When in Rome

Author's Note

I wouldn't really want the future to be as described here. I like eating too much. I also like biking, roller skating, and going for long walks around town. I like staying active. And I've been a lot more active of late; this season of competitive roller derby has really upped the ante on metabolic and strength conditioning. Coach says we'll be grateful for it when tournament time comes around and we have to play two, three, maybe even four bouts in a single day. Meanwhile I'm exhausted after practice and ravenous all the time. Good thing I like to eat.

But I grew up a bookworm and computer nerd, a sedentary geek who hated being forced to play sports during the school physical education period. That part of me didn't go away just because I learned to embrace the term "athlete" in my late 30s. It's still there, and it would love to just sit around all day, reading or writing or knitting or playing video games or just taking cat-naps in the sun. How wonderful if all my body's physical needs could be met just by sitting in the sun!

The trick is convincing those two parts of me that they can coexist in the same body, each getting what they need without undue cost to the other. It's not exactly like trying to coax two sisters of very different temperaments, like the two in this story, into getting along, but it's like enough that I really do sympathize with their mom.

Cover art credits: "Carving Set by Match Pewter" by Flickr user Didriks (CC BY 2.0)