I had no idea how long it had been since I last worked out. It was probably sometime around last year. I had not gone this year, even though I had a membership to a gym with a location near where I work. I knew I needed to go, but I had no real desire to go. It wasn’t as if I was out of shape. I walked around a lot at work. That had to count for something. I almost never broke a sweat at work, so it wasn’t like I put it under the most strenuous of situations…thinking about it, there have been some times when I did tasks similar to workouts. I was able to avoid most demanding retail activities, like cartpushing, by working in stores where ‘cartpushing’ was at most pushing three carts back.

As for most cases of me having to break a sweat at work, they was caused by my own lack of foresight. Like the time when I carried two 40-count water bottles stacked on top of each other from the back of the store to the front. Of course, we had dollies and carts available that made this task much easier, but for some reason, I forgoed getting one because I thought it would take too much time to get one. Well, that was a mistake. I knew 40-pack cases of water were pretty heavy, but I never expected them to be forty pounds each. If I knew that, I would have never carried two of them–anything over fifty pounds is teamlift territory.

Anyways, at one pound per water bottle, which meant that I voluntarily carried eighty pounds worth of shit for about ninety seconds. I don’t know why, but water weight felt much heavier than any other type of weight. Could be just the way I carried it–relying totally on the support of my arms and back. Terrible form, but again, I was more focused on finishing the task at hand than doing it correctly. I was out of breath by time I was finally able to drop the waters on the BOPIS counter up front. Thankfully they picked up inside. They had a cart ready so I didn’t have to carry it out. Who the hell gets water from Hobby Lobby anyway?

Back to the topic at hand: it had been half a year since I worked out at a gym. The reason I stopped going last year was because I had a terrible sickness…well, I had the flu. Still not something that I wanted to be taking to the gym. The flu stuck around for about a week or so, but my hiatus from the gym would last much longer. Mostly from me beginning to plan to move out of my parents' place around that time. With that on my mind, there were days back then were I would forget about going to the gym. Complacency kicked in, and I stopped going. The only time I get any inspiration, other than now or whenever I see a woman beautiful enough that I’d change my life for, is when I look down and see my stomach while sitting. It’s a fact that a stomach looks like that no matter what, unless if you trained like an NFL player. Even then, you’d have a bit of gut showing no matter what. It was something that bothered me since it made me feel more out of shape than I actually probably was. Maybe I have body dysmorphia. That’s how that works, right?

Now, the main issue with going to the gym, other than getting the motivation to go, was what I would be doing when I got there. I needed a gameplan if I was going to actually do this. Doing a half-assed and unprepared workout only ended up with wasted time and no results. That was fine when I was a teenager doing the same inefficient body-weight exercises without ever pushing myself beyond my perceived limits, but as a man with a full-time job, it was unacceptable to waste that much of the day.

Getting into the meat and potatoes of my plan, there were at least three things I needed to get into order: The first was that I needed first to know what my goals were when I went to the gym. The gym I had a membership to wasn’t one of those that were frequented by only meatheads and similar characters. You probably knew my gym by the fact that it was one of the cheapest in the country, and the fact that it often got made fun of (somewhat rightfully) for having something as corny as a ‘LUNK ALARM’. I’ve only seen it used as a way to tell gym-goers that the gym was going to close in a few minutes. The Sypro-esque interior design left much to the imagination as well. Despite all of that, it was still a good gym to go to. Don’t get it twisted, there were, and still are, fucking jacked men that go to Planet Fitness, on the regular. I would recognize them when I went more regularly. Even if it was the gym for wimps, it still had more than enough equipment to maintain your physique. It was probably a better gym if your goals were stuff like ‘work on glutes’ or ‘lose fifty pounds’, but stuff like that didn’t matter to me at all.

My goals…well, I didn’t really have a goal in mind. That’s the main reason why I don’t go to the gym now. It’s not like I think I look ugly or anything. I’m not moved by goals of lifting a certain amount of weight. I never have had a ‘target weight’ I wanted to reach. When I lifted weights, I merely did it to see how much I could do. It was like a game to me. And when I got bored of it, I stopped playing. The main question in mind is if I can regain that fire. That is yet to be seen. The fact that I’m thinking this deep about it means that something is building up. Lifting for Juliet? Let’s not get too excited. If I’m lifting for a woman, I’d rather it be for someone I actually have a chance with. Plus lifting for one is dumb anyway. It was a misnomer that women loved built men. A lot of them did, but also a lot of them found muscle men disgusting and would prefer a stringbean. Either way men would be the ones complimenting you on how ‘big’ you were most of the time.

