Um… not.

My cardio doctor, who, by the way, is one of the greatest human beings alive, gently urged me to take this Cardio Rehab course after he put the last two stents in my heart. Sam, he said, take this rehab course, or croak sooner than you would without it. Well, that was clear.

I have always eschewed workouts during my too long life. Because working out on machines is the equivalent of poking a sharp stick in my eye. Working out is boring. All that walking on the treadmill and never getting anywhere. At least on the treadmill, I can close my eyes and go into my rich inner spaces. And it is never boring in there. I have tried closing my eyes while walking around the hood, but I keep swerving unnoticed into a curb, and tripping and falling down, which, as you can imagine, would be unseemly. And unseemliness is something that I try to avoid.

I looked around me this morning at the other old farts like me, sweating and walking, and I couldn’t help thinking… If they could just use all that energy expended to generate electricity, they could easily make the facility net zero on energy, and maybe have some left over to feed back into the net, thereby reducing the drain on the electric infrastructure. I am surprised that ERCOT hasn’t caught on to it. Not only free energy, but you have to pay to generate it.

ERCOT, the Energy Reliability Council of Texas,  a misnomer if I ever heard one, as they are about as reliable as a Ford Pinto, is just another organization sucking off of the fatted calf of taxpayers. How something like it could be called reliable is a mystery to me. Years of not putting anything into improving the energy infrastructure, and instead just passing the buck, and paying over-inflated salaries to the desk jockeys, has left me disgruntled. But that is not the story I want to tell here.

I get my blood pressure taken 3 times during my one hour session, and that has been interesting to observe, Today I had a blood pressure reading after my workout that was so low, I had to look at myself in the mirror to be sure I was still alive. I was, visually alive anyway, and surprised that it was the lowest that my blood pressure has, as far as I know, ever been. Yippie.

In the past, I have not needed to workout on a machine, because my worklife has had plenty of exercise in lifting and carrying, and bending and stretching, and sawing and climbing ladders. Just a trip to Home Depot gives me a half mile of walking, because invariably, the things that I need are situated on the opposite sides of the large floor space. But since I started taking the testosterone reducing chemo drugs for my prostate cancer, expending energy is a lot harder. Low to no testosterone robs me of any volition to get out of my chair, and do anything. My last PSA test came back with my level of testosterone being “undetectable”. And my gumption is about undetectable as well. It is insidious.

My oncologist told me at the start that taking the course of radiation and chemo would give me 2 to 10 more years of life than I could expect if I didn’t do the therapy. And it has been a little over two years since I started, and I am still kicking, so I guess he wasn’t lying. Even so, hearing that I would have 2 to 10 years more of life, makes me look at the finite-ness of life in a totally new way. Every day is a blessing, I reckon. It changed the way I look at things. When I buy something like a new tool, or new tires for my truck, I immediately think… Well, I guess I am betting that I will live long enough to make this expenditure worthwhile. Every month, when my chemo drugs come into the urologists office for me to pick up, I think… Well, I guess both of us are betting that I will live another 30 days. I figure that this is why they only fill my scrip for 30 days, so if I croak before then, they won’t have wasted much of the very expensive drugs.

Truth is, I have already lived way longer than I ever thought I would. I have said since college that 50 years was long enough. So I have had 21 years of free, and that has been good. I love my job, and love the life I have created for myself. I have lots of things that I still want to do. Life has not lost the joy and mystery that a life well lived has, intrinsically. My optimism has not diminished.

Even so, I have no desire to live to be 100. I am a lucky boy, and have done almost everything that I ever wanted to do already. Except maybe to grow old with Jenny. The great thing about life is that as you get older, you discover new things that would be fun to do. And fun is what I focus on. I make a vow every morning to gird up my loins and sally forth to find the fun in this new day, and to make the people that I come into contact with laugh for a moment, and share in my joie de vivre.

The good side of cardio rehab is that I get up and head for the facility at 6:40 am, 3 days a week, and drive through the momentarily quiet city in almost no traffic. Early morning Austin is beautiful.  And when I walk out of the rehab, it is only 8 am, and I have the rest of the day to find fun. It is a win-win. Mornings are the tits. Pardon my turn of phrase.

Today as I sat in the lobby waiting for the physiologists to come and get us, I sat and talked in Spanish with the two other guys who show up early like me. As usual, they were surprised that a guy who looks as dumb as I do could speak Spanish. It always surprises people. Probably the most powerful thing that I have done for myself in my adult life, was to become facile in Spanish. Not necessarily fluent, because their umpteen seemingly pointless forms of past tense and future tense leave me stumped, and I am too busy having fun to actually master them. And I don’t care that much. I can communicate well enough to avoid the worst faux pas, and can ask how to say what I want to say, if it is necessary. I am pretty good at picking up the proper conjugations from listening to how others use the language. And it has opened up a whole new world of friends.

I have forgotten how many weeks these cardio classes will last. The actual workout and its boring-ness notwithstanding, it is a peaceful way to start the day, and on the days that I have enough energy to really push myself for that last minute on the treadmill, and the nu-cycle, I reward myself for being a good boy, by heading for Mamis Tacos on the way home, and buying myself an egg, potatoe, and onion taco, and chatting up Mami who owns the trailer. Then I come home, make me a cup of Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee, and sit on the back porch and eat my taco, and watch the antics of the Goldfinches and the Orange Fronted Woodpecker who have returned to my feeders.

Life is pretty good. It helps me ignore the hot flashes and walking around all day feeling like shit from the chemo drugs. If I found a bottle with a Genie inside, and rubbed it, and a Genie popped out, I don’t know what I would wish for. I would probably wish for something for somebody else.

The beauty in life is in how you live it. You get to choose. <3

I love America because of the freedoms that I have in the choosing. <3