hit 30,000 steps.

That morning in bed, Henry reminded me what a bitch I was the night before and said that this walking challenge was probably going to break us up. Then when he went to lovingly spoon me (it happens sometimes), he pulled back and said, “Oh my god, did you sleep with your pedometer on?” after feeling it on the waistband of my pajama shorts.

“Um yeah. What if I had to get up to pee?!” I exclaimed defensively.

“I can’t be with you right now,” he mumbled and got out of bed.

Anyway, what a perfect day it was! Henry and Chooch were gone for most of it, opting to help our Castle Blood friends move stuff to their new location (and by that I mean Henry helped while Chooch drove everyone crazy, I’m sure). I went straight to my favorite cemetery and basically did my usual, pre-walking challenge routine and racked up 10,000 steps by noon. It was really hot out there, which I love, but I figured I should go home and maybe rest for a little bit, since I literally had the rest of the day to do nothing but walk. Honestly, when people at work asked me what I was doing that weekend, I looked at them like they were stupid and said, “Uh, walking.” The standard response to that was a sarcastic, “Oh yeah. Duh.”

I am going to be the loneliest person at the Law Firm by the time this challenge is over.

After about two hours of sporadic and intense pacing around the house while listening to a playlist of Drake and The Weeknd (I pace so hard that it actually counts as aerobic steps), I decided to take my show onto the streets of Brookline. Talked to Christina for a few minutes while I power-walked, and she said she was glad I decided to stop hating her just in time for her to come to my funeral. She knows me way too well.

It was even hotter by then, and of course I picked the parts of town with the steepest hills because I’m a sado-masochist. I murdered the pavement until the number on my pedometer seemed adequate, and then made my way back home. This is where things got weird: I was feeling a little spacey by the time I got to my house, so I decided to sit down on my front steps for a little bit before entering  my un-air-conditioned house. The next thing I knew, I was waking up on my front porch. I’m not sure if I fell asleep or passed out, and there was ringing in my ears, but yay—20,000 steps!

I went inside and drank lots of water. Then I laid silently on the couch for awhile, staring at the ceiling.

Henry and Chooch came home around 7:00PM with dinner. (That’s how you know I’m totally preoccupied with this—I allowed Henry to be apart from me for nine and a half hours on a weekend and not once did I call him and demand him to drop everything and come back to me. I mean, not that I have ever done that. Shit, I’m not that kind of a girl.) At the sight of me pacing, the phrase, “You’re a fucking idiot” came out of Henry’s mouth 87 different ways. Later that night, Chooch was being a royal backseat brat on the way home from Target, so I had Henry pull over about a mile away from home and I walked the rest of the way. Thanks for the motivation, son.

I was so close to reaching 30,000 by the time Chooch went to bed that night, but Henry said he refused to watch Pretty Little Liars with me if I was pacing. So I actually had to be still for a little while. As soon as it was over though, I back to moving frenetically until the numbers of my pedometer finally flipped to 30,000. Henry made me sit down for the last 55 minutes of the night because I was “making [him] nervous.”

I asked Henry if he thought I would lose any weight doing this and he muttered, “Yeah, while you’re in the hospital.”

My grand total that day, thanks to Henry keeping me down, was 30,139. It proved that my ultimate goal of 50,000 might be slightly out of my reach, though. BUT I WILL STILL TRY.

MAYBE.

***

 We were at Kennywood for Day 7 and I was absolutely panic-stricken that I wouldn’t continue my 20,000 streak. That’s really all I’m asking. Henry rejected my plan to “get up super early” and walk around the cemetery for 10,000 steps pre-Kennywood, because he didn’t want me to be a bitch that day.

Do you know how excruciating it is to stand in a line for a ride when your body is not used to being at rest? Oh my god, I had the shakes. I did mini-laps whenever I could, since my Kennywood crew spent so much time milling about and strolling.

STROLLING.

On every ride, I would pat down my right side and scream, “MY PEDOMETER!” before realizing it was still there. On some rides, I even left it in the “Leave At Your Own Risk” box with everyone else’s keys, phones, and glasses. My precious pedometer.

Even during a slight drama-laden glitch in the day, I heard T-Pain’s vocoder-voice whisper in my ear, “Walk it out.” And so I did, 20,053 times.

***

Yesterday, Day 8, I came close to failing. I didn’t have a chance to do much before work, so I didn’t get there with my usual 10,000-11,000 like I had been doing last week.  So once all the day shift people left, I just started doing laps around the department under the ruse of  “Oh, I just want to use the other scanner that’s the furthest from where I sit.” I think my fellow late-shift co-workers  saw right through my subterfuge though, because they all know I’m going insane over this. When people at work ask me questions about my step-collecting, I can hear myself answering in this crazed, hyper voice, but I can’t make it stop.

At one point during the night, Carey asked me if I my computer was running slow.

“No,” I answered. “You know why? Because I walk so fast.”

“Asshole,” she mumbled from her office.

That night, I had to put on my professional walking attire and hit the streets of Brookline. I really didn’t want to because Brookline sucks at night (also see Brookline sucking during: the day, dusk, sunrise, Christmas morning, Memorial Day, summer, winter, fall, spring, your grandma’s cat’s birthday, everyday) but I powered on past loitering teenagers at the heckle-ready, drunk people staggering along the Boulevard’s sidewalk, and someone with a smoker’s voice screaming through his phone at his mom that he was on his way home so shut the fuck up, and when I turned around, I discovered it was actually a boy somewhere between 10 and 12 and not actually my old meth-addict neighbor Robin.

I will only stay on the main drag of Brookline at night, which is still scary in spite of all the street lights and constant witnesses (i.e. traffic), so I still needed about 4,000 more steps when I returned home, which meant it was Master Chef Pacing Time.

Henry came out of the kitchen and said, “Wait….now you’re holding weights above your head while you pace?”

“I wanted to make it harder,” I panted.

Henry sat on the couch for the first 5 minutes, before saying, “I can’t watch this anymore,” and retreating to bed. I made it to 20,000 with 30 minutes left to the day. This shit is not getting any easier.

8 comments

8 Comments so far

  1. Nina One and Only June 19th, 2012 8:20 am

    I can’t believe you wore it to bed!!! I cried when I read that!! :)

  2. kendahl June 19th, 2012 11:32 am

    This is awesome. I want to buy a pedometer and start marching around, tracking steps and turning it into a competition with anyone I can walk next to. You’ve inspired me!

  3. Jamie June 19th, 2012 11:51 am

    EK- what might if your team loses this thing? Just want to have the heads up!!!!!

  4. Tuna Tar-Tart June 19th, 2012 12:05 pm

    Oh man, I don’t even care anymore! I have transcended to the point where it’s me against myself.

  5. Laura June 19th, 2012 12:46 pm

    If I knew this was on the verge of breaking you and Henry up I wouldn’t have told you to do laps at Kennywood. =)
    What are you going to do when the challenge is over?

  6. Tuna Tar-Tart June 19th, 2012 12:56 pm

    I’m going to Disneyland!

    No, I’ll probably just keep walking. Maybe not as maniacally. 15,000 steps a day, maybe. ;)

  7. Laura June 19th, 2012 4:45 pm

    Do you get to keep the pedometer?

  8. Henry June 23rd, 2012 6:02 pm

    She gets to keep the pedometer,it might “accidentally ” fall on the floor and get smashed, no shatter into a billion pieces.

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