Day thirty-seven

At a certain point yesterday I had to make a decision. If I did not stop writing I would not make it to the gym. When I got up I’d got dressed for the gym. I fully intended to go. Dare I say I was determined?

I chose to keep writing. I believe we’ve been here before. If I have to choose between writing and exercising, writing will always win. I wrote for another hour – more than five hours in total, more than 4,500 words. Do you have any idea how long it is since I’ve written that many words in one sitting? No? Neither do I. I have no idea.

As difficult as the subject matter was (and it was very difficult indeed) the act of writing that much for so long without a break was absolutely bloody exhilarating. Unbelievable.

When I finally did stop writing I had to make another decision. Having finally admitted to myself that I was bloody freezing, I had to decide whether to continue pretending the electric heater, cranked to full, was doing anything to actually warm the house or to break down and light a fire much earlier in the day than I normally would. I chose the fire, bringing up not one milk carton filled with wood, but two. I do not have enough wood in the shed to keep this up for long, so it better get back to temperate rainforest winter weather soon.

No sign of that this morning. According to the antique thermometer, it’ is 55 degrees (yes, that’s Fahrenheit – I did say it was an old thermometer) in here. Feels more like 45 degrees. Ten o’clock in the morning is too early to put a fire on. (Repeat after me: I am not cold, I am not cold, I am not cold.) Snow, I am told, is in the forecast for the next five days out six. Fuck.

When Mike and I lived here together, the fire was going 24/7. It’s true, he was on blood thinners and did feel the cold more than I did, but he seemed incapable of grasping the fact that it was winter, and therefore appropriate to be wearing a sweater. If he couldn’t sit around in a t-shirt, as far as he was concerned it wasn’t warm enough. It was more like an oven in here in those days. When the woodshed emptied out in those winters, he just ordered more wood. I do not have that luxury – not that I want to be sitting around in a t-shirt, but it might be nice if my fingers didn’t feel numb. Brrr.

Anyway, after yesterday’s marathon, this needs must be a shorter entry. I have my weekly pool game with my 94-year-old neighbour this afternoon and I am going to make it to the gym before that.

Oh, bollocks. No sooner have I written the words than my neighbour rings to ask if we can go at 1pm instead of our normal 2pm. The gym will still be too crowded if I go before 1pm, so I guess I’ll go afterwards. But I will go.

OH, MY GOD!

I got as far as the last paragraph and was at a loss to know what to write about next. There was no particularly big topic calling out to me. Nor did I have time to engage in anything substantial. So I thought, okay, I’ll take a break, check my email, play my Facebook Scrabble moves (things I’d previously sworn not to do until the day’s entry was written) and have a think about what, if anything, else I have to say today. Having done both those things, I still couldn’t think of anything else to say.

So, I took a deep breath and did something I’ve been putting off. I watched a video on YouTube that The Nurse has been encouraging me to view. I really now do not have time to talk about this today. But I now know what I will be writing about tomorrow.