I Was Meant To Be Lazy

I generally limit any sort of exercise (and frankly movement) to my weekday trips to the gym, as I am a naturally sedentary person who relishes the couch potato-ness of my standard evenings. It works well—rise at 5:45 so as not to be regarded as a complete waste of life, fit in as much physical exertion as possible before 9am, and then attempt to move as little as possible for the remainder of the day.

My plan of (in)action was further confirmed this weekend. After a week of rainy days, the sun finally appeared on Saturday and by Sunday everything was dry. After a couple of judgment-clouding afternoon glasses of wine, I made the [foolish] decision that a little vitamin D might do some good in combating the foul mood I’d been experiencing lately, and so resolved to go for a quick run on the trail near my house.

I’d been relishing the bayou I was jogging along, the picturesque cemetery on its far bank, and the fact that I can now run in my [new] neighborhood without [an inordinate amount of] fear of getting jumped, when I spotted a fellow jogger and his two white terriers.

My first thought was “great!” Our well-established neighborhood is surrounded by, let’s face it, the barrio, and the trail I was running on was strewn with bottles and beer boxes. I was excited to see another friendly face/gentrifying yuppie using the trail in the way it was intended, and hello! cute puppies! I luff you!

Until the dogs ran up to me and this happened:

WTF?!? Who has fucking dogs that bite people? And who runs with those dogs off-leash? And what kind of dog bites a non-threatening girl, unprovoked, in a completely open and neutral environment?

Admittedly, the guy stopped briefly and asked how I was and I responded that I was fine. I think I was still in shock and hadn’t yet realized the severity of the wound. Upon returning home I posted on our neighborhood message board (told you we were yuppies), and found out that these dogs had bitten someone else in the same area a few months ago(!), but also, and thankfully, that they were up to date on shots and all.

This morning I returned the gym and received much sympathy from my compatriots who noticed my wound. I mentally renewed my commitment to limiting exercise to movement within the confines of the YMCA walls, and tried not to squeal as I washed my leg in the shower.

I was feeling better about things as I readied for work and even managed to [miraculously] blow dry my recently-cut hair into something resembling a style. I opted to preserve this moment in history with some of the complimentary hairspray the gym provides, but which I have never before opted to use, as I am largely incompetent when it comes to anything more than basic grooming. I carefully sprayed just the right size cloud of poison about my head and while lifting my finger from the trigger simultaneously realized that I had in fact just engulfed my top half in a fog of aerosol deodorant.

Note to self: Maybe you overdid it with the whole ‘lifting your arm above your head thing.’