The Circle of Life….

Ed, not sure you will ever read this, but I am more than compelled to share my thoughts. I stumbled upon our hidden correspondence from so many years ago and it rocketed me back to 1995 when I sat in front of my cumbersome HP desktop computer……and logged on to AOL hoping to hear “You’ve got mail..”  

In 1995, I was in grad school and working full time.  I logged on to AOL as my recreation, stress reduction, and amusement.  Although I was sitting behind a computer and effectively anonymous, I was still concerned about my identity, and created my alter ego: Alexandra.

Alexandra was quick witted, sarcastic, a teasing minx, that alternately drew men in and yet kept them at arm’s length.  One of Alexandra’s conquests stated “that ‘maybe’ you left me with would get a marriage proposal out of a lot of guys…what a tease, you will never get rid of me now. “   Alexandra was every man’s dream; she collected phone numbers and admirers’ hearts by the score.  Alexandra never called, never promised, and most importantly never got emotionally hooked. She was the seducer and not the seduced.

Alexandra was saucy, impudent, and she tempted you with her smart mouth and an implied promise of more, much more. Alexandra was uninhibitedly provocative and innocently suggestive leaving the men with whom she interacted feeling sexy, sensual, and attractive. If men didn’t dance to her tune, Alexandra didn’t dance. Alexandra was in total command of the experience. As JAM said, “ I feel really spanked. You warned me and I bit anyway. Do you always send guys down smoking? I have not been teased like that since I was 16. Do you use us guys then discard us, or do I get a second chance.” And they all came back full of hope that Alexandra would… give them a second chance, give them anything on which to dream that they could be with her. And it was all because of saying, “maybe.” As one devotee said, “I believe I could wait for you forever.”

Alexandra’s rules were pretty simple: play, don’t get played, be kind, don’t deliberately hurt anyone, and most of all do not get emotionally invested; besides how could you fall for anyone through the phone lines. Ludicrous! It was all fun and games until EddddM.

Somewhere in 1995, I got a clunky desktop computer with the enormous memory of 512K and a 56K modem!  It was for grad school but who knew the magical mystery tour it was going to take me on?  I joined America Online in early 1995 when it was an hourly subscription service.  My first screen name was DLF7007, my initials and the number of the key to my Mazda.

When  I first discovered chat rooms I was a silent watcher.  I ended up in a chat room named “Talk about pets” or something, and when somebody posed a question to me I was so horrified, I x-ed out of the room rather than respond. However, I soon became more accustomed to chatting and realized my screen name was very bland and uninteresting.  My friend Mati Hari, said Frigidare was a good screen name.  And she was so correct, it garnered a lot of attention when I entered a chat room.

In the early days of AOL, when it cost me upwards of 200 bucks a month to hang in a chat room for hours, you sort of figured that the folks in the chat room most likely had a job because computers were not cheap in the 90’s and neither was AOL.  And most of the chat was civilized, fun, and flirty. And it took you on a wild, anonymous ride, where you could do anything and be anyone. Nobody asked your real name and nobody cared.   I became a 5’7” blond with green eyes.  Or brown eyes. Or maybe it was blue eyes. I never could remember. Alexandra had various occupations but I needed to keep it close enough to what I had knowledge of to make it believable. Alexandra gathered a ton of male admirers who were more than willing to hand over their phone numbers and addresses.

The thing about Alex was that she was me in a different package.  All of the words, sentiments, playfulness, wit, sarcasm, were all mine.  I was wickedly good at this anonymous game.

I wanted to go back to Real Life but Real Life went under with my money. Nice of them don’t you think? I left early due to an emergency and was coming back to finish out my second week. Well, I bought another week and shortly thereafter, they went belly up. Again with my money.

My dreams of exercise glory were dashed. But in the mean time, I refinanced my house. You would think I would learn, but no, apparently I was wanting another humiliating cavity search by the mortgage company. That completed I couldn’t help but give my honest opinion of the process, while receiving phone calls from all of the people I dealt with asking for a favorable rating since that is how they receive promotions or bonuses. Yeah, right.

It’s the second day and I had to get up and go to boot camp. Boot camp takes place in an indoor tennis court. It’s quite large. And it gets larger as the hour passes painfully.  We did all legs for an hour. I could barely hobble out of the court to go to intervals. Another tortuous adventure on a treadmill. After that it was breakfast. Pretty tasty. And then I did another bunch of classes: Tread, Zumba, Mat Pilates, Body Pump, and a stretch class. I finished at 3 and was tired, tired, tired. Sat until 5 talking to Mindy, Sara, and Eddie. I went to a therapy session with Dr. Sid, which was interesting. And then dinner. Back to room at 7 for shower and relaxation. You can tell the real lifers, they all walk stiff legged. I am sure it will get better in a few days. You can tell how tired I am by the typos. It all looks good to me.

I made it hear to St George Utah. Real Life Fitness and Health. Here at Green Valley there are spa people and Real Lifers. Last night we had orientation and met the rest of the Real lifers that started this week. There is Earl and Ed, twins from California. Bubba and Tracy a married couple from Texas. Sara from California. MIndy from Salt Lake City, and Adriane, my roommate from (OMG) Germantown, Maryland. We started this am with medical eval, where I was told I was fat, no news there. We did the BodPod, which is body fat testing, lipids, RMR, and saw the doc to make sure we could participate fully. Ok. So I guess I missed the hardest part of the day which is bootcamp and intervals. And it must be horrible as real lifers come out of there looking pretty done. I started my day with Zumba, circuit training, treadmill and then a stretch class. I am done. More later.

I decided that I wanted to live in a place called the Kentlands. And since the real estate market crashed and burned it seemed the right time. Well, if you plan to get a mortgage these days, plan to be stripped naked and cavity searched….even if you have a credit score of over 800 and assets. Hey mortgage company, just an FYI, you won’t find money in any cavity I have…

I borrowed the Circle of Life from Cody Lundin while describing Dave Canterbury as he attempted to get honey from some soon to be angry bees…..

As for the 4 Fit Friends, there are four of us, we are friends, but we are not fit at all. A few months ago while surfing the web I found this fabulous vacation spot. Here is the website:http://www.reallifefitnessandhealth.com/   I got a wild hair and called and  signed up for two weeks of boot camp. Ok, can this be considered a dumbass thing?  I have yet to schedule my two weeks. Hmmm. I don’t think I am procrastinating, because I am sure I will enjoy exercising for 8 hours a day while being starved.