Baby Steps

Having a gym for $21.67 a month is a bargain ($260 up front annually) but slightly less so when it's on a college campus that closes between Christmas Eve and the new year, randomly for sporting events and will likely be problematic in the summer since it lacks air conditioning. (Since solved, but the Pratt library was un-air conditioned when I worked there, which ended up being a treat due to union laws that would shut the place down at 1pm if a certain heat and humidity index was reached. There were a lot of weekday happy hours that summer.)

This is exactly the week when I should be getting some sort of activity. No amount of activity could likely counterbalance the amount of time I spend sitting on a couch with a laptop. (I tried a makeshift standing desk at the kitchen counter using an orange crate for about five minutes and just couldn't get into it.)

I would run outside but I can't make that leap. A little of it is logistics. Where do you put your housekeys? Even if you left a wallet, phone, water bottle at home, you have to get back in somehow. And what do you wear? My usual t-shirt and yoga pants (I don't do yoga, but I think that's what you call stretchy pants that aren't fitted like leggings?) aren't warm enough and I don't have a sporty jacket, just a winter parka and wool coats.

But really, the biggest hindrance is mental. I don't know how you just start running down the street without looking like an idiot. Like how do you go from walking to just running with purpose? I can't cross over to that way of thinking and doing. And when I say running, I really mean jogging and not for more than five minutes at a time.

On Christmas I saw Silver Linings Playbook and there were multiple running in the neighborhood scenes like this was something natural even though both characters were supposed to be mentally ill. Bradley Cooper turned into Bradley Cooper while in a mental hospital when originally he was suposedly fat and crazy.

This isn't like Carroll Gardens where everyone was constantly running all the time down the sidewalk and it baffled me how you wouldn't hit obstacles; just walking would raise my blood pressure with minimum one stroller per block (I'd count) dog walkers, meanderers, the elderly. Then it was strategic.

Here, once you get off Myrtle Ave., the sidewalks are dead (and pedestrian unfriendly--I nearly get plowed down by vehicles multiple times a week). And if I go two blocks east it's all Hasidic and they're weird and protective of their neighborhoods; I don't like walking through there. But now I'm making excuses. I'm the same way about biking as I am about running in public. I just can't do it. If you can sleep on public transportation or erupt into song or dance without thought, then you won't understand.

Eating alone in public can be fraught in a similar way. It's not the big deal it used to be--I'll eat a casual lunch solo but not a "nice" dinner--but there's no way I'd eat a doughnut walking down the street. (I never even eat doughnuts but the other day picked up two from Dough, near my apt., maybe the best doughnut shop in Brooklyn. I waited till I got home to eat them.)

On my way home from dinner and a movie on the 25th, I ended up sitting accross from a guy on the subway who was eating an entire half-gallon of Edy's butter pecan ice cream with a plastic spoon. He didn't give a shit and he was clearly enjoying himself. And no one was giving him a second look except me, I mean, he was in my line of vision. As I said on Instagram, he was clearly winning at Christmas.

 

Comments

[Meridith]

He clearly won Christmas. I'm with you on the outside running bit.
I'd love to do it but then I think, "Where would I put all my STUFF?"

[Krista]

Yes, I realize I'm being a big spazzy about some of this, but yeah, what if you need your wallet or get thirsty or who knows what?