Winter Jogging

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Keeping healthy can be hazardous to your health.  We recently had a rainstorm, followed by a snowstorm with several days not getting above freezing.  All of this made my usual jogging route impassible—ice under snow all on top of pea-gravel is a recipe for twisted ankles or broken arms.  I’ve had my fair share of spills while jogging but I’m at an age where my doctor asks me if I’ve had any falls in the past year, so I guessing it’s a bit more serious now.  But getting out to jog is difficult in such conditions.  A treadmill might be a solution.  We used to have one and I pretty much ran it into the ground.  I used it in inclement weather, but it was too much to move from New Jersey and besides, there’s nowhere in our house to put it.  Our basement ceiling is so low you have to stoop, and that doesn’t work for jogging.

After a few days of feeling dumpy, and when the weather got back up into the twenties, I decided to jog on the streets.  That’s one of the advantages to living in a smaller municipality.  There are a few cars out at first light, but not many.  And the streets are (mostly) cleared off.  I wasn’t sure this was the smartest thing to do, but when I greeted another jogger out doing the same thing, I felt validated.  The weather is still in charge.  I’ve been interested in the way the weather affects just about everything.  For example, this past summer I wanted to do a couple outdoors projects.  It rained nearly every weekend and then turned so hot that people my age were warned off of outdoor activity.  So much for mortal plans.

When autumn rolled around it turned cold rather quickly, forestalling any bigger projects beyond a massive amount of weeding.  And this is just on a personal level.  Deliveries are slowed.  Sometimes transportation hubs are shut down.  Bad weather for crops necessitates cooperative trading between nations (ahem).  We are at the mercy of the weather.  Tech giants are planning to go to Mars but they can only launch their rockets if the weather cooperates.  We’ve been messing with it because of global warming, and pretty much anyone who’s non-delusional knows climate change is real.  The sky is, after all, bigger than the earth.  So little problems, such as having to jog in the streets, seem less of an issue.  As long as it keeps us healthy.

Mastication Meditation

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Musing while munching a bowl of Wheaties, a thought came to me.  Not only do we owe the practice of eating breakfast cereal to an evangelical strain of Christianity, but we also encounter the early morning ideas that stay with us through the day.  Cereal boxes start our day.  Advertisers and marketers know that images are important.  If successfully done they stay with us and may influence future purchasing choices.  In the case of Wheaties (which I’ve always liked) the box shows some athlete or other, implying that we’ll be champions too if we partake.  We are what we wheat.  Now, I don’t follow sports.  I can tell a football from a basketball, but watching grown men (usually) chasing one about really has no appeal to me.  I don’t eat Wheaties to become big and strong.  (At my age you don’t want to get bigger.)

As I ponder my fodder, I wonder what it would be like if we put pictures of people reading on our cereal boxes.  Would we experience a massive renaissance of literacy if cool people were shown with a book instead of a ball?  Don’t get me wrong—I’m all for exercise.  I’m a fidgety sort of guy who doesn’t sit still well.  I like to get out and jog or walk.  I don’t mind doing household repairs.  I like to move about.  But reading is one of the great rewards I allow myself.  When work becomes dull, I look forward to an evening of reading (I tend to do my writing in the morning, before the mental exhaustion of the day kicks in.  Wheaties are, after all, a morning food).  It’s kind of like living in pre-television times, I suspect.

Among the publishing industry the fate of book reading is a constant topic of discussion.  Or, not to put too fine a point on it, book buying.  Reading itself is doing fine.  If, for example, you are reading this you are probably doing so on a screen but you’re still reading.  You don’t have to pay for reading, and it passes the time.  No, the crises is getting people to buy books.  People like yours truly buy books even when many are available free online.  I spend at least eight hours a workday in front of a computer screen, and by the end of it, nervous and twitchy, I need a break.  I need a physical book.  And maybe a physical constitutional walk.  If only my breakfast cereal encouraged others to explore the joys of the literary life—but then, I’ve got to get going; my Wheaties are getting soggy.