Five for Friday (v. 74)

1) On Monday morning, I met up with my mom to do a workout at 9Round Fitness, a kickboxing gym. I love the idea behind this gym: There are 9 stations set up with a different workout (a mix of cardio and kickboxing workouts) at each station. Every 3 minutes you switch to the next station until you do the full 9 rounds. There are punching bags and speed bags and other boxing equipment so you can really get out your aggression if you need to! There are no set class times; you just start the first round when you arrive and go from there, which I think is a really interesting concept. We did the beginner workout, which was really hard and had me sore for days! My mom ended up joining the gym, but I’m going to stick to my Peloton workouts for now. Still, it was fun to go and experiment with a different style of workout!

2) I’ve been underwhelmed by Book of the Month’s selections for the past few months. I’ve skipped three of the last four months (and only got a book in August because it was the latest Helen Hoang romance, but it’s not a book I was super invested in buying). They’re doing a lot of popcorn thrillers and literary fiction lately. The popcorn thrillers are fun, but those are books I’d rather just get from the library while most of BOTM’s literary fiction selections are books I’m not interested in reading. What a first-world dilemma, huh?

3) This might be kind of gross, but I’ve had a popcorn hull stuck somewhere in a back molar all week long, ever since I had popcorn for a snack on Monday afternoon. I have been flossing the hell out of my back teeth to try to get it out, but no dice. I always forget about it until I have to eat something and then I can feel the sharp edge cutting into my gums when I bite down on food. I think my mom has a water flosser that I’m going to try to use, otherwise, I’ll have to make an emergency dentist appointment and I really don’t want to do that.

4) This is going to be an odd complaint, considering we’re still in a pandemic and we need to be cautious about opening up our lives. But I’m feeling really sensitive about my lack of a social life. I never had a crazy social life before the pandemic, but I got out more than I’m doing now. The pandemic allowed all of those feelings of social anxiety and FOMO to lay dormant for a while since I didn’t have to worry about what my friends were doing without me. We were all staying home! But now things are changing and it’s hard to open Instagram and see all of these fun pictures of people hanging out while I’m being a sad little hermit at home. I feel like my social anxiety is at an all-time high because I haven’t had to work on my social skills for such a long time. I’m trying to remember to be kind to myself, that Instagram is only a highlight reel, that we’re all still struggling in our own ways, and that it’s okay if my social tolerance is much, much lower than other people’s. I am still a valued person in my friends’ lives, even if I’m not the one going out with them to fun places and events every other week, or the one sending them funny memes every day. But there are times when being kind to myself is really fucking hard and I just want myself to be different: more sociable, more outgoing, more energetic. Less serious and quiet and anxious. Good days and bad days. We all have them.

5) Let’s not end this post on a bummer note because it’s the weekend and I don’t plan on turning on my work computer at all! Today, I have a facial at 2 and then I plan on coming home, taking a nap, and eating pizza for dinner while watching Nailed It. Tomorrow, I have my usual writing date with Mikaela and then the rest of my day to myself. And Sunday is football with the fam day! It should be a good weekend, albeit a slow one.

What are your weekend plans?