Me and the Wii

Rax and I got a wii and wii fit for Christmas (unexpected but awesome) and I've worked out 1/2 hour for the past few days (except Saturday--I went to bed feeling great on Friday and woke up with a sore throat on Saturday. Between that and the snow, we had to cancel plans to visit toberkitty in RI) and I got *nothing* done. Bah. Still sore throat again today despite 12 hours' sleep.).

It's been fun. Here's what I've learned:
- Pretend skiing is harder to do than real skiing. That shouldn't work that way!

- I like the "zen challenge," even though it seems like you're just sitting on a board, but don't understand why they have to manufacture fake noises for you to be distracted by when there are already plenty of real distracting noises.

- rax is troubled by the fact that the wii makes your mii fat if you're fat, and points out that American culture already has enough problems equating "fat" with "moral failure" without a video game adding to them. I agree with this--but am actually overweight and need to exercise more, daily if possible. I have less problem with a video game pointing out "you're really overweight and need to exercise" to me than I do with 95% of the persons pointing this out to me (there are a few genuine exceptions). The persons often come off as jerks, concern trolls, or hypocrites. When people point out that I am fat, I go and eat more ice cream. When the Wii points out that I am fat, I exercise for 1/2 hour and feel refreshed. Why is this? I think it's because the video game can't really come off as a jerk, concern troll, or hypocrite to me. It's not because the video game has been programmed and the people have not. On the contrary, I think that many persons are "programmed" by culture to equate "fat" with "moral failure." And it's not because the video game presents no moral stance on obesity--besides the fact that the game itself is a cultural artifact which will have inherent biases, it's programmed to show a moral stance by the actions your wii takes (for instance, your mii is sad when you fail an exercise task and happy when you complete it well). But it's the fact that those moral attitudes are so obviously abstracted, so obviously programs coming from a machine, that allows me to see the cultural attitudes themselves as programs and deal with the actual weight problem that I have as a managable issue rather than as a moral failing on my part. The machine is recording me and the program is judging the results, and providing a moral judgement, but for me, the moral judgement has been stripped of its morality, since no morality is involved on the part of the wii itself.

That kind of abstraction is exactly what I need to actually do what I want to do--which is be able to feel fit, be more genderqueer and dragony and martial-arts kickass, get in better cardiovascular shape, and be able to wear types and styles of clothing that better express my personality and gender expression.

I hope that this attitude, with time, will also carryover to people who see fit to judge me or others based on their weight. It's harder to abstract people's judgements of me--harder to see cultural or individual judgements as abstracted and internalized values--and I am not good at dealing with the moral judgement part, even when I am able to see the judgements themselves as cultural and moral programming, and able to intellectually understand that I do not or cannot subscribe to that particular understanding. I can and will have to get better at seeing and reacting to moral judgements made about my body in a way that doesn't make me feel like a bad person.

rax also enjoys the fact that I am having fun and points out that if I am more likely to exercise daily with the wii than without the wii then it's a net gain since exercise will make me happier. I also agree with this.

- She and I were also both annoyed/troubled by the way it reinforces the gender binary. Most exercise equipment I've seen, from bike gloves to the changing rooms at the gym, does this, but "everybody does it" is no excuse. One thing I do when I can is pay for gear that doesn't enforce the gender binary, even when it's more expensive, but Nintendo has not yet come out with the "Wii Fit Androgyny Upgrade Pack." Since I feel as if I am losing weight in part to become more comfortable with my body in order to deliberately dress and act more genderqueerly, I have decided to become comfortable with using the gender binary now in order to better deliberately obscure and subvert it later. Just like real life! What a shocker.

- The "trainers" provided to you are paper-white, and plastic-looking! It's freaky. I like to say that I'm going to workout in the "Uncanny Valley Gym."

- It is really hard to look at the screen in order to keep your balance inside the yellow circle when the yoga pose you are doing requires that you look down. Any thoughts? How do other people who use the wii fit correct for this? (This may be the fault of our screen; our house has a huge screen. lutriss came with a projector we use to play video games and watch movies and anime).

- My mii looks freaking adorkable in a penguin outfit in the penguin ice-sliding game.

- We also have "Zelda: Twilight Princess." :D

Other things done recently:
- lunch w/fiddledragon, which was great. I need to remember to get the book of edible invasive species from her.
- Book group dinner! Yay.
- Dinner with grunniens and autumnesquirrel twice!

Hopefully I will be able to get some long-delayed paperwork and cleaning and winterproofing done today despite the sick. I need it.