Life in general

A Big Year

/ Kim Nelson / 1 Comment

I turn 36 today. Here’s some of the things I did during my 35th year:

  • got married!
  • bought a house!
  • visited three new states: South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana
  • got into yoga
  • started forcing myself to eat kale, like, all the time, mostly because:
  • got addicted to Oreos
  • got hit by a car while crossing the street
  • coordinated an office build-out and move
  • started performing again (storytelling)
  • left a job at a famous tech company to try out the small business world
  • saw both Katy Perry and Britney Spears in concert
  • rode a mechanical bull in Las Vegas
  • Margaret Cho started following me on Twitter for some reason
  • saw three Broadway plays in one weekend
  • got my ninth tattoo
  • I decided that my favorite Christmas movie is Batman Returns
  • lost the Halloween costume contest at a dog park
  • finished a novel-length manuscript
  • took singing classes at Old Town School of Folk Music
  • started a karaoke club
  • found way more gray hair than ever before
  • used the phrase “YOLO” ironically so often that it stopped being ironic
  • cried over the Star Wars trailer
  • experimented with growing my eyebrows in thicker. Turned out less Cara Delavingne and more Peter Falk.

That Sliding Doors Moment

/ Kim Nelson / Leave a comment

I just got hit by a car. I was crossing the street by my house to go to the nearby taco place to pick up dinner. Suddenly, a car went for a fast left turn and collided with me in the crosswalk. I didn’t realize what was happening until I suddenly rolled up onto the hood of a car, then tumbled down onto the pavement after it slammed on the breaks. I could hear people me around shouting while I laid on the pavement in shock. The car began to move as if ready to drive away, but I heard a woman say “Oh hell no!” and block it with her car. Two more people (one guy in the southbound lane, and a pedestrian) also stopped and made sure I was OK, which gives me faith in the goodness of humanity. In outdated Lost fanatic terminology, I’m feeling pretty Team Jacob.

After I assured everyone that I was alright and could walk home and didn’t need medical assistance, they dispersed (I know, I know, I should’ve filed a police report. But I was alone and felt OK and just wanted to go home and the driver felt terrible and I knew that he’d learn from this experience).

That moment, though.

One minute, you’re walking across a street you cross every day with tacos on your mind, and the next you’re on top of a car’s hood and the whole thing moves in a flash of a second and you think to yourself, what is happening I  might die now. Then you find yourself on the pavement, bruised and scraped up but otherwise fine and totally alive. A friend of mine recently referenced the 1998 Gwyneth Paltrow movie Sliding Doors as a good example of looking at the two very different paths life can take (he loves that movie). Quite honestly, I’ve ached just as bad after a wicked block in a roller derby game. But in that moment, with passersby freaking out over having witnessed you bounce on pavement, you think about how else that moment could’ve gone. My head didn’t come close to touching the road; I bore the brunt of the impact on my left calf (where I think the bumper initially struck me) and my right elbow and right hips and ribs, where I landed on the street. I scraped up my elbow pretty good but that was my only instance of road rash; otherwise, it’s just bruises. But lying there on the street, I was OK, when my other Gwyneth-self could be dead. All in a split second, all because of a mundane taco-run. YOLO, you guys.

 

Maps

/ Kim Nelson / Leave a comment

Every line in a map is a new possibility. I love tracing the routes with my eyes, imagining the experiences that each detour might bring. Unfolding a map is unfurling a new adventure; I want to spread them out on the hardwood floor, studying the topography, noting the landmarks, exploring the options.

Looking at a road map brings back a rush to my senses: the roar of a motorcycle engine cutting through the light spring breeze, the overpowering smell of sulfur while driving through Yellowstone National Park, the Trampled By Turtles album that filled the car as we drove through the Smoky Mountains in a light rainstorm, the unsettling beauty of the Pacific Ocean just beyond the steep drop-off of PCH. It reminds me of how much of the world lays out there that I have yet to see, beyond the 23 inches of my computer monitor.

