Eda's World

I changed my blog title from Year of American Ninja Warrior to I was the fat one for a few reasons: A. It's been two bloody years, not one. And the 2013 auditions have already happened so we are talking 2014 on. I still can't do a full push up or a pull up, and West Coast ANW is all upper body. I guess if it happens it won't be done by my timeline. I'll be 40 next year, and wanted to do it by then. Wah. I'll quit when it's just completely impossible. Like 60 or something. B. I was the fat one for a long time in my life, around 33 years. It's been a weird journey back. I'm size 14-16, which is about average for American women these days. My BMI is ideal. I'm "normal". So to speak. The women I hang out with are all different sizes and all different ages. And there doesn't seem to be too many hang ups. Everyone is pretty convinced they are damn fine. It's good group of gals to hang with. But...a lot that I've struggled with ...

My friend Allie has been telling me for months I've got to go to her energy healer Steve. So, I went to a nice house snuggled back in a chi-chi neighborhood near Seapoint and PCH. We traded. I massaged him on Tuesday night, and he worked on me Wednesday morning. I'd had a few energetic healings before from my friend Maylei. They were mellow. We'd chat for 30 minutes while sipping tea; set our intentions for the work then I would lay there for 60-90 minutes while Maylei made wafting motions over my body. Sometimes she'd hold my head, sometimes she'd place a hand on my sternum while I did deep breathing, sometimes she'd hold and rock my leg. I've written how I had noticed changes in my body after treatments. I'd notice I could jump farther. My right hip became unglued from itself. It was awesome. Steve was nothing like Maylei. We had chatted the night before, but nothing in depth. His host Linda had told me how intuitive he was, and how he's known ...

I had a vision Monday morning when I was lying on my bed. I was doing my yoga breathing to stop the cramps in my diaphragm. The last two times I jumped rope in the morning my abdomen started cramping during my 20 minute run after. I'm cramping on the right side so I know it isn't a heart attack. Anyway, while I'm breathing, I can feel my heart fluttering. I remember my mom having panic attacks at this age, and her monthly cycle becoming hemorrhaging instead of bleeding. I'm reaching that stage where stuff is going to start going haywire or just dropping the fuck off. Yikes. Well, I keep breathing and calming myself. Then I hear something in my head. "Not Enough". The panic attack I was staving off was about not enough. I really sat with thought and tried to see how deeply part of me the statement was. Down to the fucking bone, apparently. If you cut me in half, 'not enough' would be printed on every ring. I have felt this way before. I have trouble b...

Wow. 9/11 took me to a dark place. I woke up in a weird mood. Not bad, just pensive. Everyone who came in for massage were close friends so no stress there. I just felt like a wet cat, out of sorts and angry. I realized I was angry with 9/11. It wouldn't go away. It was a yearly celebration of my last preconceived notions being dashed on the rocks in front of me. It is the anniversary of the TSA becoming a facist police force; of speaking out no longer being loyal dissent but TREASON!. Habeas Corpus was suspended, and we as a country started performing extraordinary rendition(flying a foreign citizen to another country that allows torture). We now have political prisoners. I will always have a problem with that. America is not a monarchy, and it shouldn't keep political prisoners. Period. I'm not bothering to argue about it. It is one of the things this country is founded on. No more kings. The day took so much out of me I hid both my days off. Usually, I have a whole ...

I am so happy with youtube right now. I found the ENTIRE film of Watership Down on there. The whole damn movie. I'm so excited. Tommy gave me a beautiful iron rabbit as a thank you for helping put on the HIV/AIDS wellness fair. I had never read the WD book and he was shocked. He was like 'you have to! the El-ahrairah stories are the best part of the stories and they are hardly in the movie.' SO I amazoned the book and got the 70s Avon version with the blonde rabbit on front like I remembered from the Springtown Library. It was awesome. I loved it. I really need to find another adjective other than awesome. I use it for everything and I can't even surf! SO I'm thinking I should really not be doing the Bill and Ted impersonation. I love the rabbit mythology and it really inspired me for my Rats of Green Park. I'm done writing the first book, but I mentioned a Great Toothed One as the Rat/Squirrel God. He lives below instead above because the Rats feel safer in...