The second thing in mind was the time. When it came down to it, I had the time to workout. I had no excuse, especially since my gym had a location within two minutes of my work. I would only have reason to not go if I had a hard day at work. Which to be quite honest, I haven’t had lately. Maybe one day a week I had a moment when I had to use my muscles (what I had of them). Other than that, nothing too difficult.

There was always the option of going to the gym before work, but I never cared for it. I did it a few times, and each time I never took an optimal shower. I always forget something…as long as it’s not the towel, then I’m okay. I preferred going after work. Unless if I had somewhere to go immediately afterward, I never took a shower there after working out. Those showers were not nearly as important, as those were almost always the second showers of the day. If I wasn’t going out somewhere–which was 98% of the time–I would wait until I got back home to take a shower. It was faster and more comfortable that way. I could definitely do that now since I had a bathroom all to myself.

You may be thinking “Why don’t you go on your days off?”. Well, to be honest, if it was closer to home, then I would think about going, but the fact of the matter is that I’m not driving twenty minutes to go to the gym. That’s absurd. If I’m already in town for other reasons, like work, then it makes sense to drop by. But otherwise, I’m not driving that far.

The third thing was nutrition. When it came down to it, it wouldn’t matter if I went to the gym if I stuffed myself with only empty calories afterward. I’m not going to go as far as meal prep or buy bulk sizes of chicken breasts to grill, but I did need to watch what I ate to an extent. Also, I needed to buy fresh supplements. The ones I gave in the kitchen are most likely getting moldy by now.

There were four things in mind when I went shopping for gym supplements. First was protein powder. Of course, it had to be protein powder. It was the best way to intake protein. Combined with milk, it almost never got old. As long as you had a good bottle to shake your shake in and a good flavor powder, it would taste at least decent. To me it did. A lot of people I knew used water instead of milk for their shakes. I knew milk wasn’t for everybody, but mixing protein powder with water felt like mixing it with cocoa powder–it felt incomplete. It tasted like breakroom coffee. I would rather buy one rather than make my own mixed with water.

When it came to protein shake flavors, I often rotated them each time I bought a new jar. Even the best of flavors eventually got tiresome after a while if you had it every day. When I was working out, I would rotate from chocolate to vanilla to strawberry, and keep going on in roughly that same order. There were other flavors out there, but all of the time they were more expensive than the regular ones. I like Froot Loops, but I’m not paying an upcharge for protein powder that smells like it. It may not matter that much in the world of protein bars or protein shakes, but in the protein powder world, that can be a ten-dollar difference.

When it came to brands, I usually went for name brands. The store-brand protein powder tasted like ass nine times out of ten. I’m willing to pay a few dollars extra for something I can actually get through drinking.

The second thing was protein bars. When it came to a cost-efficiency standpoint, ’homemade’ protein shakes were miles better than protein bars. The only reason I bought them was for the enjoyment of eating them. Some of them were quite actually good. One of the good things about protein bars is that there’s a revolving door of brands, which means there’s always something new for you to try. Good flavors eventually get old if you keep having them every time, so it’s good to branch out a little. Bulk buying makes this rather difficult for me to do for protein powder–variation in protein shakes was rather limited in comparison to bars as well.

When it came to protein bars, there were an endless amount of flavors to choose from. Reading off from a store website, I have: Galactic Brownie, Chocolate Peanut Butter, Lemoncake, Chocolate Mint Cookie, Cookies & Cream, Smores, Caramel, Caramel Churro, White Chocolate Raspberry, Snickers, Peanut Butter Fudge, Maple Glazed Doughnut, French Vanilla Cream, Coconut Puff, Cinnamon Roll. The list goes on, but you get the point. There’s an abundance of protein bar choices out there to choose from. Nothing like protein powder.

One newish development in the protein bar game was the existence of products such as protein chips and protein pretzels. ‘Protein snacks’ had their own section at grocery stores now. I tried some of the protein chips right when I first saw them a year or two ago while shopping–they were not good at all. Especially for their price point. A small bag of protein chips was almost three dollars after tax. For that price, you’re better off getting a protein bar. It might actually taste good! As for the other treats of the protein snack world, I have not tried them. The most legitimate products in there look like the protein cookies. I only say that because they’re the products that have been there the longest. In my humble opinion, ‘protein snacks’ will eventually go out of style since all it retains from regular snacks is the shape and form. A protein chip tastes like school lunch. A regular chip tastes good. That’s why people buy them. It’s hard to trick yourself into eating something if it tastes like shit, especially if it costs twice as much as the thing it’s imitating which tastes, you know, good. It screams of Silicon Valley vulture capitalist trying to find a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.

