The "B" Word

A couple nights ago I couldn’t sleep, so after a few hours of tossing and turning I fled the dark bedroom and fiddled with my camera for a few hours until Luke woke up. I had such fun adjusting the floodlight Derek brought into the dining room and fine-tuning my camera. It was a wonderful exercise and afterwards I slept great. Last night I went to aerobics. I worked hard, sweated, came home tired and…came home bored! My Mom always said, “If you’re bored I can always find something for you to do”, so as you can imagine the B-word was off-limits. But I believe this particular activity warranted it’s use.

The room we worked out in had horrible acoustics so as the instructor shouted directions all I heard was “HAH, EH, OH”. I just followed the girl beside me. I’m sure the instructor was shouting something with more syllables, more consonants and more meaning, but they all got swallowed up in the loud blaring of “N-sh, N-sh, N-sh” techno music. The activity was good for me and tired me out, but there was nothing for my mind. And am I one of these over-educated snobs who needs something to occupy my mind at all times otherwise I am…the obscene B-word? Apparently so.

If there had been anything – laughter, talking, a book on tape – I could have endured the exercise so much better. But there was just a yellow wall in front, a red wall behind and a white ceiling with white ceiling fans whose white paint was indiscriminately peeling from the blades. I couldn’t help but count the letters in “Please Wipe Mat After Each Use” and wonder how long it would take for fresh paint on a ceiling fan to dry if you turned the fan on “N-sh, N-sh, N-sh”. Ugh (don’t bother counting, it’s 25).

Lucky for me, I’ve paid in advance for these classes so that I would be motivated to go each week. I thought my problem would be getting off my couch to exercise. Turns out it’s not exercise, it’s the B-word kind of exercise that’s my problem.

I came home to a wonderful baby and a kind husband who posed for me while I fiddled with my lights and camera for a while longer to stimulate my under-stimulated brain. I ended up getting a very nice shot of Derek. And today Luke was kind enough to offer to do a sitting as well. He wanted to do a video too since we haven’t done one in a while and he just loves that little green light that comes on to get the camera to focus. So today you get an abundance of pictures and video to make up for my B-word exercise. You’re probably thinking, “She should exercise more often!” It’s true, there’s no denying it. Exercise sucks the oxygen out of my brain, and after I starve my brain I binge. Enjoy!

Check out the hair coming in on Luke’s little head! It’s so fuzzy and dark.