Cold Shower in December

I think there's something wrong with my endorphins. Either they haven't been working properly due to internal system failure or I'm just so pain-tolerant that they don't come at all. I'm not sure whether this actually has more or less to do with the endorphin receptors than the endorphins themselves....But anyway, after the past three times I've gone running I have felt nothing but depression afterwards; to the point where I almost start crying while stretching, a time when I usually travel to my happy place. The lack of euphoria thereafter is odd, for sure. It's not that there aren't any endorphins, but they just show up 2 hours later than usual, and come preceded by a severe low. Today I harbored thoughts like, "I have no true home with my parents," "I really don't want my mom to be the grandmother of my future-child (seriously the most depressing and saddening thought I've ever had, albeit true)," and, "money can turn people so ugly." I don't know where all these thoughts came from, I was just stretching out my hamstrings after a nice 30 minute 5k when they hit me like the unexpected squirt of a water-gun from a mean little boy hiding in the bushes... Hey! Stop it! After the third negative thought, I caught them in a chokehold and brought an end to them. NO negative thoughts here. NO. I'd already had enough and decided a change of environment would be better. So I left the room and headed for the showers.

I was freezing, especially in my shoulders, but I was so upset that I didn't even feel like showering or hitting the sauna, which are usually two of my favorite post-gym pastimes, and so I just threw on my sweat pants and zipped out of there. I never do that. I hate being sweaty and stale on my way home. But today I pointed a royal middle finger at the courtesy I normally pay to fellow train-riders and just left the gym like a salty viking. Okay, probably not that badass, but I felt pre-tty gnarly.

On my way down to the foyer, I saw that they were offering free Pepparkakor (gingerbread cookies) and Glög (Mulled Wine) in celebration of Sankta Lucia. Free wine at the gym (okay, I'll admit it's got like 2,2% alcohol, but still...) Yes please! One cup of glög later the endorphins hit, or no, that was probably just a sugar rush, I'm not sure... Whatever it was, it gave me the oomph to bound all the way to the metro platform, where I proceeded to dance in place for a good 10 minutes to some really good music that Johannes gave me, while waiting for the train that just didn't want to come. Those late-Friday-evening workers who were waiting in the vicinity threw me some funny looks, like they'd never before seen such inappropriate and odd behavior in their picture-perfect-Alvik lives. I stared at the beautiful waxing moon and shook my booty around a bit to the tracy and groovy tunes of Ott, not giving a flying flapjack about what they thought.

The train finally came and I continued to dance in my seat, although more so with my fingers and feet than with my whole body. I basically sprinted off the train and out of the station and ran/ speed-walked up the hill to the apartment. I swapped out my headphones for running-appropriate earbuds, grabbed all the christmas cards I'd been meaning to mail out and zoomed off again, back down the hill to the post office. No hat, no long underwear, no gloves and it's -4°C. MINUS FOUR and my lungs didn't hurt and my breathing returned to normal within a minute and I'm not sore anywhere! Oh my god that's a miracle! In Germany it pained me to run in +5 degrees... so that's evidence that the endorphins kicked in after all (or that I am  a viking!!) because I sprinted back up the hill like it was nothing and then tore off my clothes because it was just too warm. Cold shower in December. Who woulda thunk?

I'm so weird. Let's just leave it at that. My endorphin receptors are probably fine and simply a bit shot because I've been standing in the same pose for a total of 3 weeks now, and I've all but lost sensation in my right hip. The pose was much, much easier this week and actually quite enjoyable. I'm now 75% of the way complete. In the past few sessions of standing, I've been turning to math for psychological support and distraction and have worked out long division problems in my head to derive the exact percentage of completion I gain with each 20 minute pose. I worked out that each day I pose 7 times, so that yields a total of 112 20-minute segments. Each day I complete 1/16 or 6.25%. That means that with the completion of each 20-minute segment I gain .89285714%. And the 5714 is repeating... Long division in my head while standing naked for 140 minutes. Awesome way to spend life. I'm not sure if I'm being sarcastic or not. Nah, I like math and nudity is pretty cool, so I can't complain. So this week I've been mathy in order to kill time, last week I went through the alphabet and named as many words as I possibly could think of. I got to Calamari and then the timer suggested that it was the weekend.

..., I think I've delved far enough into some of the weirder corridors and happenings of my brain and persona. Time to enjoy the endorphins while they last, because they've finally arrived.