The third thing was creatine. This, unlike the two above, was a much more boring supplement. Its only purpose was to help retain water in my muscles. This would also need to be bought way less than powder/shakes/bars/etc. Because only less than a spoonful is needed in a small glass of water. I usually drink it in the morning. Creatine helped me recover from exercising faster and improve proformance in the gym. The latter is questionable, but the former definitely held true. Helpful or not, it also increased how big my muscles looked, which was cool.

The fourth thing was the newest edition–electrolyte drink mixes. Liquid I.V. and all of that. Mainly Liquid I.V., since the other brands either tasted too salty or weren’t as effective. I had only discovered them last year. While I had used flavored drink mixes before, I typically didn’t use them. I liked the taste of water on its own, so I never had the desire to use drink mixes other than if I had gotten them for free. They had no benefits other than making our water change color. Electrolyte drink mixes, on the other hand, had a particular benefit in mind–keeping you hydrated. To be honest, I already had some of this lying around in a cabinet in the kitchen. I bought them for work, since it’s mobile and all of that…anyways, all I need to do is to make sure I keep them in stock, and that I start using them more, even if plans fall through and I don’t start working out again.

Any other purchase would be only situational—I typically never bought any pre-workout supplements, since I found them not at all useful. Each time I bought some and used it, the only thing that happened was that I was more ‘wired’. My ‘performance’ never increased to my knowledge, and it made me feel like I was tweaking. Felt like I had ants crawling on my face. Google told me it’s because of the BCAAs in them. Not a good feeling, especially when I’m trying to focus on finishing a set. In my opinion, pre-workout was better used as an energy booster. The amount of caffeine one scoop contains could start your car—300+ milligrams! Red Bull only has around 100 milligrams of caffeine per can. It could kill you if you consume multiple scoops.

Above all, I needed to keep in mind that it wouldn’t matter what supplements I bought if I didn’t workout efficiently. It wouldn’t matter either if I didn’t eat and drink properly as well. This wouldn’t be a huge problem for me, since I already ate a somewhat balanced diet. The worst thing about my diet is that some days I ate cereal for two meals. Other than that, and the fact that I didn’t eat enough greens, my diet was okay enough…thinking about it more, my relatively young age could be helping me out a bit on this. I have a fast metabolism, which means what comes in comes out faster than most people. There was probably only a few years until I had to start paying attention to my diet more.

Moving back to the gym—another issue right now, other than lack of motivation or lack of a game plan, was that the gym was twenty minutes away from me. That was the caveat of it being ‘close to work’. Driving that far to workout seemed irresponsible to me. That would be forty minutes spent driving to workout for an hour. Would be even worse if I did cardio solely.

With that in mind, I thought of what I could do at home. There was that old ass treadmill in one of Michael’s other rooms. The same one with the PS5. That thing sounded like a washing machine when it was turned on, so it was automatically a no-go. It had to be about thirty years old. It only went up to about four miles per hour anyways, so nothing more could be done on it than a light jog, if even that. It wasn’t his, so I can only presume that Miss Landlord left it behind.

The road outside was an outside choice to go on a run on. There weren’t many people that drove on the road, which meant that the risk of being hit by a vehicle was next to none. The vehicles on the road went a max of twenty-five miles per hour anyways—plenty of time to get out of the way. It was an outside choice because of it technically being a public road. It also wasn’t the best-maintained road in the world. It was heavily uneven and went in a straight line, which meant that I would have to turn around every quarter mile. I would also have to hope that I don’t step into a pothole. The sad part is that it was the only place around where I could go on a run or a jog without getting potentially splattered across the pavement. The roads are too dangerous for my liking to walk on. Jogging’s never been my style anyway. At least not outside.

The only thing that saved me from having to seriously consider running on the road was that I also had a jump rope on the drawer adjacent to my TV. I could jump rope outside. When it comes to cardio, jump roping is quite possibly the best exercise time-wise. It does seem a bit silly to do, since jump roping is something you imagine kids doing, but there’s a reason why boxers and other athletes do it. It’s tiring as hell. If you aren’t careful, your shins and calves will be sore for the next week. Trust me.

Our driveway outside was a good enough place to jump rope. I know it’s better to do it on something like a wooden surface, but I don’t really care to jump on the back deck a thousand times. It isn’t built with the newest wood and I’d rather not have to have a reason for The Landlord to have an extended visit. So asphalt it is.

