Public nudity and exhaustion

Another area in which my life will change in some way is that I'm going to have to start getting ready for work half of my days at the gym instead of at home. It's not something I look forward to—not because of the showering in public, but because, well, a few reasons. The main one, though, is simple—I tend to get ready for the day pretty slowly, and it will be comparatively awkward having to take all of my various toiletries with me. I always hate that so much when I'm staying in a foreign place (back in Nebraska, camping, whatever). I'm a guy who likes to keep things arranged in a very exact way, and it makes me a bit uncomfortable when I have to pack them in a bag or case and use them in a strange place. Just another one of those obsessive-compulsive tendencies.

Of course, I don't have to shower and get ready there, but if I shower and prepare at home, that's an extra 15 minutes or so of driving time and 50¢ of gas, which isn't much but adds up over time. The best trainer appointment I could manage was 10:00 in the morning, which means I'll be getting into work pretty darned late as it is; 15 extra minutes is noticeable.

But hey, I'll adapt. I'm not exactly the first person to have to deal with this sort of problem. Maybe in the end this change will be good for me too. Maybe in the end, it will encourage me to get ready for the day faster. No more sleeping in (well, getting up in time to wash my face, put in contacts, and get to the gym by 10 isn't exactly "sleeping in" anyway), and no more wasting time in the morning. Maybe it will help me to focus a little bit once I get used to it. Right now, I tend to get up, read all of my email, respond to email, and sometimes more stuff before I even get into the shower. I could probably stand to be less responsive to email, actually. I'm much better about it than most everyone else I work with, and in all honesty it's probably a waste of my time. I should just forget about mail until noon, when it's difficult to stay focused on a more mentally challenging task anyway.

The downside to it all is that I'll be getting in to work later than I do already, which will extend out my evenings, so I'll be eating at work more often, or returning to work after dinner more often. I prefer to work out much later in the night, but the trainers don't work in the evenings, so I didn't have much of a choice. So in the end, the effect on my schedule might not be too dramatic. Instead of working out at night, I'll do it in the morning, and I can work a little bit more later at night to offset the time lost in the mornings. That might end up making me more productive in the end. (I always feel so depressed and exhausted after working out, so I'm reluctant to work out in the mornings and start the day off like that, but that feeling is diminished somewhat when I'm exercising very regularly, so maybe it will be okay.)

Oh well. I've got six months to figure something out, and when that's all over and I no longer have a trainer, I can shift my schedule around and work out whenever I want once again. Even if it sucks, I can learn to live with it for six months.