Inertia

Sunday morning, 5:55, and colder than a mortgage banker's heart outside. I know this because I just got back from taking my four-legged main squeeze for her morning constitutional. Dogs have an advantage in this regard, since they have the built-in fur coat, and so they don't seem to mind taking their own sweet time to sniff every blade of grass and carefully examine each square inch of territory in their diligent search for Just The Right Spot to deposit their excess material. While this is going on, the loud clattering sound you hear in the distance is my teeth chattering. And we haven't gotten below the mid-20's yet...I'll be a basket case when winter really sets in.

But that's neither here nor there. Let's talk about inertia.

As you may know from your high school science classes, inertia is the tendency of a body at rest to remain at rest, and of a body in motion to remain in motion, unless acted on by an external force. In my case, the external force is usually Agnes, gently suggesting that I get off my lazy, wide backside and accomplish some task. I had always thought (silly me) that inertia was the desired weekend state...that state of rest which prepares us for the constant motion of the work week. Well, no. If you're like us, the weekend is that frenetic two-day period into which you frantically try to jam all the things that you couldn't do during the other five days.

Yesterday was laundry and general house cleaning (not too onerous yet, because we're still fairly well cleaned up from the Thanksgiving weekend), but there's still plenty to do: more Christmas decorations to find in the great piles of storage boxes in the garage; mountains of leaves still unraked in the yard; and tonight's dinner uncooked ... but I get ahead of myself.

Before earning that well-deserved dinner (fish of some sort, we've already decided), we need to overcome inertia and spend a few hours at the dance studio practicing our routines. Since I'm too cheap to buy the shoes with the steps already programmed into them, or the special glasses that will let me see the little black footstep diagrams on the floor, I have to depend on practice, which I hate. I love ballroom dancing, and the fact that this former high school Alpha Geek now has women lined up who actually want to dance with him is a tremendous high...but putting in the long hours of practice - even when it means I get to hold Agnes close - can be a drag. For Agnes's part, it's hard for her to overcome the inertia because she has so little free time - working her day job and teaching dance four evenings per week doesn't leave much time for all the other things she'd like to do. So we have to depend on each other to overcome our mutual inertia and get out on the floor. The problem is that we're equally adept at talking each other out of it.

But, for better or worse, we've got to beat inertia and practice today because we have five new International-style routines and a slew of American-style ones that won't learn themselves. I guess we'll just have to keep our eyes on the eventual prize of the adoring crowds as we grit our teeth, assume the correct frame, and do the work.


But it surely would be nice just to spend the day in my chair in front of the fire, reading a good book.

Ah, inertia!

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo