7:30 a.m.

That is a good time to wake up. Lets rethink the whole '6 a.m. to midnight' day. It's not possible. Now, 7:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m., that's a day I can handle without taking a nap, though naps are still optional if the opportunity presents itself.

I joined a gym today. They promised they wouldn't bulk me up like Gold's. That was the gym I was a member of that made my alter-ego name itself Helga the Bootyful. I have two personal training sessions with some guy named Mike.

Let me tell you about Mike. I haven't met him yet, but I already know him. At a fairly young age, he realized that chicks liked guys who worked out. So he did. Then, he realized he enjoyed it. Me man, me lift heavy things, me dress in underwearless-sweats and sneakers. The next step is graduation, high school or college, where he said, 'I don't want a real job.' Now, maybe he knew he didn't want a real job, or maybe he thought this was a real job. Whether or not he deluded himself isn't the point. He is smarter than most people probably give him credit for. He decided to work in the place he loves to hang out in. The gym. What does he do all day? Walk around in underwearless-sweats, or 'professionally mandated' active-wear and sneakers, training the poor slobs who walk through those doors desperately hanging on to the magazine article/doctors' advice that said REALLY they can lose weight and get some seriously shaped booty and some perkies with major stand-up-all-alone power, if they just show up and play on these nice, pretty machines. Now, Mike is in shape, clever enough to avoid a real job, but not clever enough to have managed to snag a higher-end clientelle. He has a girl/boyfriend who works out and is aspiring to be a model/actress/dancer. Lets hear it for Mike.

He's going to try to sell me a personal trainer package. $60 an hour for a personal trainer to lie to me about my efforts or $12.99 for a subscription to Shape magazine that will guilt me into the gym.... hmmm..... Sorry, I'm not rich or famous enough for Mike to be my lying angel...

Today also marks the day of my daughter's ballet debut. Never mind that we did ballet when she was 5 and she loved it so much she refused to get out of bed to attend class. Three months of ballet, lets see how she handles it. I did try to suggest jazz. Irish softshoe. American contemporary. Nope. She saw Barbie Nutcracker. Her second choice to me was Contemporary Japanese Dance. I agreed to ballet. She also saw the princess ice skating movie, so we have ice skating dreams as well. I have more hope for those.

Oh and for those who think I"m overscheduling her, please. She has ballet on Thursday and skating on Saturday and has been begging me for classes for months. Ahh, how I wish she'd just stick with tae kwan do. And this, my friends, is how moms become taxi drivers. I mean, at what age can I smile at her and say 'get your own ride'?