Screw you, you damn stairstepper

When I was laid off, I was exercising up to five times a week. I'd head to the gym first thing in the morning and climb on the stairstepper. After 45 minutes, I'd do some lunges and pushups and arm work. Five times a week. That's pretty freakin' good.
Well, basically it was enough to keep the fat from creeping on because now that it's running season, I'm getting my (fat) ass kicked. No, my ass isn't that fat, but damn, I'm hurting.
I started a running class two weeks ago. A couple of years ago, when I was on mat leave, I was in the same running class and I was in the middle of the pack; some days, I was near the front.
Now, I'm last. Dead last. Way last. Completely last. Last last.
Today, I went out for a little five kilometre jog with my husband. Basically, we usually stop once for a one-minute walk. Today, I stopped 17 times. No guff. My lungs are hurting, my ass is jiggling and I'm out of shape - despite three months on the stairstepper.
And I've got just six weeks to get in shape for Beat Beethoven. Last year, just a couple of weeks before the race, I got a wicked virus and was too sick to function, much less run.
This year, I've got to do it.
Runners have to do eight-kilometres in less than 50 minutes - the time it takes the Kingston Symphony to finish playing. Two years ago, I did it in 45 minutes - 5:42 kilometres, which is pretty damn fast. I couldn't do that now.
So, for six weeks, there are no more easy workouts.
I will run three to five times a week. I will drink lots of water. I will ease off the carbs. And throw out the Easter chocolate I've been nibbling on. And I will start to take my asthma medications the way I'm supposed to.
I think I'm also going to get my ducts cleaned. And get that mattress cover the asthma educator told me I should get, whatever it takes to get my former-smoker lungs in top-notch shape.
And one more thing - screw you, stairstepper.
As Janet Jackson used to say: What have you done for me lately?
You suck. (Not you Janet, the stairstepper).

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The Mouse Click Heard Around The World

Look, here's the thing. I want to see Gene Simmons. Hopefully, I'll also bump into Ms. Shannon Tweed. I like the Simmons-Tweed family. They're actually interesting on their reality show, Family Jewels. And think what fun it would be to have KISS play the K-Rock Centre.

KISS is pulling a wicked publicity stunt. They're having fans from around North America vote to see where they'll play as part of their Demand It promotion. (I suspect they've already decided and this is genius marketing, but who cares. I love battles. The only thing I love more than battles is winning battles).

Kingston, Ont. was No. 1 for the first few days.

In fact, my K-Rock 105.7 cohost Darryl Kornicky and I were the first two people in Canada to vote for KISS.

And then came along Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Now we're sitting in second. Second stinks. No one remembers who came second. Unless, of course, you're talking about the 1988 Men's Figure Skating Championships at the Calgary Olympics. That was when Canada's Brian Orser was beat by America's Brian Boitano. (I have some weird figure skating knowledge. Don't ask).

We have been plugging the crapola out of this KISS event. We want them to come to town. It's pretty simple.

So, on Wednesday, April 15, we're holding THE MOUSE CLICK HEARD AROUND THE WORLD.

Just after 8 a.m., Kornicky and I will announce on K-Rock 105.7 when to vote and in one second, we're going to add thousands of votes to our tally.

Go to our website, www.krock1057.ca now and register or click on the button on my page so that tomorrow, you'll be ready to click and go.

Listen tomorrow morning. Sometime after 8 a.m., we're going to launch the mouse attack.

Good night, Kingston!

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Yes, I do get up at 4 a.m. and no, my underwear is not always clean

It's the first thing people have asked me in the last three weeks: WHAT TIME DO YOU GET UP? On March 12, I started a new gig as a morning radio host on K-Rock 105.7 with Darryl Kornicky, Tony Orr on news and banter and Coach on fashion. Joking. Sports.
We start broadcasting somewhere around 5:37 a.m. and end at 10. I'm at the station at 5 a.m. prepping for that day's broadcast and working ahead on upcoming shows.

I'm lucky: If I hit just green lights, the station is exactly four and a half minutes from my home. But it doesn't help a lot.

