Only 183 Days Until Dragon*Con 2012….

When the alarm went off at 5:01am, my first thought was, how could something this horrific happen to me?  Here I was, sleeping, minding my own business, and now I feel like I’ve been run over by a cement truck. Did I really used to do this every day? It seems so long ago, now. There’s no way. No way that I useta do this every day.

As I lay in bed thinking “One more day won’t hurt. Just one more day to sleep in. I’ll go tomorrow. I wonder if I can get back into that dream I was having.”, I simultaneously thought to myself, “You’ll feel a lot better all day, and feel a lot better about yourself, if you go ahead and get back on the horse today.”

Somehow I found myself brushing my teeth and putting on workout pants and tying up a pair of Asics. This is all still a complete blur, as I think I was operating half in this world and half in the Twilight Zone at this point in the morning.

My normal breakfast of yogurt’n’granola seemed to whiz by me like a ghost. I drank a little water that has been sitting in a water bottle in hibernation for four weeks. Wondered if water that had been bottled up and sitting for that long was ok to drink and got mental images of stagnant ponds and the marshlands that surround my hometown.

The next thing I knew, I was changing the cat litter, muttering like Rockin’ Robin, the toothless crackwhore that useta hang around our old neighborhood. As always, I pondered if toxoplasmosis was eventually going to be the death of me, like Tommy in Trainspotting. Images of myself, old and alone, with a zillion mewling cats meandering about a worn out house, came to mind and I envisioned a cyst bursting in my brain, the end result of years of changing cat litter. The cat’s final revenge against its human oppressors.

I woke up in the car, on the way to the gym, with the Pirates of the Caribbean Ride-Through playing on the ipod (this is the complete audio from the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disney World, from the queue area to the exit ramp. I know, I am a nerdlinger of the highest order.).

My first cognizant thought was that Lent was going to be the best one ever this year, and that it was a really great time to lose weight and get in shape. I also thought about how Protestants shouldn’t be able to celebrate Mardi Gras, because without the sacrifice, the feasting is just plain hedonism.

My mother calls me a “back sliding Catholic”, and I guess she is right. I really don’t know what I believe when it comes to religion. I guess I’m more agnostic than anything else. But I still celebrate Lent every year, and go to Mass on Ash Wednesday. For some reason.

This year: beef. No beef for 40 days. This is, probably, a good thing. Although I ate a ton of lean beef when I lost a lot of weight quickly back in October/November of last year.

Has it really been 4 weeks since I’ve been to the gym? Fitocracy says so. That’s a whole month!!!! I can’t believe I’ve let it get this far out of hand. I mean, I knew I had gained some weight back, but a whole month?!?!?!?! That is just ridicurous.

I looked over into the passenger seat, and there was a pipe and some Apple Strudel pipe tobacco (which I ordered from Boswell’s, finest tobacconist in the States). How did that get here? Did I really think I was going to smoke a pipe on the way to the gym? Or better yet, on the way home??? Clearly my mind had truly been in a state of half-sleep-induced insanity before I left the house.

As I pulled into the parking lot of the J’n’F’n’Z, I noticed that the parking lot was a lot more empty than it had been last month. And they had added handicapped parking. Lots of it. Is it really necessary for a gym to have like 10 handicapped parking spaces? I’m all for the “differently abled” (I think that is the pc term these days), but I have never seen someone in a wheelchair at the JFZ. Not once.

My next thought was that the empty parking lot was probably due to the extinction of the dinos I mentioned in my last post. That is, all the New Year’s Resolutionators have quit by now.

My last thought before getting out of the car was, “What is Smiley Girl going to think? I wonder if she’s working today? I bet she thinks I’m a lazy, worthless, fat sack of shit. Which I am.”

I opened the door to the JFZ and surveyed my savanna, taking inventory of the members of my COC that were present.

Smiley Girl was working. Behind the desk, still fit as shit.

“Good morning!” I tried to sound cheery, wondering if she still remembered me, much less remember my number to check me in.

She smiled and said “I gotcha”. Which is JFZ-talk for “You are now properly checked into the JFZ and may proceed to the fitnessing environment.”

I couldn’t let the moment go by without saying something. Something to acknowledge that I had been lazy and not up to snuff, and to let her know that I felt guilty as a mofo about it. All I could come up with was,

“Mardi Gras got me.”

She smiled. “Better late than never.”

Damn right.