I may live to regret this as I have received nasty comments before when I have dared to say something not in keeping with my signature tender posts, but here it is: my workout music is no holds barred. I don’t care about lyrics, or more specifically, I don’t care if the lyrics are PC or even intelligent. I am looking for music that is transformative, something that takes me to another place, see, the thing of it is, I am a worrier. A big, hand-wringing, brow-furrowing worrier. It can really blow.

The only thing that can truly chase the anxiety away is a hard workout. Don’t get me wrong, I love my girls and Sean, and, yes, they can soothe me, but it is working out that can erase everything. Sean gets this and has loaded our iPods with different playlists for me to use. I am sure that his cheeks burned as he waited for Christina Aguilera’s Stronger to download, but he did it, and damn if I haven’t had some incredible workouts as a result.

One of my all-time favorites is this one, not exactly the anthem for a mom of three daughters, but for working out I really, really love it. Once upon a time I told Sean that I liked LL Cool J. I think he might have choked on the Nantucket Nectar he was sipping. I think I probably give off more of a Hanson vibe than LL.

Lately I have been talking about how badly I want to work out again. He told me yesterday, “Hey, I downloaded an LL Cool J song for your workout playlist.” I didn’t give it another thought until he came up to me today after he’d taken the girls for a run.

“About that LL Cool J song? Aw, I didn’t listen to it until just now and let me warn you, it’s dirty.”

“Ok,” I said, not really worried.

“No, I mean like it’s so dirty it makes the Buckcherry song seem like something the Wiggles would sing.”

I haven’t stopped laughing at the expression he had on his face or the whole Wiggles thing. If only the girl I was back in the late 80’s/early 90’s had known she’d be hearing something like that from the father of her three children.