squats in the bathroom

 

Since starting my posh corner-office job, I’ve been doing a lot of one very mundane thing: sitting. Now, maybe I don’t have a posh-corner office job, but I do have a pretty good one with a cubicle in the front row. The location of said cubicle is paramount to my needing to get up and walk around a few times a day; to exit from too-loud conversations that happen right at my window more times than should be normal. I have my back to the loud people usually, too, so I can never tell what they’re doing: looking at me, my screen, my plant, or just looking at each other and talking loudly. So, I take a walk, just to get out from the maybe-or-maybe-not intrusive stares.

Going to the bathroom is an 8-minute adventure for me. If it’s empty, lucky me. If it isn’t, and the occupant seems like she’ll likely be more than 18 seconds, I politely blow my nose and leave, acting as if that’s the reason I went in there in the first place. I just like to be alone. I will usually walk around the halls a bit, and hope they’re gone when I try again. In the farthest bathroom from my workplace, it’s usually empty, freeing me from the whole nose-blowing bit. After rearranging bella-bands, long-sleeved cardigans for the freezing temperatures at work and otherwise getting this pregnant belly appropriately covered, I do squats. I did them from day one I started at work. My theory is that while sitting on my bum all day, I should be doing something to combat the atrophy, right? So, right there on the tiles of the floor, I make an X and—high heels and all—do 20 squats. Then I yoga-pose to the side bend for 15 seconds, Namaste, and then the other side, back to Namaste. Then I crack my back. And it’s back to the loud talkers at my cube. But now I have Namaste and glutes of steel so that preoccupies my thoughts and I can’t tell you how much better I feel.
 

this is what "I" would look like, sans blonde ponytail and beach background: