Slowly, slowly, slowly

This time of year, I get out of work and it's dark. Now, people like Liz, this is the norm. Of course, for normal, non-vampires, this kind of sucks. (Get it? Vampire? Sucks? Seriously, this stuff is gold people.)

So, as I enter into my seasonal depression, I am once again attempting to exercise afte work. Chasing the dog around the block may count technically as exercise, but for me it's not quite enough. Lifting weights with my physique is obviously out of the question, due to the embarrassment factor.

So... I'm dragging myself back to the pool. Last year, I started swimming again. At one point, I was a fairly good swimmer. I had two hour practices every day where I swam ungodly distances. This was obviously before York Hall, beer, and well, my late 20's. Starting up last year was a blow to my ego, but I got in a routine, and swam a mile or so about five days a week for four months or so. Unfortunately, I had to travel a lot last year, and every time I went out of town I would break my routine, and it got harder and harder to slip back into it, until by February I was done.

Well, like I said, I dragged myself back into the pool this week, and once again, it has been an ego-denting experience. Monday, I swam about a half mile, and by the end of it I felt like I was dragging an anchor behind me. Today was a little better, in that I was pretty sure I wasn't going to drown. Not positive, but pretty sure.

It's times like these that I think back to some of the abuse I've put my body through and think to myself, "Self, maybe you shouldn't have done that." I call the me that thinks that Good Steve. (It's also Good Steve that thinks, "I'm never drinking again", and "Maybe I SHOULD start volunteering somewhere."

Then, as soon as some the self-loathing misery of being an out of shape slob wears away, I drunk myself a little vino, and think to myself "Self, you should probably have another glass, that last one was pretty damn good." We call this Steve, well, we just call him Steve.