Robin joyriding in the Batmobile

I have a confession to make.

But before I do, please consider the circumstances: First, it is cold. That simple fact mitigates anything for me, even murder. I hate being cold. Second, I have no sweatpants. I gave up sweatpants back when I decided it was time to get rid of the Christmas hams hitching a ride in the back of my jeans, and anyone with a fat ass knows that having sweatpants around is like leaving foil and a lighter in the room with a crackhead. And third, I needed to run.

So I borrowed a sweatsuit from my husband, but not just any sweatsuit. I borrowed the fancy military sweatsuit, which screams in CAPITAL REFLECTIVE LETTERS that the wearer survived a very intense training school-- a 3-month soul-killing regimen of You Might Die workouts combined with You Should Die psychological battery at the hands of marine scout snipers.

An ex-boyfriend of mine wouldn't even let me wear his silly frat shirt TO BED, long after he'd graduated, because it was against The Rules, but somehow I am allowed to don these sweats for my piddly run around the neighborhood. How can this be? I am drunk with power, like Robin stealing the keys to the Batmobile. Once I leave the house and start my run, I usurp my husband's badass status and am now the girl who beat the odds, who had to work extra hard to keep up with the guys, running on her own to keep her stiff upper lip fighting spirit so that she can one day defend the world from Evil.

The weird thing is that I actually know a real girl in this circumstance and am nothing like her. She could snap me in half, dip those halves in ranch, devour them, and then belch louder louder than I could scream.

But I block that out and happily continue my run.

The downside to the badass sweats is that I can't walk in them. My fantasy and paranoia and guilt prevent that. I can't even slow down. Instead, I force my legs past the jello point, my lungs past the coated-in-Vicks-vapo-rub burning point, the hitch in my side past spasm and on closer to shiv wound.

Two cars honked at me tonight (why the hell do people do that?), and in my exhaustion I concluded that they were either cheering me on or hazing someone they assumed to be legitimately in the military. More likely they were alerting that crazy looking white girl tear-assing down the street to the imminent explosion of her heart.

I plan to continue this sham as long as I can because it brings me back to my pathological childhood obsession with dressing up and becoming someone else, and it also gives me one hell of a workout-- far, far better than my real self could manage.