There is a word in our language that, I believe, is short one letter. What word is that, you ask? Jog. Why is it short a letter in my opinion? Because I think it would be more appropriate as a four-letter word. In my vocabulary, it IS a four-letter word.

It's 6:45 on a Sunday night, and I just got back from participating in this hateful activity. I'm sitting at my computer, dripping with sweat. I realize I should go shower, but I've found that showering immediately after a jog does nothing, as I'm still sweating when I get out, and 5 minutes later I need yet another shower.

Some people --including people I know and am actually very good friends with-- enjoy this activity immensely. If they're anticipating a busy day, they get up extra early (another activity that should be banned, I might add) in order to get their jogs in. I cannot imagine this mindset. If I'm anticipating a busy day, I look forward to it all week because I know that it means I have an excuse NOT to jog. Heck, I've even been known to purposely fill up a day with trifling errands and pointless busy work just to create this excuse not to jog. I hate it. HATE it.

Why?

It makes my knees hurt, it makes my butt hurt, it makes my thighs hurt, my chest, my lungs, my head. I get so hot within the first 30 seconds that my face turns its infamous shade of beet red (charming, or endearing as some folks put it. downright grotesque, say others.) immediately and I have folks stop me to ask if I'm okay. My inner thighs get chafed (yes. I admit it. I'm not ashamed that my thighs touch.), the soles of my feet get hot in my shoes, and I have trouble breathing. All of this before I leave the house. Ha! Just kidding.

Worst of all, though, is that I sweat. I detest sweating. Even though I can't run very far and am back at my lovely, comfortable, somewhat cool house within less than half of an hour, the jogging process takes about 1 1/2 hours once I add in the shower, the hair drying, the reapplication of makeup, the dressing. Cal walks in the door dripping with sweat and is back in the comforts of his ugly green recliner, all clean and spiffy, checking his email or watching the latest installment of Design Star on HGTV within five minutes. Quite literally. I, on the other hand, am not so blessed with natural, low maintenance beauty as he.

However, in spite of all this, I continue to put myself through the torture day after day, month after month. I don't get better, I don't experience the "runner's high", I don't know what folks are talking about when they say I'll get addicted. Wouldn't that have happened by now, 2 1/2 years into this routine? Surely.

I jog, though, because it means I can eat. And I like to eat more than I hate to jog, if that's possible.

I am no athlete, and I'm under no delusions that I ever will be. Even Cal, I think, has resigned himself to that fact of my life. So, for as long as I strive to conform to mainstream society's impossible image of skinny beauty, I will hate to jog. And I will, likely, complain about it.

But I'll do it. Sigh.

Off to shower. Cal, of course is already done and in his spot for the night. Lucky him. I'm just getting started.