"April is the cruellest month." -- TS Eliot

I finally went to the "gym" to work out today. As a non-athlete now into my mid-late twenties, I'm seeing more and more clearly the need for some sort of exercise regimen to maintain health and get into better shape. One of the beautiful things about the twenties is that somewhere in the middle a person's metabolism begins taking random plunges. I'm not terribly upset about not being able to down 4 plates at a buffet anymore -- as a vegetarian I'd find that too repetitive anyway. However, I used to be able to just barely pull off wearing tight indie-boy teeshirts and between several months of unemployment (and thus fairly easy access to food anytime, plus an even more sedentary lifestyle than a desk job) and yet another metabo-dive, that ironically worn Backstreet Boys teeshirt just isn't an option anymore. After nearly a semester of procrastination I made it past the locker room. Stacey's been raving about something called an "elliptical" so I figured I'd give that a shot. I played with the settings and it told me my target heart rate for the exercise would be 125. I did about 10 minutes at over 160 and felt pretty good, then hit a wall. All in all, 15 minutes plus a couple minutes before that IS a pretty good start. Since my 20th Century English Literature class was coming up next, I ended up reading "The Waste Land" (where the quote above is from) in the sauna while sweating like (I'm tired, throw in your own comparison here).

Friday night is the Decahedron and Scout Niblett show. It'll be great to see Johnathon again...just barely missed him a couple months ago when they played Des Moines on a school night. Scout and Decahedron contrast quite a bit musically but it should make for a really great night. Saturday morning Stacey and I are getting some pictures done by our friend Jared, who did some really sweet portrait work of Liz not too long ago (check it and the Greazy short film series on his site).

All right, my neck is about to give out and I need to have an excuse not to eat this late, so I'm going downstairs to lie in bed and watch the rest of Baseball Tonight (I generally only watch it if the Cubs win, which they did today) and The Daily Show if I'm still awake.

Today's Daily Presidential Briefing (DPB):
Mr. President,
As one baseball fan to another, I highly recommend you add Aramis Ramirez to your fantasy league. The man is on fire and, incidentally, part of a very fine Chicago Cubs team.
In addition, you should be informed that the fine folks who put out Fig (and other flavors of) Newtons are now selling bars that feature both fruit and some sort of yogurt inside the usual "not a cookie, but a Newton" crust.