Let's Get Physical

I think am the laziest person on earth. I can laze in perpetuam on the couch watching the entire season of Lost or 24 or CSI or lie in my bed all day even with the most disturbing existentialist book by any Russian author, enduring bedsores. Sure, I love to cook which I do not consider work, but no amount of nudging can convince me do a chore more strenuous than switching the television on and off without using a remote control.

Lately I did something radical, after dilly dallying, shilly-shallying, I went jogging. I figured its time I cultivate a healthy lifestyle (although smoking is entirely a different thing). So, I tagged along my cousin and engaged in cardio-vascular exercise. He complied thinking this is again one of those one- minute interests I venture in which would quickly die soon.

That night, I set the alarm clock to 6am.

I woke up 9am. The heat was starting to scorch outside but I pushed through nevertheless. To have a good and healthy start, I gulped a glass full of fresh milk although I am lactose intolerant. I still felt muzzy, so to jolt my sleeping nerves, I plugged my ipod into my eardrum a full volume hip-hop playlist and launch myself to trot.

So we jogged from V-Luna to the Quezon City circle through the Kalayaan Avenue. By the time we reached the Circle, I was dead beat already that my tongue could reach the ground like a worn-out dog. I was gasping for air and I could feel my lungs coming out from my mouth.

I struggled and dragged my carcass so I could at least cover one round. I tried to look around for inspiration, someone I could subtly chase and ogle while running, thinking that adrenalin rush is more potent and primal force that could push my limits. It did not help. It must be a senior citizens’ day because all I could see were flabby sagging and wrinkled bodies parading the oval. Everybody: eeewwe!

A few minute past, came an announcement. A priest at the Claret would administer a mass. I gathered that every Sunday a mass is being held here especially for joggers. Tired and worn-out already I decided to attend the mass instead. Indeed it was attended by joggers all sweating in their jogging attires: jogging pants, jogging shorts, jogging short shorts and jogging very short shorts. It was good the venue was in an open air or we would suffocate in our own stench.

My stomach started to grumble, probably rejecting the milk I swilled. Earlier I tried to get rid of it in the pay comfort room but it didn’t come out despite a stronger peristalsis. All through out the mass I was nursing a bad stomach that I had to repress a fart with great care and intensity or I could annihilate the people surrounding me with my biological weapon.

Probably thinking that these people are tired and would not care to listen, the priest delivered a bland, passionless and coma-inducing sermon. The priest is septuagenarian and speaks very slowly as if he was struggling to force out every word from his mouth that by the time he spoke the last word I have grown my nails to at least three inches already. The bright sun blurred my vision so that I could not guess his nationality. He speaks in a funny accent, a cross between French and Swahili. I guess he must have been assigned to different countries already before coming to the Philippines that he mixed up all their accents. For instance he said: “De horrry gorrrspel accorrrrding to rrruuke”. The “r” and “h” are pronounced harder as if it was an opportunity for him to scour a blob of phlegm that had been clogging his throat.

Maybe I was tired that I nearly fell asleep. I only got back to my senses when somebody nodded at me and spout at me the words: Piss be with you! To which I gladly answered back: PISS BE WITH YOU TOO!

Oh well, I think I need a cold shower.