When I moved into my first non-college apartment, I lived with a friend I met through work. We were good roommates, had similar temperaments, like the same books/magazines/movies/TV shows, and got on well. However, within a week or so of living together we both noticed that even though our bedrooms were on separate ends of the apartment and we did not see each other as we were getting dressed we would more often than not be dressed either in the same color scheme or the same style of clothes. Not matching but we’d both have on tweed patterns or button-down shirts with a-line skirts.

Well after three years of harmonious roommating, she decided to move across the country. I live with a new roommate now and we rarely dress alike, but she and I have more dissimilar clothing styles in general.

However, this past week she came back to New York to visit for the holidays. She stayed with my new roommate and I for a couple of days. I had to laugh this morning when we had again gotten dressed in different areas of the apartment but each put on a green sweater with brown undertones.

My Namesake Came Out

Well I guess technically, I am her Namesake.

So the story, as I remember my parents telling it, as to how they decided to name their second little bundle-of -joy (me) is that they were flipping through the TV Guide and saw the listing for Family Ties that week. The mother, Meredith Baxter’s character was named Elyse, they liked the name.

This week, Meredith Baxter came out, announcing that she is a lesbian.

It’s totally bizarre and completely unfounded but I feel some connection to this woman just because I was named after a character that she used to play. I am very sensitive to any mention of her or Family Ties in the media, I want the show and her character to be received in a positive way –as if that were some reflection on me. To that effect I really respect the way she came out, and how she is handling the renewed media interest and invasion into her personal life.

So I will take this as quasi motherly advice/example to always be who I am and not care about what other people think of me.

High Flying and in the Right Direction

I haven’t blogged about trapeze lately, but please, gentle reader, don’t mistake that for any disinterest on my part, I am still very much addicted.

To be honest I had just hit a rough patch with it.

In September I started working on my swing --one of the most difficult parts of trapeze and what all instructors have insured me, that one spends years working on, for all intents and purposes it is the backbone of the swing. Flyers use their swing to build height, speed, power into their flight that gravity is doing its best to thwart, and physics is doing it’s thing in there too.

So I start working on my swing and it’s ok, respectable for a newbie like myself. Well then I didn’t take a class for several weeks, and it just fell apart. I was back when I should have been forward, hollowing way too early and only rocking from my waist, not my whole torso. It doesn’t matter if you didn’t follow all of that, just know it was bad and I received the well-meaning but frustrating advice of ‘starting over.’

To make matters worse, I started a new trick The Penny Roll, the trick is cool; I would swing out, sit on the bar like it was swing, and then roll backwards, flipping down to the catcher/net. My trick was good --the problem was I couldn’t catch it. I tried for 4 classes, and you only get two-catch attempts per class; so for two months I tried to catch this trick --never happened.

So I started over, simplified my swing till muscle memory kicked-in and the rhythm solidified in my brain and in my swing itself. It’s getting there, we’re back to respectable but still needs work.

Last night I learned a more advanced method of doing a trick I already knew and incorporating my swing into the trick. It’s not pretty yet, there is finesse that I need to work on but I got it, and caught it on my second try.

So, after these bumps in my road it feels great to moving in the right direction.

Family Fun

My Mom and Step-dad have been on a health-kick for the last couple of years, they joined a gym, starting drink or water than soda, and both started running. Everything they are doing --well it’s definitely working. I’ve gone to classes at their gym with my Mom, she’s twice my age but I’m the one sitting, trying not to throw-up on my shoes while she keeps going; a light shimmer of sweat the only sign that she’s winded at all.

So this Thanksgiving morning, my Mom, Step-dad, sister and I participated in Lake Mohawk’s 3rd Annual Turkey Trot, 5K race.

Now I haven’t run a 5K since high school and I only joined the cross country team then because I liked the people affiliated with it, not for any deep-seated love of running. My sister however, was the cross country queen, being a top finisher from her freshman year on. So needless to say, I was planning on both the race and my family kicking my ass.

I my whole game plan for this race was to go out hard and hopefully be in a decent position when I ran out of steam. From playing pick-up soccer in the park, and two-hand touch football all fall I knew my only chance was to go for speed rather than endurance --and work the downhills.

Well the race starts off, my Mom, sister, and I are deep in the back, probably a full minute goes by before we actually cross the starting line. In the beginning I was feeling pretty good, dodging small children, Dads with strollers, and the couple people running with their dogs in tow.

Unfortunately, for my mental acquity they had signs at each half-mile. There is nothing more disheartening than going along, feeling good, feeling strong and then you see that you’ve only run a mile --2.1 more to go. The mantra keep going, keep going, keep going, lasted till I reached the halfway point. Now I switched to plan b: power walk, run, power walk, run --where I would pick a sign post, telephone pole, landmark 50 or so feet in the distance. I was playing leap frog with some people around me who were doing the same thing, 2 10-year old boys, and 2 women in blue and pink under armour; but then the small children, Dads with strollers, and the dogs started that I had passed earlier started passing me.

At the 3rd mile mark, I glance over my shoulder and there is my sister, keeping a steady pace as I power-walked. Thanks to her, “Come on” I kicked the last 10th a mile in, while she got trapped behind a slower runner. I ended up finishing 7 seconds ahead of her. The little sister in me loves that for once in our lives I beat her at a race --I am sure that is the first and only time that will happen.

Official time 31:27:14