Huff…puff…water!…need…water!…run…jog…dying…sprint…huff…puff…sweat…may vomit…

Look down at fitness machine on which running, see that it reads:

“Discontinue use of machine if dizzy, faint or exhausted.”

* * *

The gym.  The perfect setting to meet potential mates.  I mean, the place exudes physicality and sex and…

…entire shirts dripping with sweat (how is that possible?) and fatty bouncing body parts and caveman-like grunts and some sour smell that appears to be the results of everyone’s collective effort.

Ew.

Anyway, maybe I’ll just get fit. 

* * *

Mental note: Avoid the gym on the first Saturday after New Year’s.  Do you REALLY need to hog the whole mat for your yoga poses? 

* * *

No, not me, I’m not listening to Air Supply on my iPod.

* * *

Overheard while hoisting eight-pounders over my head: “Dude, what are you pressing, 250?”

* * *

How is it that yesterday, when I had the same exact body but lounged around dipping chips into sour cream, my body was repugnant and jiggly, when today, while I’m lifting and running and stretching it all over the place, it suddenly looks fit and buff?  I like how that works.  Feel good, look good.  Maybe I’ll try this again sometime.

I spend hours each holiday season in the candy aisles at Target choosing the perfect candy canes to decorate my Christmas tree.  Until my niece and nephew moved to town, the only requirement was aesthetic ― the appropriate color scheme to match my theme of the year.  Nowadays the canes must not only enhance the appearance of the tree but also…taste good (read: not like mint ― bo-ring).

To save you the trouble, I’ve eyed and licked and sucked and crunched the best of the cane selection on your local Target shelves this holiday season.  Here’s my report:

JOLLY RANCHER:  “Bold fruit Smoothie flavors.”  I’m not sure how “Smoothie” is relevant to the flavor of a candy cane — I guess the manufacturer is trying to give them a nutritious bent.  The 11 grams of sugar and lack of any vitamins or minerals beget this attempt, but never mind, let’s get to the important stuff.  Uncreative appearance, simply a classic candy-cane stripe, with white and juicy-fruit colors winding down the cane.  And the watermelon cane could be deceiving, its green, red, and white stripes suggesting to an unsuspecting candy-cane swiper that it’s mint-flavored (kind of like thinking you’re about to drink water when the cup is filled with milk).  But if you’re a Jolly Rancher fan, the flavor is true to the days of the Stix.  And the “bold fruit” flavors are bold indeed:  We have the always sassy strawberry, the mixed berry (blunt as ever, even unleashing a curse word here and there), and the cheeky never-taste-like-the-real-thing-but-still-the-best-flavor-in-the-bunch-short-of-green-apple watermelon. 

Jolly Rancher Candy Canes

NOW AND LATER:  What seventies kid didn’t love these teeth-breaking pucker-inducing “taffies” wrapped with wax paper like a little present?  That sour apple I mentioned?  Present.  Watermelon, too.  And grape and strawberry.  In short, the rulers of the flavor world (no boring orange in sight).  Pretty, too — rich reds, greens, purples, and pinks with a dainty stripe to offset the color splash.  Not to mention, 10 fewer calories per cane than the nutrition-touting Jolly Rancher.  And as for the texture…soft and crunchy at the same time, kind of like the real thing.  Now and Later, indeed.

Now and Later Candy Canes

SOUR PATCH:  (Pucker.)  (Eyes bulging.)  (Woo-eeee!)  I was suspicious of these canes given the best part of the real Sour Patches (my number-one favorite candy) is the soft sweet chew waiting beneath the shocking sugar coating.  Could hard candy possibly do the job to offset the sour?  And then there’s the matter of all the wasted orange ones, because who eats the orange ones?  By the end of the season my whole tree would be nothing but orange, which is decidedly un-Christmas.  Also, what in the world is “redberry”?  Can’t they just be honest and call it a real fruit name, like cherry?  But, surprisingly, the cane version of the Sour Patch doesn’t disappoint.  Tangy, then sweet, living up to its “Sour then Sweet” promise.  I’d buy these again.

Sour Patch Candy Canes

And the winner is…Flavor-wise, these classic candy brands have all translated into quality canes.  But if I have to choose a winner, based on superior tree-decorating appeal and honest advertising, I must go with the Now and Laters.  And Now, I’m off to trim and crunch.  Later, friends.

The matching sock to every sock in the mismatch pile…my favorite T-shirt from 2007…a ten-dollar bill and four pennies…it’s amazing the things you discover when your washer’s on the blink. Mine’s been out of commission for a week. Diagnosis: kaput motor, according to the repairman who lifted the washer off the ground to inspect the drain while I closed my eyes and prayed to heaven a dirty bra wasn’t crumpled up underneath.