I was lying on my bed thinking all of this through. It was currently around 11 AM. I had a day off and had an uncontrollable urge to do something. Something else rather than sit in the house all day or decompose in bed. Usually, I spend up to twelve hours in bed on a day off. As I’ve gotten ‘older’, I’m less likely to spring up at random…there are times where I’m fully rested after only five or six hours of sleep, but those occasions are becoming rarer and rarer. More than often now, I find myself oversleeping. Waking up tired after thinking ‘hey, I can go back to bed–I have nothing to do today!’. It’s hard to help it, since laying down is the most comfortable position out there. Even more comfortable than sitting.

Laying in bed, I looked over to the other side of my room and eyed the jump rope that had been sitting there still for probably the whole year at this point. I wasn’t quite sure since this bedroom–the ‘Master Bedroom’ even though Michael pays three times what I pay in rent–was quite huge. Felt like you could get a first down rushing from one end to the other–for real though, it was like twenty feet from my head laying on a pillow to the 52-inch television on the other end. Somehow it was slightly too small for me to watch television, which was why I usually watched TV in the living room. It was a shame because other than the bed, the bedside counter, the TV, the huge ass dresser that held the TV and other stuff that The Landlord left behind (Apparently the dresser cost thousands of dollars because it was real wood. Bought years before she hit it big in the lottery. She seemed proud of it when she was talking to me about it during the home tour, but not proud enough of it to move it with her. Don’t blame her, the thing looks like it weighs two tons and would probably be a nightmare to ship to wherever in Hawaii her new house is.), and various things I’ve had lying around. If I had the resources to procure it, I could have a killer racing sim setup in there. I had half of it, but…I should really drop the issue. It’s been about a month since that incident.

Getting up, I walked to the other end of the room and grabbed the jump rope. As I expected, there was a layer of dust on it. Blowing on it only seemed to remove around half of it. Still enough to make me sneeze.

After going to my restroom to grab a paper towel to wipe off the jump rope, I laid it on my bed and went to my closet.

Theoretically, I already had the top on I was going to wear while jumping rope. It was a basic white tee. From Ralph Lauren mind you, but still a basic white tee, which was more than good enough for a home workout. Wearing pajama pants was less viable. I was in here to find some athletic shorts.

I had my athletic shorts located in either the third or fourth drawer down in the main cabinet. I changed them out only once a week, so I tended to forget where they were.

After opening up both drawers (it was the third drawer), I grabbed the first pair of athletic shorts I found. The ones I grabbed were silky. Almost like basketball shorts, but thankfully not going over my knees when put on. Taking my pajama pants off and the shorts on took no time.

I left before remembering that I was forgetting one thing–socks. I went back to my bed and grabbed the ones I wore yesterday. They were on top of the clothes pile that was almost big enough to be thrown in a washer.

With my jump rope in hand, and yesterday’s socks on my feet, I walked out to the kitchen to grab a bottle. Not like the one I took to work, but one smaller than that. I wasn’t going to be outside for that long. Not longer than thirty minutes, if that, so there was no need for anything more than 16 ounces.

There were many small bottles stuffed in one corner of the pantry. Not mine, and not Michael’s, since they were mostly plastered with logos of places local. I grabbed one that had ‘OCONEE MEMORIAL HOSPITAL’ on it. It would be dumb to think that The Landlord didn’t wash these before she last used them, but at the same time, this bottle looked like it hadn’t been used in a decade. A sheet of dust coated the the entirety of the exterior, which had to be washed before used.

Washing the bottle in the sink for a few seconds, I then dried both exterior and interior with a paper towel.

Shaking excess water drops from the bottle into the sink, I then opened the cabinet closest to it and grabbed a Liquid IV packet. Either the powder or the water could come first–this time I chose the powder since I already had it in hand.

While getting water from the sink would be faster, I walked a few steps to the refrigerator, where the water was filtered, and more importantly, colder. Twenty seconds later, I was done filling it up. All I had to do was shake it now.

Remembering to tighten the bottle before shaking (I’ve forgotten to and made a mess several times), I successfully didn’t spill any water on the kitchen floor. Jean would be proud of me–or at least be glad that I didn’t make her floor dirty. If there’s a dirty spot, she’ll find it, and she’ll clean everything until she’s satisfied, all while bitching to you about you not doing it. I think she enjoys cleaning, but also was annoyed at our (in her eyes) slavishness. You’d think she’d hire someone to clean the place if she cared that much.

Getting back on topic, I put the bottle down on the kitchen counter and began walking back to my room. I had forgotten one thing–my headphones.

There were many people I knew now. At work mostly, but out in public generally, that have wireless earbuds in. I imagine most of them have AirPods. I never cared to get them, because I never cared for wireless airpods anyway. Back when I was wearing the ten-dollar knockoff earbuds years ago, I was afraid they were going to fall off the whole time.

