Thursday, May 2, 2013
Secondhand Rants will return on Tuesday, May 07.
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
There is always the trough. You start something new–a project, hobby, sport–and ride high for a bit. Call it beginner’s luck. But then the well runs dry, giving way to the grim realities of the situation, and persistence, rather than talent, suddenly becomes a more important commodity. I find myself in just such a valley tonight for eBay and tennis, my two recent endeavors, and I commit these thoughts to digital paper to remember–to remember why I’m doing all this, for starters, and also to chronicle any solutions I may find.
In my stint as an eBay merchant, I’ve learned two things so far. First, no news is excellent news, from a customer service perspective. Second, an auction is only truly over when the package arrives. My inaugural round included five listings: four for my own lots, and one for a buddy. The one for my buddy was a seamless transaction, thankfully. I haven’t fared as well. My most expensive lot arrived with broken items, despite a 45-minute packing job. Photos of the mangled merchandise were furnished, and I should be covered by the insurance I bought. Part of me is skeptical about the whole affair, but the customer is always right, so goes the maxim, and I’ve preemptively refunded him. I’ve got to say, though, my townhouse is a hell of a lot cleaner, after just one wave of auctions, and if it means having to deal with man-children, so be it.
For tennis, I’ve learned precisely nothing so far, and I’ve found I’m happiest when I set my expectations very, very low. Let’s set aside service, groundstrokes, forehands, general contact with the ball, backhands, and other such contrivances. With a third session under my belt, I don’t feel like I’m dying anymore! And if that isn’t tacit endorsement of exercise, I don’t know what is. My lungs always feel great afterward, which should come as no surprise, considering breathing is the only skill I’m crushing, courtside. You could call me a seasoned veteran of air intake.
Thursday, April 25, 2013
If I manage to finish tonight’s post, from the first capitalized letter to the last period, it will be a triumph of the human spirit or, more accurately, the human body. That’s because I’m fresh off two hours of tennis, exponentially more than yesterday’s 35 minutes, and an effectively infinite percentile increase over the 0 minutes of exercise that have marked these past few years. It’s the kind of trajectory that doctors absolutely won’t prescribe, but that is the shape of things for me: ramp up respectably, then fizzle out spectacularly.
I certainly hope this won’t be the case, of course, because the ramp-up has been brutal. There was a moment yesterday, not more than 10 minutes into the session, when I thought I was going to die, and then was dismayed by the prospect of perishing while playing terrible tennis. Getting back into regular exercise always sucks, but this felt different. Taking the first step, reaching for the first rung, just felt miles away. Welcome to your 30s, I guess. You’ve heard of The Walking Dead, right? Well, it’s a show about zombies, to whom I felt a special kinship as I shuffled around the court. I’m vainer than a zombie, though. They guide their decaying bodies to food, while I’m attempting to make my decaying body decay less.
The current state of my tennis prowess is grim. No groundstrokes, a spotty backhand, an unreliable forehand, and the occasional good serve. Ugly. The hope is to burn through these deficiencies with pure tonnage. In prior stretches of tennis, I’ve always tried to find one consistent tennis buddy. But you have to be considerate about other people’s schedules, and this or that day won’t work, and then the regimen falls apart. That’s why I’m building a network of players this time. People will invariably hem and haw about not having played tennis in so-and-so years, at which point I drop the pitch: I don’t care about your service history. I’m just looking to cram as many bodies as I can into the week, so I can play tennis whenever I want. This isn’t a support group! I want to place bodies on the clay. It’s blunt, to be sure, but it’s been greeted by chuckles, mainly, and I’m three for three so far. And here we are. Post is in the bag. Now, if I could just will my legs to propel me out of this chair.