Rules of Unattraction

The verdict is out.  He’s not leaving her.  We’re allowed to see each other.  We’re allowed to go to Dublin together. 

I say allowed like she needs his permission.  I can understand why she needs him to be ok with it; and I’m glad he trusts her enough to be alone with me; but I don’t think that she should need his permission.  At the end of the day it all comes down to trust.  I asked if he trusted her to be alone with me.  She said she didn’t trust herself to be alone with me, in my house.  Rules of Unattraction. 

This, her and I, is a somewhat destructive relationship.  Destructive cause I’m built up then shot straight back down.  It’s more in my own head.  She couldn’t work yesterday cause she was distracted.  He asked what she was thinking about and she said to me ‘I can’t text back saying I’m thinking about kissing (me)’.  Hearing that made me so hot.  Made me feel as though she was attracted to me, like I am to her.  It’s also pretty fucked up cause she’s in the middle of this shit with her husband, feeling bad for having feelings for me but then always comes back to thinking about me.  That’s the good bit.  The bad is when she goes home to him.  When she says something about him.  That’s when I take bad form.  Mrs U knows this – we discussed it after my sudden change of form at Bushmills.  I think that Mrs U knows me well enough to know when to leave me alone with my thoughts.

I’ve fallen for her.  Fallen hard.  I am so attracted to her.  The thought of us crossing the line on Monday night makes my stomach do backflips and gives me tingles in places it shouldn’t.  I can’t get her out of my head.  Can’t stop thinking about her.  How the fuck am I going to walk away from her at the airport.

I don’t know how my blog has turned to this.  I know it seems as though my life is completely consumed by her, thoughts of her and spending as much time with her as possible.  I guess in a way it has.  It feels like the start of a very special relationship that I know can not go anywhere.

Today we’re golfing at Dunmurry.  Ma, Mrs U, Ms G & I.  It is a final girls day out with the people who bullied me into playing golf.  It’s a lovely day outside.  Completely different to yesterday and I’m actually looking forward to getting out and having a walk around in the sun.  I can not wait.  Determined to be in good form and to have a day of good craic. 

I’m so glad that they bullied me into playing golf.  I only wish that I’d started earlier.  Not sure why I didn’t – and why I didn’t get out more when I first arrived.  I’ve become such great friends with Mrs U and really enjoy spending time with her.  We have such a laugh together and just click.  Even when I raced over to the dirty car on Friday night and wrote “if you think this is dirty you should see my wife” – she laughed saying she was thinking the exact same thing!  Class.

Feels so strange to be unemployed again.  Not money wise, just not having to go to work.  I am free to be alone, to be myself and to do exactly what I want.  Without any restrictions.  I love it!

Off to golf.  Glad of the sunshine and the end of winter!

The truth

So she is telling the husband about what happened between us on Monday night.  I understand why she wants to, why she has to.  She says that her conscience is killing her, and that it has to come out; but I’d really like it if she could hold off until after I left.  I’m kinda scared cause I think that he’ll tell her never to see me again, which is a very scary concept, even though I’m well aware that there’s that potential when I leave anyway.  I’m so looking forward to Dublin, he can’t take that away from me, can he?  Although I guess that I’ve, in some way, taken his wife away from him. 

While packing today I had a thought – along the lines of how am I going to survive without her.  She’s become such a good friend, someone I trust and care for.  Then Monday night makes it worse.  It was so clear she didn’t want to go home, but there was no way she could stay.  I get butterflies in my stomach when I think about it, about how close we were, about laying with her; and just being able to kiss her whenever I wanted.  I want that.  The kiss on the way out was pretty hot too!

Packing up my life is harder than I ever expected.  I knew that decision making about what to take, what to send and what to chuck wasn’t going to be that easy but I didn’t realise that it would make me think about everyone here and how much I’m going to miss them.  I can not believe that I leave in 5 days. 

I am very excited to get to both London, and Vancouver, but at the same time I don’t feel like leaving my friends.

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Fight the urge

K went back to Dublin today, in preparation to fly to Vancouver on tomorrow.  I am glad that she had a good night last night.  Everyone seemed to like her, quite a lot, maybe more than me!

I felt a bit bad today as she wanted me to go to Dublin with her for lunch.  When I woke up the prospect of spending 4 hours on the bus to go to lunch was too much.  A big part of me also wanted to see her.  I know that it was wrong for me not to accompany my sister today, but I just want to spend time with K-C before I go.  I can’t help myself.  I’m looking to spend time with her at every opportunity.  I do not know why.  I have no idea why I like her so much; and I’ve no words to explain the connection – it’s strength or why it’s there even.

