LISTEN:
I cancelled my gym membership. I hate that place and I never ever wanted to go, even though it’s right across the street from me. I only had a membership because the publishing company I work for gives me a $30 stipend every month towards a gym or the YMCA or a yoga class or something like that. For whatever reason I went for the gym membership. Who knows. I’ve only really gone maybe twenty times in almost two years, what with it being so awful and all, so forget about it. I’m done!!
Thing is, I don’t need any of that shit because I HAVE A HUGE TRACTOR TIRE IN MY BACKYARD WHICH I POUND ON WITH A SLEDGEHAMMER:
. . . and I recently acquired a bicycle with Laura Rokas’ help—a bicycle that is so beautiful and so 1982 (in a good way) that just about everyone wants to steal it from me. See here:
So: rather than pay $30 a month to not go to a place I hate, reimbursement or not, I’m going to drop $100 on a used weight bench and a bunch of weights. You see this stuff all the time . . . some clown buys a brand new set as his New Year’s resolution, and then promptly abandons his dreams of getting fit a month and a half into the next hellish rotation around the sun. I’m gonna find a guy like that is what I’m saying. And while I’m at it, I’m going to get a punching bag too. Matt and I found a punching bag stand (???) the other day, so all we need is the bag. So now, hey presto, no more gym. I can do all of The Stuff in my backyard, or on my bicycle, riding around Oakland and Berkeley after midnight on my cute 1982-ass bicycle.
AND WHAT OF THE $30?
I have decided that I’m going to go to Piedmont Springs every other week at $18 a pop, which comes out to $34 a month. Hey, that’s only $4 more a month than I spend on a gym membership that I absolutely despise!
Piedmont Springs rules. You book your own room with a big-ass hot tub and a shower in it, and you’re surrounded by some good wood, with the ceiling being wide open to either an ice-cold cloudless California sky—or an ice-cold starry California nighttime sky! Sometimes it rains, and then you find yourself having a real good time. And you get a whole hour!!! See here:
Yes, and so I am going to bring a huge thermos full of tea, and another huge thermos full of cold water. And then I’ll have me a real good time by myself. I love sitting in hot water is the thing. Or didn’t you know?
LISTEN: I’m booking an hour for next week. Does anyone wanna come? Actually, my friend Cara Ellison, the Scottish writer who lived in my Victorian house in Ghost Town, in West Oakland, some years ago, yes, while writing a book that I make an appearance in—she’ll be in town on Saturday for the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco . . . so I reckon I’ll bring her along. But! You should join us! It’s gonna be real cool.
Well . . . let me know. ☆彡
