moving

I used to live down the street from a corner store. I was on one corner, and the store, it was on the other corner. Which is why we called it the corner store, I imagine.

We used to do our grocery shopping at the corner store, me and my roommate, because we were very lazy people who disliked hiking a mile and a half all the way to the honest-to-goodness grocery store, trudging through the aisles, and then staggering back under the weight of all our beer (and maybe a couple of boxes of mac and cheese) back home. That was a waste of energy and resources!

Many small one-block trips were far more economical (if slightly less efficient) than one massive rush there and back, and we were content to never actually have any real food in the house, because the cells of college students are designed to operate on florescent lighting, Doritos, second hand smoke and Budweiser. All of which can be obtained at your handy, and also dandy, corner store.

So we were lazy and we were college students, and those things are frequently things that go hand in hand, but it was okay, because I was young, resilient, and could eat quarter pounders wrapped in gorditas, and be plenty plenty healthy. I assumed. I eschewed green things and walking because those were things that took effort and effort sucked.

I thought effort sucked so much, that I would whine when it was time to go stock up on cheetos and weird green Spanish candy.

"I don't want to go!" I would say. "It is too far."

"It's a block," my roommate would say, reasonably.

"It's a very far block."

"It's a block. It's a two minute walk."

"Two minutes is long! One block is far! Let's take the bus."

"IT'S A BLOCK. WE ARE NOT TAKING THE BUS A BLOCK."

And I would be very, very sad. Because I wanted to take the bus a block. Or better yet, teleport. If only I could have teleported. Instead, I shuffled. In a very, very sad way.

I am happy to report that on my birthday, my roommate took me downstairs, handed me a token, and we took the bus to the corner store that day. It was forty-five minutes round trip. It was also one of the best goddamn moments of my life.

So you see, I kind of hate exercise, is my point. I hate exercise and effort. Less so than when I was a deadbeat college student, admittedly. I have never again taken the bus a block. I have even, on occasion, taken the stairs instead of the elevator and other exciting "work exercise into your daily life!" tips you get from women's lifestyle magazines. I am not a slug.

But I still kind of hate exercise.

Which is why I would like to know who am I, and what have I done with the real me, because this weird stepford person that has inhabited my butt has been working it off like a sunovabitch, and she is liking it.

She is liking the sweat and the pain and the feeling of absolute exhilaration and the way she feels wrung out and thrilled and proud and like a bad ass – no, not a bad ass, a BAD ASS after every workout, how she loves to wipe the sweat from her forehead and grin at herself in the mirror and just love the fuck out of her body because of what it can do, how it can carry her, how she can push it and it can push back and back and this is the kind of thing a body is made for, and she is grateful that this is the kind of thing she can do.

Though she still really fucking hates showering at the gym.

This entry was posted by anne, on Tuesday, January 25, 2005. You can leave your response.