I did not much of anything today. In solidarity with many fully employed people in the country, I took today as a day of relaxation. I have to get into the groove of time off for that fateful day when I find myself once again “gainfully” employed.
Also securing my standing in the slovenly hall of lazy, I spent a portion of the day reading up on gyms and fitness centers on the world-wide web. I believe that reading of others’ sweating pasttimes is exercise enough.
If you happened to give a shit, which I suspect you don’t, you may ask “Why?” Why would someone such as I am, enthusiastically embracing of my non-gym ways and not at all eager to relive the childhood trauma of Presidential Fitness challenges, (like the Vietnam War a sad legacy of the late 1960s) researching such establishments?
Why, indeed. I certainly do not want to find myself in tears again, taunted and unhappy, ready to snap into psychosis, much like the then baby-fat chubby Vincent D’Onofrio
in Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket. It was a blessing that rifles were not standard issue in Lakeside Elementary, when I could not at all pull up my, as it turned out, almost fully grown body. Else, I may have been inclined to lock and load. No, to this day gyms do not appeal to me as good, fun and wholesome, no matter how a certain gentleman friend may delight in them.
However, most, if not all, fitness centers seem to have very good plumbing, hot showers and more. If I have my bathroom destroyed and rebuilt studs to tile, which is quite necessary, showering will not be an option. I think sink baths in the kitchen will not be sufficient to keep me from festering and ripening over a two, three-week period.
The bright side, I guess, if there is one, which I suspect there isn’t, will be some effort toward the one indicator of aging that particularly bugs me, my abdominal area. All of my life, no matter what size I was, how much I weighed, the grand countours of an expanding ass or pair of thighs, I could be comforted by one small thing. My stomach was usually on the flat side. Lately, the abs disappoint in a sqishy gut. I fear a paunchy me is not really my vision of an empowered, comfortable, middle age.
One thing annoys me about considering a gym. What the fuck is an “elliptical” and why would anything have such an uninformative tag?
An elliptical is a kind of half treadmill, half stair-climber. It’s easy on the knees, and a hell of a workout. Its name comes from the shape the steps trace as they rotate.