Talk Thursday: Rejuvenation

You gotta be kidding me. I just did Resurrection a couple weeks ago and ran perilously short of words. Now you're telling me I gotta put down the baba ganouj and the world's greatest pita bread and come up with even more words for a shockingly similar concept when I feel like I've just been dragged naked through flaming walls of rabid rattlesnakes? I mean, every day is interesting at the Old Law Firm, but today was particularly interesting and I hope tomorrow isn't this interesting or I might not survive. We're talking crisis upon crisis, from a new petition possibly being lost in the mail (and that would be bad, okay? That would really be bad), to me being utterly unable to make the conference call function on my phone work (have you ever hung up on your boss? Three times? In a row?), and we closed the day with me finding out that tomorrow, I'm going to have to tell Boss Dave something he's not going to like about an upcoming deadline that's up and coming one hell of a lot faster than he thought. How I'm supposed to pull Rejuvenation out of my hat at a time like this, I have no blessed idea.

But then, that's kind of the point of Talk Thursday. The topic-o-meter spits out A Concept, and your mission, should you choose to accept (and you must, or you wouldn't be here) is to take it, run with it and somehow Make It Work. There's gotta be something to write about underneath all that I-can't-do-it anxiety. After all, at the end of the day it's just you and your laptop. You work together and see what you can create.

So here's what I've come up with. Tomorrow is the first of July. This date is significant for several reasons. Firstly, Saturday is the second of July, and the second of July is halfway through the year. Secondly, the first of July heralds the approach of the three-day weekend, the Monday of which there will be fireworks (unless the burn ban extends into Dallas County, and it could, and that would kind of suck, but be understandable all the same). But thirdly and most importantly, the first of July heralds the beginning of Swim for Distance Month - the swimming marathon that is not for the faint of heart, nor the flat of chest.

See, for the last about four years I've been getting up at oh-dark-thirty most weekdays and driving myself to the Tom Landry Fitness Center to swim back and forth for an hour with the Dallas Aquatic Masters. Swimming is both fun, and awesome exercise, so I don't mind doing it (though it's occurred to me that if I ever really sat there and thought about it, I'd never do it; I'd think about the ridiculously early hour, the appearing in a bathing suit in front of all those superfit former Olympians and doctors and triathletes, and of course what it's costing me, so I work very hard on never thinking about those things). I think in some small way it keeps me alive. So I'm already swimming pretty hard.

But then, in July, we kick it up a notch. The goal is to swim at least every other day for the entire month, and you can pick a distance. The first year I did this I managed twenty-five miles, which is completely insane. Last year I don't think I cracked nineteen miles. So this year I went for a modest twenty-one. Secretly, I'd love to get to twenty-five again (and with the 2000-meter swim coming up at the end of the month, I may have a shot, but one thing at a time).

The only thing about July that I don't like is, it shakes up my morning routine. We scatterbrained folks thrive on routine, and I've got a good one; get up, meditate, feed assorted cats, make coffee, write for a while, make lunch, etc. I'll have to turn all that on its head and just get up, meditate very fast (can one meditate fast? I know one can mediate fast), roll into my clothes, grab my premade breakfast and coffee and hit the road, Jack. In short, instead of being at the pool at seven a.m., I'll need to be there at six. Which means getting up at about five. Which means my laptop and I are going to wash up at a Starbuck's someplace before work, guzzling coffee and getting our sorrows out of our systems before we haul ourselves back to the paper chase.

If it doesn't kill me, I'll be rejuvenated, all right. Last July I think I lost ten pounds.

Still, if memory serves, washing up at a Starbuck's every morning isn't so bad. It could get pricey, though. And I'll have to stay away from the scones. But there are certainly worse fates. We'll see you in the water.