I don't have a lot to say about being skinny, since I haven't lived that life ever. But, I can say with the authority of dealing with naked people for the last 15 years that every body size has their hang ups. People apologize for all sorts of things that I would never even think of, no matter what their size. It really illuminated how self critical we are of normal healthy happy bodies. I have all kinds of authority on being fat. Been there, bought the 5xl t-shirt. It's a bizarre shame I live with , and fight every day. It was my achilles heel. Still is. I've battled with my weight since I was eight. I had terrible anxiety and depression, and I still find it too easy to slip toward that mindset. But I fight. It's who I am. I refuse to accept an uninteresting, unexamined life. I want to live, and being 360lbs pounds I was starting to die. I lost my weight, I exercised literally half my ass off, I've changed my eating habits (mostly). I just finished a 12 mile 21...

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This is a picture of us after the race. From the left: Me, Sarah is on my back, Liz is next to me with Kim on her back, and next to her is Sarah's hubby Brian with Liz's brother Shorty on his back. "I am sooooooooo outta my league!" That was what I was thinking as I dragged my ass up the first hill in Tough Mudder. Sweat slicked beautiful people poured around me as I trudged up the mountain. I knew it was going to be a haul. I knew I was going to have to face my fears. What I didn't know is if I would finish. I cried about four times on the cliffhanger, my hands buried in dirt, and leaning at an extreme angle to keep from sliding or falling backwards. There were three others perched on the hill. Shorty, a friend from workout, and the two girls I crossed the finish line with. I don't usually cry in front of other people. It was embarrassing , but I doubt they could tell if I was crying or struggling to breathe. It sounded about the same. Tough Mudder shook my c...

Wow. I can't fully express the craziness of Tough Mudder. I still can't believe I finished it. I couldn't even run a full mile and I walked/jogged/climbed 10 miles yesterday. We arrived Saturday night, and ate a crapload of spaghetti. There was a lot of chatter, but we settled down and were in bed by 11pm. We showed up at the parking lot of Snow Valley around 8:30am. It was like a concert, groups of people of showed up in matching tutus, shirts, and costumes. There were a plethora of mohawks especially for the race(there was an award for the best one). We gathered together before the race and took pictures. I hugged Scott, and my friends Zoey and Nick, who drove all the way from LA! We lined up behind an 8ft wooden wall, and waited for the signal to begin. We had to climb the wall to get to the pit. It was a team building moment. To have people sit on the wall and help pull people over who couldn't get over on their own. I bruised the shit out of my left hand doing the ...

I figured this deserved a blog. The day before the Mudder. I keep trying to flip the script in my head. This is going to be a blast, I have a team of great friends to do this with, it's like a field and track day at grade school, I'm gonna shine like a new penny and eat that course alive. Fuck, yeah! BWHAHAHAHA! I am so scared I want to puke! I bought a new pair of running pants, because apparently wet cotton becomes 10 grade sandpaper when it's wet. I've got sunblock, another bladder for my camelback, and running socks. But I don't have the ability to run long distances, do monkey bars, and I'm having a mild aneurysm over an obstacle called the 'arctic enema'. Don't know what it is, but it can't be good.... I'm booked today and due to leave by 6pm for the time share tonight. Scott is staying here and driving out tomorrow. It will be fun. Avalon was amazing fun. I can do this. I'm strong and I have stamina for days. I may run 20 minutes b...

I was wigging out recently about tough mudder. I can't even run a full mile yet. I almost killled myself walking everywhere in Catalina. How the hell am I going to survive 10-12 miles of hell? I was really chewing on my fear. Then I heard a voice in my head tell me "Bullshit, Eda. Commit. That is all you have to do. You grew up in some of the most sun-blasted dangerous backwoods in the world. You can walk anything. Commit is all you have to do. Commit to finishing." I remember hearing that in my head a few years ago when I went with my friends Pete and Josh to Joshua Tree. I was doing things that scared nine kinds of shit out of me. I still hadn't fully grasped all the physical changes I had undergone since my surgery. I didn't know how to use the body I now had. Josh walked me through a lot of things pulling me along, yelling at me when he needed. We went bouldering together. Pete kept catting up different rocks, leaping and climbing, Josh lagged behind to pull m...

