Don’t know what made me think of her, but Linda Hamilton popped into my head earlier this evening — specifically as Sarah Connor in T2. The first movie was definitely cool, and I dug the first iteration of her character there (instant crush for a 15-year-old in 1984, that’s for sure), but it was in T2 in 1991 (man, 14 years ago now) that she really ingrained herself in my head as one of those Strong Women archetypes. Nowadays we think nothing of seeing buff women — still looking feminine but fit as hell at the same time. At the time, though, it was a hell of a revelation. She became kind of a poster child/icon for women and fitness freaks, a role which, I gather from some reading I did this evening, she didn’t really want. She also dealt with manic-depression most of her life until finally going on meds.
The original context of my doing some Googling on her was for the workouts she was doing to prepare for T2 — crazy hours-long workouts, six days a week, with a lot of cardio and a special diet to drop pounds (she had just had a child not that long before, too), not to mention military/weapons training. It was worthwhile as far as the movie goes.
On the lhow.com site, where I spent the most time reading, I found an article that had some basic information on workouts to develop the upper body, variations on what she did during her pre-T2 training.
Among the three workouts, the first was much too mild for my needs, the third was too over the top right now, but the second would fit right in to my current three-days-a-week gym activities. And the exercises seem adaptable to the machines and stand-alones I’d want to use down there. I’m keen to begin next week on the true torso work. More than anything, the article was helpful in winnowing down the overload of information I’ve got in my head.
I’ve spent some time over the past couple of days paring down some of my computer interactions, specifically with regard to email and news aggregation feeds, as well as giving both longer delays between checks. The regular distraction had to be brought under control, not to mention the constant less-than-useful infodump. Bah, who needs it?
In a way I’m clearing mental space, I think for the next phase of the year: in exercise, in writing, family life, and new work projects. This will also hopefully lessen my automatically reaching for the laptop to “check the news” (too easily done with wireless at home) rather than a book. Or for writing on the laptop, for that matter.
After 10 years on the Internet, I guess you could say the novelty has worn off.
More to the point, I don’t want to substitute one screen for another; having pared down television watching drastically, I don’t want to simply take up that time with THE COMPUTER.
Need more time? Find the hours. It’s really easy.
Now, having said that, I had intended to do some novel work tonight, but got that workout research done instead — which is perfectly fine. The novel’s planning push may be waiting until the weekend, or at least until tomorrow… er, today. :) Time to hit the sack. Probably past time. At least I’ve gotten some things back on track after the silly day.
All right, really time for bed. More later.
For some reason, despite getting quite a bit done this relatively uneventful week, it’s been hard to maintain a good mood all week long. Not really sure what it’s about. One hypothesis is lower calories due to more exercise. I felt pretty great after the gym, so I’m hoping tonight is the same.
At the same time, I’ve felt quite good about getting on a gym schedule, new thinking on the book, work planning, and other things.
Most mornings this week my AM routine has been interrupted or impaired in some way, usually by stuff going on in the house. I’ve come to really enjoy my quiet mornings, and perhaps rely on them to some degree to set the tone for the day. Not sure what the solution is.
Interestingly, on that workout list, there aren’t any specifically ab-oriented exercises. I guess that’s where the gentle back exercises mentioned on the torso page would come in eventually.
Later today I’m going to try correlating that list with what will be available at the gym, machine-wise.
I also need to figure out some notebook solution for taking to the gym and keeping track of things in — something easily accessible that will stand up to some sweat and abuse. I was thinking possible a smaller Moleskine, but I’m still not sure. Mostly I’ll need this for keeping track of the weights and reps. Need to figure this out over the weekend for the Monday workout.
Leaving pretty soon to walk the pooch. A little later, it’s off to the gym.
Hans and Denyse are heading out tonight, so I’ll have the house to myself if they follow through on the plan.
My wiki obsession is returning, but more the web-based variety than VoodooPad. Must resist. Body strong, mind weak. ;)
I’m down to 46 feeds in NetNewsWire and want to try to keep it under 50. This is very cool. I’ve also changed it to 1-hour checks. Changed email over to every 30 minutes, then hitting it manually if I’m in the middle of a “conversation” with someone. Basically just trying to minimize the distractions. Plus it gets to be addictively time-consuming “checking the news.”
Gym kicked my butt. :)
Downloaded and installed Wikka Wakka Wiki just now. PHP/MySQL-based wiki software. wiki.metroblogging.com uses it, which is where I heard about it. Severely easy install. So far so good. Not sure exactly why I felt the need, but I do that occasionally — did PHPwiki and a few others last year.
Anyhow, I’m playing with a local wiki, hoping that will satiate my wiki obsession for the time being.
Became aware tonight of certain bones being more prominent “all of a sudden” — been taking place slowly as the fat goes away, but the awareness was sudden. Cheekbones are where it started, fingers, knees. Kinda cool. :)
I was trying to remember the process just prior to beginning NaNoWriMo last year. I’ve got the journal either on the hard drive here or on disk or both — I can go back and check it out. I remember first off trying to decide whether to participate or not. :) Between then and beginning writing is a bit fuzzy. I feel some of that need to jump off the diving board into the pool without too much looking. Chomping at the bit.
Today is Pharaoh’s 10-month birthday. :)
