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I know that it is cliché of me to do it, but I am going to head to the gym at work. The facilities are open again, and I really need to start taking better care of myself.

There is a factor of intimidation in my doing so, though. I am not exactly in the best of shapes, either generally or of my life in particular. I am aware of having lost much since I was in training for competitive judo or in aikido in New York City. I can tell where I have grown flabbier and smaller. I can point at where I am less strong and less flexible. It is no mystery where I am less enduring. Knowing all this, and then going into rooms where the young and virile pump and flex swelling hard muscles...and without a separate locker room for faculty...it is not the most inspiring thing I could do.

Too, there is the matter of simple laziness to overcome. I had meant to wake up earlier and go earlier, but I did not, preferring instead to stay abed and doze (for some damn fool reason). It is cold outside, and it would be easy to stay home and in the relative warmth rather than gird up and hike to the gym (I do not have parking privileges, as I have not paid for them). It would be easy to simply curl up again and sleep, as if all the fatigue incurred from times past can be washed away by taking a day and sleeping. It would be easy to simply give up and let things go away.

In neither case would it be to my benefit. If I have lost, then it is because I have stopped, and only by starting again will I regain. Allowing myself to be lazy will not aid the working of my body--and it needs aiding. Ms. 8 needs to have a father who can do things with her once she is old enough to do them (and she approaches walking, having decided that she can occasionally stand unaided). She needs to have a father in her life, and I know that my familial history makes me prone to dying earlier than ought to be the case. She needs to have models of conduct that are worth following, and my taking better care of myself will conduce to that end.

Thus, soon after I finish this little piece, I will make my way through the cold (fortunately without snow, although uphill for some of the way) to the gym, where I will get in at least a bit of exercise before beginning the many other errands that have already opted to fill my day. Depending on how it goes, I may even try to do it again tomorrow, and then to begin to do it again after I return from my upcoming expedition to the Pacific Northwest. It should prove interesting, although how I will cram yet one more thing into my life...I will have to do so.