A Long Weekend

with sun and pool opening and a NEW BICYCLE. Yes, I'm out of practice. It has been a long time since I went everywhere on a bike. And I'm quite ungainly with a bad knee to boot. Be that as it may, I've been a few yards every day. Well maybe more than a few yards, but not many.

Oh, and I lost a few pounds. I've lost 7 since I started Weight Watchers four weeks ago, 12 since I decided to get serious about getting healthier and feeling better. It's interesting that I can feel 5 or 10 pounds lost. Why didn't I feel 5 or 10 pounds gained? Because I really didn't notice? More likely I was ignoring all of those signals, how my body felt. You can't get to be 100+ pounds overweight if you're noticing how lousy it feels all the time.

Interestingly enough, I've thought a lot about how I feel. It's difficult to do so becausse I feel so narcissistic. On the other hand I've paid enough attention to the needs of others over the years. I'm due a little narcissism. Back to the point. I think I felt the best in my life when I was 11. I was strong and free and smart and puberty hadn't messed all that up yet. I wandered about, walked and rode my bike and swam miles just because it felt good. I realized that I've totally lost that feeling. I want it back. Even when I'm not so comfortable with what I have to do to get there.

Hence the bike. That looks like this:

(That one isn't mine, although it is the same brand and color. That one belongs to and was uploaded to Flickr by Melly Bee. Mine has a removable basket. It will have panniers when I find some I love.

A Confession

I've never told anybody this. And I don't know why it tapped into my core so badly.

The last time I tried to exercise outside was a very very long time and a great many pounds ago. I weighed like 180 and was focusing on fitness. I was by myself, on a bicycle in a flat agricultural area nearby. It isn't well traveled so I was ok about going slowly if I needed to or stopping when necessary.

I was struggling up a small grade when a car whizzed by, then screeched to a stop about 100 feet in front of me. It was an old beater and the young man on the right -- an old teenager with long hair and a ripped tee shirt -- leaned half of his body out of the car window and shouted at me "Get off the road you fat cow." He then threw an open beer in my direction and the car took off like a bat out of hell.

I stood there for the longest time, shaking. The situation felt totally unsafe, but the fact that I was being ridiculed overwhelmed me. I trembled while I struggled my way back to my car, put the bicycle in, and went home. And never did it again.

I'm sitting here trying to make myself go to the gym, all of 7 minutes away. And all I can think about is how embarrassed I am. Maybe it's an excuse but maybe not. I think I need to work on this.