how's life?

[calimac]

I'm up early because I fell asleep early. I can't go downstairs because Pippin will want to be fed, and it's not mealtime yet. (He doesn't come upstairs and meow at me, though he will do that to B. It would work on me, too: he just doesn't know that.) So instead I sit in my office and computerize.

It may have been incipient tiredness, though I wasn't consciously aware of it, that made me decide to skip out on going out last night to a chamber music concert I didn't have a ticket for, or to the local fannish party, and in fact I could have done both. What I consciously thought was, no, I'd rather relax in my toasty little cottage with my wife and my cats. And thus we cocoon. So instead, I stayed home and got further jerked around by the authors of this Thursday's episode of Gracepoint. Thank ghu it's only a miniseries.

And possibly I was tired because I've been exercising. Yes, sports fans, months after B. joined a local outlet of 24-Hour Fitness she has finally lured me in after her. Considering how much I loathed gyms in childhood, when I was forced to use them, this is a major achievement. I'd been taking walks, but weather is iffy, it's hard to build up constant speed, and concrete sidewalks are hard on the shins. We have an exercise bike, but I find that hard on the knees, and when I'm out on my real bicycle I coast about 3/4 of the time. I've liked treadmills when I've tried them in hotel exercise rooms, but one of those wouldn't fit in our little Minnipin cottage. So I started by walking the treadmill there.

Then I had a free appointment with one of the trainers. This turned out to be a young, bubbly, and somewhat pushy woman who wanted me to sign up for regular training sessions for mucho bucks. I don't think so. Not just because of the money; I don't want a ghoddam program with goals. I just wanted some advice on what would do me some good. And I got that: she advised me on the best length of time for treadmilling, and on its built-in programs. And she introduced me to the rowing machine - a device I have not yet convinced myself I believe in - and the recumbent bike, which I liked much more. And some floor exercises, which I do at home, because they looked ridiculous enough on her.

So for now I'm doing half an hour every other day at the gym, split between the treadmill and the recumbent bike. I may work up to daily, but for now that's too exhausting. That I drive there feels less ironic than it sounds, because I get much better quality exercising there than on a walk, and if I walked I'd be too tired and sore to do it when I got there, let alone walk the mile home uphill afterwards. I won't lose weight this way - I started out as a baby, and have only ever gotten larger since - but at least it'll be good in other ways.

One last question: What do I do while on these machines? Unlike on a walk or a bike ride, I don't have to watch where I'm going. I'm not going to watch the TVs on the wall set to the sports channels, that's for sure. I find that the attention I give to most reading is too fragile to survive simultaneous exercising, and only the most engrossing book - John Cleese's memoirs worked, but I finished that - can survive it. So I listen to MP3s instead, with the earbuds I bought last summer, the only comfortable ones - this is the kind - that I've ever used. I need energetic music that I like, and I'd already tagged the upbeat songs - a small percentage of her total output - when I ripped my Enya collection, so for now I listen to that. Eventually I'll get tired of that temporarily, as has happened before, and I'll switch to something else for a while.

Otherwise? Work on next year's Tolkien journal is building up like a thunderhead, and my job as executor is finally beginning to softly, if not suddenly, vanish away.

Comments

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

The only way I can stand making myself do the recumbent bike is to watch TV on the iPad propped up before the monitor. I've worked my way through some fantastic stuff on Netflix--it's full of operas, plays, and terrific documentaries as well as all the usual stuff.

Curiously I don't get bored during Yoga. But that bike? I'd never stick to it if I didn't have either the TV or the audible book feature (sometimes I listen to books, but they have to be really, really well done )

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I tried watching TV on the stationary bike, since it's in front of the TV set. Didn't really work for me - TV is rarely energetic enough. For me, it's got to be music.

[wild-patience.livejournal.com]

Oh, today one of the TV screens was on a news program showing otters. I watched an otter eat a crab. Very cute. As you know, Bob, I'm a great advocate of using ereaders and light reading. That works for me.

[ken-3k.livejournal.com]

aradiva and I have recently started up the gym thing again as well. 15-20 years ago we were regulars, but her grad school interrupted the habit and we never got back to it until we felt the need to stave off the inevitable declines from aging. (I recently learned that I can't sling boxes of books as well as I could ten years ago. We have a lot of books.)

Anyway, it's all music for me while I spin those pedals. I have moved a lot of my musical experiences into an iPod touch which holds about 350 albums plus umpity hours of podcasts and ripped radio shows, and which is with or near me at all times. I suppose I look more for the uptempo and classic rock stuff for exercise. Last night it was an Allman Brothers anthology, just because, but last week it was one of the fRoots magazine world music podcasts. I guess my point is that picking music for exercise is not substantially different than picking music for driving, or for washing the dishes, or for screening out the chatter of my co-workers.

I do have a favorite playlist for driving and other wakey-wakey activities which starts out with Talking Heads, meanders through Richard Thompson and Paul Simon's "Graceland," dips into opera, picks up a few more British & European folk tunes new and old, more classic rock, blah blah. That tends to be motivational for me.

[k6rfm.livejournal.com]

For my daily walk soundtrack I've settled into BBC podcasts; usually World At One on weekdays, and Westminster Hour or Week in Westminster on weekends. (Global News is all war, famine, and plague, so it's too depressing.) Occasionally an episode of In Our Time, especially when Parliament has risen and the Westminster shows go on hiatus. This keeps me up on British politics which I find a fine spectator sport. I find these better than audiobooks since I don't have to follow a plot or extended argument.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I don't take to podcasts - though I might if, like you, I were inclined to use them for an exercise soundtrack - but I also find British politics a fine spectator sport. So may I suggest that you, like me, follow andrewdrucker who provides lots of interesting links.

Insert snarky comments here about how there certainly isn't a plot or any extended arguments in British politics. From another perspective, though, British politics is nothing but extended arguments. The one about Scottish independence has been going on for about 800 years.