The road to hell is paved with them, I know.

Well, I meant to be better about posting journal entries, but I've been feeling this limbo-ish "nothing has happened worth talking about anyway, and damn but I'm tired so I'd rather just go to bed instead of staying up another hour or so to do this silly thing." I even seriously considered taking a hiatus from the journal for a while. (For more than just a week or so, that is.) These past few weeks it's seemed like an awful lot of trouble, but on the other hand, sometimes I feel like it's my only link to the outside world, and I'd hate to break it. So, I decided (obviously) not to go on hiatus, or quit the journal, but please forgive me if it's a tad erratic for a while. I think that once something starts happening in my life I'll be better about posting. It feels like I'm just going through the motions right now, waiting to find out what the deal is with this academy, and various other things that are also up in the air.

So, I'm still working out, and still running. Having No Life is very conducive to good physical fitness, since I get to the point where if I spend one more minute in my house I'll just scream, so I get out and either go walking or running, or go to the gym. Saturday, though, it was raining when I got home from work, so I couldn't go running, and the gym was closed as well due to the holiday weekend. So, I did the only logical thing.

I ordered a pizza.

Then I broke out the cookie dough. Oh no, I didn't actually make cookies. I just ate raw cookie dough.

I'm still doing a lot of shooting, and I've improved to the point where my goal now is not just to qualify first try, but now I want to qualify expert. I went out again this past Sunday and was well pleased with my performance at 25 yards (which is where most people drop points.) After I went through about 200 rounds, a cop-friend of mine who was out there shooting handed me a 12 gauge shotgun and five magnum shells. "You're going to have to qualify with this as well, eventually." I've fired shotguns before, but usually very light loads--birdshot, skeet loads, that sort of thing. So, I loaded the shotgun, tucked it tight into my shoulder, aimed, and pulled the trigger.

Ow.

After I reattached my arm to my torso, I went ahead and fired the other four rounds. My shoulder felt like a truck had slammed into it, but everyone on the range was watching me, and seeing how I was doing with the shotgun, and I'd be damned if I was going to let on about how much my shoulder hurt and how hard it was hitting me. I have this image to maintain, y'know. (Though witnesses later related that it looked like it was blowing me back about two feet each time I pulled the trigger.)

There was a definite glint of approval in my cop-friend's eyes when I handed the shotgun back to him. "It has a kick," I said, and then tried not to whimper and clutch my aching shoulder. I did however put an ice-pack on it at the very first opportunity, which obviously helped a great deal since today it's only mildly tender, and there's no visible bruise or anything. But I think I only have to shoot ten rounds to qualify with the shotgun, so now I know that I can suck it up long enough to qualify and not look like a total weakling.

I do think I'll wait a while before shooting the shotgun again though.