A Chicago city map is a different kind of map to me: it is a map of memories. I don’t need to look at the street names; I know them by heart. The phrase “know by heart” is in itself very sentimental. My heart knows these places because I lived in them, and they are a part of me. When I drive down California Ave past my old apartment, I always crane my neck to see if I can spot someone beyond the fence in the front yard. We used to stay out there all night, the patchy grass littered with beer cans, sitting in camping chairs and talking and laughing until the sun started to rise and the smell of baking bread wafted over from the nearby panaderia. Dodging traffic in Ravenswood reminds me of the sprint from work to home to roller derby practice, a routine that dominated most of my evenings for a portion of my life. 17 years, 2 dorm rooms and 7 different apartments in 6 different Chicago neighborhoods–that’s a lot of push pins on my heart map. Now, I live in a house with my husband–our first real house. Our street is lined with old, towering trees that create a green leafy canopy in the summer over the quiet, one-way street. There’s a hot dog stand on the corner, which brings back a bear-hug-embrace of nostalgia for the street where my grandparents live, not very far from this house. As kids, my siblings and cousins and I were allowed to bike up and down their block, and when we were lucky, one of our parents would take us to the hot dog stand on the corner. Being in my our own first home, with our own hot dog stand, feels like I’ve come full circle. I may not be very far on the map from where I started, but I’ve visited many places along the way.

 

 

On Being an Outdoor Cat

/ Kim Nelson / Leave a comment

I easily get claustrophobic, but it goes beyond crowded elevators or airplanes. I get claustrophobic in office cubicles or conference rooms with no windows. For most of my adult life I’ve held an office job, but I yearn to be outdoors more often. If my desk sits somewhere in a building where I can’t see outside, I get a little stir crazy. I would take breaks to go and linger by a window to get a glimpse of sky.

This sort of claustrophobia can get particularly bad in the last long, dreary stretch of winter, much like what we’re experiencing right now in Chicago. I currently work from home, and my desk faces two large sets of windows, which makes my inner “outdoor cat” happy. I can see the backyard while I work and watch the squirrels run along the top of the fence.

This winter, Seasonal Affective Disorder has been lurking nearby in the shadows, threatening to capture me. I wish I could fly somewhere sunny and beautiful, but I can’t right now. Instead, I try to find little ways to make myself happy. If it’s nice out (in my very Chicagoan definition, sunny and above 17 degrees), I take my dog out for a walk during my lunch break. We’ll stroll through our neighborhood and admire the beautiful old houses, then visit the local park. Just seeing trees and expanses of sky immediately lifts my spirits and reinvigorates me for an afternoon of work.

When it’s too cold, icy, or rainy, I’ll spend lunch reading hiking blogs or checking out the Instagram accounts of national parks. I let myself daydream about visiting those places someday, or even dare to think about tackling the Pacific Crest Trail, Continental Divide Trail, or Appalachian Trail myself. Granted, this would require saving up thousands of dollars and taking about 6 months off of work, so it’s more of a very, very longtime goal far off in my future.

I’m hoping for an early spring and that the worst of the cold and gray is behind us. Until then, like any other outdoor cat, I’ll curl up near a window in a nice warm sunbeam and daydream about leaving the house again soon.

I’m Sort of a Robot

/ Kim Nelson / Leave a comment

All of my actions are currently being monitored. Not like Big Brother or a Lindsay-Lohan-court-mandated-ankle-bracelet type of way, but in methods of my own choosing.

On my wrist, my Fitbit keeps track of how many steps I take per day as well as how many minutes I am ‘active.’ It tells me if I slept soundly or tossed and turned all night, and during which hours. My Lumo Lift, clipped to my bra, watches my posture; it vibrates an alert to remind me to straighten up if I slouch for more than 2 minutes. When I eat something or work out, I enter it into MyFitnessPal to calculate calories in and calories out.

I am flooded with data about myself. I am swan-diving into stats like Scrooge McDuck swimming in his piles of money. My daily movements are compiled, tabulated, and translated into brightly colored pie graphs I view on my iPhone. I can challenge other friends with step monitors to contests where I attempt to out-step them in a predetermined period of time. My Lumo Lift can tell when I’m walking with a strong sense of purpose and confident demeanor, or when I’m curled up on the couch crying over Pit Bulls & Parolees. My phone knows exactly how many times I’ve eaten pizza this week.

