I used to have a card for the Koret Center at USF by our old house. It’s a great gym with an Olympic sized pool. But since I wasn’t a student of USF, the hours I was allowed to visit were very limited. Plus I had so much going on in my life, I rarely made it to the gym. When I did get a good gym habit going, I loved, loved, loved swimming. I would swim until I was almost too weak to get out of the pool. My dad called me frog when I was a kid because I’d stay in the pool all day. I still feel like that frog. It seems like swimming is in my DNA.<\/p>\n
So here I am, a couple years later and several pounds fatter. A 24 hour opened up down the road from our house. Tom hates gyms, he thinks they are a waste of money. I was trying to be thrifty and tried to stay away. But after last week’s black plague, my priorities in life have changed. I was aching for a pool. The idea of a hot tub sounded like a dream. I decided to make that dream a reality. I got a damn membership to 24 hour and I couldn’t be happier about it. It’s less than 2 miles from my house. They have a steam room with eucalyptus oils, a hot tub, a small but nice lap pool, and all the other 24 hour fitness gear. My lungs are still in rough shape so I’ve been taking advantage of the steam room and hot tub. Yesterday I did the steam room, hot tub, and some weights. Today I swam. I could only swim for 5 minutes before I was pretty damn winded, but it still felt so good. I sat in the hot tub and did some time in the steam room. I was able to get in and out on my lunch hour, and even drop by the library, and got home with time to spare. lunch time at the pool is pretty empty and I pretty much had the pool to myself. This could become a habit. Even a 20 minute lunchtime swim could do wonders for me, spiritually and physically.<\/p>\n
I realized, I’m a gym bunny in my heart. I know that sounds crazy, but I totally love the gym. I love the pool. I can’t believe I now have access to a swimming pool 24 hours a day. I can’t believe I have access to a hot tub 24 hours a day. It’s a nice gym too, the people are all generally mellow, not like icky macho gyms I’m used to in Sunnyvale. No sweaty grunting men so far, just nice, mild mannered Portlanders trying to shed a few pounds. I happily join them. I now always have somewhere fun to go. Working from home, you really need a regular place to go outside of your house. I now have a great option, I can swim whenever I want. I won’t regret the elliptical I bought for the house, I’ll still use it. Maybe I’ll even use it more now. If not, I can sell it off for cheap and consider it a lesson learned.<\/p>\n
I’ve has some pretty different priorities since emerging from my cocoon of sickness. I want to feel healthy, I want to be proud of my body again. This comes first. Everything else comes second. How can I expect to make great art if I’m miserable in my own skin. Now that I’m on the thyroid meds and I have more energy, I need to shed some pounds and start feeling better about myself.<\/p>\n
I’m behind in both my classes right now. I have the graphic novel class tonight. I have things to show but not as much as I should. I haven’t completed any paintings for the painting class. I’ll catch up, my energy level increases ever day as my lungs heal and my stomach calms down. I was still pretty sick this weekend, although I was able to get out a little, I couldn’t be far from home and I needed naps.<\/p>\n
I’m looking forward to a couple days in San Francisco next weekend. My costume is almost done. I can’t figure out what I’m going to do Friday in the city. Seems like such a treat to have a whole day to myself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I used to have a card for the Koret Center at USF by our old house. It’s a great gym with an Olympic sized pool. But since I wasn’t a student of USF, the hours I was allowed to visit were very limited. Plus I had so much going on in my life, I rarely […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alannarisse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alannarisse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alannarisse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alannarisse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alannarisse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3586"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.alannarisse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3591,"href":"https:\/\/www.alannarisse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3586\/revisions\/3591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alannarisse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alannarisse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alannarisse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}