After dropping K at the bus we headed for our regular table at Starbucks and chatted for ages.  Lunch turned into dinner in Moira.  Lunch and a drink turned into 7 hours sitting in the booth, playing I-want-to-touch-you-but-know-I-shouldn’t.  There was major contact between the legs, much more physical contact than we’d usually have.  and I liked it.  I wanted more.  She spent the majority of the afternoon sitting behind me, in the same side of the booth but watching the TV over my shoulder.  I would intentionally sit close to her cause I wanted to touch her.  I wasn’t sure how she would react, but she would lean into me a bit, she’d lean really close when I was saying something and would find an excuse to touch some part of my body throughout the afternoon.

I just wanted to lean back and sit, resting against her with her arms around me.  I knew we couldn’t be that public with our displays of affection so fought the urge to take her hand all afternoon.  Was on my best behaviour when she dropped me off, despite having 6 pints & feeling the love in a big way.

ABBA

Played golf with Lego girl and enjoyed it alright even though I didn’t play all that well.  12 points just but it was a nice day and the craic was alright.

Saturday was the ABBA party at The Watsons.  K had come up for the party which was nice as she’s had a bit of a shit time of it in Dublin.  Niamh is probably the biggest bitch in the world, as well as being one of the thickest people in existence.  I know…from personal experience!! 

We went to Munich & Berlin with her around Christmas time last year and it was one of the longest weeks of my life.  Everything from her lack of knowledge about travelling, both where we were travelling to and of how to survive on the road.  We went to some of the most culturally significant areas in Europe, in terms of recent history, and she had not a clue.  I mean seriously…  There was no knowledge of  Nazi history, what the Berlin wall was about and Dachau.  Really; she didn’t even think to bring her camera to Dachau, and even forgot the bloody charger, so took about 3 photos of the whole trip.  She was always bloody whining about money, every-bloody-thing cost too much for her, really, she bloody showed up in sneakers.  It’s Berlin, in the middle of winter – come on!  Enough about that trip, I’m angry with her cause she made K feel like shit.  She didn’t even wish her happy birthday – the bitch! 

I think the party on Saturday somewhat made up for it.   It was a cracking night.  Everyone made a really big effort with the costumes; so everyone fit in great.  When we first walked in it was actually a little difficult to recognise people cause of the get ups & the wigs.  Just about everyone at the club has short hair, but they were all in long wigs for the party and it was hilarious as everyone who didn’t normally ‘have hair’ kept walking around touching it all night.  Kinda crazy really.  By the end of the night I acquired a punk rocker wig with hair sticking everywhere.  There was some discussion about me having long hair & K said that if I did infact grow my hair out it would probably look exactly the same as what the wig looked like.  It was very cool though.

Managed not to get too drunk at the party.  Actually I wasn’t even drunk.  Had maybe 5 or 6 bottles of beer, so was very sensible.  Had good fun though.  The craic was mighty and everyone was in good form.  I really enjoyed the night that we had, I think partially because it was really my last night of ‘my life’; although I guess that Sunday really is the last night before I have to think about packing.

Pond water

Yesterday was so long, such a drawn out day – finished by waiting for my creepy friends to leave the change rooms.  There is not a more appropriate way to end my final late shift here.  By the end of it I was saying yay, 8 hours left of telling the same story over and over again.  But in reality I think that that only came out cause of my tiredness. 

Yesterday I believe I said this – “Yes I’m for Vancouver. Yes I’ll travel about. No I don’t have a job. Or anywhere to live. Sure what’s the worst that can happen. Probably go to New Zealand after Canada. Then home. Hope to join the police when I’m home. Yes my Mum wants me to come home now” about a thousand times this afternoon. Yes, in nearly that exact order. And I’ve been hugged a thousand times. I asked GI Joe if I could just back away & say “I don’t want hugged”. He said that’d be rude.

So today the final day of work has come and gone.  I managed to get away with doing a whole hours’ work, none of it really all that important, none of it really all that hard.  I was collected shortly after 10, by her, for some shopping, mostly for my ABBA outfit but it turned into a couple of hours at starbucks as I wasn’t keen on going back to work.

