I rode the exercise bike a while the other day.
This blog’s a lot like an exercise bike. I break a mild sweat failing to go anywhere and I justify the tedium by insisting it must be good for me. The bike’s in the garage, which is a mess, and includes a bail of hay or maybe straw for reasons that escape me, if I ever knew. While I rode the exercise bike I wrapped an exercise band around a beam in the ceiling and did lat pull downs until the band snapped. That’s not a marker of impressive duration, it’s a marker of a cheap quality and worn out band, the technical term for which is a Blink 182. I don’t know if that joke works, I just did it to go through the motions mechanically for the exercise of it, it’s a lat pull down of a joke. Then I did another two bands and the third ripped part way. It’ll limp along as a shell of itself a while before giving out completely at an inopportune moment, like a cheap umbrella. That could have been a joke but I couldn’t think of anything else that gives up at an inopportune moment. Ha! “That could have been a joke if I could have thought of how to make it into a joke” basically. Tip your server, folks!I got a barbell and an exercise keg in the mail today, got them both on a very steep Black Friday discount. I’ve got weights coming on Friday and am tempted to get an expensive squat rack one of these days too. We’ll see.
I’m tempted to recount my last workout but that’s like recounting a dream, only people who truly love you are willing to sit through that and they begrudge you the time despite the love. Love is begrudging endured and willfully forgotten. That’s the title of my new self-help book, it’s called Help Yourself: A Book. I’m pleased about the new fitness gear though, it should be fun, fingers crossed.
I didn’t go for a run today, had a headache most of the day - too little water yesterday and I think maybe too much sodium as well. I’m a man of a certain age now, I guess. I did go for a walk and the guy at the coffee shop asked me about my book and labor history and some big picture political questions, which was fun, felt like a genuine invitation to a conversation, which is always nice. I also got a cookie to eat while I drank my coffee, made for a nice walk home.
I’ve been watching a Brit TV show about men getting old, a relatively gently comedy with just enough pointed bits to enliven it. It’s nice, funny and meditative with some poignancy about the aging, and makes me feel better about my own aging, which is less fraught I think - I just want more of what I like and less of what I don’t, I don’t have any existential responses to anything, no ‘what’s it all about?’ or ‘was it worth it?’ kinds of worries. I always think confidence is the position of the positive conviction that you’re doing something and it’s going well but maybe it’s just not being bothered by the worry that you’re not doing it well. It’s a lot like going to sleep, really.