Wow, what a long weekend. It was good. informative. And OMG I cannot sit still for 8 hours. I was a total munchasaurus the first day. Blegh. It was hard to focus on constant power points and hands-on work. Real eye-opener how much I need to return to yoga. I've lost my inner mute button. And BELIEVE me I need one. I've had enough therapy to know the inside of most people's heads are a constant battlegrounds of ID, anima/us and ego. So I don't feel alone in admitting my internal dialogue is a bit chaotic and rude. My inner Jiminy Cricket is more of a tacky trucker than Mother Teresa. My workout crew knows a bit more of my unexpurgated personality. I can't filter when I'm working out hard. I think that is why I love them so much. They love dark Eda. I can snarl and snort all that I want, and they mostly laugh. They get my sense of humor, my cynical anger doesn't throw them for a second, if anything they are just as sharp and terse as I am. I am working on rele...

Scott left for work this morning at 7am. I had rolled out of bed with him and made his lunch. I wanted to go back to bed when I woke up this morning, but I couldn't. last night I woke up about 3-4x. My neck was sore, and I needed to shift around. I kept waking up curled into a ball. I would turn over, squint at the clock, groan at the ungodly hour, and plop back staring at the ceiling wondering why I was up. I drank yesterday. I was ready to sleep at 7pm. We stayed up until 11:30p, before crashing. I should have slept like I was in a coma. I wanted to. Sunday was a corker. I woke up at 7am pulled on workout gear, made a banana cashew chocolate protein smoothie then cursed myself. Workout was 5 min away. If I downed this, I'd puke 5 minutes later. I grabbed an Ace cold pak out of the freezer. Drank what I could of the smoothie as I drove then wrapped the glass in the ice pak and a t-shirt I found in my floorboard. (Isn't that sanitary as all fuck?) I won't go ...

My, oh my, that was a workout. We went to Hill st. Park, split into two teams then sprinted 3 times up it, and we held a plank when the other team was sprinting up. I couldn't sprint. I jogged until I hit the first parking sign then I walked while blowing like a racehorse. I stopped at the second sign to breathe and focus on slowing down my heart and calm my breathing for 5 deep breathes then jog it in to the top. Yes it sucked beyond suckness!!! But I did it. We finished by run/jog up around Signal Hill, 50 squats at the Promenade then down Skyline to Cherry, back up to park, bear crawl to picnic benches then run/jog back to park on Hill and temple. I didn't run the whole time. I finished 20 minutes behind everyone else, but I finished. I think the Zen of those crazy workouts is the rotating thought in my head..."I didn't die. I thought I was going to, but I didn't die." All of it has been about facing my fears. All of it, the fears I know about and the ones ...

This weekend is going to be crazy town for me! I'm booked for Mother's day Sat/Sun. Friday can book up still. Tomorrow I have my Guinot training class in the morning, so it's still work related on my day off. SO today I have nothing planned. I'm going to walk the dog, pay rent then come back home, and work on my book. I promised myself I would. It is going to be a total PJ day. I've been doing my cleanse, but I can't commit to it. I keep going off plan. A bit of chocolate, a glass of wine with a friend, I'm self-sabotaging all over the place. I'm a little disturbed by how much I think of food. If it was sex, I'd be a total pervert or a 16 year old boy. Deciding my meal is an actual though process, what have I got, what can I make or buy? Love thinking about it. We watch food competitions, and I pause the TV to tell Scott what I would make with the stuff in the mystery basket/required ingredients/inspiration. The scary thing is I'm getting to the ...