On the way back I was told to get back into work as GI Joe thought I was ripping the piss by being away so long.  So much for that – GI Joe wasn’t pissed at all, they just wanted to know when I was back so I could be given an appropriate send off.  He told me to get into my work clothes & get back to work, but as soon as I walked out and saw the look on their heads I knew they were up to something.  Shit I thought as I launched my phone at C before being carted to the pond.  I did make a break for it but was caught by the GM & carried the rest of the way before being unceremoniously thrown into the freezing pond.  I swear I actually felt ice break around my feet, legs and arse as I hit the water.  Then I stood, pulling my shirt down, unable to breathe from the sheer cold that surrounded me.  It felt as though I was being gripped by one huge muscle spasm – it sure was a shock.  Not so much going for a swim; but for the coldness.  I knew it would be cold, but was still completely unprepared for it.  The air temperature felt quite warm after I struggled my way out of the pond.

After showering, changing & getting back down stairs I was dismissed; not before GI Joe gave a lovely little speech & a couple of cards.  I was, and still am utterly speechless at the send off gift they got for me.  I opened the card and $300 Canadian fell out, along with £20.  Such a nice gesture, and really unexpected.  I’m speechless and really don’t know what to say, or how to thank GI Joe and the GM enough – a bottle of bundy each might do nicely.

So, all in all my final day at work was about an hour long; and all I did was sign off some cleaning that I didn’t do.  Oh, and I turned the machines on. 

I really have had some great times here, and really have learnt a lot; both about myself and about the business.  I’ve learnt to be proud of the way I interact with people and that the majority of people are accepting of all sorts of personalities – that some even appreciate the upfront-straightforward-tell-it-like-it-is approach that I have.  I’ve learnt that I do know a lot and that I do have the capability to fit in with new people and to become a part of the group.  I’ve learnt that I’ve the capability to stand up for myself and to stand firm on things that I believe in.  I have learnt that I’m probably a better, and nicer person than I give myself credit for and that there are people out there who will genuienly care for me and do anything for me if I need it.  I’ve learnt that I, at times, do really like the person I’ve become.

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A chapter closing

Today feels like the end of another chapter in my life and I’m feeling somewhat apprehensive about it all.  Moving on is harder this time.  I’ve been here longer than I’ve been anywhere before in my life, well, since I’ve been on the move anyway.  My life is about this at the moment, it’s a path that I’ve chosen, and one that I’m not overly comfortable with at the moment.  It seems that this up and down lifestyle does in fact come with some down-sides. 

 

I’ve made better friends here than I have anywhere else overseas.  I’ve got closer to some of the people here than I have for a long time.  I’ve developed some friendships that could potentially rival the one that I have with Lex.  Although I do treasure with all my heart the friendship that I have with her, these ones are completely different. 

 

Mrs U said to me a couple of weeks ago “Am I ever going to see you again.”  I’d love to be able to say yes to that, but the complete truth is that I don’t actually know.  That, in itself, is a fairly scary concept.  Even more so with K-C.  We’ve become so close so quickly it’s pretty scary.  The big pink elephant is growing more and more obvious to anyone that looks on.  At Bushmills there was a photo taken of us, doing nothing, just standing, talking.  The photo appears to be an intimate moment when we’re just there being us.  That’s a lot how I feel about her.  I feel that I’ve a connection with her, a connection that is just about unrivalled by anyone else.  The ex maybe; but that’s gone now.  She’s just a feature of my past, and although I still respect and love her; K-C has made me forget about that. 

 

For the briefest of times I’ve felt like she’s my girlfriend.  I sometimes stop and think ‘what am I doing’.  I’ve noticed that I treat her like my girlfriend.  I talk to her like she’s my girlfriend.  I like that.  It was the other day in the car I asked the simplest of questions, or we had the simplest of conversations going; but it really felt like we were partners.  I can’t even remember what it was about and I don’t know how to explain it; it just felt that way at the time.

 

I was taken aback at the kindness and authenticity of feelings towards me shown at the gym tonight.  I was talking to everyone, said the same things a thousand times over and everyone was genuinely interested.  I was just standing about, talking to Linda when Cardio Girl arrived with a gift bag.  I tried to leave the gym; didn’t really want it done there, but it got done anyway.  An Ulster Rugby top.  Such a great gift, and such an unexpected surprise.  Two minutes later Harv came into the gym and was like ‘er, there’s a delivery here’.  I walked out to find flowers, a Thornton’s chocolate cake and another gift bag. 

