a peek inside the fishbowl

Before I launch into this post I need to confess something first.

I never drove the Prius before we bought it.

It’s crazy and kind of stupid, I know. Mark test drove it, with the salesperson crushed in the back with Emma and Sarah, and me in the passenger seat. The second time we test drove it – when Toyota deemed us to be more serious – the salesman didn’t tag along and we were allowed to take it out on our own. Again, I sat in the passenger seat and just watched (and asked the important questions).

I was nervous about driving it. It looked scary. And weird. It had a pushbutton start! And no real key! And there was a strange joystick-like gear shift thing that didn’t work like a gear shift! And it’s so quiet you can’t tell if it’s on or not! And most importantly, what if I crashed/scratched/blew up a car we didn’t own?

I regret my lack of nerve during the testdriving stage. I am better than this, and I don’t like fear getting the better of me. Letting fear control my life is a big mistake, a dangerous habit to fall into because FEAR can edge out REASON and take over my life and affect its outcome. But that is neither here nor there.

I am happy to report that I have now driven the car (more than Mark has) and I absolutely love it.

WHAT A RELIEF.

There are a couple of general misconceptions floating around that I’d like to address for a moment.

1) The Prius is expensive.
We snagged a deal at our Toyota dealer that included a few rebates. Bottom line, all in, once we get our rebate we will have paid just over $27,000. I have a pretty good feeling this is in the same price range of many minivans and SUVs out there on the market today. For some reason there’s this idea out there that you have to be rich to buy a Prius. Newsflash! We’re not rich! We needed a new car* and felt really strongly that our choice needed to reflect the times in which we are living. We want to live small. It had to be fuel efficient. We wanted to do what we could to minimize our carbon footprint. Every dollar we spend is a vote for the kind of world in which we want to live.

* Certainly, it can be argued that if we REALLY felt strongly about our environment we’d give up our car entirely, and rely on Vrtucar or OC-Transpo to get around town. We’re not in a position to give up our wheels completely.

2) It’s a wienermobile.
By “wienermobile” I mean “nerdy” or “girly” or “pantywaist.” Automobile marketing to woman and men is wildly different. I find it totally hilarious that marketers have convinced everyone that MEN need MANLY cars and that everything else is wimpy and weak. Men’s vehicles are equated with speed or capacity to haul. Manly cars are fast or dirty (or both!); they’re marketed as speed machines designed to hug curves tighter than Pamela Anderson’s T-shirts, tough mud-splattered pickup trucks or 4×4 SUVs slicing through old growth forests. Because the unspoken truth is that every man is harbouring a 12-year old boy inside of them.

Women’s (read: MOM) cars are quiet and comfortable, with focus on cupholders, storage, and entertainment to keep the kiddies quiet. I find this mildly insulting although I do appreciate the need for cupholders.

The Prius can’t easily be lumped into either of these categories. Should we make up a name of it? Eco-geek? Eco-chic? :) It’s not utilitarian like many cars out there (I would classify our old Mazda as a utilitarian car – low on style but gets you from A to B). The Prius is neither a sexxxy sportscar nor is it a big bully on the road or a couch on wheels. It is comfortable; a mid-size sedan that feels like you’re sitting in a cockpit when you’re driving it. And it’s smart, oh so smart, and thoughtful. The Prius makes it’s own statement. But then again, doesn’t every car make some kind of statement about its owner? (I want to know, what does your car say about you?)

We reflected long and hard about the kind of car we needed. This is what we knew:

• We are a family of four (plus one small dog)
• We have always been a one-car family
• Most of the driving we do is in the city
• Fuel efficiency and emissions are important to us
• We never have the need to transport more people
• We seldom have the need to transport large amounts of stuff

In short: it is the perfect car for us.

Driving the Prius is a dream. As I mentioned in my other post, I feel like I’m gliding around the city when I’m behind the wheel. When we stop at a light (or are stuck in a jam) the car is perfectly silent. I’ve taken to turning the radio off, that’s how much I enjoy the quiet. It’s downright relaxing to sit at a stoplight. It has done wonders for my mental health.

