"They say that you don't need to be intimidated by anyone. 'We all put our pants on one leg at a time.' Or something like that. I appreciate the sentiment, but it just simply isn't true. Case in point: I dress both legs at once. They also say, 'Necessity is the mother of invention.' I sleep four feet off the carpet on a platform of two-by-fours. Leaves room for underbed storage. Two levels worth, in fact. I reside in a 3rd floor walk-up studio. Not much space for excessive...anything. As if I wanted to carry excessive stuff up that many stairs.
Anyway, when the alarm goes off, I fling an arm to my handy dresser and tug a drawer out to rest near the comforter. I flop, fish-like, into clean underwear and then open another drawer, this one near the ruffle. (Jeans on the left, for most days. Dress pants on the right, for days when I've gotten out of bed and turned the light on because I actually care what color they are.) I haul my torso upright, pushing feet at the waistband and sliding the cuffs to knee height. Like a kid at the park, I slide off the edge - into my pants and to a standing finish.
(Except some days it's more like a kid at the pool. You know, the one who has to be rescued by the lifeguard because he forgot that the water is only three feet deep and still has his legs in the air and panicked at the thought of his imminent death by drowning. Some days my feet get caught on the dresser and I find myself flailing ineffectually as gravity wedges me in a V between my two levels of underbed storage and the too-handy dresser.)
Lastly, I bend down to the bottom drawer of tshirts. While there, I carefully touch each pinky toe twice. This, I am confident, counts as exercise. I unfold, arms overhead, dropping the shirt on as I stretch. Now I am ready for the day.
And when I meet someone new, I will not be intimidated. They, after all, put their pants on one leg at a time."
~Stick to it!
