I’m really happy to introduce my blog friends to Paolo, who is one of the youngest and most energetic members of my solo performance community. His show is amazing, and in many ways strangely echoes my own, even though I’m like old enough to be his grandma (okay, maybe his mama). He’s also a fitness blogger and I am excited for you all to get to know him. Take it away, Paolo!!
————————–
I’m slightly obsessed with time travel mechanics, and recently I’ve been thinking about what I’d like to do if I had access to a time displacement machine. I’d go back ten years to when I was a freshman in high school. Specifically, high school boys PE class.
On good days we’d have open gym (which was code word for talking about DSL connection speeds in the weight room with the other nerdy kids). On bad days we had organized sports (sometimes with the girls PE class – score?). But before that knowing what we’d be doing for the day, we’d run the mile. And by mile, we were running around the block four times. I used to huff, puff, wheeze and sing Sex Pistols songs while trying to survive the mile. To which I was usually assailed with snide remarks about my lack of fitness.
So back to that time displacement machine. Upon reaching the desired temporal destination of ten years ago I would confront of smug a-holes with, “HEY! THIS IS PAOLO FROM TEN YEARS IN THE FUTURE AND YOU’D BETTER KNOW THAT A DECADE FROM NOW I’LL BE ABLE TO RUN A MILE AND WILL HAVE THE EQUALIVANT OR GREATER FITNESS OF AN AVERAGE HIGH SCHOOL FRESHMAN. Also, all of you will die in a tragic bear raping incident in a rock quarry in 2008.”
That last part would just be me screwing with them. Although, who knows, I might have be able to influence that time line by planting the idea in their head. Kind of like going back in time to stop the Great Chicago Fire, only to inadvertently start it.
Needless to say, I can run a mile just okay now. I never was the ‘fit’ kid growing up, and after working for a year (consistently, I might add) at this losing weight business (and keeping it off), life recently is feeling like that montage in the first Spiderman where Peter Parker is discovering his powers for the first time. Going up the steps to my therapist’s office and NOT getting winded? Not breaking out in a flop sweat after walking ten minutes to Walgreen’s? Being able to fit in medium sized shirts after years of wearing extra large? Able to run a mile okay without cursing the world? What in the world?
To borrow a quote from The Simpsons:
Skinner: Bart Simpson on the side of law and order? Has the world gone topsy-turvy?
Bart: That’s right, man. I got my first taste of authority…and I liked it.
And this is after all the years of false starts and stops, poring over Men Health’s at Borders, grandiose plans relayed to my family of a sweeping lifestyle reform, that one time I thought I wanted to be a fighter and got kicked in the face, compromises reverting back to bad habits because I could fit into a large shirt and not feel like a stuffed sausage, the one time I ate an entire Popeye’s 24 piece family meal by myself. I would like to add that unemployment is terribly conducive to weight loss.
Maybe as a twenty-three (four in…two weeks [as of this writing]) year old, and as a former fat kid, there is something…I cherish about finally being able to do things now that would have been flights of fancy for me less than a year ago. And not taking it for granted. Which means keeping myself accountable for what I do/eat – although I am not above bacon cheeseburgers with two grilled cheese sandwiches with bacon inside them as buns. Not above at all.
I don’t talk to those kids from my old high school at all, but there’s a tiny part of me that hopes that despite their athletic abilities and state championship game winning basketball shots in high school, that they’re working at a gas station with a belly swollen with fat and unfulfilled dreams. Or, killed in a tragic bear raping incident in a stone quarry. Oh, youthful arrogance.
Paolo Sambrano is a solo performer whose debut full length show, “Bi-Poseur” premieres on September 2 in San Francisco. When he’s not attempting to blog on his ‘performer’ page at PaoloSambrano.com, he’s talking about making bacon cheeseburgers with grilled cheese sandwiches (with bacon inside) as buns or working with kettlebells, at his health/fitness/food Tumblr, I Get Wet. He’s also on Twitter, @paolo.
This Tuesday night was truly an amazing experience for me. It was the night that this blog, I don’t know, turned 3-D. I showed a theaterful of people what FoodFoodBodyBody was all about. And I have to say, I loved every minute of it.
foodfoodbodybody 