Arizona used to be the 3d most dangerous state....we've obviously become WAY MORE SAFE. I can only imagine that Arizona has achieved this glorious commendation because of the many crazy people who live here and who abide by their own rules. I also think that many of the people that put this state in such high esteem must live in my neighborhood in Phoenix. I was told by a women peddler when I was filling my gas tank up that I needed to give her a dollar so she "won't get raped on the way home." I couldn't believe this woman was actually trying to use that one on me. I told her that she wasn't going to get raped and that a dollar wasn't going to help her in that regard anyway. Is this a new thing? Psychological peddling? I'm supposed to feel guilty that a woman could be raped because I didn't give her a dollar at the Circle K gas pump? Mind you....it was 10:00 am as well. Am I the only person who thinks that's ridiculous? Where has the honesty gone in peddling? I remember the good old days when people would ask me for money for a beer....I didn't give it to them but I appreciated the honesty and often remarked on that. Now I think I'm more willing to give money to someone who asks for money for "smack" than to someone who tries to manipulate me into giving them money because of some conjured morning threat of sexual assault. Geez.
I guess I've gone full circle with Mack. I'm now watching him do to others exactly what he's done to me. It's interesting. I've watched several people go through the initial trial and never come back. Some people have surprised me though and have come back and are doing pretty well. I don't know how well I'm doing but I'm hanging in there. I find that I can hang with a lot of the stuff he does now and I've slowly gotten my mind around "just doing the workout" and not worrying about what's next. It's difficult because the Army has conditioned me to think I'm a huge loser if I can't complete the entire workout. In other words, I'm really much harder on myself than Mack is...maybe that's why he's been laying off me lately. My friend Nancy (code name "Rock") pointed out that no one finishes every part of Mack's workout and that the Olympic Decathlete, Dan O'Brien, can't even finish his workouts -- so why am I punishing myself for not doing all of the 100 pushups or the 2 million mountain climbers? Well....obviously....I'm much better than any stupid old Olympian and I should be able to do much more...hahahahaha. [That is a very very sad statement of what my mind actually says to me sometimes.] So now I sometimes steal a glance at the pro baseball player who can't do all of the leg lifts Mack demands and feel good because I'm hanging in there. It's all relative.
Let me explain Nancy's code name. Mack gives people nicknames in class and her's is Rock. I don't have one. I'm not sure whether that's good or bad. I have noticed that most people have them immediately though. This is odd because I seem to have always had a nickname of one sort of another in my life. My brother used to call me "Tans" because he couldn't pronounce my name and my mother still calls me that. Sometimes it's stretched out to "Tansie" -- usually when I've done something good. I've gone by "T" a lot, an ex called me "Ja", and a good friend called me "TJ" until another friend pointed out to him that it was a ridiculous nickname (which I regret). I've been called "Ship," "Shippy" and yes...."Shitty" -- but that has to do with other things. A dry cleaner used to use a code where they used the last 3 letters of my last name and the first letter of my first name so my code was SHIT. Great. In other words, the choices are not really that great. Mack is always talking about a positive mental attitude and I think I should pick a nickname and positively think about it (as a sort of experiment) to see whether he'll pick it up. I'm partial to "Terminator," or "Killer" or "Destructo." I'll let you know how it works out.
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