Journal of a Sabbatical

January 21, 1999

the fight against inertia

I feel like I'm constantly fighting to overcome inertia - the tendency of a body at rest to remain at rest. Especially in the morning. I felt like I had to lie and say I was already up and about this morning when Rita called to find out if I wanted to walk this afternoon. In reality, I was stretched out in bed listening to The Connection. Somehow it seemed more than I could do to make it to Priscilla's house by 2:00 to meet the walking buddies.

I managed to mobilize though. I even managed to zip up to the mall to buy two new pairs of jeans, desperately needed, and drop off 44 pounds of laundry to be done while I did other things. Since when do I own 44 pounds of laundry? I know I haven't done laundry in a while, but I still have clean clothes - the new jeans were to replace one ripped pair and one terminally stained pair (those gel seat cushions that you put on bicycles turn to an indelible black greasy substance when they've gotten wet too many times).

We walked for about 50 minutes, skirting puddles both frozen and melted, and observing signs of spring. Yes, signs of spring. A couple of trees in Priscilla's neighborhood have definite buds on them. They'll get frozen off in a week or two, but for now the trees are deluded into thinking it's spring. Since when do they go by temperature instead of day length.