When I got up today and looked out the window it didn’t look like rain, so I went out for my (at this point only semi-usual) walk on a sunny, but pleasantly cool autumn morning.
That was about as active as I got, as once I was home I sat down and committed myself to finishing “Anansi Boys,” which I did.
I enjoyed it a great deal, and as I reclined on my bed to read in comfort feeling the contrast of the heat of the sun shining in through the glass and the coolness of the breeze blowing in through the screens, it felt like the perfect way to while away the afternoon.
And, I think, it was.
Beyond that, today was totally uneventful.
On the bed reading, though, I did notice some odd things happening outside in the parking lot.
As far as I’ve been able to determine, virtually everyone living in my apartment complex is unemployed.
Further, they’re bigger homebodies than I am.I’ve concluded this because the parking lot is nearly always full, no matter what time of day it is. From taking weekends off and hanging out at home I’ve determined that this isn’t because other people work an odd schedule like mine.
It’s just clear that nobody ever goes anywhere.
The handful of residents who do appear to have jobs work the most flexible hours I’ve ever seen.
This is how a typical employed resident’s schedule plays out.
10:00 AM: Leave for work.
11:00 AM: Come home for lunch.
1:00 PM: Return to work.
3:00 PM: Home for the day.
Except for the whole having to travel back and forth thing, it’s not a bad work day.
While the rent in my apartment complex is reasonable for the area, it’s not exactly cheap, so I’m not certain how anyone can have a job that involves working for, at most, three hours a day and afford to live here, to say nothing of how an employer can manage to stay in business with employees working those kinds of hours.
Also, I pretty much have the cheapest, crappiest car here. Most of the other cars in the lot are expensive SUVs and luxury cars. Do I live with the world’s most underworked CEOs? Are the heads of companies who aren’t driven enough to do more than work just hard enough to stay afloat and pay the rent and lease cars?
If I’m exaggerating about the schedules, it’s not by much. People are here all day long, leaving only for brief periods of time, and after about 4 PM no one leaves again.
Once they’re home, they’re home. No going out to movies, dinner, grocery shopping; nothing.
Apart from the fact that this makes it difficult for me to find a parking space near my building unless I do everything within that three hour window when people are gone, I can’t really say why this bothers me so much.
I guess it’s just because it’s baffling. I mean, I know why I’m home all of the time; I’m an anti-social weirdo with an unusual work schedule. The same can’t be true of all of my neighbors. Can it?
I mean, somebody has to work a regular full-time job, and somebody has to have some kind of social life. It’s statistically impossible that the majority of the people living here are anti-social weirdoes with unusual work schedules.
I guess it’s really two things that bother me about this whole thing: how do they afford to live here and pay for their fancy cars and why don’t they have lives?
I guess that not having lives could allow them to afford the apartments and fancy cars, though.
I don’t know. Anyway, while I was reading I got to see the lunch crowd arrive and leave, and then return for the night shortly thereafter.
I also saw a woman hanging around by her car talking to someone on a cell phone and then occasionally putting something in her trunk. She never appeared to go back inside or to meet with anyone, though she did seem as though she was waiting for someone to arrive, so I’m not sure where she was getting the things that she kept putting into her trunk.
So overall, today’s experiences just added to the mystery that is my parking lot.
I was doing some pants shopping the other day and I had something of an epiphany.
Basically, according to clothes manufacturers, people who are as short as I am are supposed to be much fatter than I am.
I’ve come to this conclusion based on how difficult it is to find pants in the correct waist/inseam combination. If I had a much bigger belly I would have to spend a lot less time sifting through the racks.
I then thought about how my family history indicates that no matter what I do I’m pretty much destined to have a heart attack sooner or later.
So this all led me to wonder why it is that I even bother with the whole exercise thing.
After all, the skinnier I get, the harder it’ll be to find pants that fit, and no effort at staying in shape and eating the right foods is likely to do much more than delay the inevitable.
Given that exercising is a pain in the ass and I hate it, I’m finding it difficult, especially after having taken a weekend off from exercising, the notion of trying to get back into an exercise routine seems kind of silly.
And not just for the reasons listed above. After all, despite the gains I’ve made in strength, with my half-assed commitment to exercising and the way I eat nothing but junk food on weekends, I haven’t exactly attain anything approximating the Olympian Ideal, or even the Olympian I’ll-settle-for-this.
To revisit a metaphor I’ve used many times, after more than a year of regular exercise, I’ve still only managed to achieve the level of the “before” picture.
Ah well.
The odds are that Friday morning I’ll be up at 4:15 once again, and will find myself lifting heavy things just to put them back down again…and then raiding the candy machine and undoing anything I might have accomplished with my Sisyphean efforts.
After all, pointless though it may be, my trips to the gym do help satisfy my masochistic streak.
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