The sun is setting earlier these days, and it’s getting to the point where I can’t fit a run in after work, dinner, and a digestion break before the sun sets on me.  I used the treadmill last night for just that reason.

While I was treading, I turned on the TV.  There was nothing good on.  The best I could find was some sort of singing with the stars kind of thing, where celebrities from non-singing fields sing duets with actual famous singers.  I think my favorite was Lucy Lawless, aka Xena, Warrior Princess.  She looked skinny and blonde, which was weird because she was always brunette and sort of strapping on Xena.

One surprising contestant was Carly Patterson, former Olympic gymnast.  She wasn’t that great at singing, but I bet she’s a lot better at gymnastics than Kenny Loggins is.  One thing that caught my attention was how chunky she’s gotten.  She wasn’t obese or anything, just a very different body type than when she was last in the limelight.

Elite athletes are a weird bunch, gymnasts especially.  These little girls start training so hard at such a young age that I think it must stunt their development and delay puberty.  Then, when they stop working out at the level that an Olympic athlete must, their bodies kind of go crazy.  It happened to Mary Lou Retton, too.   I wonder if Kerry Strug’s voice ever got normal once her hormones had a chance to level out.

I noticed a similar thing at my 10-year high school reunion last year.  A lot of the guys who were super-jocks and had the great bodies in high school have gone very soft.  It’s to be expected, I guess; back then, they were working out at a high intensity just about every day of the week.  Then, when they went to college, they probably kept eating like athletes, but they mixed in beer drinking and a greatly reduced activity level.

On the other hand, a lot of guys who were scrawny little weiners in high school put on 20 pounds and looked all the better for it.  Hello, Winston Huang.  Another good example is my handsome husband, Denny.  I didn’t know him in high school, but I’ve seen pictures, and he’s come a long way.  Maybe when he’s 50 he’ll reach average levels of chubsiness.

But I love his skinny butt just the way it is.  He, in turn, has promised to love me no matter what the ravages of pregnancy, time, and cheesecake.  That doesn’t mean I’m going to stop treadmilling, though.  It gives me a good excuse to watch trashy TV.

So you know how I was ragging on that person who Facebook-friended me for what I thought were purely self-promotional purposes? Well, it turns out I owe him an apology.

I, um, don’t log into Facebook much, and it turns out I missed an apparently sincere message from him that I have no reason to believe is anything but a gesture of friendship. What’s more, it was sent the day before I made the post about how I didn’t think he actually cared about anything but increasing his own local fame.

Therefore, I formally apologize to Mr. Unnamed Person. You have taught me that it is better to give people the benefit of the doubt than to jump to negative conclusions about their motivations.

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What are people doing this weekend? There are three movies I want to see (Little Miss Sunshine, Hollywoodland, and The Illusionist). They’re all getting good reviews, but since going to the movies is so expensive, I think we’ll probably only go to one of them, at least this weekend. Which one should we see? I generally prefer comedies, but on the other hand, the approaching autumn can put me in a mystery mood.