[For Sunday Scribblings #150]

It's nice to be able to start thinking about becoming active again: this morning I jumped into the bay behind the beach house where we're spending the weekend, and frolicked in the water for the better part of an hour. I'm not currently in shape enough to swim all the way to Florida (a half mile from the pier), but it's pleasant to imagine that within a year I could be. The gym within walking distance of my house has built up a decent reputation, and a new yoga place nearby has a class lineup that looks interesting enough to try out. I'd like to make contra- and jig-dancing routine elements of my becoming/staying fit. I'm nostalgic about the shape I was in back in 2002 (when I was Jazzercising regularly enough to make the 100 Club two years in a row), and that's what I'm aiming to regain by this fall. (A fitness magazine I recently skimmed said it takes around six months for realistic, significant results with a new regimen, and I'm keeping that in mind so that I don't let myself get too frustrated too soon.)

My hand-eye coordination is so notoriously pathetic that I will not willingly subject myself to golf, softball, tennis, or any other recreational activity involving attempts to propel or field a ball with a stick (field hockey being an exception), and my knees can no longer handle long-distance running, but there are still plenty of low-impact, low-gear ways to get back in shape. I do enjoy reading and chatting about sports -- being moderately informed about major-league baseball and SEC football/basketball has buoyed me through both corporate cocktails and church coffee hours, and articles such as Michael Lewis's profile of Shane Battier are as engrossing to me as the latest articles on lipstick shades and hemlines.

And, provided it doesn't rain non-stop, I get to swim in the bay tomorrow. It was chilly enough that no one else wanted to get in the water, but the yellow lab two piers over leaped in to catch a bright red ball, and he looked like he was having a great time too.