Wanted

I love vacations, when they’re done right. My definition of “done right” may differ from some people’s. I know plenty of people who believe that if you take a trip, it should be to someplace with lots of STUFF TO DO, or some kind of paradise. Ski vacations, trips to Hawaii, New York or Vegas for the night life or shows or whatever.

In my opinion, you really only need one thing to make a vacation worth it: The right people to hang out with. Whether you’re traveling with someone or visiting someone, I think the easiest way to enjoy yourself is to make sure you’re with people whose company you already enjoy, who won’t cause you more stress or make your vacation more like work. If you plan to travel alone, hopefully you like yourself that much.

My latest vacation, I got to do the kind of thing I normally enjoy: See some interesting natural scenery. If you’re going to travel, why not take advantage of the fact that you’re in a different place, especially if you’re with people you don’t normally get to spend time with? That is a successful, enjoyable vacation to me. A lot of “things to DO”, I can do where I live already.

My best vacations I can count on one hand. They’re the ones I spent going to visit friends, mostly the friends I don’t see every day. The friends I visit are pretty laid back, in that they don’t really need an itinerary full of Things To Do. If we do decide there’s something we want to do and the plans fall through for some reason (which happens), they don’t get all bent out of shape and bitchy. Not only that, even if there’s nothing to distract us from each other’s company, we STILL enjoy ourselves, because we actually are friends who have plenty to talk about and keep ourselves entertained with. We have plenty of overlapping interests that there’s no epic battles between people who hate what someone else has planned. It helps that I’m that way too. I go on vacation to take a break from my normal responsibilities. I don’t need anything fancy, any special itinerary. I have yet to find people like that I can actually travel with.

Many of the people I know look at me funny or ask me why the heck I would choose to go where I go. “What do you DO there?”
Even out in the middle of nowhere, when you’re with the right people, the answer to that question is “Enjoy myself.”

I realized, somewhat recently, that I’m finally doing something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, without really knowing it. Learning to fight.

Although I started out wanting to lose weight when I first joined the gym and got a trainer, after a year of working my ass off on weights and cardio, I lost the weight, and yet I was still going strong. Towards the end of my training sessions with my first trainer, I’d started up Krav Maga again, and started taking my current trainer’s MMA class.

Neither of these things is easy for me. Pull-ups aren’t easy for me. Yet for some reason, unlike with anything else, it makes me more driven to do it. Maybe it’s because no matter how much trouble I’m having, I’m always seeing progress. Something gets easier, and then something new gets thrown in for me to learn.

Of course, fighters are hot, so maybe I’m just crushing on the whole thing. There’s something about watching a guy take someone to the ground with force that just turns me on. Average guys become hot, hot guys become demigods.

Maybe I just want to date a fighter and be able to keep up with him. The sheer brutal physicality of a fighter ramps up my sex drive like crazy. Probably the submissive streak in me watching a guy dominate.

Whatever. Basically, everything about watching and learning fighting is just right up my alley. The hot guys are just the ice cream on the pie.