I love when my mind is made up for me. When I have no choice in a matter, and thus, by default, a decision is made without any input from me. I do not mean situations such as ordering the shared appetizers in a restaurant (“Yes, we’ll have the chicken satay. Kindly ignore the flailing, sputtering, cursing vegetarian seated across from me.”) or deciding whether to pull the plug (thank god that two years ago, I awoke from a four-month coma just in time to whisper, “Hands off the plug, Ma”) or whether to continue subscribing to Highlights magazine (“But if I stop, I won’t get to see if they’ll include my drawing of a swayback horse with a big ribbon tied around its neck.”). No. The decisions I’m talking about are ones that aren’t a matter of Life or Death.
To wit: This morning at 5:15, I realized that I had no clean gym-pants to wear to the, well, gym. So unless I was willing to wear jeans, or pajama bottoms emblazoned with the fuzzy flannel faces of the original cast of “Welcome Back Kotter” (above all others, Freddie “Boom Boom” Washington benefits from the coziness of flannel), or flay my dog, add a few percentages of Lycra® spandex to his skin, and then fashion the resultant fabric/leather into gym-pants (but really, German Shepherd is not a good look for me), I was going to have to do something drastic, like … not go to the gym this morning.
It just so happened that I wasn’t in the mood to go to the gym this morning, and from the moment I got out of bed at 4:35, had been trying to convince myself to take a day off anyway. Now, I know you’re aghast. What’s this? You don’t love going to the gym? You don’t want to go there six days a week (taking off only on Saturdays, using “the Sabbath” as an excuse despite being a Very Bad Jew Otherwise)? And here is your answer: No. No. I do not love the gym. Not even on the days when they give out purple tofu lollipops shaped like Johnny Depp and turn the treadmills into rainbows. But I do it anyway, because it’s good for me and makes me feel good and look even better and keeps me from losing my mind, which is always a bonus.
However, I just realized that by having my mind made up for me by dint of the unwashed gym-pants, I may, today, lose the very mind that was unburdened from its responsibilities this morning by dint of the unwashed gym-pants. It’s all too much to bear!
P.S. I did write this entry while pedalling a stationary bicycle that generates my computer power, so at least that’s something. And yes, I did it while wearing flannel pajama pants. So you see, it all works out (shut up) in the end.