I do all of this to “keep myself accountable,” to “get back on track.” I’ve attempted similar plans before. A few years back, I deleted a calorie counter app from my phone when it didn’t know what Jägermeister was. But now, I am older, wiser, healthier. And I can prove it to you on my phone.

Tracking all of this data may sound tiring, and let me tell you–it sure is. I’m constantly on my phone, checking how many steps I squeezed out of that walk with the dog, or seeing if a yoga class will earn me back a fun-size KitKat. Also, I. Have. So. Many. Chargers.  But before this dissuades you from buying a rubber wristband of your own, I have to tell you that it’s also kinda fun, and really interesting. I do find myself more motivated to move around; just last night, I volunteered to buy tacos for dinner because I’d get 4 more blocks of steps in. I find myself standing up straighter, which undoubtedly makes my grandma happy. Sometimes, I even rethink that tupperware of chili mac in the fridge and throw together a spinach salad for dinner instead.

I don’t have a weight goal or anything like that; instead, I’m going for balance. Work hard, play hard. Now I must be off; the weekend’s just a few days away so I’m going to go figure out how much elliptical machine equals a bottle of red wine.

 

What’s Your Winter Sport?

/ Kim Nelson / 2 Comments

I keep returning to the topic of winter, as you can tell by my last post on this blog as well as over at Drinkers with Writing Problems. We’re at the point where we’re past the frenzy of the holiday season but still have a long stretch of cold and gray ahead of us before spring, a.k.a. the super boring tedious part where, in The Long Winter, Laura Ingalls Wilder had to twist hay for fuel and subsist on potatoes. For us modern-day pioneers, it means scraping our windshields for the billionth time or writing furious EveryBlock posts about the neighbor that keeps calling dibs.

This is also the part of winter where people start to go on vacations, either to tropical locations for a break in the monotony, or to ski destinations to take part in winter sports. My husband grew up in a skiing family, but I’ve only downhill skied a handful of times. When I was a kid, it was perfectly acceptable to spend the whole ski outing on the bunny hills and using the rope tow. Sadly, as an adult I get mercilessly teased for doing the same.

The last time I went on a ski trip with friends was about 12 years ago. I was the only one who rented skis; everyone else brought their own. They had grown up in skiing families and were skilled and experienced enough to tackle the black diamond slopes. Alone on the wimpy hill, I slowly practiced my snow plow stops and mini-slaloms, working my way up from the beginner slope to a more intermediate run. Eventually I braved the ski lift, which is one of my biggest fears; I’m terrified of heights and the seats look so open and precarious, leaving you vulnerable to any number of Final Destination-esque grisly death scenarios.

On a trip up the hill, shortly after I scooted my snow pants-covered bottom onto the ski lift seat and let it swoop me up about 10 feet into the air, one of my cheap rental skis fell off my boot. I yelped in horror. The ski lift groaned to a standstill.

“What do I do now?” I asked my friend seated next to me in panic. He looked behind us and told me that the lift operator had fetched my lost ski and handed it to the people on one of the chairs behind us, so they could bring it to me at the top of the hill like helpful, goggle-wearing golden retrievers. As our chairs slowly lurched forward again, I started to think about what would happen when we reached the top. I would now have to disembark from my chair and slide my way down the little landing mound on one ski, a la John Cusack in Better Off Dead. My heart was pounding as we climbed closer to the top of the hill; for the first and only time ever, I didn’t want the ride to end. We eventually reached the end of the lift. I gritted my teeth and hoped for the best. When my one ski touched down on snow, I balanced on it as best as I could and rode it out, waving my arms and poles for balance like a deranged pelican, wobbling the whole way down. But I made it! I Lane-Meyered it just far enough to ensure that the next group to come off the lift wouldn’t crash into me, and then stood aside to wait for my other ski. After that, I decided that I shouldn’t push my athletic prowess or dumb luck any further and it was time to retire to the lodge for some adult beverages.

