The first game I played was basic hula-hoop which I failed about halfway through. This might not be too terrible, had it not been freaking hula-hoop and had I not trained in ballet almost every day from the age of 3 through 19. You think somewhere in there I might have gained enough skill to move my hips in “wide even circles” for a minute straight. Sadly, no. Ballet is not rhythmic gymnastics.  Or, as a soon found out, preparation for any kind of balance test.

this is me. minus 37 spins and the two extra hoops.

Next I played a strange zen balance game with a candle, in which I sat cross legged on the balance board and tried to quiet the flame by being perfectly still. This I failed about 40 seconds in.

I tried basic step aerobics and passed with a 1 calorie star and then basic run, where I finally achieved the 2 star “calorie roaster” rating.

Okay, so as I’m typing this out I realize that I sound extremely pathetic. Which I’m not debating. I wasn’t taking the workouts that seriously at the time. I’m not really competitive by nature, and I was approaching each game as a happy diversion to the shitpile of schoolwork waiting in the other room. But as each game ended with another mediocre or worse performance by yours truly, I kept thinking back to one of those regrettable conversations I had with my boyfriend in which he noticed, casually, and for the sake of complete and total honesty with one another, that I may be just a little, ahem, bigger than I was, um, when we first started dating. And since we haven’t even been dating for an entire year yet, I started thinking that maybe I should put some extra hustle into each workout, and maybe, probably, turn the wii fit on more often, like, idk, every single day for the rest of my life?!

Then Turbo was all, hey do you want to create a profile so you can earn fitness credits, and I was all, of course, um, yea, totally, I should really start keeping track of this. And that’s when Wii fit turned into a little bitch.

Wii fit:  Hey let’s test your posture!

Me: Okay, like this?

Wii fit: Woa bitch, you lean to left. Stop doing that.

Meck: Okay okay.  Don’t take it personally.

Wii Fit: Now enter your height

Meck: 5′9″

Wii Fit: Your BMI is 20, that’s normal.

Meck: Hey, you’re not so bad.

Wii Fit: A healthy weight for you is 148.

Meck: That’s more than I weigh now! take that noticing boyfriend.

Wii Fit: Now do this balance test

Meck: Woa, what’s happening. This test is weird and hard.

Wii Fit: You were a dancer! You should be able to balance!

Meck: I don’t know which way to lean!

Wii Fit: FAILED!

Meck: but…

Wii Fit: Your wii fit age is…calculating…

Meck’s Mii: *clutching stomach* ooooo i don’t want to knowwwww

Wii fit: 41!

Meck: WTF?!

Meck’s Mii: ow, my back hurts

Turbo, of course, thought this was hilarious. Her Wii fit age was 28. As soon as our boyfriends returned we made each of them set up a profile. Her boyfriend’s Wii fit age was 29. My boyfriend’s was 37. I am the oldest Wii fit person in the household.This fact probably wouldn’t be so depressing if I wasn’t twenty-some days away from my 25th birthday.

So I’ve resigned myself to a goal of getting my Wii fit age to match my real age by my birthday. Even if that means practicing my balance every f’ing day. Which will probably be pretty tough for me since, as Wii fit so kindly pointed out, balancing, uh, is not my forte.

It happens most often with the alarm clock.  I hear the distant buzzing growing louder and louder, forcing me awake, and as I stumble out of the bed and my fingers reach for the snooze it happens, I see myself two hours later waking up to the clock blaring and the time well past when I was supposed to be at work (and yes, I DO actually get up out of bed, hit snooze, then return and go back to sleep. I know, I know).  But you know what, I always end up hitting snooze anyway and sure enough, I don’t hear the alarm clock when it rings again ten minutes later and I end up late.

Then there was the trash bag incident.  One evening in a random fit of cleaning I emptied out some old food from my fridge into a trash bag, which I tied up in my kitchen to take out when my boyfriend arrived. He came over and instead of taking the bag straight to the trash shoot not 100 feet down the hall, we decided to run to the convenience store down the street first.  As we were heading out the door I spotted the bag out of the corner of my eye and thought: Rasputin. But the entire trip would take less than ten minutes, I rationalized, and he had already eaten that day.  He wouldn’t, I promised myself.

