I have promised myself that I am really, actually getting in shape this time. I know that in just a week or two the Virginia weather will closely resemble the fiery pits of hell, and even if I try to run at dusk, when the evil sun, and its plot to induce dermatologists to razor off all my skin so it scars even before I have time to get wrinkles, will be largely at bay, it will be too miserably hot and I won't go.
So when I get home, and drag my pathetic carcass to Mass, and then get back home at about 7:45 and it's still going to be somewhat light till 8:30, and I could go running on the trail even, since it's daylight, I need to go. Because let's not pretend that I'm going to be making dinner during that time or anything insane like that. That just strains credulity. Instead, I'm going to crank up my aging laptop and peer into my blogroll for something, anything that will consume my attention.
Of course, no degree of posting frequency (and is it me, or is everyone sort of wimping out lately? I guess that includes me) can sate my appetite for New Postings!, so when I've read everything and it's still light out, do I get my togs on and head out? No. I troll the internets looking for new blogs to put on my little blogroll. (Sometimes, I need them to replace blogs I have removed. I have decided to be something approaching ruthless about this. If I am not going to want to read every new post, or if something has irked me, the blog leaves the blogroll. Doesn't mean I'll never read it, of course. Or that I won't put it back on at some point.) This is the part with the silver lining, of course, because there are so many very excellent IF blogs out there that I have not yet discovered, and I need to discover them, even though they don't post enough either.
And then I look at the wretched computer clock thingy and it is 11 - or so. This happens consistently. And I have not folded the laundry or gotten any exercise. I have, however, eaten three chocolate truffles, half a loaf of French bread with butter (this is not even a slight exaggeration), a small but tasty bowl of homemade soup, and about a cup of store-bought Chex mix. That's an anti-inflammatory dinner, right?
At first there was a risk that I would be insufficiently committed to blogging to do it justice - I would never get around to formatting my blog the way I wanted it (done), I would forget to update my blogroll (done regularly), I would be patchy about commenting (I think I've been pretty good), I wouldn't keep up with my reading (au contraire. See above), or I wouldn't post enough (let's be honest, this was always an illusory risk. I never shut up, and my blog posting has been true to type). I think I have not only accomplished all of these things, but have ingrained good, firm habits of keeping them going.
Frankly, I've only been blogging since this January, but the new acquaintances I have already made are keeping me (my version of) sane. Even my IRL friends who specifically ask about the treatment and whom I am willing to tell in detail lose interest and ask for the bottom line after about two minutes. I could go on for two hours (just to get through the early IF history), and nobody but my husband has heard any kind of serious detail. But they don't want to hear. I am fascinated - not morbidly - by other people's suffering. If someone wants to tell me the entire story of their heaviest cross, and they don't appear to be becoming visibly unstable during the telling, I'll listen to the whole thing. Possibly I am simply not as compelling a communicator as others, but after playing relatively close-to-the-vest with this business for years and finally being willing to trot out more than an amusing offhand comment, guess what? Nobody is interested. For anyone to GRA, I needed the internet, and former strangers, whose future motherhood I have become frankly more attached to than my own.
All this being said, however, I was in abdominal pain today, and I realized with surprise that it had nothing to do with the endo. No, my skirt (that is, one of the ones I'm still wearing) is now so snug that it was actually digging into my plush tummy fat. So while I need the blogging, I don't think I'm going to have any trouble keeping up, and I don't think the bloggy world will be deeply wounded if I limit my evening consumption to maybe half an hour (this doesn't restrict my lunch hour or my Blackberry-mediated commuting consumption, of course) and get myself outside and get some exercise, so I stop feeling like I'm on high doses of Valium and the world is ending, and my behind stops its slow but perceptible impending takeover of the Eastern seaboard.
(Also, I was going to post about this family, and its unbelievable, amazing faith in the face of an absolutely heartbreaking loss. I was about 60% sorted out as to why, although I can't even imagine having their strength and acceptance in the face of so heavy a blow, I do take and have taken losses related to living people with much stronger faith than I take the realistically much less terrible loss of some indeterminate number of theoretical people who might never be. But I never made it to 100%, because of the aforementioned lethargy, and I just don't know what to say to such grievous suffering. Anyway, please pray for the Freemans.)