A strange thing has happened. It’s actually become fun to drive. But it’s a different kind of fun. It’s not “how fast we can go” fun. Thanks to the car’s unique dashboard design I’ve started playing “how low can we go” kind of fun. Like a video game.

I’m not the first one who’s made this connection. I love this line from this review: “Earth geeks and mileage freaks will spend hours away from World of Warcraft coaxing ever-high fuel economy out of the 2010 Prius.” It cracks me up (mostly because it’s true!) even though I don’t play W.o.W.

Driving in the Most Economical Way Possible has become a game to me, and the dashboard is entirely to blame. The only way it could be more addictive is if Toyota installed a tetris game right into the dashboard. (You can see a photo of the display here. Scroll down to “More Subdued Efficiency Displays.”)

As for the lack of traditional car key? It’s practically the thing I love most. There’s a key fob (that’s not the part I love, the fob is actually a little too big and awkward for my taste) which contains a sensor. I keep it in my purse. In order to unlock the car I don’t actually have to do anything with it. It just stays in my purse, and when I get near the car and touch the handle it magically unlocks. And when I sit down (with the fob/sensor still in my purse) the car starts at the push of a button. COOL.

I am oddly proud of our choice of family car, and I can’t say I was proud of our last car. I didn’t feel anything about it. It was just a car, after all. The Prius is a state of mind.

That girl who was grinning like an idiot and punching the air along the woody pathway on Richmond Road west of Broadview last night was me.

–

Finola insists that I call what I’ve been doing RUNNING. It’s the hip new term for what used to be called jogging. I am having trouble wrapping my head around this. I can’t honestly call what I do jogging OR running. I am basically dragging my sorry butt around my own neighbourhood, making a total spectacle of myself in the name of fitness.

Two things inspired me to do this:

1) I’ve been following Ginger’s blog for awhile now. I don’t even know how I found her. She’s a sweetheart, and writes about many issues in a genuine and articulate way. She was a school teacher in Texas but is now home with her adorable twin toddler boys.

Sidebar: It’s funny, this blog thing, because I was reading her blog before her boys were born and I’ve been watching them grow up ever since. It’s a strange experience, isn’t it, watching kids you don’t really know get older and finding yourself saying things like “aren’t they getting big now!”

Anyway, yes, Ginger challenged herself to run 500 miles (!) in 2010, and was recently interviewed on the 500 miles in 2010 blog. You can read the interview here.

2) Ms. Direction. The lady I’m writing about is a runner, the kind of runner I will never be, but her story was inspiring enough to make me wonder what I was missing.

Both these women gave me the kick in the pants I needed to try to run slog.

I downloaded a really great app for my iPhone called Couch-to-5K to help me along with interval training. It is basically a timer that tracks my progress. It tells me when to walk and when to run – in a very friendly voice – while my own music plays in the background. It also tells me when I’m halfway (THANK GOD) and when my workout is complete. If I could add anything to this program I would ask the developers to throw in a couple of encouraging messages like: YOU CAN DO THIS, or DON’T QUIT, or REMEMBER WHY YOU ARE DOING THIS.

I asked myself that a lot during last night’s slog. And the night before last, because I really didn’t feel like torturing myself. WHY AM I DOING THIS? I asked myself over and over again, especially as I clutched my side and limped along during the “walk” portion of my program.

Here’s what I came up with.

1. 1) My goal is a small one. I want to be able to run for 12 minutes. When I was in elementary school I was never able to do the 12 Minute Run for our annual Canada Fitness event. THIS IS MY CHANCE TO DO IT.
2. 2) If I can run for 12 minutes it stands to reason I can probably run 5K. I don’t care about time, I just want to be able to run this distance without stopping or collapsing.

To summarize: I run because I can. And I want to see if I can do it.

Weight loss has been unintentional. My clothes are fitting a little better right now. Last week I jogged in an older pair of yoga pants. I must have been quite the sight … periodically hoisting them up with one hand while I held my iPhone in the other. (Yes, I need one of those fancy holsters.) My size 31 jeans are falling off my hips (Seriously, I can pull them down without undoing the button.)

