You Do the Driving

I am very happy today is Friday even though it means next Monday is already that much closer. I have a nice routine for my work week and all the resources to accomplish my job I could ever need (or imagine that I could ever need), but probably like you the grind of it creates its own pink noise and I tend to come up with tricks to help me get away without getting lost.

As my replacement knees have aged, the grace purportedly coming with maturity has proven itself to be in short supply. I spend about three hours trying to get the screaming in both knees and the barking and cramps in the hamstrings to stop after power walking (running is simply no longer an option). It fills up the day and makes the time go fast. I eat bananas to replenish the potassium, whose absence, I’m told, causes the cramps that run the length of my legs. For the record, I don’t like bananas except in Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow.

I shifted to treadmills some time ago, thinking they were a better idea in terms of wear and tear on the lower joints only to discover I needed a much better idea than that. I sort of have one now. Except for the almost killing myself everyday part of it. I’ve taken up with a crosstrainer now that I’ve figured out how to stay on it (no mean feat considering my coordination and balance) and the people at the gym are thrilled I’ve stopped punching holes in their floor with my emergency landings.

I actually enjoy a sense of achievement though I shouldn’t because I don’t have much achievement to show for it so far. I hang on and in there for a half an hour, I’m working my way up in terms of total time and got really close to doing over three miles in distance (but without actually doing it). My new theory is though my legs will still hurt when I get past three miles, they won’t hurt as much or as long. Or they may just fall off. I hope to find out real soon which part of my theory proves out.

The most pointless part of the machine to my mind is the display on the control panel. The only selection missing (and the only one I ever look for) is the ‘would you find someone else to use the device for you?’ selector. There’s minutes and seconds in use and time left (for the math buffs I guess), various levels of awfulness (1-30, I think), speed (I got up to 7 point something miles per hour the other day and yet felt not thrilled at all) and a running total of calories burned.

I think I’d feel cheated if the display didn’t tell me all of that even if I have no appreciation for some or most of it. My right to know overwhelms my need to care and my ability to comprehend. Ah, America! I face the big TVs on the wall at just the right distance from where I’m at, because I remove my glasses to keep the sweat off my eyewear, and then the talking heads are even fuzzier and I can’t read the captioning. All I can figure out is someone is angry. It’s Fox; of course someone on camera is angry. Actually everyone on camera is angry that's their target emographic. I tend to think of them as a Flat Earth News Service and I’m not missing much visually by not really seeing them, I know.

Yesterday was a repeat, I believe, of an earlier in the day Bill O’Reilly episode (?) while I listened to Judas Priest in my headphones (I used to watch Mets’ games with Lenny Bruce records playing; I highly recommend it). Sometimes one seemed to be complementing the other and I crack up when that happens. Everybody breaks down, sooner of later. You get nothing for nothing but only for a limited time. More limited than any of us may know.
-bill kenny