 

I’m genuinely surprised by the gifts that I’ve received tonight.  I’m surprised at the emotion expressed by everyone.  It seems that there’s a little sadness in everyone at the moment…wishful thinking on my part maybe, but it certainly seems that the mood in the gym was different tonight.

 

It made me think that perhaps I really have had an influence, a positive one, on people’s lives.  Even people who I didn’t really think I would have had want to know what I’m doing and want to thank me for all that I’ve done.  One lady shook my hand and decided she wanted to hug me.  I wasn’t really up for it as I don’t feel particularly close to her; but she was having none of it.  I asked GI Joe if I could just say ‘I don’t want hugged’.  He said that would be rude; and also that that was going to be happening all day.  It didn’t, but there was certainly more hugs than I ever would have expected.  I’m really humbled by all the words that have been said to and about me over the last couple of weeks.  Everyone’s all we’re-going-to-miss-you and it’s really nice.

 

On the gay side of life, K-C brought a copy of DIVA for me today & read it before she managed to get it to the gym.  I was shocked by a text from her saying ‘I’ve to stop reading diva…making me think bad thoughts.’  In typical jovial fashion I replied with ‘are you reading about strap ons?’ but got one back saying ‘not reading.  Just flicking…pictures of girls kissing makes me want to.’  What do you say to that.  Despite the marriage & 4 kids I think there’s a lot of gay in her.  I do, at times, think that if the situation was different she’d be a lesbian.  I see a lot of qualities in her that makes me think that; not that I’m stereotyping, but she sets my gay-dar buzzing!  We’d an afternoon of ‘Martina Navratilova is my here…’, ‘another one I like…Ellen.  Am I gay?’ messages.  How does one respond to that?  Other than ‘sounds like it!’

 

Next week will be full of craic.  Wednesday is a day with the girls.  Belfast drinking probably.  There’s been some mention of Port Rush, but I’m not sure if that will happen.  Handy Andy wants to meet us in Belfast for a ‘get the load on’ session that night, but I’m not sure that’s the smartest thing to do considering Thursday is my day of love with K-C.  I do not want a hangover for that.  It’s not actually a day of love, but spending the day with her gives me warm fuzzies.  I’m such a girl at times.  Wednesday might have to be a scotch and soda day!

 

I’m pretty screwed for this ABBA party on Saturday.  K-C is chauffeuring me to party/dress up shops tomorrow in search of the perfect uniform; and I suspect a little in an effort to see my legs sticking out the bottom of a skirt…

Girly-ness

I really can not be arsed tonight. I’ve got in from work grumpy, irritable and exhausted; showered quickly and am now debating the wisdom of doning a vest for tonight’s birthday dinner, for Ms G, at the Ivory.  Somehow I think I’d be killed if I arrived in a vest, unless it was adorned with sequins or something similarly pretty & girly.  Polo shirt it is.

I’ve found a shirt that looks sufficiently girly/nice, threw some moisturiser on my face, no make up – can not be arsed, some wax in my hair and some Davidoff Cool, for women & I’m ready for the off. Is it terrible of me that I can not be arsed going to one of my friends’ birthday dinners? Or just a sign of how tired I feel today?! Not getting enough sleep; that’s all.  Aside from that I do feel quite fat at the moment.  I know that it’s booze.  I know that if I stopped drinking there wouldn’t be a pick on me; but I love it!  Not to the alcoholic point, but I love it.  I can feel it round my waist, and it feels fucking disgusting.  I’ve been thrown off my training by the sister getting up here; and by the wind down of work; but it’s no excuse.  I do not want to get fat and lazy again.  Yet even as I write this I feel as though I’m not sure if I want to go and train tonight.  How do fatties cope with the feeling of rolls around them all day?  Ugh, disgusting!

On the up-side I’ve only 16 hours left to work.  Being out, alone & unemployed in the world is a pretty scary prospect, yet again.  But I wouldn’t have signed up for the adventure if it wasn’t what I wanted to do.

It seems the seasons, they have a-changed.  Yesterday was absolutely beautiful.  The sun was out, it was mild, when I say mild I mean thermal under Ping shirt for golfing, and the world seemed so much brighter.  Today I noticed the length of the afternoons more than I have before.  Although it is only 5pm I really felt a bit weird showering and getting ready to go out when it’s still light outside.  You really have no concept of the time here, and I think it’s a lot due to the amount of light in the summer, and the darkness in winter.  Also it’s so noticable cause of the speed at which it seems to change.  Dublin I think is said to change at about 3 minutes per day.  Up here I think, heard somewhere, and probably unreliably, that it’s more like 5.  5 minutes out of a day doesn’t seem like much, but it does make a difference.