I know my mother is reading this post and is rolling her eyes (hi mom) and getting her Outlook fired up in order to whip off an epistle about how terrible running is for your body. I can predict what you’re going to say mom. You think that my ovaries are going to drop out of my body and that I’m destroying my knees. What I’m doing really isn’t damaging at all. It CAN be, if you run a marathon without having trained for it properly, but what I’m doing is basic cardio. Slogging.

There is a great thread on Ask Metafilter about running and what it will do for your body. There’s a lot of great tips in there. Like for example, the importance of having a great pair of running shoes. (Which I desperately need.)

I dropped my gym membership to save a few bucks this summer. So this, along with my daily pushups, will have to be a good substitute.

I’ve graduated to week 3, day 2 of my C25K program, which basically means I’m doing two sets of 90 seconds of running followed by 90 seconds of walking and three minutes of running followed by three minutes of walking. The first time I did my second three minute run I was practically sobbing; a mixture of extreme fatigue and total elation. I wiped my nose on my arm and tried to spit a much needed spit. I am an embarrassing spitter.

My hips are hurting a bit, but that’s about it.

I know the secret to running: it gets easier. The second time I did my two sets of three minute jogs it was a TINY BIT easier. I still cried. But it wasn’t as bad. When I started this whole thing I could barely run for 60 seconds, and there I was, doing three whole minutes. Woot!

Other discoveries I’ve made along the way:

• If you travel too far in one direction you will eventually have to go back.
• Music helps. Music is fuel. Listening to your laboured breathing will just make you miserable.
• Running outdoors is much harder than running indoors on a treadmill
• I wasn’t pushing myself hard enough on the elliptical trainer at the gym
• I have never sweat so much in my entire life
• I love my sports bra
• I don’t understand people who can run and talk at the same time. I figure if they’re chatting they are not working hard enough. Or maybe they are a special breed who have oxygen to spare??

Emma wants to come with me next time I go out. I am keenly aware that I will have to put on a brave face for her sake. She has already declared that running is “easy.” Ha. 

Anyway, if you see me limping around Westboro please know that I will eventually graduate from slogging to jogging. I may even find myself running some day… even though the sad reality is that I might always look and feel like a mad rhinoceros and not a graceful and fleet-footed antelope like some of you runners out there. :)

The writer’s mind is an odd place.

It’s deep. And can be rather murky. And there are nooks and crannies where things hide away, sometimes never to be seen again. I liken my mind to a creaky old attic with generations of crap tossed in there along with some shiny new things and a couple of buzzing beehives.

Beehives in the attic. I like that.

I’ve been wondering what other writers need in order to get their work done.

A couple of weeks ago I tweeted a question to my fellow writers. I asked them what font they used when submitting their work. The results were varied and pretty interesting (at least to me) because the selection of fonts is such a personal one. (I like Calibri, size 11.)

When I’m writing on the computer I need my font. And I need it to be quiet.

I need to be able to concentrate, without distraction, for an unbroken amount of time.

I also need coffee. It also helps if I’ve eaten and showered.

My biggest problem is that I feel like I can only write in the morning, that it’s my only “good” time. Somehow I have convinced myself I am at my best – the most creative and smartest version of myself – in the hours before lunch and not at any other time. Therefore it is pointless to sit down and try to write something in the afternoon or heaven forbid, at night. I use my “off” hours to do website updates for clients and rote things that don’t require the power of language (and spellcheck).

I think this was a bad rut to fall into and I regret letting myself get to this point. Perhaps it has its beginnings in the days when I started to work from home when I was pregnant and nursing and had to give in to my body … napping at odd hours and eating when I was hungry as opposed to being on some kind of schedule.

Technically speaking my brain matter is all there, right? And always the same? It’s not like I’m using one brain and switching it for another in the afternoon. I shouldn’t believe that if I’ve been writing all morning I am spending any kind of quota. There is no limit on creativity. It’s really not like a well that runs dry, or a car that runs out of gas, or an insurmountable wall.

What do you think? How do you keep that tank filled up? Are you able to flip a switch and dive into work mode at any waking hour? What’s in your toolbox?