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At work, I had to split the difference and wear wired earphones at work. One ear in (usually the right), tucked under my work vest and into my pocket. To be quite honest, it wasn’t the best setup. While I didn’t care that much about looking antiquated, I did care about the mobility of my neck. The friction of the wire between two layers of fabric leads to it getting ‘stuck’ in place. It’s an experience most people have had if they’ve worn wired earphones in between a shirt and a jacket. I had to deal with it since the alternative was wireless earbuds.

As it was, I only wore earphones when I was in the back at work. Whenever I was busy boxing items up and getting them shipped out, I was able to have both earphones in. I was supposed to only have one in, but no one bothered to tell me to take one out–goes to show you what you can get away with when you do your job.

On the floor, I found it rather cumbersome to have an earphone in while working–having to take it off when assisting a customer because it’s difficult (and may seem quite rude) to pull out a phone only to pause it is rather irritating. The earbuds that came with my iPhone did have buttons on the wire to do that, but it’s hard to locate them when they’re in between two layers of clothing. There was also the neck-mobility issue. Overall, it felt ‘wrong’ to walk around work with one wired earphone in. Makes me wish I had wireless earbuds worth a damn.

Unlike with wireless earbuds, I was content with paying a lot for my wireless headphones–they won’t ever fall out of your ears like earphones! They blocked out a lot more noise, and had better audio quality than the earbuds that Apple gave you. Also didn’t short out like the Apple earphones sometimes did if you sweated too much into them–that was the main reason why I invested in wireless headphones in the first place. In my two years of having them, they’ve never let me down.

Enough mulling around. Time to go outside.

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On the driveway, I started doing some basic warmups to prepare my body for the deceptively intensive exercise that was jump roping. As a cardio exercise, it was the best bang for your buck calorically. I didn’t have the numbers with me, but it burned as many calories in fifteen minutes as cycling for an hour would. Only rowing came close to it when it came to burning calories. There’s a reason why you always see boxers jumping rope when training!

Using the aging carport to steady myself, I swung both my legs back and forth in a set of ten, first my right then my left. This was my ‘favorite’ warmup to do, since it was the one with the most immediate effect. Often, I did it at work as well if my legs were feeling sore. It was a great way to generate blood flow.

After that, I did some other non-descript swinging motions with my arms–to be quite honest, I had no idea if this was an effective warmup method. I was going through the motions, literally. Doing about thirty seconds of jumping jacks to finish my warmup, I was ready to jump rope.

There was an app that I used to time myself when jumping rope. It was called ‘Interval Timer’—pretty straight to the point on what it did. Of course, as with most apps, there was a ‘Premium’ feature, which would bypass all the ads and unlock ‘extra features’ for a simple cost of ten dollars a year. Ten dollars I wasn’t going to spend, because why the fuck would I? Everything I wanted to do with it was free, and the only ads that played were the ones that played once the timer ended. Needless to say, it was pointless to spend the ten dollar fee—I would rather use one on my phone browser at that point.

Funnily enough, ‘Interval Trainer’ was the only app that let me set up multiple programs without badgering for money, which was why I dealt with it in the first place. Since I haven’t used it recently, I had to update it before it opened.

Since stopwatch apps don’t have a lot to them data-wise, it took only about four seconds for it to update—it took longer to find where the icon was on my phone screen!

Opening the app, I was instantly taken to the menu where all of my past ‘routines’ were. Looking at it, it turns out that I used it for slightly more than originally thought. Looking at it, I had timers set up named: jump rope 1, jump rope 2, jump rope 15 min, rope pull, rope pull (same as last timer but two minutes longer), plank, side plank, treadmill, and ‘Simple timer’.

I had little idea what difference between the three jump rope options, other than the fact that one was fifteen minutes long and the others were around twenty-five minutes long. Wanting to not do too much on my ‘first time’, I clicked on ‘jump rope 15 min’.

Forgotten to me, ‘jump rope 15 min’ wasn’t shorter than the other because it was less intense–it was shorter because it was more intense. It had to be my idea of a HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) exercise, since (after thirty seconds of ‘warm up’) there were twenty sets of twelve seconds of ‘high intensity’ and thirty-two seconds of ‘low intensity’. I had probably set the timer amounts of high and low based on it amounting to fifteen minutes exact–too bad it still sat at fifteen minutes, ten seconds–guess I never thought or cared enough to shorten the warm up timer by ten seconds.

It was about set two when I realized what was going on–the dings to go hard seemed to last too short and the dings that told you to rest went on way too long. I wasn’t looking to go high-intensity for my first jump roping in a long time, so I had to call an audible.