But, oh, he would.  The initial carnage wasn’t that bad to pick up, as it appeared he only wanted to eat a stick of expired butter and a raw egg.  So like I was saying, the first cleanup wasn’t terrible, just a couple napkins, a butter wrapper and an eggshell. But what followed was. epic.  I’ll spare you the unpleasant details, but let’s just say that it didn’t take long for Rasputin’s little snack to turn into my big mistake. My big, stinky, disgusting, barely digested mistake. Damn me.

And finally, this last one will surely make you smile. Or least give you a better understanding of the tragi-comedy that is my life. Thanksgiving day, 2009. My first Thanksgiving spent in Charlotte and the first holiday I was spending with my boyfriend and his family.  No pressure.  Getting dressed that morning I sought my comfiest, roomiest pair of jeans for a day of eating at the casual celebration. As I was zipping them up, my thumb ran across some exposed metal on the button and FLASH, there it was, a vision of my button, which had been loosening for months, popping off at THE most inopportune and embarrassing time.

You can probably guess what happened next.  I opted to where the jeans which really are were the comfiest, roomiest pair I had, promising myself that there is no way that after years of ownership and months of precariousness that today would be the day the button decided to give up.  There was.no.way.

Fast forward past a delicious breakfast, 5 or so cups of hot apple cider, spinach dip, cheese balls, and a delicious Thanksgiving spread.  My pants were still loose and soft.  I excused myself to bathroom, and no sooner had I touched the button did it fall off into my hand.  Of. course.  I couldn’t help but laugh a little which, coming from the inside of the bathroom, probably sounded bat-shit crazy.  But it was just too funny. We had just finished dinner.  And since my pants weren’t exactly tight, I couldn’t rely on turkey belly to hold them up. I would have to ask for a safety pin.

Ladies, have you ever had to have a discreet conversation with your boyfriend, or rather, have you ever tried to have a discreet conversation with your boyfriend that ended up being a non-discreet conversation because he told everyone what was going on?  That’s exactly what happened next.

Meck: Baby

BF: Hold on

Meck: Ba-by. Please.

BF: What?

Meck: I need a safety pin.

BF: Why?

Meck: Because the button fell off my jeans.

BF:  You lost your button? hehehe. Oooh poor baby. hehehehe.

Meck: Ba-by.

BF: Ok, mom do you have a safety pin?  Meck needs one.  She lost her button.

BF’s Dad: what’s going on?

BF: Meck lost her button.

BF’s Dad: Hey, Meck, eat too much at dinner huh?

Meck, holding up pants: *sigh*

I think I’m ready to make my first new year’s resolutions for 2010.  #1 listen to my instincts. #2 invest in new jeans.

Turns out, it is.

Inside I found a letter that went something like this:

Dear Meck:

Thank you for using your Visa debit card to make fast food purchases. Please enjoy this $5 gift card to Burger King.

I know what your thinking, Free whopper. But it’s so much more than that. This letter means that I’ve been using my debit card enough at fast food places that Bank of America felt justified in spending the money to cross-promote with me. What I could really use is a Harris Teeter gift card. But, clearly, I don’t shop there enough to get one. BofA just let me know that I have become the target audience for chicken fries.

There’s only one thing lamer than debiting $3.21 of value menu items and I’m pretty sure it’s paying for them with a gold Bank of America BK crown card.

Write a note blog post with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you.

1. One night, after 10 minutes of intense contemplation, I asked my mom where they kept the whales on Noah’s Ark. I was sixteen.

2. I always lock my bedroom door at night (even when I’m visiting my parents) and I always lock the bathroom door (even when I’m home alone with the front door locked).

3. I can sleep through almost anything. One time, freshmen year of college, after calling me several times, Nines came to my room and discovered me still asleep with the alarm going off. I didn’t wake up. He left.

4. I used to be a ballet dancer. I was pretty good. When I was in high school I left at 1pm each day to take class and rehearsed 7 days a week.

5. But, I decided after my senior year that what I really wanted to do was go to college, study abroad, then get a Ph.D. Im still working on it.

6. I’ve been a writer my entire life. I wrote my very first story “Butterfly Soup” at the age of five. In it a girl becomes friends with a butterfly that then drowns in her bowl of soup. All of my childhood stories involved death. My mom was concerned.

