There is nothing worse than a song that gets stuck in your head for days.  Especially if it's one of my tween daughter's sugary pop, Disney or Nickelodeon stars songs.  Then I have to find another earworm to try and cleanse my brain of the drivel that she loves so much.


I make no secret of the fact that I do not particularly enjoy my kids' tastes in music.  The fact that they play the songs TO DEATH is a guarantee that I will find myself humming the song at some random point, if only because I can't get away from it unless I barricade myself in my room with earplugs.  Having grown up listening to everything from the experimental jazz of the 60's, to the disco and hard funk of the 70's to my discovery of all things rock and roll, past and present in the 80's, generally I try to be pretty open about what I listen to.  But I can honestly say that I hate some of the sweet electropop my daughter loves more than I hate that whiny cartoon, Caillou, and that's saying a lot.

I kid, I kid.  Sort of.

Earworms are like that, though.  If it's a song you like, but maybe forgot about, having the song pop up suddenly can be a great memory of a time in your life that was free of the burdens and worries that you have now.  I love it when songs are tied to a movie I haven't seen in a long time, as it gives me a reason to go back and re-watch movies from my childhood and teen years.  It's interesting, however, when you are going through a extremely difficult or trying time in your life, and a song will suddenly pop into your head whose lyrics directly correspond to whatever it is that you are experiencing.  I've always figured that this was the universe's way of making sure you don't feel like you are going through this all alone; somebody out there gets it because they've been through it too.

I've has songs creep back into my memory that reminded of entire genres of music that I had forgotten about.  One morning I woke up with the song "Beautiful Disaster" by the group 311 playing in my head:

Up until that moment, I hadn't thought about the 90's alternative music that I used to love, much at all.  Once I looked it up on YouTube, it led me back to a lot of great artists and music that I used to love from LA radio station KROQ, until I stopped listening in the mid 90's.

These artists reminded me that I had always preferred my music with a little "bite" to it, and lyrics that actually talked about what was going on in the world, especially subjects people might overlook or take for granted.  I had always leaned more toward LA post-punk bands like X, or English punkers The Clash, more than mainstream pop.  Of course I was not totally immune to the charms of certain bands, remembering what slid under my radar and took up residence in my subconscious a couple of weeks ago:

If music really is the soundtrack of your life, per Dick Clark, the earworms I find most pleasant are the ones that develop after I've had to learn a song for one of the gospel choirs I sing with.  Don't get any big ideas; I am NOT a soloist, so much as I make a very joyful BACKGROUND noise.  These are the songs that tend to pop up in my head and stay for awhile when I'm down, or just not feeling areas of my life working out.  Songs with lyrics that are uplifting and let you know that you are definitely not all alone in your struggles.  Of course not all inspirational songs are gospel:

Sometimes a gospel-tinged vocal, mixed with a soaring jazz saxophone is all your memory needs to pull a certain song from your mental archives when needed.  

As varied as my musical background is, I find it interesting what kind of notes, lyrics, and occasionally entire albums spring into my head on a daily basis.  It rarely, if ever gets boring, and it's nice to know that the catalog in my head can pull up a song to match almost any occasion.  It makes for an interesting Facebook feed when I get post happy some nights.

And I don't hate EVERYTHING my kids listen to.  But don't tell them that.  Then I'll never get to listen to what I want while I clean the house.  And maybe plant a few earworms of my own.

I have avoided talking about New Year's resolutions because I am terrible at sticking to them.  Oh, I generally do okay with food resolutions.  If I can hold out on whatever I am doing until Ash Wednesday, it generally carries over into Lent, by which time I've already either defeated whatever bad food habit I had been trying to break (chocolate, rather than dealing with negativity), or developed some good habit I really thought that I needed (eating fish at least once a week).  Where I fall down, literally, every year, is exercise.

Exercise is the bane of my existence.  Not that I don't enjoy physical activity, because I do, it's just that for people like me, for whom hand-eye coordination is a myth, and accidents are par for the course, the key thing becomes not making an ass out of yourself in public.  If you've ever tried jogging, as I did once or twice, and tripped over the sidewalk, falling on your hands and knees in front of a large group of people, you know what I mean.  I am the only person I know that has ever pulled a muscle while stretching before exercising.  I try to get it right; I just don't succeed very often.

I didn't have a driver's license until I was 32 years old.  Prior to that I rode the bus everywhere I needed to go.  A side benefit of being transit dependent is that you walk a lot.  Until my late 20's, that was my primary form of exercise.  As I got older, and the pounds started to creep on, I started to realize that the residual walking you do when riding the bus was no longer enough to keep the weight off.  So I started adding other things to the routine.