But it’s not just the long-lost stuff underneath the washer. A malfunctioning washer reveals other interesting tidbits, too. Like the lengths you’ll go to avoid visiting a laundromat. Today, for example, I’m wearing a dirty tank top I found at the bottom of the laundry mountain on my bedroom floor and socks dotted with kittens poking their noses out of Christmas stockings. (I figure both will be hidden under other garments, and my track record with men lately means they’ll stay that way.)

Then there are the hidden jewels inside my closet and drawers, unearthed after years of dormancy behind my Favorite Clothes. The cotton sundress from Target with the tag still on it because I was too lazy to try it on at the store and too lazy to return it once I got home and realized I couldn’t pull it over my chest. (Got it from the teen department.)

And all those skinny jeans I’m saving for the day I implement that diet and exercise plan posted on my fridge (just beneath the coupons for holiday Hershey’s Kisses). Grunt…oomph…nope, still can’t button them.

And the tablecloth-fabric plaid wraparound skirt and floral leggings from my college days that could come back in style, you just wait, and, anyway, the Smithsonian might pay me a bundle for them one day to include in its 1994 Room.

And all my summer sweaters I still haven’t moved to the back of the closet even though it’s fall, and all my fall sweaters at the back of the closet hidden by the summer sweaters.

Ooh! And that crocheted shawl I really like. I forgot I owned this! I wrap it over my dirty tank top (hmmm…starting to smell a bit) and go to let in the washer repair guy with my shiny new motor.

When I was a kid my freckles were cute. Teen magazine assured my teen self of this, too, in those good-body-image articles. Now that I’m in my thirties, my freckles are suddenly not charming kisses from the sun but (insert crack of thunder here) SUN DAMAGE.

At the hair salon on Saturday, my stylist asked if I’d ever viewed my skin under an ultraviolet light to see the sun damage that had yet to reveal itself. “When I did it I was upset for three days afterward,” my stylist said. Pshaw, I thought. Such a superficial thing would never bother me. Anyway, I have a face full of adorable sun kisses, so I can’t imagine negative results.

So my stylist shined this ultraviolet light into my face, holding a mirror so I could see. AWWWWWWWK! Never mind the freaky fluorescent green of my pupils. My forehead alone was one big freckle, my cheeks the Milky Way.

“I must be pretty average, though, right, in terms of sun damage?” I asked, trying to keep my voice from wavering. “Doesn’t everyone look like this under one of these (&@#$*!!&) lights?”

“No, you’re right up there at the top,” she said.

The top? But I wasn’t even one of those sun-worshipping baby-oil-slathering silver-raft-lounging kids — I spent my summers buried indoors reading Danielle Steel novels. And, even more unfair, it turns out one of the pock-causing culprits is those birth-control pills I’ve been gulping daily since puberty. At least they’re good for something.

And that’s when I laid down one hundred sixty smackers for a new skincare line called — get this — REVERSE. Four food-color-size bottles that are supposed to last all of two months filled with magical potions concocted by mad scientists to fade my spots, even my tone (whatever that means), erase my wrinkles, and turn my giant freckle of a face into a creamy baby’s butt.

Um, just after ripping and melting and sizzling all the bad skin away. The warning labels scream something like USE ONLY A FLEA-SIZE PORTION AT FIRST, AND THEN ONLY EVERY THIRD DAY, UNTIL YOUR SKIN STARTS ENJOYING AND EVEN CRAVING THE ITCHING, PEELING, AND REDNESS AND YOU’VE SCARED OFF ALL YOUR FRIENDS AND ANY POTENTIAL DATES. ALSO, IF YOU EVEN DARE VENTURE INTO SUNLIGHT WHILE YOU’RE USING THIS STUFF, YOUR FACE WILL TURN PURPLE. BUT DON’T GIVE UP. EVERYONE MUST GO THROUGH AN UGLY DUCKLING PHASE BEFORE SHE CAN EMERGE A SWAN.

Never mind that I have the most sensitive skin this side of a Dove commercial…skin that turns my face into a ripe tomato at the first whiff of foreign matter (read: anything other than Cetaphil or Aveeno). I want to be a swan, dammit. So REVERSE it is!

And so, without further ado, Step 1 (scrub, scrub, scrub), Step 2 (tone, tone, tone), Step 3 (dab, dab, dab), Step 4 (sunscreen, sunscreen, sunscreen).

I’ll let you know how it turns out.

An only-slightly-exaggerated story from this morning:

Brownies tightly wrapped in foil on kitchen counter. Anyway, must fix this computer problem. I wonder who might help? Notice cute little logo winking at me from below computer screen: “DELL,” with the “E” leaning to the left in cheeky manner.

Ah, yes, the nice folks at Dell. So helpful when I was buying my computer — suggested all kinds of nifty accessories and gadgets to make my computing experience more modern.

