Sore Muscles, Sore Joints

In particular, Thursday evening Subrata and I went off to play ultimate frisbee, since I'm feeling more-or-less recovered from the cold that laid me low last week. It was somewhere around 50 degrees as we started playing on the field around 7:30 pm, but of course we were undeterred; this is a winter league, after all, and winter in California, well, just ain't much!

Well, we played for a bit over two hours (plus half an hour of warm-up beforehand), and had a good time. Our team won both games! Although we had to fend off a run by our opposition in the second game to secure an 11-10 win. Better yet, I had perhaps a better evening tonight than I did all last year, making many catches, some decent throws (my forehand is pretty reasonable now), and a fun defensive play, whacking the disk down before it went into the end zone with a loud smack. (My smacking hand was sore for half an hour after that hit!)

We have a pretty good team, with plenty of speed and endurance. I, of course, don't have great speed and my endurance is pretty lousy, but I did okay. There was one guy in the second game who could mostly run rings around me, but that's life. I tried not to be stuck covering him as much as possible. On the plus side, I did find out that I can kick myself into fifth gear if I really need to catch up with someone; I just can't do it for very long.

Finally, my new cleats were much more comfortable than my old ones, which had chafed my feet badly last year. These are plenty wide without feeling loose, and I'm very glad I bought them.

Subrata and I went for Italian food afterwards, both of us feeling tired and sore. I was pretty happy to hit the pillow when I got home.

Friday is usually a workout day for me, but I was just too sore when I woke up to contemplate it: The soles of my feet hurt, my thighs were sore, the muscles around my elbows were sore (I can understand that my throwing arm would have this ache, but my left arm had a similar if reduced ache for some reason), and my joints were also sore. Sitting down for a while meant it was a bit of an effort to get up. Oof! Hopefully I'll loosen up and get used to this strenuous exercise as the season rolls on.

At night I made my usual trip up to Borrone, but I must admit I'm starting to get disenchanted with it. The quality of their italian sausage sandwiches has gone down sharply, and they've jacked up the prices on their garlic bread while reducing the size of the portions. Meanwhile the place is getting more popular and therefore more crowded, and the dixieland jazz band which plays nearly every Friday is wearing out its welcome with me.

So I think I will probably start going less often.

Which is probably a good thing, since I've been reviewing my finances in anticipation of looking at buying a home, and I clearly spend too much money on stuff like eating out, and I ought to cut back. Hard to believe I throw away more money on everyday things in a month now than I lived on back in grad school! Zoiks!

Incidentally, Wednesday night I had some pretty intense dreams about looking at condos. My subconscious dreamed up some really intriguing places. One was a three-level building with the main entrance and a foyer at the top, and then extending below ground down the side of a hill to the living room and kitchen, and then two bedrooms on the bottom floor. Another was a large, spread-out places with brown tile across all the floors, and large sections decorated with house plants or ponds rendering them unusable as living space. A third had black marble floors and was also rather spacious, looking more like an elegant hotel. My imagination was clearly wandering pretty far from anything I'd be likely to afford.

But, I guess this shows that the notion of buying a place is pretty firmly ensconced in my mind. I even picked up a book on house-buying Friday night, figuring it might point out some things I hadn't yet thought of or been advised of.

Today was a day of house chores. I have many things I want to do around my apartment, such as throwing out old newspapers and magazines, and going through all the clothes in my closet to figure out which ones fit, which ones don't fit but might someday, and which ones I should get rid of. So I started in on that, while watching some TV as well. The cats were happy to have me home.

I also went to the gym and put in a workout. I'm still sore, but except for the soles of my feet I'm not bothered by it anymore. Afterwards I bought myself some new blue jeans, which I need, and I was pleased to find (as I've suspected for a while!) that I can wear a smaller-sized waist! Yes, I'm down to a 36. (For the record, I topped out at 40.) I still wear loose-fit jeans, but that's because I've got those darned gigantic quadriceps from all my biking and weight lifting. (I probably could wear more close-cut jeans, but I don't really find them comfortable.)

In the evening I got restless and walked to the nearby downtown to see what I could see. The mediocre coffee shop down there was doing pretty good business, so I bought a mocha and read for a while. But the downtown is not very lively; I suspect most weekend business goes to the mall on the other side of it from me. Still, it's showing signs of coming to life, as a pancake place has recently gone in, and a large brewpub is being built. If it can muster the wherewithal to house a bookstore (tricky, since there are three Barnes & Nobles and a Borders within five miles of it) or something else gentrifying, it might start pushing out the myriad of antique stores and make the strip a little friendlier to younger folk like myself.

Also, I've been thinking recently about renaming my journal. I've come up with a name I like pretty well, and some notions for graphics for it. I'm not very handy with creating Web graphics (you may have noticed), but I might give it a try.

Needless to say, it's unlikely that these thoughts will become reality in the near future.

At least not until my legs stop aching.