One of the first things I tried was buying home exercise DVDs.  I bought them; working out to them was a whole 'nother issue.  I am generally pretty good at following along with people, but I would get completely lost when trying to follow along with the videos.  Not to mention exercising at home came with an audience that found my attempts at fitness live comedy of the best sort.  It occurred to me that maybe I needed to do some sort of exercise that had an instructor or someone that I could follow along with.  Me being a natural introvert, I would have to stay around the back of the class or group so as not to be noticed.

Given that thought, I can only say I started with my son's martial arts class because I was feeling particularly optimistic that day.  Or maybe I was hoping that the instructors' and other students enthusiasm would rub off on me.  Most likely it was because one of my neighbors smoked a lot of weed, and I had a small contact high. Whatever the reason I decided to try capoeira, I will say that it is the one thing I stuck with for the longest, despite it being the thing I was the worst at.

Capoeira is an Afro-Brazilian martial art developed by slaves in Brazil so that they could train to fight without being detected by their masters.   In order for the training to remain a secret, they trained inside a circle, which is still how training is conducted to this day. Although most of the warm ups and drills were done as a large group, so for the most part my clumsiness could go unnoticed, whenever we had to partner up to practice a drill, or to "play" (practicing fighting) inside the circle, my shortcomings would come into full focus.  I have to say, I gave it the old college try (During one partnered drill, one of the more advanced students demonstrated a combination of movements that I was to repeat. Completely perplexed, all I could do was stare at him and ask "What the hell did you just do?", cracking up both the advanced student, and everybody behind us in line.), but I was thoroughly out of my depth.  The lead instructors: Courtney, Tracey and Ellis, God love 'em, stuck with us for about six years,and through many challenges: my obvious lack of ability (and uncanny knack for pulling and twisting muscles I didn't know I had), my son's growing apathy, and my daughter's 15 second attention span for any activity that costs money to pursue.  It was a great experience for all of us, in that we made friends that we still have to this day, my son learned in some ways to focus his energies, my daughter got the gist of group activities and working with others, and I learned to push my physical boundaries (I hated the thought of not finishing a drill or exercise as I despised looking like a quitter) and I expanded my comfort zone (exercising in front of other people doesn't suck THAT much).  Time, money, distance and growing interest in other things ended our adventure in martial arts, but I still needed to exercise, so like so many other folks, one January, I decided I would head back to the gym.

The first place I tried was Curves, a women only, circuit training facility.  It was walking distance from my house (BONUS since I didn't own a car.), was supposed to be a quick, but effective workout, and wasn't terribly expensive.  It worked for all of about two months.  My issue?  It got boring.  Rapidly. And my kids had a strange way of developing some kind of emergency  EVERY SINGLE TIME I left the house to go to the gym.  Who needs to run when a panicked phone call about one sibling yelling at the other, and could you please come home right now, can get your heart racing? Not to mention my church activities started moving around, throwing my preferred workout schedule into disarray.  What I decided I needed after that was a facility where I could go whenever I had a free minute, and someplace I could take my daughter with if I had to.

I guess I thought I was being smart when I signed up for 24 Hour Fitness in December a couple of years ago.  I thought if I started in December, signed up with a personal trainer, and started working out early, I could beat the January crush, and I might even stick to it.  They even offered child care!  I have to admit that I did enjoy it for a little while.  The trainer, Scott, was a hoot, and it was nice to know what I was doing in the gym.  My daughter hated the child care, as she was often the oldest kid there, and had nothing to do.  She went back to being watched by my son (when he felt like it), prompting more panicked "Where are you" phone calls, and more activity moving with the church, butchering my workout schedule.  It was the gym rats that killed me though.  These are people that hang around the gym in their bathing suits, oops, I mean "workout attire", scoffing at the bigger people like myself, and sitting on the equipment, talking to their friends, in between sets of five or ten reps at a low enough weight so they can look like they are working out without actually working up a sweat.  Sweat being unattractive, you see.

So I am back to squares one and two: working out at home while getting in all of the residual walking from being on the bus.  Now that my son has a PlayStation 3 with two versions of the popular game Just Dance, working out at home is a lot more fun, and my critics occasionally cheer me on, since they benefit in points and trophys when I get a high enough score.  Like all home workout enthusiasts, every time I try it, I add to the home equipment.  

I have good intentions, even if my follow-through isn't great.  The spirit is willing, but the flesh often wonders what the hell I'm doing.  I know I'll get the exercise thing right, eventually, but like everything else in my life, I just need to start small and build up.  Like walking, it's a matter of taking one step at a time.



As much as I make jokes about it, and frankly as much as I sucked at it, capoeira is definitely worth your fitness consideration.  Omulu Capoeira Los Angeles, under the leadership of Mestre Preguica, put up with the kids and I for a good long while, and we learned a lot while we were there.  Look them up, and give them a try:   http://omulula.org/