I got up out of bed, dressed myself, hopped into the car with as much enthusiasm as I could muster, and drove. I got there, walked in, swiped my card and hit the locker room. In there, I could hear her voice. It was usually much more mellow in yoga, but Maggie was teaching a step aerobics class at this time of day. I locked up and plugged the buds into my ears. A couple deep breaths and I walked out into the open gym. I glanced around and saw my destination. Most people choose equipment they enjoy to use, is easy to use, or is at least open. Not me, I chose this one because I find it easiest for testing theories [...but whatcha gonna do when everyone goes on without you...]. I headed straight for the treadmill, the one next to the guy who seemed less abrasive as a human being [...he said this is a Mecca, I said: "This ain't no mecca, man, this place is fucked"...]. I stepped up and hit "Quick Start", and increased the volume [mmhhhmmmm mhhmmm ...]. I started warming up first, it's difficult to go straight to the testing without at least getting my heart rate up [almost heaven, west Jamaica...]. I people watched while I warmed up, stepping with the beat of Country Roads by Toots and the Maytals [..son you remind me of my home far away...]. I must have smelled bad, the guy next to me left, good, less adjacent footfalls to mess with my experiment! Good, Monkey Man is on, lets kick this puppy up a notch [...tell you baby, huggin up the big monkey man...]!
It's at this point that I chuckle to myself. I am probably the only person in this gym to try and estimate the footfalls required to match the harmonic frequency of a treadmill! I changed my step and pace a few times. Heavier, further apart footfalls seemed good [...black coat, white shoes, blackhat, cadillac...]. It was time to up the pace to a jog, after all Rancid was in full effect, my body needed to move faster! One click of the up button at a time, I used my heaviest allowable footfall with no luck [...the boy's a time bomb...]. Ah, I hit it, the sweet spot. The treadmill quivered with excitement, I was at 4.9 miles per hour. I decreased my heavy footfall to a lighter one and it stopped; so back to the heavy footfall I thought [...dying to see the light, and when they see it, they see it's not bright...]. I slowed the machine back down and increased my footfalls with a lighter step. I messed with various speeds between 2.5 and 3.5 miles per hour, she was a stable machine! I kept her here while I people watched and saw a man torturing a woman, and continued to fall in love with Tim Armstrong [...on the outside looking in wit the freaks and the thugs and all the punk rockers...]. I lost myself in thought thinking of boys like Tim Armstrong, laughing a little bit out loud so that I got a few looks [...then one day Matt says let's get the band together let's do this one more time...]. Oh well, enough of boys in hats and braces, back to work sister (good timing the song changed, my body
needed to move, and I needed to get the drool off my face)!
Up the speed, back to my 4.9 [...she asked me if I would stand at her side, like glue that I would 'til the end of the night...]. Excitement everywhere [...she put her head on my shoulder, I started to hold her, swingin' and swayin', the mornin' began...]!
It was my experiment, so I changed footfalls a few times and dropped to 4.7 and up to 5.3. With lighter steps I needed to be up near 5.1, if I went back to heavy I could keep her at 4.9! It was a good experiment, going exactly as I had suspected [...rollin' deep, coming up, not asleep, waking up, got a light? smoke it up, Zig Zag, roll it up...]!
I was starting to get tired and was at least halfway through my 30 minute experiment. I felt parched, as though sand were going to pour out of my mouth at any minute. I'm sure I looked silly in my attire, but I didn't care, I was here with a purpose! I tried a couple more times [...reggae got soul...]...[give 'em the boot, the roots the radicals]...laughing, radicals, math, me, harmonic frequencies, stares! I was beat, I hit stop, stepped off, grabbed the goo to wipe her down and wobbled back to my stuff. My experiment was over. Thank God, my experiment was over!
