don't stop, don't ever stop

My goals for the gym this year were as follows:
- lose ten pounds
- be able to do a mile in 15 minutes or less, the bare minimum required to pass middle school gym class in Texas

I have done both those things as of today. I actually discovered Saturday night I've lost enough weight that I need to wear a belt with my favorite summer jeans or they start sliding down with enough dancing. Good thing I still had some belly fat to keep them up on the dance floor. Still fat, but less fat. So that's cool.

In a fit of complete fucking madness, I hit the 32 minute mark in my loping cardio run at the gym this morning and decided to see if I could run for at least 50 minutes. That turned into an hour. Y'all, I ran for AN HOUR without stopping. I ran slowly, in the air conditioning of the gym. (Because I'm not crazy like some of my friends who run outside in Texas in the summer!) But I did it. I fucking did that thing and I feel a little giddy about this. I did this thing after my half mile warm up walk/stretch and my thirty minutes of lifting weights even! Then I did my crunches even though I just wanted to sprawl on the mat like a boneless sea creature.

The idea that I would ever do anything like this is pretty crazy. I've spent the majority of my life actively hating my body and pretending I had no connection to it. When it doesn't match at all what's in your head and your soul, when everyone sees you as something you are not - of course you don't want anything to do with it. But getting the mastectomy and making steps on this slow transition to being the guy I have always known I was - it feels so fucking good I could cry.

I have to credit kylecassidy with being one of the inspirations to exercise more. He writes about his own path to feeling more comfortable in his skin with a humor and gentleness and about running crazy distances in costumes and stuff. That dude runs OUTSIDE, which is crazy.

Also credit to my friends, especially my friends here. Because you were the first people I came out to, four years ago. Because you have supported me and left comments and shared your lives and been good to me all these years, through all these things. I love you guys so fucking much, you know.

Music to run by:
Evasion - Hat Films
Stalker (Club Mix) - Covenant
First Time - Rotersand
Baby's On Fire - Die Antwoord
Don't Stop - The Crystal Method
What Does The Fox Say? - Ylvis
Cold Dead Hands - Combichrist
Hallo Spaceboy - David Bowie
Hard Rock Hallelujah - Lordi
Into The Night - Mind.In.A.Box
Over And Out - Assemblage 23
Night Terror - Mr. Kitty
I Want Your Blood - Combichrist

longing

DAY FIVE: a letter to your crush

Dear ----,

I've fallen for you the way I've fallen for many other people. Don't feel weird about that. You're in some amazing company. Like David Bowie.

The crux of it is this - I don't know if I want to fuck you, or be your best friend, or be you. Because you are so fucking awesome. (This is the story of my crushes over the past twenty years, starting with John and culminating now with you.) I adore you. You're smart, you're handsome, you have that easy settled grace to your gestures, you're insanely talented. I want to be just like you in a lot of ways. I want to be your friend, your best mate, the one you go drinking with and the one you sit with in companionable silence playing games or reading, the one you have serious conversations with late at night, the one you take trips with to far away places for adventures. I also want to kiss you, because you're beautiful. I want to feel you with my hands and my skin, touch your hair and the curve of your back. I want to have rough, knock down drag out sex in the late afternoon and watch the light die while laying beside you. I want to feel your teeth on my throat and your hands pressing too hard into my skin.

Is that weird? It is okay if it is weird. That's a lot of intense feeling in an unexpected letter.

I want to fight monsters with you, and drink beers, and stay out late. Let's do this.

your companion in arms,
-A

( For all the other days )