I'm back at the gym. This is a REALLY good thing for me as 1) it should keep me from dying prematurely due to high blood pressure and 2) it makes me get out of the office so that I feel like I'm getting my "value" out of my membership, and getting away from the office is a Good Thing as it also helps reduce my blood pressure. Conceptually, though, I just joined due to a tremendous vanity and wanting to look good in the tonyawinter dress I'm planning on wearing in September. I mean, hey, whatever works, right? But I also miss my ability to run up stairs as quickly as I did in the fall and to hold myself up in plank position (by my arms a la "pushups") in Pilates, so all and all it seemed like it was time to go back, now that I'm not utterly and completely broke like I was for most of the winter.

Today was my second trip back (the goal being twice a week). As I expected, it's actually very easy for me to get my heart up to my target rate (above 150), since I'm all out of practice with getting exercise. My legs and arms are feeling good about getting worked out - a little tired and rubbery, but "hey! I'm alive!" which I like. I managed 40 kilos on tricep curls and about 15 or 20 with the rhomboid machine I use to try to work the knots out of my back, and I can keep up a good rate on the base level on both the step and the bike machines. To top it off, I found a Charles Stross short story in the SF compendium ("The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 14") I brought with me, so I was feeling fairly well entertained (important as boredom is my number one reason not to go to the gym).

My goal these days is just to go twice a week, not three times, and try to manage a round of Pilates during the week. That way I can still do the Holborn Walks on Fridays (tomorrow: Fantastic Buildings, starts at 1 PM from Holborn Station) and elementary school French tutoring on alternate Wednesdays and not feel like my week is so painfully crushed for time that I can't meet a random friend for lunch. And I think the effects will still make it worth the time. A heart monitor watch would be good for me, though - shoulda got one ages back.

Tonight we're going to see Peer Gynt at the Barbican ... I just need to get out of here on time!

If you ignore the food poisoning, there's one great thing I can say about the last week and a half: I have been sleeping like a rock. Actually, I even slept great in Italy, probably because I was walking myself to a state of exhaustion daily, but there was only one day when I spent my night worrying about us not getting somewhere on time and lost sleep because of this. So every day I've felt in good shape in regards to my sleep level - a nice change from normal.

I've also been drinking a lot of red wine during this period of time. I wonder if there's a connection?

Proust is at page 309 - in good shape for me to complete the book(s) before the end of the month, I think. I just finished a section about a famous actress (sort of a Sarah Bernhardt) having a tea party that no one could bother to attend because they were off to see The Next Big Thing. The actress herself is dying and working herself into a quicker grave to take care of her daughter, who doesn't appreciate it. The whole thing seemed like a kind of death watch for the entire social order he's documented in his series of books, and I found it kind of funny to read, almost as much as reading about the granny who took the deaths of any of her aquaintances as being sort of a win for her. "Hah! Outlives old Solange after all. That'll show her!"

For fun I've been reading Stross' The Jennifer Morgue (at home, a gift from topbit) and Fforde's The Fourth Bear (at the gym), where the lead character has just bought a horrible car from Dorian Grey - it has a portrait of itself in the trunk. Stross is into heavy James Bond paralleling right now, so I'll probably recommend this to J when I'm done.