So yeah, skiing is not my winter sport. I’ve since had a major surgery on my knee, so I doubt I’ll be taking it up anytime soon. What else is there? My favorite Olympic winter sport is speed skating, which I’ve only done myself on roller skates. Luging looks like an insane thing to only be attempted in a futuristic death match reality show. Curling looks dumb yet oddly captivating. Maybe any of the things that I only do in the winter could count as ‘my winter sport.’ So that leaves me with drinking whiskey and moisturizing the shit outta my face.

Little House on the Tundra

/ Kim Nelson / 4 Comments

It’s currently 11 degrees in Chicago (feels like -7, according to weather.com). In the last three days, I have only gone outside to shovel the front sidewalk and play with the dog in the backyard for a few minutes before my hands turn into icicles inside my Thinsulate mittens. Most of my Facebook feed is either threatening to move to Florida or posting Hoth/tauntaun/North of the Wall memes. Some who live in warmer climates are sharing screenshots of their weather apps with sunshine icons and temps in the 70’s; these types are kindred spirits to the people who purposely eat ice cream cones on the sidewalk in full view of Weight Watchers meetings. Schools, businesses, and airlines are shut down, hunkered down, and grounded. People might as well change their out of office emails to “currently on Netflix lockdown.”

I’ve mentioned before on this blog that I have a strange love of extreme storms and weather conditions, mostly due to a childhood obsessions with the Little House on the Prairie books. When Mother Nature gives us the business, I like to think I can tough my way through it. During these bleak winter days when polar vortexes descend on my city, I look at them as training. Not for some Snowpiercer-esque future apocalypse, as you may be thinking, but for my retirement days.

Kurt and I like to kick around the ridiculous idea of someday retiring in Alaska. We spent 10 days in an RV driving around Denali, Anchorage, and the Kenai peninsula in the summer of 2012 and both of us fell in love with the breathtaking scenery and the way of life. Since then, we’ve become hooked on a TV show on Destination America called Buying Alaska, which follows couples as they house-hunt in the Last Frontier. We like to talk about what trade-offs we’d be willing to make (could I live with an outhouse as our main bathroom if we could routinely see orcas breaching in the bay from our living room window?). I like to picture a cozy log cabin with big picture windows overlooking pristine nature. I’d have a comfy chair next to the wood burning stove where I’d read books all day and watch for moose or caribou passing through the yard. Kurt would do all of the shoveling. We’d grow vegetables in a greenhouse and store Alaskan beer in our root cellar. The only tough part would be getting through those long, brutal winters.

The tough weather we’ve been having recently give me a small taste of what an Alaskan winter would be like. Could I really deal with -30 degree temperatures, 80″ of snowfall, and 20 hours of darkness? I’ll let you know in a bit.

If not, I could also do Vegas.

Namaste, bitches

/ Kim Nelson / 2 Comments

When I first came up with the name for this blog, I envisioned it as a place where I’d write about health and fitness for the drunk and lazy. The focus of the blog eventually evolved into something different, but fitness (and occasional drunkenness) remain a regular part of my lifestyle.

During the recent onslaught of back-to-back-to-back holiday parties, I did a terrible job of focusing on health and fitness and fully gave in to be drunk, lazy, and gluttonous. It was such an indulgent binge of ridiculousness that I’m actually looking forward to getting back to some healthy habits now that New Years is over. And you guys, guess what?? Sometime in the past year I got really into yoga.

I used to hate on yoga because I thought it wasn’t enough of a workout. I used to play roller derby and do Crossfit, so in my mind, if I wasn’t burning out my legs by alternating wind sprints with wall sits, or flipping giant tractor tires while grunting and howling like a zoo animal, I wasn’t really getting in shape. Yoga was for girls who spend $100 on stretchy pants and wore them to Starbucks as often as they did to the studio. I am fully willing to admit I was wrong (well, those people do exist, but if they have the strength to pull off a perfect side crow pose, they’ve earned the right to trot out those LuluLemons anywhere they please).

