There’s this story about an ugly duckling, see, and it says some pretty profound things about change and inner beauty and other New Age shit. I know you’ve heard of it, gentle reader, just as you’re aware that winter–the cold, bleak span of three months–does the ugly duckling in reverse.
You can go into winter looking your best, or at least your moderate best, and you can come out a whole different beast. Slower. Dumber. Plumper. A lot plumper. Even people who worship their BMI charts, who use them to triangulate the exact location of their mortality, may wake one fine spring day and wonder how they rocked their diagrams in a matter of weeks. I’m talking about really rocking the index, rocking it good, and then eating it like a Krispy Kreme donut.
In the interest of avoiding an increase in bodily insulation, I’m investing in a health club membership. My employer promises to reimburse 20% of the cost, ostensibly so I can continue to advertise on the Internet in excellent health. The question, then, is what to do with that membership.
What would you do, dear reader? What do you see in exercise? I enjoy sports, particularly tennis, because there’s the added benefit of winning. Pure exercise, on the other hand, has manifested itself horrifically in these newfangled, Sisyphean contraptions of torture. You’ve got the elliptical machine, the parabolic rowboat simulator, the hyperbolic stepper, and the diabolical treadmill, devices designed to force us into tantric formations ill-suited for human comprehension.
I don’t know about you, but seeing rows and rows of machinery, many of them probably blessed by Chuck Norris himself, brings into question how people of old managed to keep fit. And then it hit me, a snowy panorama of colonial America in the wintertime. It’s 1762. A log cabin. The end of a Christmas feast. Petey the Colonist pushes aside his plate.
“Mother dearest, thank you again for the combination butter-churner and water-boiler! It’s just what I wanted for Christmas. I am going to chop wood now and capture some natives.”
Therein lies my answer. I’m going to do something simple, something unaided by cogs and bolts and the latest Super EFFX technology. I’m going to run. On the track. I’ll do it in one direction sometimes, sometimes in the other, but hopefully always with the general flow of fellow runners. You know what I found out a year or two ago? I used to believe they changed directions for variety’s sake, but apparently they do so to prevent your knees from imploding in a bloody mess.
There was a Thanksgiving, tucked deep in the recesses of high school, where I sat bewildered in a Chinese restaurant deep in Queens. I had certainly been to restaurants before, so don’t think me a total rube, but I’d never taken too well to Asian cuisine. This has since changed, of course. It’s just that back then I preferred all my food from one side of the Pacific–the side that includes California, to be specific.
The host, a middle-aged Asian fellow wrapped in a crisp suit and centuries of tradition, watched our table with an eye trained for service. In Chinese culture, customer satisfaction turned dissatisfaction is tantamount to beating someone over the head with a bottle of soy sauce. I resolved to not break any cardinal rules of etiquette.
Then the soup came. I don’t remember the exact flavor, but I do remember an overwhelming compulsion to get rid of it as quickly as possible. I looked to my left. Looked to my right. I looked at the host, who looked straight back at me. And then I saw it: a potted plant sat within arm’s reach, a vision of leafy convenience too good to ignore.
Another party drew the attention of the host, and in that critical moment I grabbed my soup and emptied it into the pot. I had successfully watered the plant, created the illusion of finishing my bowl, and celebrated the true meaning of Thanksgiving by being grateful for the greenery.
There’s some practical multitasking for you. Remember, it’s not enough to be thankful. You’ve got to share as well. Have a happy Thanksgiving.
In case you were wondering how I procured such a questionable image yesterday, gentle reader, let me assure you that I do not collect clever visualizations of spyware and pedophilia. Fact is, I hope that when my midlife crisis hits like a sack of Porsches, I will turn to buying oddly shaped onion rings on eBay. That’s the way life goes, adults tell me, and you simply can’t stop these stirrings when you hit 47.
I got the picture from a buddy at work, so there’s not too much drama there. The drama for today, instead, centers on how Secondhand Rants always closes whenever major holidays come to town. We gather to remember when Pilgrims and Indians mutually slaughtered turkeys and cranberries, and Secondhand Rants closes. We rejoice over Sweetest Day, a holiday that nobody can ever define accurately, and Secondhand Rants closes. We hold hands and joyfully weep about Canada Day, and what happens? This building closes.
It’s an inevitability that breaks my heart more often than not, and I hope to fix this by forecasting things to come. Ritual dictates that you would see a “SR will return on Monday–wait, make that never” message if you logged on tomorrow at 5:15 PM CST. We’re going to flout tradition and do this today.
Secondhand Rants will return on Monday, November 29.
Weird, huh? It’s almost like we’re going forward in time. Maybe it’s just me, but I’m getting a brain rush from doing this. I own a marker. It’s a gigantic beast that calls itself the “Magnum 44” and insists on being used in ventilated areas. Whenever I use it, even in a ventilated area, it uses me as Van Gogh would a pair of earbuds. Well, that brain rush felt exactly like being Magnum 44’ed.
So that’s today. And tomorrow? We’ll have a nice, warm discussion. What should we discuss? I don’t know yet, but I’m sure it’ll be something timely and useful and cherry-flavored.