I got a membership at Anytime Fitness today. And ran for 23 minutes. Made it 2 miles. And wanted to throw up immediately after.

I'm compiling a list of reasons why this working out thing is a good idea.

1. I will become more fit. (so far nothing...)
2. I will relieve stress. (I'm more stressed about how I hurt all over.)
3. I will lose weight. (nope, not yet)
4. It will release endorphins and eventually become pleasurable. (don't believe it)

Before you say, "Well, Asa, you've only gone once!" which I'm sure you've already thought, I do have a limited grasp on reality and am aware of this fact. But I'm in pain, and I need an outlet. They said we could write about anything...

There is one very clear and present reason that I'm agreeing to work out 12 times a month (my insurance kicks in twenty bucks if I can drag my butt there 12 times). Soon after the 3rd annual St. Gary's New Years Eve party, pictures of the evening began surfacing on facebook, and I had a rather startling and unpleasant realization. My face has gotten fat. I have a fat face. Well, fatter than it once was. And this, this alone, may be the largest contributing factor to getting a gym membership. This is embarrassing to admit, but the truth is I'm admittedly lazy, and the pain of this realization is proving to be the catalyst for what will, hopefully, turn into an endeavor into better health.

So now I will be regularly be spending part of my Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays with a veritable cornucopia of Duluth denizens all seeking to either lose a little weight, like myself, or and add a little muscle weight. I'm not sure I will have much of an opportunity to build any relationship with these fine folk as I was literally unable to form a sentence after I stepped off the treadmill today. What with the snot and sweat and heavy breathing, who can say if they would even be interested in a conversation.

I am finding that everyone has an opinion about the appropriate way to work out/lose weight/get fit. And I'm never quite sure who to take seriously and who to completely disregard. I've decided that I will not listen to anyone who is not actually in shape. If their advice was so worth taking why are they not taking it? And I don't buy, "Well, it worked at one time, when I was younger." Instead I will seek out physically fit individuals and grill them about diet, workout regimens, how to not fall off the elliptical machine, and whether or not it's normal to sweat so much that it looks like I just took a shower with my clothes on.

last family vacation

The main players used to be a gold, Silhouette van, a travel-size game of Connect Four sans 3-5 red or black chips every time we met a pothole, and my mom crying because the hotel room smelled like cigarettes/her Aunt Phyllis' house/swimming pool and we were too close to the raucous ice machine/parking lot/lobby. But we were going to Yellowstone/Gettysburg/Vancouver/Uncle Terry's. And dad had a whole week off and a cooler packed with Juicy-Juice and Duos (those cups of jello + yogurt purchased in tens at Super One). So it was vacation.

We went on for years like that. Hauling across the country, smelling geysers, downing juice boxes, taking blurry pictures of buffalo and mountains. At one point, probably on a stretch in Saskatchewan, my mom threw a whole ham sandwich at my dad. The whole thing. Smears of mayo, cheese and slimy disc of lunchmeat. All of it. None of us remember why, but all of us remember how things suddenly got very serious in that van and how dad got out and sat on the bumper for a full half hour afterwards.

It went on for years like that.

At some unnameable age, though, it all stops. Summer vacation completely disappears. We don't look at maps to National Parks. A week off isn't so easily taken as it was when you were at Dairy Queen. Keith or Gina aren't around to take your shifts and make Buster Bars just as well as you could. Nowadays, people are talking marriage and the van won't hold them all. Plus, the van got traded for something more practical. Something that doesn't need space for carseats.

What happens to family vacations then? Do they get multiplied the way a batch of rye dough gets turned into clovered, little potluck buns? Will our families throw sandwiches and demand you play Wee Sing America? Will we keep stealing each other's pillows, not keeping our hands to ourselves, but poking our neighbors instead and suffering from bloodshot eyes, filmed with hotel pool chlorine?

outliers of a different sort.

I'll be honest with you. My default response is judgment.

Mothers who yell at their 2 year old boys to shut up, let them play in busy streets, and walk around in -10 degree below zero weather without hat or mittens make me angry. Angry maybe isn't a strong enough word. Perhaps indignant is better. It starts out as anger, morphs into regret and repentance, and finally meanders it's way to the back door called compassion, but my point is not my broken response to brokenness.

Have you read Malcolm Gladwell's book "Outliers?" You should. In it he writes about the mysterious and almost random sets of circumstances that set various people up for success, but I wonder if it's limited to success. In fact, it seems obvious to me now that it's not. Many sorts of people seem destined to fall down, melt into a pool, and sink down into those weed filled cracks . Folks grow up dirt poor. They grow up in the system living off of handouts and becoming far too used to it. Boys grow up to be wife beaters, and girls grow up to be single moms, let their kids play out on busy streets unsupervised in -10 degree weather, and with no gloves or hats.

It's dangerous to write in generalities, but I'm starting to think that there are failure "outlier" traits. I'm also starting to think that maybe that's who Jesus was talking about when he stood up in the temple, grabbed the scroll of Isaiah, and started describing his kingdom "...good news for the poor... freedom for the prisoners... recovery of sight (does an outlier know that she is one?)... set free the oppressed... proclaim that it's the season for experiencing Abba's affection (Italics mine)." Outliers every one.

1-minute rant

The bliss the kiss the hiss of the black lit wondering aimlessly the wondering the wondering the seemingly lost the falling the left the broken the failing falling falling the generation contempt the post apocalyptic abundance of the fear oh you oh you little faith you oh you oh you generation of fear, where have you lifted your eyes where have you lifted your face the lingo the bingo you retirement home busy bodies why oh why have you lost the line walking walking walking the falling falling falling the left side gone wrong the right side gone gone and still we see we see we see we try and try to believe and the lingo so gone gone gone and by the way where have the hereos gone the lingo gone the bingo gone gone gone and here we are the busy bodies the busy bodies the lingo bingo bingo and the lingo lingo lingo and the weird the feared the misguided and the ones who look in gutters and see home the poor the lost the empty the craving the forgotten you my friends you see you see you see and yet you have not seen open your hearts my man open your hearts it’s the sight of the blind your missing I had a God once say to me how about your eyes on me and i’ll guide you where to you should look and I looked at him I rose my face to Him and I found life I surrendered and it looked to me the worst route the one I had given up on the one I looked to drunken ceilings passing out the eyes closing the last words dripping the the ones losing the ones losing the ones losing and still the sigh of the blind could not be predicted and the bitterness still rages in a soul still lost in the one who still searches like the seek like the knock like the asking asking asking you raking raking raking and still no one sees the lenses you view life through you middle class subservient dumby look around you the world doesn’t get you, your reality is not the reality of the real your own mind lost in predictions your own mind trying to grasp at straws that don’t exist and still you try you seek and you try and still you seek and you try and you seek and you try and like a rat going back to the shock you keep on going back like the dog eating his own lost lost lost and still you still do not get it, you fall asleep empty and still you do not wake fed you drag and drag and drag your feet from the mattress and still you do not see and still you do not see it is like you have not gotten anywhere and still you return from the same route like you like the goodbye kiss of depravity and still you do not get it, search the way your hearts wants to search and you’ll find what it is you want to find i guarantee it ok don’t worry about the things you want to worry about, don’t worry about the image the cribbage the symmetry that no ones else really wants to check out these words from one who only types to get the words out and it seems like there are those look over my shoulders and it’s all de’ja vu? haha.