When I came back from Vegas, I was so relaxed. Everyone kept asking what was wrong. Nothing. Nothing is wrong. I’m spent. I’ve been going full blast since 2003 when I went back to school. I worked full time and went to school full time. I finished school then had gastric bypass in 2006. I realized I did not want to stop massaging to go into the journalism field. People were getting fired all around me as journalism itself was gutted, revamped, and rehashed on the internet. I started my own business in 2007, and began that long journey. I’ve been banging the drum ever since. My inner dialogue became “Go, go, go!” God, how intense have I been, if me being mellow is weird for the people who know me? Apparently, I’ve been going in 5 th gear for the past decade. I just applied the brakes and came to a full stop. I’ve been blowing past my life at the speed of sound. Oh, don’t think I’ve deprived myself for a moment. Please. I have said yes to everything I could shoehorn into my schedule...

Well, I've sufficiently recovered from my ACK! diet. (Easter poisoning...LOL) 4lbs gone last week. I shouldn't be so happy, but I am. I got so shaky over food, my upcoming cleanse diet seems like a godsend. What I'm saying is I'm happy. My black cloud of suckitude has parted and I feel much better. And with this parting of the clouds dawned an avalanche of alright! My friend Patti (Fed with a fondant fetish--she loves to bake) is chilling next week at Tahitian village in a timeshare. By a series of circumstances, her boyfriend can't go. I can, though. And she totally invited me. I realize this is the litmus test from hell for any friendship, hopping into a car to drive through low desert to Vegas. I'm confident we can do it.I plan to spend Wednesday through Friday baking and basting, as my friend Pete put it. Lay in the sun, slip into the pool to cool off, rinse and repeat as needed. Aaah, Nice! My sweetheart Alissa, massage buddy extraordinaire, is in ...

Oy vey. 3 days and I'm still shaky. Scott and I went on an adventure for Easter. We drove down to Escondido to Kit Carson park to see Queen Califia's Magic Circle http://www.queencalifia.org/ Awesome little road trip. The drive back blew. Traffic sucked big time. We stopped by the crab pot for dinner. I had seafood puttanesca. I think that's what did me in. I started having waves of nausea by Monday morning. I was down by 2pm Monday. I went home and slept until Wednesday morning, only waking to throw up every two hours. I lost 4lbs...yeah? I walked the dog today and felt completely wrung out. I was going to work on a few things, bake a few cakes for friends, and finish cleaning up the house. I was out of it by 1 pm today. I'm still tired. I had a protein drink and miso soup today. I still can't handle really smelly food. I'm glad I have until Friday to recover. I'm going to lay low until then. I decided I'm going to write 250 words per day, either blog...

Scott said the most amazing thing to me yesterday. We were watching TV and a Mutual of Omaha ad came on while I was out of the room. He took the time to call me back into the room, rewind the commercial and have me watch it. It was a woman, who once weighed 400lbs, describing how it felt to cross the finish line of a 600 mile race she had dreamed about completing. Her friend who did the race with her started weeping at the finish line, and she asked her why. The woman replied, "You did it. You fulfilled your dream!" Scott paused the TV, turned to me and said, "That's you, baby. You're going to finish American Ninja Warrior. You have done every single thing you say you are going to do, no matter how out there. You are going to press that red button. I hope you take a moment when you do to realize how far you've come, and who you really are." Pic one: Summer 2006 Me one week after surgery. 360lbs What can I say? I started crying. I was still in my workout...

Well, if you haven't guessed by my email, my FB posts, and my wails of disappointment echoing through the LBC, I missed the ANW this year. They ran the tryouts two months early. I have no freaking idea why they did that, but they did. I was wrecked. I pouted for awhile, but I'm ok now. Work has been choppy as hell. People have been cancelling higgledy piggledy all over the place. Some rebook; some don't. Which I get, life happens. But I'm talking the last minute shit that really throws a monkey wrench in my whole day. I had 5 people booked for today, two moved because of illness and surgery, one flat out canceled an hour before then texted me that she was never using my services again when I mentioned a cancellation fee. It was her first appointment. I hate timewasters. They book things then just puff them off like there is no obligation there. MY time is worth something and I seriously resent reserving a space on my schedule then having them blow me off. I don't bl...