This is as Far as I Can Bend

My friend Fish says often that he's bending like a reed in the wind. While various translations can be found including Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching, Fish uses the quote from the movie Dune.

"I will bend like a reed in the wind"
- Paul Atreides (Dune)

This is usually when things aren't going his way and there's no way to have it go any other way. My theory is everyone can listen and watch and get hints of the rest of the day that will go south from the very beginning of the morning. This morning I heard repeated sirens in the neighborhood an hour before I was to get up and then looked at the pollution readings before my 5:30 am run. As Austin hasn't had rain for 21 days but has had plenty of high pressure, it was already fixed for the pollution tarot cards to be dim. Sure enough, the pollution was at high enough levels so I needed to go to the gym across town and get on the treadmill to run in some clean air. I felt I was bending a little at that point to get a workout in.

I got to the gym and soon met my archnemesis's sidekick; ADD Boy. Unlike Golf Channel Watching Recumbent-Bike Dude who only wants one of the TVs on and it tuned to the Golf Channel or Fox News, ADD Boy wanted them all on and tuned to the three channels of his choosing. His workout routine was equally inept. He went from free weights to machines to cables to cardio, really not knowing which muscle group he wanted to work for the day. Maybe it had been so long since his last workout, he wanted to hit them all with one set. ADD Boy had to look at the weather forecast for Austin at least four times before it found it's way past his ears and settled in his noodle, as each time he shot the bird at the weatherman, as it was his fault rain was not falling.

Most of the time you hear talk about the "night people." Well, at the gym it's the early morning people that scare the hell out of me.

I'm having illusions of a home gym with a treadmill and a stationary bike and three flat screens of my own, none of which will be able to be tuned to the Golf Channel or Fox Noise. I just saw rain on the radar within the city limits. Hold that thought.