ice cream and bikinis.

Today I joined a gym.

And it wasn't because it is January 4th and I made a New Year's Resolution to "get fit" and "be more active" ... it was because I finally figured out that I can get a corporate rate through work and pay like, 30% of the cost of a membership.

Also, the chlorine level in my blood has been negative for a good long, I don't know, nine or ten months now, and when I caught a whiff of the pool air I was like an alcoholic after a sober period.. nothing else mattered, just me and the smell.. the feeling of the chlorinated water rushing over me as I gracefully pushed off the wall and took my first few strokes, remembering the freedom of the endorphin rush and the powerful feeling of my kick propelling me through the water...

..and then after the first few lengths, the crushing realization that I am fat.

Rawr.

Not fat as in, I-just-ate-an-entire-bucket-of-ice-cream-fat, or I-can't-fit-in-these-jeans-because-my-blubber-is-pooching-out-the-sides-fat, the fat feeling one gets after not exercising for an extended period and then blasting out an over-excited endorphin-driven few lengths. And I mean few. I only swam the equivalent of what, this time a year ago, I would have been doing for warm up in swim practice (!!), but for today, it was enough. In any case, it was more than I did yesterday!