This post is part of my 2022 Word Project. You can read what that’s about here.
Tuesday, April 11, 2023
12:41pm
It’s an ordinary day. We’re officially back in the office and all the routine things are back to being routine things after a few months of having a houseguest.
The most significant thing is that I’m back on the treadmill. Right now. Walking as we speak. Or as I speak and you wonder why I’m talking about my treadmill
I’ll tell you why. Because I love the stinking treadmill. It has done wonders for my health and it breaks up a day that might otherwise have been spent slouched in front of my laptop screen.
To be fair, I don’t love the treadmill as much at this exact moment. After being fat and lazy and not walking on it for three months, I’m repenting. It hurts. My feet burn. My back is sore. My forearms are starting to chafe where they inevitably rub against the edge of the desk as I plod. Most of my body is in full rebellion.
A mile might as well be all the way to Arizona for how it feels.
It feels great.
I own the treadmill because I didn’t have a chair.
I haven’t had a chair in four years, and when I hurt my back I literally could not sit down anyway so it hardly mattered.
Ralph kept insisting I needed a chair and I kept insisting no.
Real chairs are expensive. And standing wasn’t killing me.
So he made me a deal. He said he would either get me a chair or a desk treadmill. The thought of a desk treadmill had never crossed my mind but a few brain cells perked up when he said that.
I like walking. I prefer to be outdoors, but that involves putting on clothes that you can actually be seen wearing in public, and if it’s too cold, where “too cold” means “anything under 50 degrees”, then I’m out.
I took Ralph up on his offer and picked the treadmill.
I’ve always rather liked the treadmill. In our condo we had one in front of the TV in our bedroom and although it occasionally became a cat bed, I gave it a real run for its money.
I feel like there was a clever pun in there somewhere but it didn’t quite land.
I’m really going to talk about the treadmill, aren’t I?
It could be worse I guess. Not every blog can be Pulitzer-worthy.
What can I say, I love my treadmill. When I was in better shape I could walk six, seven, eight miles a day all while doing email campaigns and social posts and ad banners.
These days I’m maxing out at two but I’ll get back up to more mileage eventually.
It’s way better than having a chair, anyway.
If I was so inclined I could get a chair, too. When it’s not in use the treadmill can slide right under the desk and be a sort of footrest.
I have a thing that resembles a chair, insofar as it has a seat for your bottom. The seat is perched on a pole and the pole is inserted into a weighted base, with the point being that you can sort of swivel and tilt whichever way works for you.
It’s dumb and uncomfortable. Mostly I just keep sliding off of it because you’re not so much sitting as leaning, and sweat pants are a lot more slippery than you’d think.
I work at home. Shut up.
But if I want to sit I have an armchair, and I’m perfectly happy to curl up with my laptop in my actual lap and work there.
We’ve also recently acquired a beanbag which is pretty much my favorite piece of furniture right now.
Do you know what I’ve never slid off of? The treadmill. Do you know what has never tilted in the wrong direction? You got it.
I love my treadmill. I haven’t been on it in the three months that the office was a guest room, but that is more due to my own laziness and inertia than the unavailability of the room.
Anyway I’m glad to be back on even if my feet are not.
I should mention that I walk barefoot. Well, in socks. I try to have a little pity on the downstairs neighbors who have to listen to me pounding away for hours a day, and socks are quieter.
Plus shoes are a necessary evil, like if you’re hiking up a rocky trail or walking through a particularly bee-ish field. I’ll be barefoot whenever I can. Or sock-foot.
It’s just that if you haven’t done it in a while it can take some getting used to.
It takes about half a gallon of castor oil and 19 pairs of socks a week, to be a little more exact.
I sometimes wonder what our poor downstairs neighbors think. Not only do we walk on the treadmill for hours a day but we also get up and pace around every hour, the dog to Apple’s Pavlovian reminder to stand.
Do they wonder what the heck the upstairs people do all day, walking around and around and around? Do they wonder if we ever get anywhere?
If it was me, I’d almost certainly have written a blog post about it and said pointed things about the noise.
We live on the third floor for a reason.
But lunchtime is just about over and I feel like if I say I love my treadmill any more, it might end in an intervention. I just wanted to take a moment today to feel a bit of gratitude toward this slab of machinery, in spite of the aches and tiredness. Or maybe because of them.
Besides, I think there is a beanbag calling my name.
Photo: my treadmill console, which stares at me every day and reminds me to keep going.