I’m going to go ahead and grant myself a big ol’ Mulligan toward Operation DeFlabbify for the last week(-ish) because, I mean, holy hell have you TASTED these delicious creations called Muddy Buddies?  Chex + peanut butter + chocolate + powdered sugar = NOM TO THE NOMTH POWER.  And let’s not forget the ham slabs and mounds of stocking candy and buttery yeast rolls and sour cream mashed potatoes and apple pie a la mode and did I mention the big fat slabs of ham?  Mmmmm haaaaammmmm….

AHEM.

I would like to say however that I have exercised four times in the last 10 days and while I’m not going to be winning any Ms. Olympia contests with that regimen, I do feel like it is a eensy personal triumph for the holiday season, no?  The exercise was exclusively walking, including one particularly cardiotastic session with lots of thigh and lung busting hills near my parent’s house in the Appalachians.  Because we were with family there were lots of built in babysitters, so Lorso and I actually got to walk together for that last huff-a-thon.  However, before the holiday family time I was doing the walking on my own when Lorso got home from work or on the weekend and my companion for those walks was that fabulous workout booster, the iPod.

They say that opposites attract and I’ve always thought that sure, that might be true a little bit I guess, but now I realize that Lorso and I were drawn towards each other and destined to spend eternity together because of our tastes in music.  As in THEY ARE POLAR OPPOSITES.  This should have been apparent during The Great Stuff Merger that every couple that moves in together experiences: of all the CDs we both owned, only one was duplicated between us.  ONE.  I find that fairly mind-boggling.

When we purchased our first iPod it became Lorso’s, mainly because he ran on a regular basis and actually took the time to download songs onto it.  So he filled up the playlists with Pink Floyd and Boards of Canada and Radiohead and other rifty seizure-inducing melancholy tunes that make me want to reach into my eardrum with an auger and bore a hole into my tympanic membrane. And now that I am trying to break a sweat on some sort of regular basis and needing some musical encouragement, I am stuck with my left arm permanently crossed over my chest hitting “Skip” on the device strapped to my right arm for the duration of my walk until I finally reach the one White Stripes song that I can halfway jam to.

This is where you come in.

We actually have a new iPod, one that I bought as a surprise for Lorso some time ago.  This means that the old iPod, with all its free MBs is mine for the loading.  And I need some blood pumping, rockin’ out tunes to get my feet moving to.

So I want to know:  What songs make you feel good?  What do you find yourself jamming out to in the car or at the gym or (shudder) on your 10-mile runs? I’d like to fill my iPod with some booty shakin’, sweat inducing JAMZ.  I’m talking the kind of songs that make you want to kick ass and take names.  Those kinds of songs.  Lay the tune suggestions on me, Internets!

In the meantime, I’ll just be over here having one last slab of ham.