I have to get up at 4 a.m. so that I can shower, get dressed, do my hair and makeup, eat some breakfast, kiss my son goodbye and get to work feeling normal. Everyone asks me why I just don't go in sweats with bedhead. Because I'd feel disgusting, that's why. And starting at around 8:30 real people are coming to the station so I can't really be greeting guests and advertisers and coworkers in sweats, now can I? Plus, my own ego won't let me do it. When the mic comes on, we have to be on. If I felt gross, I wouldn't feel like myself.

Trying to be helpful, my husband pointed out an article in this month's Women's Health magazine. Love the mag, rolled my eyes at the story. It's on Today cohost Natalie Morates, who also gets up at 4 a.m. to do on-air work with Matt Lauer. These are the types of stories that give women complexes. This woman is freakin' gorgeous - I don't look anything like her. She has a baby and a five-year-old. She goes to the gym five days a week. She starts off her day with multigrain toast and natural peanut butter. During the day, she nibbles on veggies. She exfoliates twice a week.

Oh, shut up already.

The pictures in the piece tell a different story: She has a person to do her hair. She has a person to do her makeup. She has a woman to roll the lint off her clothes. And if she's on the Today Show, she's making good money, so she can afford to have a good nanny to take care of her children so she can exfoliate and exercise.

Here in all its disgusting glory, is the real way a real person gets up and ready at 4 a.m. for a morning show:

- I lay all my clothes out like a five year old the night before and put them on the top of the toilet in order that I'm going to put them on: Underwear first. Then socks. Then pants and then shirt.

- The truth of the matter is one night, I forgot to put underwear out. That morning, I tiptoed back into the dark bedroom to try and quietly get some underwear without waking my husband, who also sorta gets up when the alarm goes off at 3:55 a.m. and then has to go back to sleep. I couldn't find anything but my massive pregnancy panties from three years ago. I can't stand those things. They go all the way up to my boobs. So, I had no choice. I had to do something drastic. I wore the same pair two days in a row. Sorry. Don't judge me. It was an emergency.

- I try and eat a little bowl of cereal before I leave, but doing morning radio has totally screwed up my body. I've lost six pounds in less than a month. Here's why: If I eat breakfast at 4 a.m., my body wants lunch at 10 a.m. - that is, after all, six hours later. But at 10 a.m., we're still busy working and I don't have time to make lunch at 4 a.m., so usually I eat a banana. By the time I get home, it's usually around 1 p.m. - eight hours after I've had cereal. (For a normal person, that would be like eating breakfast at 8 a.m. and then not eating lunch until 4.) I have something small and then try and eat some dinner. By night, I'm so tired, I don't snack. Too.... tired ... to .... eat.

- Here's my extensive makeup routine: Eyeliner. Mascara. Check I don't have crap in my teeth. Exfoliate? Sure, yeah, right.

- Sleep? Right now I'm sleeping from about 11 or 11:30 p.m. to 4 a.m. and then crashing hard on the weekend, but three times this week, I fell asleep while I was doing something. Once, I was eating lunch - a cucumber sandwich. Forty minutes later, I woke up cuddling the plate. The sandwich was on the floor. I'd apparently just conked out without any warning. I did it again this weekend while watching a movie with my son. One minute we were talking, the next, I was drooling.

- My nanny. I have a different name for her: My husband. I don't know how a single mother could be a morning radio host. My husband has done all of our laundry in the last month and taken care of our son every morning. (Even with all this help, I don't have time to exfoliate.)

- "Get the F**(&^ up!!!": The other morning, I was so exhausted, I couldn't get out of bed. My alarm went off at 3:55, 4:10, 4:20, 4:30. Finally, my husband basically took his legs and kicked me out of the bed. "Get up!!!" he yelled. There was no cereal that morning. Thank god, I'd remembered my underwear.

- Before anyone sees me each morning at work, I run to the studio's kitchen and look at a little mirror on the fridge to make sure I don't have gunk in my eyes, cereal in my teeth, a booger, a clump of mascara. Anything. If I'm looking alive, I head into work. Then my personal assistant takes the lint brush to me. Yes, her name is Darryl Kornicky, my cohost. We don't have lint-brush people.

It's glamorous being a morning cohost, I tell you.

Natalie Morales? Eat your heart out.

Just keeping it real for my real mommies.

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