Part of my resolutions are about to begin. My friend owns some exercise equipment and I’m going to use some ski machine thing I think, or at least something which he says is going to probably make me sick from the twenty minutes of effort I have promised him. The reason sick is actually a good thing for once is that as a result of my attempts at beer making I have not been too far from the toilet these last few days. If this continues I may be writing a piece soon detailing a salt water cleanse, or at least the benefits of it, over the intimate details of the procedure. My friend also drank the beers on Saturday but was sick on Sunday and seemingly felt better after. I unfortunately trained myself when younger not to be sick which can be good when drinking and smoking excessively but along closing the heart chakra apparently, which is perhaps a story for another time, it does mean that my body doesn’t necessarily expel poisons by vomiting in times it should. This attempt at doing some crazy amount of exercise when already feeling a bit weak and ill is completely the most ridiculously illogical approach and reminiscent of tv series from my youth like Jackass or Dirty Sanchez. I am though willing to give it a shot because while I doubt it’ll actually make my sick, I know it is at least an opportunity at making a start on my resolutions and I’ve passed up on far too many chances already. I am though losing weight by being ill so at least the belly is slightly shrinking. Does that mean I am inadvertently sticking to my resolutions? Only in the most perverse of ways. I also accept fully that nothing I say in any articles after this one can be taken with any seriousness and I may have completely destroyed any sense of credibility I have had the good fortune to acquire these last two months. But fuck it, here goes nothing….
…If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs is a line from a poem by Wilfred Owen about the folly of patriotic war and death, this line about the effects of chlorine gas during the First World War. It feels comparable to what I can taste in my mouth now. That old familiar taste of iron. The stabbing sensation in the ears and the throbbing of the head. My legs feel like jelly and either I’ve got cramp or I’ve hurt my hamstring but I completed twenty whole minutes of surprisingly gruelling exercise skiing, running with some bag on my back, lifting some heavy ball repeatedly and doing push ups. I didn’t vomit, I knew I never would despite the silliness of the first paragraph. I should be proud of myself apparently. I’ll let you know tomorrow if I manage to scrape myself off the floor.
Observations and Misunderstandings 