After thinking about it for a few seconds, I came up with this: use the thirty or so seconds from the cooldown to do some light jump roping, and use the twelve seconds that were supposed to be used to go all out for my cooldowns. The opposite of how past me intended to use it, but it would have to be that way for now. I would start when the warm up timer started, so right when I started it.

With that in mind, I went ahead and got started with my jump roping.

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Fast forward fifteen minutes and ten seconds–what felt like an eternity to me to be quite honest. What I thought was ‘light jump roping’ was as intense as what regular jump roping would be.

Due to the rope moving slower, I had to bounce once in between hops in order to keep my rhythm. If I didn’t do it, then I found it was difficult to time the jumps good.

For the first three or so minutes, I had no trouble. I had timed my jumps wrong once or twice, but other than that, it was smooth sailing. It was so smooth that I found myself getting cocky and increasing my pace. In my defense, I was trying to work up a sweat, and until this point, I had not perspired at all.

From minute four or so on, I was increasingly in hell. While I did try to push myself, my mistakes make it impossible for me to jump rope any other way than slow. It was hard to get a sip of water in between reps–when I finished, I immediately gulped down the rest of the bottle.

In some of the last sets, I was in so poor form that about half of my reps were failed, leading me to look like a drunkard. Frustrating in one way, but at least I knew I was getting a workout.

I was stretching my leg muscles out–they were going to hurt tomorrow, no doubt about it. The even worse part was that they would hurt even more the day after that. Doing proper stretches would significantly lessen the soreness of my calf muscles, which were the main victims of me stomping my feet into concrete for fifteen minutes straight. It was recommended to jump rope on a lighter surface, but I hated the idea of jumping rope on grass, and as you already knew, the back porch was too risky to attempt to jump on.

I was told some time ago that thirty seconds is the minimum proper time needed to complete a stretch. Now, I would be a liar if I said I always stuck to that principle, but the way I see it, it’s good to stretch in the first place. Doing it properly just increases the rewards.

After a few minutes of stretching, I trundled back inside. Parched, I took my water bottle, filled it up with sink water, and gulped down two cups worth of it. It took twenty seconds to complete the task–if I had gone towards the better-filtered water from the fridge, the task would’ve taken a whole minute, which might as well be an eternity to a sweaty mess such as myself.

With two cups of water in me, I was rehydrated and ready to hop in the shower. I placed the bottle in the sink to wash later. The jump rope was placed on the kitchen counter as a reflex. I would grab it, but not now. There was no one to bitch at me about it being there, so I could take put it back at my discretion.

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Man, I’m really going through my teabags…

I was back in the kitchen for what seemed like the tenth time today to get some tea. I usually drank a lot of tea, but this much? I don’t know what was with me today.

If there was a reason, it was because I was worried for my genmates. They were having a live concert later tonight. It was about noon and I had been up since 4 AM. My sleep schedule is messed up. You know how it is when you never leave your room and all of that.

Since Violet, Ora, Kotori, and the others were all at the American corporate headquarters in LA, they would not have to worry a bit about how the stream looked. This concert was being streamed on the AnyClover EN official channel in about…uh, six hours from now? Sorry, I forgot the start time.

This night was very big for not only the girls and AnyClover—it was also big for the fans. Even mine, to a degree. I wasn’t streaming any today and already planned on live tweeting the entire concert, so anything coming from my mouth would be about that one thing.

Grabbing another black tea bag, I placed my cup under the coffee maker and started the ‘Hot Water’ mode. I don’t think I’ve drank a single cup of coffee from this coffee machine since I’ve moved here. We’ve had coffee the whole time–there was an assortment of pods organized next to where I put my tea stuff at. I remember The Landlord sounding slightly dejected when she saw that I hadn't touched any of it…almost made me feel bad. I think internally she was glad that I didn’t mess up the tidiness of her setup. She seems to be really OCD about that type of stuff.

Filling my cup up, I thought about the sacrifices the girls made to be able to perform tonight…well, to be perfectly honest, the only thing they lost was a lot of time. HOWEVER, they spent many weeks and months practicing singing, dancing, and in general preparing for tonight’s event.

Compared to me, I was doing nothing. Living a sedentary lifestyle and living the dream of being paid to play video games.

Don’t get it wrong—I loved what I did for a living, but I would be lying if it didn’t get a bit stale at times. Most days were the same: streaming, doing work related to future streams or merchandise, recording for voice packs, talking with my mane-san, playing games off-stream, watching anime, and so on. The commonality with all of these was that they could be completed on my computer. I don’t move around very much. I’m still skinny, but that doesn’t mean I’m unhealthy.

