I took all I could stands, I can't stands no more!

I promised myself that I was going to sit January out and not go to the gym. The date of my last attendance was December 27th. Old hands told me that it wasn't a bad strategy.

But I could feel the weakness returning and I decided I couldn't stand feeling the sluggish downhill course anymore. So I went. The results are mixed. I've backslid on my biceps, from 35lbs down to 27.5, but I can still do shoulders at 50lbs and am still moving 95lbs with my abs and 120 with my back. I'm able to do the full workout and didn't feel too bad about it: as long as I have my MP3 player and some water, I seem to be in good shape. I should ride my bicycle more: my aerobic level is poor, as in I either have the heart of a 10 year old or I'm not doing enough cardiac work. I could be better-- much better-- but at least I'm not totally lost to sloth and gluttony.

I've also noticed that on days when I work out, I'm not tempted to drink soda pop. The past three weeks I've been tracking a slow increase in soda pop consumption, from a token pop when eating out middlebrow all the way up to a 20oz bottle a day. When I'm going to the gym twice a week, the "being conscious and happy about my body" thing seems to last for a couple of days and I don't drink pop.

While I was in the locker room I encountered a sadly commonplace species of human male: the cad. Rather, three of them all in their mid to late '30s, discussing the "girl at the coffee place in the basement" (must not be my building, thank Horus) who "I'd guess is 27, 28," like a piece of meat, one of them egging the other on to "get her to give you a good time so I can live vicariously through you."

Good grief. I need more characters like that in the Journal Entries, ya think?

Cute. Weird, but cute. Not Safe for Work

I'm a fan of Shibari, although I don't get to practice it nearly often enough. Which is why I'm highly entertained by this very cute how-to for the fundamentals of the rope harness.

In a vaguely related story, the body pillow has been for sale in the U.S. for a long time, a pillow at least four feet in length that allows you to choose the angle at which you sleep. In Japan, body pillow cases with popular anime characters have been available for years; when I was watching Mai HiME I became aware of them for both Natsuki and Mai, although the $55 price tag put me off (as would Omaha's probable reaction). Some of the pillow cases on the following site are rather disturbing (think: the pillow cases are four feet long) but some of them are just plain strange. In Japan, the various flavors of Microsoft products have their own anime mascots which leads me to wonder: who would want to cuddle up to Windows XP?

[Edit] For those of you who don't read French, there's a link in the text to a much bigger pic of the Shibari.