7. I have been to the following foreign countries: Canada, the Bahamas, Russia.

8. I have two “types” of guys that I usually attract and date: country assholes and emotional musicians.

9. I can be painfully shy or extremely comfortable and confident. It depends on the company I keep.

10. I am embarrassed to admit that I love watching Star Trek and Lifetime Movie Network.

11. In college, I lost one of my friends to suicide. It fundamentally changed the person who I am more than anything else in my entire life.

12. I follow sports in this order: hockey, pro football, college basketball. That’s all.

13. I currently operate 3 twitter accounts. One of them is http://www.twitter.com/meckcharlotte

14. I cry over pretty much anything and my eyes inexplicably tear up at inappropriate times.

15. I’m obsessed with personal finance. I read about it constantly and I keep 4 different spreadsheets to manage all aspects of my financial life.

16. I love lists. I make lists for everything from my yearly goals, to my weekly and daily chores. Whenever I cross everything off one of my lists, I reward myself. That’s why I decided to do this list. There’s an extra long shower waiting for me at the end of it.

17. I regret exactly three things for the 23 years I’ve been alive. It’s easy to say no regrets, but it’s a lot harder to live that way. I’m proud of how well I’ve done.

18. I have a tendency to go “radio silent” and not answer phone calls, emails, and other forms of communication. Somehow, I still have friends.

19. My favorite holiday is Halloween. My least favorite holiday is Thanksgiving. So there.

20. I’m obsessed with spicy food (especially Thai and Indian) and fountain pop. Yes… POP.

21. This summer the Red Cross helped me to discover that my blood type is O negative. Now they won’t leave me alone.

22. I faint every time I give blood. Every.single.time. I keep giving anyway.

23. (via Gabby’s help) I like peas. I don’t like eggs. Clearly I am a very complex and profound individual.

24. I love to eat pumpkin seeds. Once I ate only pumpkin seeds for three days straight. The results were not pretty.

25. I like to change my hair. I’ve been dying it since middle school. Once it was pink. Once it was purple. Once it turned out too dark and I looked like Wednesday Adams. That was hot.

Awww, what’s wrong? Don’t cry! I promise, I’ll be popping in occasionally. Probably for shorter entries about once a week, okay? It’ll be alright, I promise. Okay?

It took awhile to kick in. I still felt tired but I noticed I was shaking my foot and holding my eyes open like a cracked out cartoon character, so I assumed it was working. Unlike some of the more, er, potent energy supplements of college finals weeks – I didn’t get the “i can invade manchuria and organize my closet in 3.5 hours” focus or the “I.have.to.finish.this.paper.right.now.o.m.g.” sense of urgency.

Mostly, I still felt tired, but was unable to get to sleep. I hate that feeling. I was yawning, my eyes were burning from being open too long, but I couldn’t rest. I finally passed out in the fetal position on my chaise sometime around 4am. I woke up at 7 for work feeling like I drank 2 fluid ounces of acid. At least that’s one similarity to other energy supplements: it makes your body feel like shit. My back hurt and my stomach complained all day. Just for fun, check out the nutritional info: Vitamin overdoes, anyone? Ok, so I totally knew about this and drank it anyway – but 8333% of B12, 2000% vitamin B6? That just can’t be good. Their website offers this explanation

8333% Vitamin B12? 2000% Vitamin B6? Isn’t that dangerous?
Not at all. In fact, the levels of Vitamins B12 and B6 are well within safe limits. The RDA (Recommended Daily Allowance) is minimum daily amounts set by the Food and Nutrition Board of the Institute of Medicine. This board also sets upper limits for consumption. According to the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University, “No toxic or adverse effects have been associated with large intakes of vitamin B12 from food or supplements in healthy people.” As a result, no upper limit for intake has been set. Doses as high as 1,000mcg are used to safely treat pernicious anemia. 5-Hour Energy contains 500mcg. Doses of vitamin B6 higher than 200mg per day over an extended period have been shown to cause side effects. The Food and Nutrition Board has set a safe upper intake level of 100mg per day. However, 5-Hour Energy contains only 40mg of vitamin B6.So, even though 5-Hour Energy appears to contain extremely large amounts of vitamins B6 and B12, they are within nationally
recognized safe limits.

Perfectly safe. But they do warn not to drink more than two a day, several hours apart. They’re right, 16000% of B12 is probably enough. Plus if you drink more than 2, you risk acid washing your tastebuds away permanently.

My ruling: avoid this stuff at all costs. Unless, of course, you really need it (which I might later this week).