Until a few months ago, I climbed out of my recliner and into the world 2-3 times weekly, perhaps for a picnic in the park, art at a gallery or museum, or just a bus ride to wherever, and then I’d step off and go for a walk.
All that’s mostly fallen from the agenda, due to laziness and lethargy. Lately my life is in the recliner, surfing the web and watching old movies. Twice monthly I leave home for breakfast with the family, and once monthly for a bus jaunt to the bank, because the landlord accepts only cash for the rent. Other than that, I’m in the recliner up to twelve hours at a time, and no longer the fine physical specimen I never was in the first place.
I almost never go shopping; groceries are delivered. I don’t even get up to pee; I aim into peanut-butter jars, and empty them in the toilet when I take a dump or a shower or get some food from the kitchen.
On Sunday, a very, very rare social event got me dressed and out in the world, and it was difficult. My chest hurt so much I wondered if I’d had a heart attack. From the pain’s subsequent behavior, seems more likely I pulled a muscle in my chest, but days later it still hurts, and it ain’t good that a blubbery old man could pull a chest muscle just walking half a block to a bus stop.
I have therefore vowed to return to a long-ago habit of walking half a mile first thing every morning, and set a daily alarm to remind me, at 7AM, starting on Monday.
On Monday, though, when the alarm went off, I did not walk half a mile. I didn’t walk anywhere except into the kitchen to zap a microwave pizza for breakfast. Even that short walk left me breathing like an obscene call, and my legs felt more rubbery than the pizza after it dinged. Worried, I waddled back to my recliner and ate the pizza, and promised myself I’d start daily walks on Tuesday.
On Tuesday, the take-a-walk alarm sounded, and I meant to walk, honest. First, though, I took a shorter walk to the toilet, to sit and shit. The poop took some effort and a grunt to squeeze out, which left me strangely light-headed. Too precarious to stand, I stayed seated on the porcelain for nearly 15 minutes after the poop, afraid that if I stood I might tumble to the linoleum.
Eventually, pushing on grip bars so kindly provided by the landlord, I stood and remained standing, but dizzy. Very cautiously I made my way back to my room and recliner, and knew there’d be no walk on Tuesday, either.
I remained lightheaded and worried in my recliner, but a few hours later came a fever — which was the best news of the day. I’d been thinking stroke, heart attack, or just chronic wasting disease — you know, something serious. But lightheadedness plus a fever means I’m sick, that’s all, and virtually every time I’ve ever been sick, I’ve gotten better.
So, yay, I’ll be getting better (unless this time, I don’t).
Made chicken soup from a can, ate it with some aspirin to break the fever, and pretty soon I was feeling human. Levelheaded instead of lightheaded, I decided there’d be no further weaseling, I would definitely have a walk on Wednesday morning.
Overnight I slept delirious, with shivers and sweats from the illness, which I’m amateur-diagnosing as my second bout of COVID. My protection has lapsed, because Trump is president so vaccines are no longer available unless you’re insured or have a few hundred dollars to spare. I’m neither.
My dreams were fitful and strange, and between dreams, my thoughts scooted sideways instead of progressing linearly. Even wide-awake after a nightmare, surfing the net for news, every article had winged ping-pong balls floating over the screen. The illusions and delusions have to be short-term, please. If my brain stays slippery long-term, reading and writing would be over for me.
The alarm went off, and I was ready to walk, but for safety’s sake, it wouldn’t be my formerly-usual half-mile walk. Half a mile seemed likely to kill me, and also the sidewalks in this quiet neighborhood are too deserted; I wanted to walk among people, so’s someone could help me to my feet if I collapsed. My plan, then, was to ride the bus to the end of the line, the Burien Transit Center. There are plenty of people and plenty of benches there. And ooh, that sentence both begins and ends with ‘there’.
Even getting dressed left me short of breath, but I pushed myself out the door. Across the street, a jolt of wind reminded me that I’d forgotten to either wear or pack my jacket; I was wrapped only in a t-shirt and sweatpants and shoes, my uniform everywhere I go. Debated returning to the house, to my room, to get the jacket, but that would waste so many footsteps and even pit me against a staircase, and I already wasn’t sure I could do this. It felt about 50°, workable in a t-shirt. Fingers crossed.
Halfway to the bus stop I was already low on oomph, and rested against a neighbor’s retaining wall. After crossing a second street, the last twenty steps to the stop are up a slight hill, which had become Mount McKinley. The walk from home to the bus stop usually takes three minutes; I’d allowed ten, and the bus arrived just as I did.
Sometimes drivers ‘kneel’ the bus for me, and this driver did, which made the one step up an inch and a half instead of several. Found a seat, and breathed heavy for half the rest of the way, but after that it was a bus ride, like any other. I looked out the window. My thoughts weren’t even hazy, and I wrote notes that are coherent to me hours later, which means, hooray, my mind still works.
I’ve ridden the bus to the Burien Transit Center thousands of times, but this was the first time the depot was my only destination. Stepped off the bus, walked slowly for a few minutes, then sat on a bench. When I’d rested enough, I walked again. Walk, bench, walk, bench. Morning rush hour meant there weren’t as many empty seats on the depot’s few benches, so sometimes I had to lean.
On one of my longer walks at the depot, I became exhausted and, benchless, leaned on a garbage can, last emptied circa May, maybe May of 2024. The stink made me retch and cough, and I horked up a puddle of yellow phlegm, and breathed better after that.
A bench slot became unoccupied, and I sat facing the morning sun, which warmed me like cocoa. Strengthened, I was able to walk twenty, then thirty steps without needing a rest, before coming back to my sunny bench. Very therapeutic.
After half an hour of walk & bench, my bus for home came, and at home I felt stronger than when I started. Five steps up to the porch and front door were difficult, but I had taken a morning walk. Cue the Olympic theme.
Yeah, I should see a doctor, and even without insurance I could afford it — one office visit, that is, with one MD. But my shortness of breath, wooziness, weakness, and sometimes inability to think in a straight line doesn’t seem like a problem one doctor-visit will solve, so I won’t even mention it. If I did, the doctor would spend the rest of the appointment telling me I’m fat and need to lose weight, and then refer me to a specialist I can’t afford, and order a battery of tests I also can’t afford, so there’ll be no doctoring over any of this. Affordable health care is a myth, and anyway, America’s always wanted me dead.
Instead I will cure myself. The take-a-walk alarm will sound daily at 7AM, and I’ll eat more bananas and chicken soup, less pizza, and take three aspirin every time the fever comes back, and remember to wear my jacket when it’s cold. Dr Doug’s orders.
9/24/2025
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