I tend to take a Spartan view of things.


                       

I tend to see life pretty much in black-and-white - I'm either doing what I'm supposed to be doing, or I'm not doing what I'm supposed to be doing.

There was an old Nike poster that said "You either ran today, or you didn't". No waffling, no excuses - did you or didn't you?

This morning was one of those Character Building mornings. I did a mile and a half warmup on the dreadmill at the gym, and went into the locker room for a potty stop - while I was in there, it occurred to me. I could be free, right now - I could just say "I'm done!" and go shower and change and go to the office, and never, ever run another step unless I have to go to the bathroom really, really bad or I'm in the other room and Ethel tells me that Bama is about to score.

I was that close to being free, and Gary "Dash Riprock" walked in, and told me to get back out to the dreadmill and finish my run.

So I did - another 11.5 miles for a total of thirteen, which is what I had planned. It didn't go as badly as the first mile and a half felt; maybe I reached that Zen place where you can't really feel any more pain. Maybe I turned a corner during the run and started getting younger instead of older, like Merlin.

Then I lifted.

But those were my choices; I could quit when the going got rough, or I could go ahead and finish the whole steenkin' stupid workout. I thought about stopping with five miles, or with ten miles, or even twelve (which is what I ran last Tuesday) but I had planned on 13 today, so it had to be thirteen, or I was a lazy shiftless no-good worthless scum-sucking cheeze-whacking bald-faced lying Welfare bum. Nothing in between.

Ethel's not nearly so black-and-white as all that.

She's sorta grayish - no, I'd say more "taupe" ( that's that color that isn't brown, and isn't gray, and isn't beige - a guy will look at it and say "gray", but he'll be wrong. Then he'll wise up, and say "taw-pay", but that's not the correct pronunciation - it's pronounced "tope"). She can work out or not work out, work or not work, clean or not clean - and she's not, in her mind, doing it or not doing it - she's "sorta" doing it, or "kinda" not doing it.

It's enough to make a fellow blanche (that's a woman's name, but it also means "turn pale" - I think that it can also mean to fry something lightly, or some sort of cooking-related term (like "parboil" - what is that? partly boiling?) - anyway, when you "blanche", it means that your skin turns taupe), hearing Ethel equivocate (that's a term that means "straddle the fence" - I think that the idea in "equivocating" is that you are making two things equal - i.e. running and not running are pretty much the same, if you are "equivocating") and hem and haw about this and that.

Right now, Ethel's not feeling well. In fact, she's feeling really poorly, and I wish that I could help her. But I can't. Because, you see, Ethel's not working - and she's not taking off, either. She's sort of working, most of the day. And then she's sort of napping the rest of the time. But you can't say "How come you worked all day and now you're going to sleep when I get home?" because, you see, she didn't really "work all day" and she's not really going to sleep. It's just kinda-sorta, in both directions.

When I'm sick, and can't work,  it means that I'm near death, and it's time to call in the family. I don't work; I barely breath. And when I'm well enough to work, it means that I'm well enough to run and lift and go to meetings and I'd better get my chores done, too. That's guy-talk.

Women - women can get the "vapors" and get enough gumption to do what they want to do, and let the rest go.

Arrgghh!