on the advice of someone is really good at cutting through my bullshit (it’s greatly thanks to her, and my dad and stepmom, that i have a kitchen table) i went out and bought an elliptical trainer today. well, it wasn’t quite like she said, “what you need to do is go buy an elliptical trainer,” but she was like, “okay, if you hate the gym, then go ahead and avoid it and quit feeling bad about it, but just do something else.” and she helped me figure out how to manipulate the financial situation so i actually could feasibly do so. yay her!

i went home and popped online and started reading reviews. then i popped over to a little fitness equipment store in the neighborhood to check them out. because my new philosophy of life involves cutting off any avenues for anxiety that i possibly can (because otherwise i will spend all my time worrying about details and never actually get anything done), i found one i liked and just bought it on the spot without messing around. (hey, i did my homework beforehand. i have Consumer Reports!) i wound up going with a Spirit XE 125, which is an entry-levelish model — no fancy tilting or padded pedals, no heartrate-adjusted programs, etc., but it does have this rather nice little fan in the control panel that you can aim at your face, which frankly i think i’ll get more use out of, and my shoes already have poufy little gel thingies so what need have i of fancy-pants padded pedals? and as a special favor to my downstairs neighbor (whom i kept in mind the whole time — noise/vibration of her ceiling is the reason a treadmill was out of the question), it’s a super-quiet model — less noise than the professional models i’ve used before, actually, so i was quite pleased with that. plus it was 20% off (mother’s day sale! thanks mom!) and so even with sales tax (9%! thanks, mayor daley!) and delivery it came out to exactly $1.14 over its original sticker price.

so, i’m pretty excited. i love using elliptical trainers. i like treadmills too, but ellipticals are just sort of fun — especially when you go backwards. and i really do hate going to gyms — i hate being around other people while gross and sweaty — so this will be so much more pleasant. i can just hang out and enjoy using the machine without all the hassles and irritation and the damned televisions always tuned to something insipid and the horrible music and so forth and so on. i’m super excited. i can’t wait for them to call me on monday to arrange for delivery. i want my new toy now!

…of course, that does actually give me a chance to figure out where the heck in my living room i can put it. i guess i know what i’m doing this weekend!