B.T.F...

...stands for... Bring the firepower? Better to forget? Bacon, tofu, and fava beans? None of the above. It's Bally Total Fitness. I joined there, not three months after quitting at the YMCA. I have my reasons, none of them good. Mostly, though, I found out they have a pool, with open swim times (all the time, the whole time they're open!) and it's cheaper than the Y, and this particular branch is only three blocks from my house.

Nothing against the Y. I quit there because I just got tired of it, and also because the best thing there was the running track, but my knees have gotten so I just can't run at all. I'm giving up running for good. That's okay, it's just another thing to say good-bye to.

So I was figuring that I would exercise by walking, which I do every day anyway, and also by doing sit-ups and push-ups every day. If I was in solitary confinement in a six foot square cell, I would do sit-ups and push-ups to stay in shape. The thing is, I'm not in such a cell. In the wide open, wild, free open prairie where I live, sit-ups and push-ups are torture, the worst things ever, almost, nearly as bad as trying to write a synopsis or sitting in a bar with techno music playing.

But because my newly found Orson Welles proportion girth, due to the Pick’n’Save now selling frozen rice crust pizza, and the Gluten-free Trading Post carrying wheat free maple donuts, and Frito pie, and Salmon on a stick at the new market down here (I'm not kidding) and El Rey tamales, well, I realized I would have to either lose weight or have to buy new pants. And buying new pants means having James Franklin's mom buy me 501 jeans in San Bernardino and mailing them here, because they don't sell 501 jeans in the state of Wisconsin.

I never thought I would go to ANY kind of health club ever, and now I've gone to two different ones in the same town! It kind of freaks me out, actually, but I make it easier on myself by thinking of the lyrics of that Tommy Roe song, "Jack and Jill." "Health clubs are overcrowded with young men..." Of course there is also a line about mini-skirts in that songs. What's next? Maybe I'll buy a car! Will it be a sports car, a hot rod, a Cadillac, or a Jeep?