I haven't been doing any writing, I admit. However, I think I might have the best possible excuse.

Last week, I decided to do the one thing I'd been putting off forever--no, not removing the colony of unidentifiable life forms from my refrigerator, though I need to do that too. In short, I've taken advantage of a special program for low-income people and joined the "Y".

Why the "Y"? (Hee hee). Allow me to elucidate.

When I was in college, I remember reading a short story by E.M. Forster called "The Machine Stops." It tells of a society so technologically advanced that machines take care of every need. No one need move, as the machine did it all--dressing people, bathing them, and so on. This, of course, reduced humanity to a race of pale amorphous blobs unable to move a muscle on their own--and too afraid of direct experience, because they view their world filtered through their video screens. (Prescient, that.)

I bring it up because after years of using a wheelchair exclusively, I've become much like the characters in that story. And I want to do again what once came so easily to me. What I once did everywhere imaginable, even up and down the streets of Europe (no, not that--I'm trying to keep this blog at least PG-rated.) Namely, to walk on crutches.

Now, this is far from my first attempt. I've tried on at least four separate occasions since 2009 to become a pedestrian again, only to backslide later once Medicaid stopped paying for the therapy. My most successful attempt to date was in 2011-12, having reached the milestone of being able to walk three hundred feet nonstop. My mother's death, however, derailed that effort, while poor winter weather sidelined last year's. (I couldn't travel through the ice and snow to the town of Neenah and Theda Clark Hospital, where the therapy was taking place.)

This time, however, is different, if only because I've eliminated any possible excuse. The YMCA is at most a half-mile trip for me, a breeze in a motorized chair. It should be possible, also, to make it there in all but the worst Wisconsin winters.

Not to mention that unlike physical therapy, which takes place two days a week if I'm lucky, I can avail myself of this place's facilities every day if I choose.

As to the equipment, I'm using what's known as a NuStep--a sort of recumbent bicycle. I use it rather than a stationary bike because the foot plates make it harder for my very stiff, very cerebral-palsied feet to slip off. Since then, I've determined the following:

One, twenty minutes on that thing seems to equate to about an hour's worth of crutch-walking, and two, I'm thoroughly convinced hell must be filled with them. I didn't know my body was capable of sweating that much.

However, there's one thing that could send this effort to get in shape to the scrap pile with all my other failed tries. The cerebral palsy gets in the way, in a manner I never anticipated.

For starters, I don't sit precisely straight. Thanks to a rather severe spinal curvature, I tend to favor my left side. Therefore, my legs tend to flop over toward the opposite direction when I put my feet on the pedals--a "windswept" posture, to use one of my therapist's terms. Of course, since that's a sign of weak abductor (or is it adductor?) muscles, maybe that'll change once I do it for a while. For now, however, it's all I can do to keep my knees from colliding with various parts of the machine as I try to exercise. I'm as exhausted, then, from the struggle to keep my legs in a more or less straight line as I am from the workout itself.

It makes me wonder if workout equipment exists which takes the physical peculiarities of CP people into account. If there isn't, there really ought to be.

If nothing else, my ego is getting some serious strokes. Either the staff is exceedingly polite, or I appear to pass, as the coach who gave me the grand tour of the place (a woman) unhesitatingly led me to the rooms where various "women-only" classes are held. Whether I'll join them is open to question,as I'm there to get my body in shape, not shake up the social order. All in takes is one woman to object to my presence, after all, and I get the sort of attention I never wished for when I began this venture. I prefer to pick my battles.

Rest assured all of you will be informed of my progress as I go along--assuming that the various obstacles can be worked around, if not overcome.