My head is filled with all sorts of randomness today. First, I believe I may be starting to miss K-C when I even think about leaving.  Second, just as I am sat here I found myself wondering if Jillian was heading to the gym tonight. I’ve spoken to her via messenger since the incident; but haven’t seen her.  Sort of wonder if we need to talk about this. The compassionate side of me; especially seeing as how she said she’s having a little trouble wrapping her head around the whole issue.  Over the last couple of days I’ve caught myself wondering if I could be with her.  I’m not sure I could, but then I really don’t know her from outside the gym setting.  Or enough to know that anyway.

After my performance on Friday night, and Mrs U & I deciding that we were getting married, I happened to mention it to Jillian; saying that I’m not really the marrying type.  It was all in fun until I began to wonder, given my track record, and my inability to be 100% sure that I won’t cheat again, am I really not the marrying type?  Do I have the ability to remain faithful?  I really like to think that I could…but I’m just not sure.  Sad, isn’t it?

LSD Vs HIIT explained

How confusing right?  Actually no.  There are many ways to do cardio, & all of them have a valid place in any fitness or weight loss program – what sort depends on your goals.

 LSD (or Long Slow Distance) is cardio performed over a longer period at a lower heart rate, generally between 60 & 70% of your Maximum Heart Rate.  It has long been thought to be ‘the thing’ to burn fat & get you to your weight loss goals.

 Then HIIT came along.  HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) is cardio performed in short bursts at near 100% effort, with recovery periods in between.  Sounds hard right?  Well, simply put, it is.  Yes, it’s tough, but it’s also a sure fire way to significantly improve your fitness & rev up your results.

 LSD is great for those with bad joints, heart conditions & special populations.  Basically the more overweight & less fit you are, the more LSD would be the right thing to start you off with.  Yes, LSD does burn a greater percentage of total calories as fat, but it takes a long time to get there.  With today’s hectic lives we lead, do we want to be in the gym for any longer than necessary? No.  Didn’t think so.

 HIIT sessions are generally well over and done within 30 minutes – if you can stick it that long.  I said it was tough.  For more detailed reading on HIIT check out Cardio and Programming which is a bit of a summary of a guest blog written on the Robertson Systems website by Mike Boyle.  It’s an eye opening article and well worth a read.

 The maximum intensity bursts increase your heart rate  & intensity and kick up your calorie expenditure.  HIIT also has a greater ‘after burn’ effect than LSD; so you’ll keep burning calories longer.  HIIT pushes your metabolism through the roof and you get super fitness benefits to boot.  HIIT is just the ticket for anyone who gets bored easily, is short of time or likes to push themselves.  Although you’ll burn less fat as a percentage of your total calorie expenditure than with LSD, chances are your total calories will be about the same as, or even above your LSD session.   Just in half the time. 

 The graph below illustrates my point.

 

 

The sessions explained:

LSD Session - 40 minute walk – 4.50km (6.7kph). Average Heart Rate: 62% (121bpm).

Total Calories: 230              Fat Percentage: 50                 Fat Calories burnt: 115

Sessions to burn 1kg fat? 39

 HIIT Session - 30 minutes interval running, 45:15. Average Heart Rate: 93% (181bpm). 

Total Calories: 447               Fat Percentage: 20                 Fat Calories burnt: 89

Sessions to burn 1kg fat? 20

The workout LSD workout was 10 minutes longer, but burnt 217 less calories, despite the higher percentage of fat calories burnt through the session.  Why’s this important?  Weight loss is all about calorie balance – the more you burn the more you lose!  Simple.

So while LSD might be better know, and more commonly recommended for fat loss, unless you have some medical or physical condition stopping you from performing it, interval training is the way to go to achieve better fat loss results.  While the HIIT session used for illustration purposes might have  been extremely tough and only applicable to trained subjects; members of the general public will see greater fitness and fat loss results if a few harder intervals, or hills, are added into their program.  Gradually increase the amount of intervals, or hills in their program until they are performing higher intensity work for approximately a third of their workout time and go from there. 

A cautionary note before you jump in too deep - this is a personal account of two workouts performed by a highly trained client.  This blog is in no way a recommendation of workouts to be performed, or a prescrptive service to members of the public.  Perform all HIIT training with caution; and with a well qualified personal trainer if possible.