Aside from the slices of cantaloupe (and honeydew melon I had already consumed), my holiday plate was full of delicious rubbish consisting of:
It’s likely there was a cookie on here, too. But I must have nibbled it up before this shot, which was taken after I realized that today’s 50 minutes of stinky cardio will not be worth a damn.
Early in my relationship with Ben, he explained to me his 20-minute rule.
Basically, in St. Louis,” he said, “If you can’t get somewhere within 20 minutes, then it’s probably not a place worth visiting.”
It just so happens that because of the second phase of a year-long highway shutdown, my daily commute downtown has become 35 minutes long — further proof that work isn’t a place worth visiting.
So what if it’s not a word; the truth is that there are at least two people acting as my conscience.
News got out recently (likely from my big mouth) that I’ve implemented an exercise routine. Now I’m being held to it.
My co-worker Julie piped up yesterday around 2:30 in the afternoon to ask, “Minal Gandhi, did you go work out today?”
There was a pause. And then a look — from me to her, and vice versa.
She raised her eyebrows in a no-nonsense manner, waiting for me to respond.
“Umm, no…?” I said finally, trying to make my guilt sound adorable.
I wasn’t successful.
Julie told me that I never should’ve let her know about my fitness goal, because now she’s going to check in regulary to ask whether I made my promised visit to the company’s gym. This was after she revealed that she’s been exercising every day since March (or was it May?) and that she’s lost 30 pounds altogether thus far. She added also that she gets up around 5 each morning to get her workout in.
I sat there quietly for several minutes — vexed.
And then, a half-hour later, I was sweating on a treadmill.
Even if my conscience isn’t effective, I can at least say I have another one that is.
I don’t get paid nearly enough money to repeatedly bail out the behinds of inept co-workers with laissez-faires attitudes about deadlines and thoroughness.
Why are the weak coddled on a project left unfinished and the strong criticized on a job well done? Who’s running this place?
Don’t bother answering those questions; I’m in a Monday mood.
Google Analytics is quite the marketing tool. From the time it was set up for this Web site, I’ve been able to track the number of daily visitors, where my visitors reside and which posts/pages were most popular — among other data.
But one insight I’ve gained is too disturbing.
It comes by way of the keyword section of Google Analytics, which tells me why some people visited my blog.
To say that we are a country obsessed with a woman’s weight is the biggest understatement of all time. Keyword searches such as “measurements average woman,” “size 2 women’s measurements” and “36 24 36″ have brought at least one visitor to my site every day since I wrote this blog.
Is it a wonder why young American women, including myself for the past many months, consistently grapple with their weight? We’re so busy seeking the answer for the perfect body that we’ve yet to realize the heaviness of our self-inflicted misery.