What I was trying to say was that I needed to start working out.

I had my Wii Fit gear in a closet, but I wasn’t talking about using that—unless if it was on stream. That would require me to find my Wii as well, which I didn’t want to do at the moment.

Turning to my left, I glanced at the sink. Fuck, I forgot to wash out my cup before refilling it. A rookie mistake–one that I do often admittedly. At least I threw my tea bag away before putting a new one in. That mistake was only made once a week.

In the sink was a beat-up clear water bottle with the word ‘HOSPITAL’ on the side. There were multiple bottles in the kitchen cabinets that came from a hospital close from here. It was simply lying there like it hadn’t been used yet. Beside it was what looked like a jump rope, which had one end dipping down into the sink. John wasn’t anywhere in sight, but this was his mess. I had no idea what he had planned, but it was none of my business, so I turned away…then I turned back.

Jumping rope…now that could be a good exercise. If my roommate was doing it, then it had to have some benefits. My roomie often did things that he thought of as ‘the most efficient’. He said that he’s ‘utilitarian’, which I assume meant the same thing.

Curious, I sat down my tea and picked up the jump rope.

At the endS it still felt warm, which implied that it was just used, not about to be used. That was all I needed to know to take it.

With my tea in one hand and rope in the other, it was time to slide some shoes on and go outside and jump rope. I had a T-shirt and inside shorts on, so there wasn’t a need to change.

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The ‘wash off’ turned into my regular shower…well, because it made sense. It was my first shower of the day after all.

For my showers, wash-off or regular, I tried to approach it by first starting out hot, then ending cold. Like how James Bond washed off. It was a good way to get the benefits of a cold shower without torturing yourself. At least the first few minutes of the shower feels good.

Getting out of the shower, I noticed that there was a faint repeating thud sound that was coming from outside. Not quite exactly a door knock, because it went on for about thirty seconds. If anything, it sounded like a hammer hitting a nail. Living out in these parts, you often have neighbors who built things on their day off. It sounded closer to me than most times I overheard building noises. I chalked it up to a frustrated carpenter letting out his anger. I mean, how many times do you need to hammer a nail?

After drying myself off and brushing my hair with my hands a few times, I put on some clothes. Some simple day-off clothes, just like the ones that I sweated through a few minutes prior. As I put my shirt on, the thud sound started again, and it was louder this time. It stopped after about five seconds, but it was noticeable. It felt like it was coming from our house. It was distracting enough for me to instinctively walk into the kitchen.

Upon entering the kitchen, I heard the thud sound once again, but only for about two seconds. It was not only much louder this time, but I was able to exactly pinpoint where it was coming from–it looked like it was coming from the porch outside.

Briskly walking to the back door, I opened it and saw Michael panting with my jump rope in his hand. He was almost doubled over at this point. I don’t know what had happened, but he had decided to jump rope as well it seems.

“What the hell…”

Michael was slow to respond, still trying to catch up on his breathing. Looking to the right, I noticed one of his tea cups on a shelf. Don’t tell me he tried to hydrate with tea…

“I…I never knew that jump rope was so hard…” Michael was finally able to speak in full sentences after around twenty seconds of panting.

“Now you know…” now that he was talking, it was time to ask him what was really on my mind, “did you jump on here the whole time?”

“On what?”

“Here.” Pointing down. I was wondering two things: Why the fuck was he doing jump rope on the back porch? Granted it was a ‘safer’ surface to jump on than concrete, but it was also way more likely to break underneath him. That was my fear anyway. My second question was how long had he been at it?

“A couple of minutes.” He walked towards his cup of tea and took a sip of it. It wasn’t going to hydrate him, but maybe at least it was lukewarm.

After he finished sipping, he continued, “This is fucking exhausting.”

Well, yeah, no shit. “So how long did you go for?”

“About ten minutes. ” He was still breathing hard, but he wasn’t panting anymore. He was wearing a white T-shirt and sweat shorts, which passed as workout wear–even though in reality it was his everyday wear.

To be honest, I didn’t want to be outside much longer. Not in this condition. I had just taken a shower, it would be bad if I started up a sweat immediately again. That and I had no plans on doing anything else outside today anyways.

“Let’s go inside.” I wanted to be back in the air-conditioned world. I’m sure Michael did as well.

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“So, I was going well for a few minutes, but then suddenly it got very hard. I was suddenly sweating and gasping for air. I didn’t want to take any breaks, but I found myself having to do so.”

Michael and I were in the kitchen inside. I had poured him a glass of water in one of the green cups. He had gulped the first sixteen ounces as if he was a fish, and had gotten himself another round.

