Ooof.

Remember when I said something about realizing how old you are and how out of shape you are by doing an hour of stage combat with an exercise freak/former fitness model that's seven years younger than you and roughly half your size?

Yeah, well, last night was time to re-stage that fight scene for the revival of Taming of the Shrew, so me and Shel decided to knock the rust off a little bit and change some things around this time since the stage we're working on is better than twice the size of the one we fought on last time. And today I can't lift my arms over my head and I think I have bruises in some places, but I can't see those places, so I'm not sure.

No, you may not look for the bruises. Unless you're a chick. Then we'll talk.

Highlights of the rehearsal were adding an airplane spin into the fight (no, she cannot airplane spin my fat ass, all the lifting and throwing is done by yours truly), her smothering me with her boobs at one point in the fight, and this little moment -

I look down to where she's sitting on the ground and giggle.

"What's funny?"

"I just had a retarded idea."

"What?"

"Move over a little, lemme see if I can still do this."

"What are you trying?"

"In a perfect world, you'll reach up, grab me by the neck, and throw me over you, and I'll flip over and land on my back."

"That would be fun, " and she reaches for me.

"You might want to wait until I see if I can still do this roll before I try it with you under me and kill you."

"Oh yeah. Good point."

I can, in fact still do a standing forward roll, although somewhat less gracefully than I could 13 years and 95 pounds ago. So we incorporated that into the fight, and today my shoulder feels like something resembling raw hamburger, since four out of five rolls I landed perfectly.

The fifth one hurt. I missed a little bit and have a bit of a bruise, but no big deal. Nothing a few dozen beers in Vegas next week won't cure.