Last March, I found a yoga class that I enjoyed, challenged me, and even left me feeling sore the next day. This blew my Crossfit-brainwashed mind, so I got a monthly membership and kept it up through the fall until we moved away from the studio. Nowadays, I do a yoga/Pilates workout DVD at home that allows me to be lazy in that I don’t need to leave the house to get in a good workout. Also, exercise DVDs are semi-hilarious because you eventually memorize all of the small talk the instructor spouts. I like to imagine backstories for the people in the video; for example, I think that Chalene and Janelle are total Mean Girls to Michelle, who is stuck in the role of showing the modified version of each move. You can tell this because on one of the DVDs, Chalene tells Michelle during an ab exercise that she’s “blessed with a long torso” and Michelle makes a face at the camera, like “I just got Lacey Chaberted.”

I’ve also come to enjoy the meditative quality of yoga, which is especially surprising considering I’m the type of person who can’t look at Facebook for more than 5 minutes without ADD kicking in and making me switch to Instagram or Twitter. My husband once watched me play with my phone over my shoulder and he said it made him dizzy. During a 75-minute yoga class, I can shut off that part of my brain and find an inner calm.

Looking ahead into a bright shiny new year, I definitely plan to continue to make yoga a part of my day as often as possible. Though I still may flip some giant tires; a girl’s gotta live a little.

October in a nutshell

/ Kim Nelson / Leave a comment

This has been a busy month.

I made two pumpkin pies and finished one of them by myself in two days. Though in my defense, I had bought the shallow pie crusts so it was more like a tart. Whatever; I’d do it again.

Also, I visited a haunted house with my Scully and our friend. As we were driving out to its suburban location, I remembered that haunted houses can legit freak me out, plus I have terrible night vision. Death, obviously, was imminent. It didn’t help that this particular haunted house had people in costume lurking in the line area, creeping up behind you to surprise you. We finally made our way to the front of the line and were placed in a group of about 7, all of us full-grown adults, just hanging out on a Saturday night ready and willing to be chased by fake killer clowns. At first, we were near the back of our group, so we didn’t bear the brunt of most of the big jump-out-and-freak-you-out surprises. However, as we made our way through the twisting tunnels and pitch-black passageways, we began to lose people from our group one at time like an actual horror movie. I was staying strong, being brave, resolute to make it through to the end (What Would Jennifer Love Hewitt Do?). At one point we reached a fork in the tunnel quickly followed by a dead end, and the female half of the couple in front of us said turned around and said with disdain “It’s a fucking maze.” Our little group of three splintered off from them and got through quickly, but then we were alone and an easy target for all of the ghosts/monsters/theater majors.  We reached a room that was completely dark except for an intermittent, blinding white strobe light. During the dark intervals, a person in all-white spandex suit snuck up right into our faces, scaring the hell out of us when the lights flashed back on. I wondered what a full 8-hour shift must be like for that guy, working all by himself in a constant strobe light-filled room peppered with terrified screams. It must be an interesting talking point on his résumé. After we reached the exit, I took a selfie with a ghoul. Overall, it was fun; I’d do it again.

#YOLO

#YOLO

And then most recently, I got tattooed. To match the cat paw print on my right forearm, I added a dog print on my left side. It’s my ninth tattoo and therefore my ninth step down the road to being less employable by mainstream businesses without further investments in an extensive cardigan collection. Luckily, I enjoy my current job at a company that is open-minded when it comes to personal expression, so no trips to the Gap sale section are needed. (Quick digression but when I worked at the Gap just out of college, one of our favorite jokes in the stockroom was to respond to a messily folded pile of sweaters with the sarcastic remark “What do you think this is, Gap Outlet?” Which just shows that every society has its own politics). Back to the tattoo–I’m really happy with it, a tribute to our rescue dog that lines up nicely with her feline sister’s paw print on my other arm. Should we ever have children, I’m going to have to get their names or something tattooed somewhere so they don’t grow up with a complex. So, yep, I’d do it again.

October, you’ve been pretty dope.