Click into Internet world, type “dell.com.” Click “All Support Options,” then “Technical Support.” Easy enough. Will have this problem fixed in no time and can move on to prepare turkey on whole wheat for lunch. Just need the phone number for those brainy tech-support people.

“Not so fast. Please enter your service-tag number.”

Say what?

“Or else we won’t give you the phone number.”

Lift foil, pinch tiny corner of brownie from pan.

Now where would I find such a thing as a service-tag number? “Look on the bottom of your computer, dummy.”

Lift computer and peer underneath. Locate blur of tiny numbers in font-size point 4. Write numbers with right hand while balancing laptop over head with left. Type 27-digit number rife with Xs, Qs, and Zs and other hard-to-reach letters.

“Sorry. Looks like you ordered your computer in the U.S. This is Dell Canada. We can’t help you from all the way up here.”

Cut official brownie square. Eat in one gulp.

Type “dell.com” (with extra force). Search Home page for 20 minutes for “Contacts.” Eyes keep tripping over mocking slogan: “See how these entrepreneurs use technology to solve business problems!”

Finally find “contacts” in font-size point 4 tucked between copyright notice and “Site Map” link. Click “Contact Dell Support.” Click “Call Technical Support.”

“Sorry. Need your service-tag number again, sucker.”

Pour glass of milk, cut larger brownie square.

Type “dell.com.” Notice Dell sales number at top of screen. Dial 1-800-WWW-DELL.

Pleasant recorded voice reflecting mood on the other side of happy from mine: “So we can better serve you, please say or enter your Dell service-tag number.”

Spit number into phone.

“So we can better serve you, please describe how we can help you today.”

Shout “Need help restoring data!” into phone.

“Did you say find Dell shops in Florida?”

“RESTORE DATA, YOU IDIOT! RESTORE DATA!”

“Did you say you want to buy new music software? Because we have a great product that would make your computing experience more modern.”

“HUMAN BEING!!! HUMAN BEING!!!”

“We are now connecting you to a customer-service representative. Cool it, lady.  Eat a brownie or something.”

Hold music: Pleasant-Recorded-Voice-Lady’s teenage cousin singing “Lollipop! Lollipop! Oh, lolli-lollipop!”

Pleasant-Recorded-Voice-Lady returns: “Don’t freak, but approximately 182 people are ahead of you, and they’re all threatening violent crimes if we don’t service them first. You might check out our helpful online support services. You won’t have to wait on the phone for three hours to talk to someone who won’t be able to help you, anyway, because he’ll be reading from a flow chart from which he refuses to veer.”

Grab fork, place brownie pan on lap, dig into middle of brownies, shovel forkfuls into mouth with abandon.

Type “dell.com,” spraining index finger in process.  Click way furiously into Support Center again.  Click “Search Dell’s extensive Knowledgebase & Forums for answers.”

“You’re right, we don’t have a search mechanism, exactly, but you can read through the 30,625 topic threads to see if any pertain to you. But only if you type your service-tag number first.”

Place empty brownie pan in sink.

Hellooooooooooo out therrrrrrrrrrrrrrrre (echo…echo…echo…), and welcome to my blog!  (Dead silence.)

Anyone out there?

Not a soul?  So that means I can write whatever I want in this, my very first blog entry?  Because no one’s reading it?  Kind of like a tree falling in a forest and all that?

You know what this means, don’t you?

I can curse with abandon.  (Judas priest!  Cheese and crackers!  Bass hole!  #%&*#@!  Shoot!  Freakin’ A!  Holy chigger bites, batman!  Oh, my heck!  What the Sam Hill’s going on here?) 

And reveal my deepest, darkest secrets.  (Did you know that the summer I was ten I lied to the town librarian about how many books I’d read in the summer reading program so I could win the contest?  I only tied for first, though, because my best friend “recounted” in her head after she heard my number and magically arrived at the same number as me.  You know who you are, Jessica.)

And streak from my room to the laundry room to find clean undies in the dryer.  (Streeaaaaaaaaaaaaak.)

And choose my big bloomer Hanes Her Ways because they’re more comfy than the sexy silky ones.

And reveal that I don’t really have any sexy silky ones to choose from.

And post this picture of my bed, which is unmade right now, much like the rest of my house, which I wouldn’t let you into if you dropped by unannounced.  Instead I’d just be very still and pretend I’m not home (even though my car is in the driveway).

And let my cats not only jump on the kitchen counter but sleep there all day.

And misspell stuff.  Its okay, your not reading this, anyway.

And turn on my “Beauty and the Beast” soundtrack and waltz around my living room with a broom.

And…

Say what, Mr. Web Designer?  You’re saying people can read this later?  Like a tree falling in a forest where no one’s around but they’re just outside the forest in the city and will hear the reverberations?

Anyway, folks, just testing to see if you’re awake.  It appears you are, so, um, forget everything you just read?  And welcome to my, er, blog.