Call Me Irresponsible

Well, more like, call me hypocritical.  Let me explain.

I am not a morning person.  

This is a truth universally known to just about all people who have come across me either before 9 AM and/or before I've had at least one cup of coffee.

Its hereditary.  Soon after my mom became and RN she moved back home to live with my grandparents for a little while to save some money.  She had gotten a job in a hospital by my grandparents' and so she moved out of her Greenwich Village apartment and back onto Long Island.  Since she was working the night shift she would, as the story goes, come home after a long night and sleep.  And sleep.  And sleep.  For ten, twelve, fourteen hours at a clip.  My grandfather would always tell us that after a twelve hours had gone by and he hadn't heard her so much as turn over in her sleep, he'd get nervous and would check on my semi-comatose mother to make sure she was still breathing.


That is my DNA.  My brother and I are both super sleepers.  My brother can sleep until noon without even thinking twice about it.  


I used to be that way.  Now its a different story.  Since graduating I've been working for a large defense contracting company.  And, as a whole, its been a great experience.  Decent pay, low living expenses, resume building, network developing, its all good.  Except for one thing.  I have to be at work before 8.  But if I get to work at 8, I have to stay until 5, which I no likey because it makes my evenings more hectic than I'd like.  So most days I carpool with my dad and get in by 7.  Which means I get off at 4 and am usually home by 4:45 which gives me tons of time to get to the gym where I sweat to the oldies, eat dinner, and indulge in my TV addiction.


So even though getting off at 4 is good, waking up at 5:15 is not.  Way not.  And let me tell you, 5:15 comes early in the morning.  Most of the time, my mornings pass by in a fog.  I'm not usually firing on all cylinders until at least 8:30.  Its a sad fact of corporate America.  I don't think I'll ever "get used" to these hours as long as I live because every morning is still a struggle.  My body is literally physically fighting me from becoming the morning person that I probably need to be.


Most mornings I sit in the passenger's seat of my dad Honda Accord, fighting to keep my eyes open.  Everyday we drive by car after car where the driver is talking on the phone.  I don't really have a huge problem with the fact that they're on the phone, my problem is that they are on the phone before 7 o'clock in the morning.  


Let me tell you what happens if someone calls me before 7 am, even if I am already up: I turn off my phone and have to restrain myself from throwing it with all of my might right out the window.


Every morning I see them, gabbing away about God only knows what.  But usually they look relatively happy, or at least not devastatingly unhappy, ruling out the only acceptable reason to be on the phone at that hour, matters of life and death.  I mean, really, what else can't wait until 9?


Well this morning, I became one of those people that I despise so much.  I've been taking this Zumba class at the Y for the past month or so.  And the instructor is really good.  So good, that you need to call the day before to reserve your spot.  And you better call early.  I learned that one last week when I called at 8:30 in the morning and my class was already full.  

This week I remembered.  And I called.  And it was 6:48.  Then I got in touch with my friends to remind them to call and save their spots (yest I texted, but no I was not moving).  And a little piece of my soul died.  It really did.  Because now apparently the only reasons for me to be on the phone before 9 AM, before I've had any coffee, before I've fully gotten the sleep out of my eyes is life, death, and zumba. 

Zoom, Zoom, Zumba!

A few weeks ago my pal Ginny asked me if I wanted to take a Zumba class with her.  As anyone who knows me can tell you, I've been trying to lose a few pounds for forever; so I decided - why not?  

Zumba is a cardio work-out that is based on Latin dances like the rumba, samba, and mambo.  You pretty much get to dance for an hour.  There's a lot of movement some reminiscent of high school soccer/football practice, some more elegant and lady-like, and a lot of booty shakin'.  When done correctly, you look coordinated, confident, and kinda sexy (at least as sexy as you can look as you are pouring sweat).  Its cardio dance class at its finest.


So here's the deal.  I am not a dancer.  I never have been.  And I never will be.  Uncoordinated and ungraceful, a day is a success if I manage to not trip over my own feet or walk into an inanimate object.  When I was three my parents, like so many other parents, decided that it was time for me to take ballet lessons.  After signing me up, buying me a leotard, some ballet slippers, and a snazzy bag to carry all of my gear they dropped me off at my first class.  My memories of that class are hazy at best, but I remember lots of running around on my tiptoes and pretending to be a prima donna.  Even though this totally sounds like the sort of thing I would have LOVED at three, I didn't.  I hated it (apparently there was another Andrea in the class who was not as well-behaved as I was, when her mom would yell at her, I would cry because I thought this strange woman was yelling at me).  I think I made it 6 weeks.  I certainly did NOT make it to the recital.


I decided to give ballet another shot when I got to college.  "Short Courses" were offered through the University and covered everything from Beginner's Ballet to Wine and Beer Tasting.  I excitedly signed up for Beginner's Ballet - for $40 I got 8 classes that was supposed to cover all of the basics of ballet.  Even though I didn't buy a leotard, I did buy ballet slippers.  I was so excited.  I got to my first class a little early.  All of the other girls in my class had on nice dance clothes.  I got a little nervous.  The first thing we did was go around the circle to introduce ourselves, just the basics: name, year, dance experience.  Slowly we make it around the circle.  Girl after girl states her name, year, and dance experience - three years, four years, seven years, ten years.  Then its my turn.  I slowly mutter, "My name is Andrea, I'm a first year, and (rightly believing my short lived experience at 3 didn't count) I've had not dance experience."  The teacher assures me that this is fine since we'll all be working on the basics.  It wasn't.  Did you know you can be really bad at plieing?  Which is for all intents and purposes graceful squatting?  I stuck it out for a couple of weeks but once we started leaping (and I subsequently started regularly falling on my ass) my embarrassment got the best of me and I dropped out.  Again.  No recital for me.


I decided that was it for me and dance.


Then I tried Zumba.


The class I've been going to with Ginny is really popular (you have to call the day before to reserve your spot) and held in the gym at the YMCA.  Which I like because gym = no mirrors.  No mirrors = me not able to see how ridiculous I look while Zumbaing.  Ginny's fun and not judgmental, so even if she is laughing at me, I know its never mean.  We stand in the back where hardly anyone can see us (which is ideal since I think that I look like a cross between Foghorn Leghorn and a Leprechaun while doing Zumba).  So even though I am almost positive that I look like an idiot, there is a little part of me that thinks that I look just as beautiful and graceful as all of the Zumba-aholics.   


Last night's class was especially fun.  While I really liked the fact that I burned a butt ton of calories, I really really love the fact that we did Beyonce's "Single Ladies" dance.  In case you live under a rock (like my dad apparently does, he had absolutely no idea what I was talking about) the little confident part of my brain thinks that I looked like Beyonce in this video:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDTibf0qIzw&NR=1


But I'm pretty sure that I look more like Andy Samberg in this one:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBC7pilGoPc