February 9, 2010

Jazz and the exercycle

Programming up a list of comfortable favorites of my jazz selection, I get the music humming along and start to pedal away the fat and calories that insulate my frame.
Since I've been so cold lately that I could have used my hands to chill steaks, I wonder about my sanity. Having a zero thyroid function isn't for the weak and sissy.

Only those brave souls who are willing to bear around the winter chill with them even in July know of what I am speaking.

Some days, the very idea of getting up and moving is so unappealing, but I am navigated to a sitting position on the side of the bed by sheer willpower, and I'm quite certain the will is someone else's. Were it my little voice talking and taking over the reins, I'd be under the electric blanket with the heat setting turned up barbecue and the portable phone on the floor by my houseshoes.

Compelling the weak and flabby body to sit atop the gel padded bike seat for my attempts to coerce fitness from a body that would rather ponder upon the blessing of central heat is a sometimes Herculean task. Pedaling more out of guilt than pleasure some days, I do what I can in the nasty rainy cold of winter.

Snowy days look so pretty when I can stay inside and warm. But if I have to get out in them, I feel very put upon.

Days that are so cold and achy make me wonder if I could have gutted out the trek across frozen hills and plains that bore my ancestors from place to place in the cycle of hunting, gathering, planting and sowing. And God bless those folks who made their home in the moors and fens scratching out a spartan existance from the most meager of circumstance.

I realize that if all of your neighbors live the same way and there isn't 24 hour news coverage to tell you that you are in a bad way or impoverished, then you don't dwell on it. It kind of makes me wonder just how much better our world could be without the saturation of 'news' and 'newsmakers' who intrude upon our reality and make us think we need oh so much more than we have.

So I pedal and wax philosophical, or at least as philosophical as I am likely to get while the washer and dryer buzz plaintifly to me to come and pay them some attention lest they take revenge on my clothing.

The jazz music is alternating forms of pulsating rhythm from around the world as interpreted by people through their own cultural eyes and experience. As I pedal, sometimes I imagine roadways and byways with there hills and dips. Sometimes, I'm riding a smooth boardwalk or pathway through a seacoast town. Other times, I'm just mindlessly riding to check the box and say "I did it" for the day.

One thing that is sure, winter isn't my friend when it comes to exercise. I sympathize with bears too much and feel that hibernation might be good for us all. Imagine how well rested we'd all feel with a long winter's nap tucked under our belts!

As I pedaled along I reflected upon a report I heard about the blizzard that shut down Washington D.C. They said the closures of government services was costing yeah so many millions per day.

I thought and said it was probably cheap at twice the price because when D.C. is open for business they are wasting billions of dollars weekly as if printing more money is the solution to everything.

Time to heed the dryer's frantic call. It's warning me I'll have wrinkled towels if I don't drag myself from the bike and come RIGHT NOW and rescue the towels.

I promise I'm getting there. But I have to confess I'm not all that fussed up about whether or not my towels are wrinkly. Should that happen to be a trigger for you, you are more than welcome to come and steam press creases into my towels. I won't stop you.

But I might write about how looney you are for pressing a towel...

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