“By halfway in, I was finding it hard to go for more than a few seconds. I tried to push myself, but it was hard to jump rope correctly.”

He was going hard. It didn’t take much, considering his otherwise sedentary lifestyle. I’m surprised he even went that far.

“So, how did you end up on the porch?” He still had not explained how he got there…

“I saw a car coming and got scared…”

“And you ran to the porch?”

“Well, yeah. I mean it’s the only place that can’t be spied on.”

“Uh huh.” He must have been panting hard at that point. Again, I’m surprised he continued after getting scared off.

“The only thing that’s bad about jumping on a wood deck is that it’s way louder than I expected it to be.”

The deck, which I could bet money on was built by Jean, wasn’t the most stout back porch out there. She would tell you that much—many times she has mentioned that the wood was in ‘poorer condition than advertised’. There’s also the fact that the deck isn’t ‘even’, meaning that some boards are higher than others. I thought that was normal, but to Jean, it isn’t, so it wasn’t. Funny how that works.

Another thing she kept talking about when on the deck was ‘composite wood’. Apparently, it’s a wood-plastic hybrid that’s much better than regular wood. She said that she has it ‘back home’. I’m sure one day she’ll decide to rebuild it, but I think she has the foresight to know that it would take a while for her to build it. For her sake, I hope she contracts a company to build it.

That being said, for a porch that was DIY, it was impressive. It was way longer than needed, which made me wonder why she went that far. Not worth asking because I’d get an answer and then some. The finish on it was wearing off, which I knew got on Jean’s nerves as well. Structurally, it was sound enough to hang out on. Jumping on it? Well, that was a whole other question.

“Yeah…I wouldn’t do that again if I were you.” The last thing we needed was for one of us to fall through the deck.

“Yeah, I won’t be doing that again…jump roping on the deck…” Michael took a second, then continued, “OR jump roping in general…”

“Why?” Well, other than that you’d have to steal mine to do it.

“Because it wore me out! I’m drained of energy now!” He was wearing all black, but it was still noticible how drenched his shirt was.

He had quite a workout, even if it was on the short side. He must have hated it. Which made it even more odd that he went to the point of jump roping on the porch. Personally, I would’ve considered throwing in the towel there. Or consider that not many cars pass by our road. Maybe about five per hour. I partially understand why Michael ran away, since being seen jump roping is a bit embarrassing. It looks childish. It’s a quite silly way to work out. But the thing is that it works. What Michael got confused with was the difficulty of it. Remembering as a kid, jump roping was taught in gym class for what seemed like an entire quarter. I was able to do some of the jump rope variations, but nothing close to being able to do every trick. I don’t remember it being as difficult when I was young, but then again that was almost twenty years ago at that point so how would I know.

Just when I was about to tell him to suck it up, I thought internally about the exercises I hate that were effective, like squats and deadlifts. It would be hypocritical to tell him to suck it up. There was also the chance he was being hyperbolic and just surprised by how gassed he is. I didn’t know, since this was the first time I’ve seen him work out.

I decided to be a hypocrite. Somewhat. “I mean, you can’t deny that it’s a good workout.” It was. Plain and simple. And unlike squats or deadlifts, the cons are much better.

“Yeah, I was somewhat kidding.”

He didn’t sound like he was kidding when he said that, but whatever.

*CRASH*

The sound, which came from the ice maker in the refrigerator, startled us both. It happened somewhat regularly, but it always caught me out when it happened. Must have caught Michael out too since he jumped as well.

“Well, I’m gonna go lay down.” I knew I had just gotten up a few hours ago, and also knew that sleeping after doing a cardio workout isn’t effective. That being said, part of me didn’t care. It wasn’t like I had eaten a gigantic breakfast—I hadn’t eaten anything yet, thinking about it.

“I think that’s what I’m going to do as well.” Michael chimed. I sure hoped he washed off before doing that. While I was prone to falling asleep without brushing my teeth, going to bed feeling sweaty and dirty was a huge no-no. Would make me feel like I was sleeping in someone else’s skin.

With that, both of us started walking away. When I went to open the door to my office, I heard, “Oh, and don’t forget that Violet’s concert tonight!” echoing from the hall leading to my roommate’s quarters. Shit, I actually forgot about that.

“Right…you wash off as well!” Needed to get that in there. All I got in response was a quick laugh.

“What’s so funny?”

He walked back into the kitchen, “Oh, nothing.” As if were mocking me, “It’s just–I never thought I would be caught with your pants down.”

At that moment I realized what he was chuckling about. Looking down at my undies, all I could mumble was “God damn it.”