About the Same, Old New Escapism, Home Workout Jackpot

I wish I could say that I am in a much better place this week than I was last week but alas, that would be untrue. I am still dealing with all of the same stuff, along with working long hours in an environment in which people grow more and more on edge each day. I’m not sleeping very well despite being tired most of the time, and I’m still fighting off creeping depression. We have locked down our hospital and are screening every single person who comes through the two remaining open entrances. After getting home from work on Saturday, I was on my last nerve and I ranted to Mr. Typist that no one should be coming to the hospitals right now, we need the space and resources for sick people, not the worried well, what the hell are people thinking? “Well what if someone has testicular cancer?” he asked. “It can wait,” I snapped. “Testicular cancer is very slow-growing.” That is what working at a hospital during an outbreak is doing to my mind. I don’t know if I’m going to have a shred of sanity left by the end of this. (By the way, I don’t actually know if testicular cancer is slow-growing or not, so if you think you have it, you should probably go to the doctor. You have my permission.)

I have switched my gaming escapism from House Flipper to Stranded Deep, an old desert-island fave that I dust off every now and then. They updated it since I last played it and now you can play on “Creative Mode,” which means you don’t require hardly any food or water and you’re immune to sunburn and poison. This takes the stressy survival element out of it and frees one to basically just loaf around, look at the gorgeous scenery, and tread on jellyfish with impunity. I’m taking full advantage. It’s quite a beautiful game what with all of the ocean sounds and tropical fish and gentle rains that fall at random times. My only ambition at the moment is to build a little hut so I can sit in it and gaze out at the ocean while the world burns.

My cadre of YouTube fitness experts are super-serving their audiences lately. I’ve been heartened to find that almost all of them have cranked out home-workout videos in response to the quarantine. Athlean X (aka Jeff Cavaliar), always the over-achiever, put out no less than three in the last week alone. That man is determined. I haven’t watched his latest one yet, but it’s nine minutes long and is entitled “29 Home Exercise Hacks (TOTAL BODY!)” See? Over-achiever. Nonetheless, I went so far as to leave a thank-you comment on his channel, because he explained that you can do Face-Pulls from home if you have a pull-up bar and an exercise band—which I do! This was very exciting for me, because I missed the Face-Pulls. They are a great exercise for the triceps and upper back, which I’m having a hard time figuring out how work effectively with dumbbells. I can’t believe it didn’t occur to me that I could just loop the band around the pull-up bar and do pretty much the same move I did at the gym, just without the weights and pulley. Oh, also, I don’t call it the Face Pull. “Face Pull” sounds like a violent wrestling move. I call it the “Forehead Kiss.” That’s so much more genteel.

Speaking of genteel, I found online an English lady with a high ponytail who has a 20-minute routine I want to try. I was going to do it today, but I’ve already cleaned the bathroom from top to bottom and I’m going to call that my workout for the day. Screw it. I’ll try High-Ponytail English lady’s routine tomorrow if I don’t end up checking myself into my own hospital’s psyche ward before then.

I posted this video about two years ago, but I think it’s worth a re-visit. Nice song, pretty scenery. Enjoy! And take care of yourselves out there. I’m thinking of all of you and wishing you the best.

--Kristen McHenry