Meditations on the Flu

When you wake up with a space heater for a torso and feeling like a troll is pruning his favorite thorn bushes in your throat, you have some choices to make. Keep sleeping or get up and start working? Coddle yourself or power through? Make do with advil or shuffle down to the drugstore for theraflu? It's hard to make choices when you're sick, so it seems unfair that you suddenly have so many of them. Your IQ drops a solid 30 points and stringing together enough verbs and nouns to make a recognizable sentence becomes difficult. Grave self doubt sets in.

"I'm pretty sure I'm smart enough to operate this can opener, but...maybe not? Because this can isn't opening. What am I doing wrong? What else can't I do? FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT'S HOLY, I JUST WANT SOME DAMN SOUP." Then your roommate finds you in the kitchen,  still in your bathrobe at 4 p.m., hair sticking up in all directions, banging on a can of soup with a screwdriver.

It wasn't my finest moment.

When you're sick, you look at your choices and beeline straight toward the one that makes the least sense. Like wandering the aisles of Trader Joe's in a feverish haze, staring in confusion at the place where the chicken noodle soup should be and isn't because Trader Joe's is quirky and lovable and sometimes they just don't have the things you need when you need them. So you come home with latkes and frozen naan instead.

The upside of being sick is the sleeping. All the glorious sleeping. Catching up on the sleeping you haven't been doing because you tell yourself you have so many other things to do. But now you don't. Because you have an excuse to cull your list to the bare minimum, ruthlessly slashing things like gym-going and dish-doing and work-finishing and personal hygiene until all it says is "drink orange juice," "sleep a lot," and "watch Ryan Gosling do things on your laptop screen."

This One Doesn't Even Have Sweaty, Half-Naked Men

I have become a person who Goes To The Gym. It's like I don't even know myself any more. Throughout the years, a few pieces of my identity have remained solid and impregnable. Amber: loves dogs and cheese, thinks light bulbs are made of magic, avoids the gym. Before this month, I hadn't set foot inside a gym since 1997, when a friend dragged me to the massive college athletic center where I managed twenty minutes on quivering, untoned legs before bolting in a panicked but geriatric shuffle toward the safety of the bagel shop.

The link up there does nothing to convey how intimidating that place really was. I found the wilds of New York City far less frightening than I found that gym. My memory is a confusing, dream-like jumble of images where people did unconscionable things perched on proud descendants of the Iron Maiden, where a beige running track stretched into purgatory, and hordes of sweaty young men played basketball on a court sunk deep into the earth. You'd think I would have enjoyed that part, the sweaty half-naked men part, but all the testosterone and yelling just made me back away and search for a suitably large plant behind which to become invisible.

To sum up, if you looked at the 17th-century seafaring map of my life over the last fifteen years, any sections that might have contained a gym would be plastered with "Here Be Monsters."

I'm actually pretty athletic. I like moving my body. I'm always happier when it's working daily. I enjoy realizing that I'm stronger than I thought I was. I like to sweat. But I've historically preferred to do so in a dance or yoga class - i.e., any exercise where I've paid enough money to be there for an hour that I won't walk out the second it gets hard.

When I look back on life patterns, my happiest periods were always when I was exercising daily. It would be stupid of me to ignore the fact that Moving My Meat Suit = Happier Me.

But going to a gym honestly never occurred to me. Why do that when you can do...anything else?

My first week in LA, I was handed a guest pass. Okay, sure. I'm all about trying new things these days and I've always been drawn by the allure of the free. I walked out of my first gym-based yoga class feeling like my brain had been given a sedative. All the machines looked mysterious, but in a gentle, encouraging way. Instead of the way that makes you suspect your flesh will be chewed up and unceremoniously spit out because your BMI is unacceptable. The locker room was clean and kind of fancy. All the people seemed normal and mostly sane. I was confused, but warily entranced.

Turns out, gyms aren't so much a modern-day gauntlet that charges a monthly membership (instead of gamely doing it for free like the Native Americans) as they are a nice place to go everyday and take classes that become practically free because you're going every day like a crazy person. Because I look forward to going to the gym. EVERY DAY, LIKE A CRAZY PERSON. My little haven of sweat and happiness. Who knew?

All this makes me wonder what else isn't as scary as previously believed. Speaking in public? Diving off a bridge with only a skinny piece of elastic anchoring you to life? Baking bread?

Likes: Ryan Gosling, Pandas On Unicycles, and the Floor

Hi! I'm so glad you're here! Now that you are...

Here's Something You Should Know

Don't tempt the fates. Don't do it. Especially in an online forum like, say, a blog where you might want to boast about how well things are going. This is the digital equivalent of inviting the gods of Melodramatic Emotion to smite you, possibly by prompting you to water a friend's carpet with your tears instead of doing the things you should be doing like, say, earning a living or being a responsible human being who's not lying prone on the floor on a Wednesday afternoon.

Lessons One Might Learn From This Experience, If One Were The Type Of Person To Search For Lessons In Everything. Which, Of Course, I Am.

1) A floor is an excellent thing to have. It's nonjudgmental, will hold your head as you cry, and catches things you drop. Check under your feet right now. Is there a floor there? Good. You now have all the support you ever need. I strongly recommend lying on that floor whenever you feel fragile.

2) Just because things don't happen when you think they'll happen doesn't mean they won't happen ever. If this applies to the short-lived but intense emotional breakdown one might have expected for six weeks while giving up one's apartment, packing up said apartment, leaving family and friends and moving to LA, it probably applies to other things as well. Like new jobs, new relationships, new apartments, that elusive pair of perfect boots that make your calves svelte and make your feet dry. All of these things could appear at any moment, no matter how long you've already been waiting. So if there's anything you want...may I recommend giving up on it? You can lie on the floor while you do.

All This To Say

Give up, get the thing. Isn't that strangely heartening?

Also: IT GETS BETTER, FLOOR CRIERS. The floor is there for you. A few minutes or a few hours later, you'll remember that there are nice things in the world, like tomato soup and pandas on unicycles and movies with Ryan Gosling and nice friends who will make you tomato soup and support you when you proclaim the work day done at 3 p.m. so you can go see a movie with Ryan Gosling.

In Closing, LA Was Absolutely The Right Choice, Even With That Crying On The Floor Thing. Also, Pandas On Unicycles Rule.

Did I mention that I'm glad you're here? Well, I am. I hope you stick around.