I decided to buy P90X because I am a person who has been unofficially diagnosed as Frickin’ Crazy which can be a life-threatening illness. It means when someone has lots of time on her hands, pretty much the first thing she thinks of is HOW CAN I FILL IT WITH STUFF? And then the next thought is STUFF LIKE INTENSE CARDIOVASCULAR ACTIVITY AND WEIGHT TRAINING!!! SQUEE!

I’m not really into talking about my physical fitness because uh, I never want to be that person and 2) in 6th grade, I tried to do a scissor kick on the balance beam in gym class and slipped, falling onto the floor, breaking both my left wrist and right ankle at the same time.

I guess what I’m saying is, I’m not really the kind of person people go to for anything related to physical activity.

Oh wait, also? There was that time I nearly fell off the treadmill at the gym.

I’m making my point, right?

In high school, my exercise was limited to going nuts dancing the original choreography of “Born To Hand Jive” from Grease at various Sweet 16 parties. Trust me, I had tons of friends, you guys. (I didn’t.)

I believe I actually started jogging in high school too but that was for no reason other than to listen to the Dixie Chicks’ “Fly” on my Discman.

(Oh, God. I am admitting all kinds of adolescent awkwardness right now, yeah? IS NOTHING SACRED? Well, no.)

In college, I found out what it’s like to get your ass kicked by physical activity. This is called “Getting a BFA in Music Theatre” AKA taking hours and hours of dance classes back to back to back. I was one of few students who went to college and actually lost weight. (Until I found a new boyfriend and we discovered a mutual shared activity called “Eatings Lots of Stuff Late At Night”.)

BUT THE POINT IS, thanks to that rigorous kind of physical activity, ever since then, I have incorporated exercise into my daily routine because frankly, it feels weird not to. And now you want to punch me in the face. I know. I’m sorry. I just like it. I like running and I like taking yoga and sweating a lot and when someone is all THAT TEACHER IS THE HARDEST CRAZIEST PERSON, I’m all SIGN ME UP because I WANT THAT.

Like I said, it’s an illness, really.

When I lost my job, I realized I could maybe get involved with an exercise routine that previously had seemed too time consuming.

Enter: P90X.

Each workout is about an hour and you are supposed to do at least one work out six days a week.

So, um. YEAH.

Have any of you guys done this?

The first day, I was all OH PLEASE HOW HARD COULD IT BE?

And then I read the words “You will need a pull up bar for this DVD” and I was all A PULL UP BAR? WHAT NO SAVE ME HELP.

So I ordered a pull up bar.

And I installed it in my doorway.

And with the help of a chair underneath me, I successfully completed the P90X “Chest and Back” DVD which basically involves doing lots of pull ups and then dropping to the ground to do lots of push ups and you just repeat this, over and over forever until you die.

And can I just say, people?

That two days after the fact, I cannot lift my arms higher than shoulder height?

That I just downed two Aleve because the pain is so intense and yeah, I guess I overdid it because guess who has never done a pull up in her life and then tried to do 1,000 of them?

MEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

(This is the part of this post where my mom slams her head down in front of her laptop and ventures a HOW DID I GIVE BIRTH TO SUCH A PERSON?)

And yes, I have been sort of rolling around in agony because I am incapable of not whining about things that happen to me. And maybe I offered people cash money to rub my back. Yeah, even homeless people on the subway, SO WHAT? MY BACK FREAKING HURTS.

But there’s a part of me that LOVES THAT FEELING.

That totally sore, wiped out feeling because it means I’m working my muscles in a way they don’t normally work and GOSH doesn’t that feel good because I feel STRONG and POWERFUL and as soon as I can get out of bed without crying, I AM GOING TO BE SERIOUSLY AMAZING.

RIGHT?

Um. Soon.

Just not.

Now.

Okay. Carry on. Etc.