Living Proof

God I feel bad. It’s like I’m reliving these strange moments all over again, yet vicariously. Early this morning (or late last night) around 1am, my neighbors came home from a night out on the town. They’re a young and attractive couple in their early thirties who live right below me. Usually, I don’t hear much from them. If I do hear anything, it’s a brutal fight – to the point of physical abuse. Hardly any words are spoken in that condo except for bickering. The walls are very thin, because when they do talk, you can hear every single word. I guess it goes the other way around too. All we hear are footsteps back and forth periodically, until they go out drinking. Well it all started last night. His loud Ford F150 (probably with no muffler) pulls up to the complex. “Get the fuck outuv’ the car!” he yells over to his girlfriend still probably trying to unbuckle her seatbelt. He slams the car door and starts yelling a few more choice words to her. I didn’t hear much from her end. She

As a kid growing up, the thought of Good Friday was a dreadful one. I was never taught the actual events that took place. I was raised an Italian Catholic, went through the motions of going through communion and confirmation and all that good stuff, however, there was no passion in any of the teachings that were given to me. It was too complicated for me. It wasn’t “real” and it didn’t have a great impact on my life. I knew that there was a God, and that I needed to be “good”, but as far as knowing the history of God and how God is present in our daily lives was just as real as Santa Clause or the Tooth Fairy to me. I was out of control in my late teens reaching into my early 20’s. I had no direction as far as "religion" went. I sat in a confessional booth filled with guilt every 2 years or so – but only after I did something really, really bad. The priest would forgive me, but more importantly, isn’t God supposed to forgive me? I didn’t get why we had to have a medium ther

YOU CAN DO IT!... Remember the Gazelle by Tony Little? Remember how humiliating this looked? (My apologies to my best bud Lisa!) It’s the most unnerving, unsettling and unpleasant thing to have somebody talk to your personal trainer while you’re working out. Don’t talk to my trainer! I own her for an hour! We’re upstairs where the huge scary wall-to-wall mirrors are, and she is training me on free weights. She’s in charge of counting, as I try to perfect my form. A lady doing crunches on one of those big beach balls started chatting up a conversation with her about the dangers of smoking. Not only did my reps go up to 75 per set because there was a bit of a distraction, but I was compelled to say, “Is this enough?” My triceps swelled into huge knots. My personal trainer is a really nice lady and I know she doesn’t want to be rude, but she also doesn’t want to see me cancel the next day because I can’t move out of bed. I was always used to the old fashioned way to do sit ups. Either ha

Downright humiliating. It’s what I felt as I did these freaky squat thrusts on a little mushy dome-like half ball on the floor, while these beautiful people walked past me as I stuck my butt out in “full” display. My trainer is one of those types who don’t believe workout machines will help all that much. She made me do 30 push ups (the half ass beginner ones), weird side leaps with a resistance belt tied around my ankles, looking more like my underwear fell down, 100 sit ups – but these sit ups were different – I had to lie on my back and push my legs into the air. I said, “This’ll never work.” How wrong I was. I got a Charlie horse in my stomach muscle. Who gets that? I could have done all of this at my house. But would I? …She even made me use one of those “steps” – the type of step that aerobic classes used from 1982 with leg warmers. I had to carry a 5 lb medicine ball and leap from side to side rotating each foot swinging the ball high in the air. I looked like some giddy gay ma

What is it with people? I’m starting to wonder how people are behind closed doors more and more every day. I’ve been avidly working out at the gym almost daily these days, and I’ve been noticing more and more how people don’t give a rat’s ass about cleanliness or respecting other people in the gym and wiping down their machines after they use them or even flushing the toilet in the bathroom for the love of God! How hard are these tasks? It’s even a written rule that the gym has: PLEASE CLEAN EQUIPMENT AFTER USE. –Management Clorox wipes are available at every set of machines. What’s the problem folks? Don’t talk to me. Not in general, but if you see me on a machine working out, sweating my butt off and my iPod on full blast in my ears, don’t ask me questions or talk about the weather. I’m not a mean and unsociable person, however, it’s evident I don’t want to gasp for air to talk about how spring is almost here. One lady nearly had a full conversation by herself. She thought I heard ev

What a couple of weeks! I want to apologize for not being around – not as though you’ve all been waiting for me like a sick buncha’ cattle waiting to get slaughtered, but there’s been such weird and distracting things happening lately. First it started off with a real bang. Madelene went off to work the same time as usual, and after she leaves, I start getting ready for my day. After a few hours I’m sitting in my office working and I noticed that Madelene’s car is still in the parking lot. Madelene never, ever comes home for lunch or for any other reason. She’s quite a predictable peapod. I keep looking outside, staring at her car. I know it’s her car because she has dealer plates on it, being that she’s a car salesperson – aka shark. Now, it’s noontime and I’m thinking maybe the Spanish lady next door is also a car salesperson? With the same car? With the same dealer plates? Naw… I look even harder. There’s a head in the car… not moving. I see the blue shirt reflecting off the driv