Take five.

As I drove in for an early morning training session in the gym today, I marveled again at how very difficult it is to interfere with the complex machine that is our body. Before each session, I find myself getting apprehensive that my new trainer will push my right knee too far and that it will hurt more. His very rational explanation is that we can be successful at strengthening the muscles around the knee even if we can't fix the joint itself. So he's devised a couple of killer exercises for those muscles and for overall balance. I have decided to trust him.

Don't we always need ways to make things feel new? I find it helps me a lot if I can see the difference between now and the past. Toward that end, I've decided to invest in some new gym clothes, and to donate many old gym and walking clothes.

I've also started to map my train routes a little more closely for April. This is going to be a great adventure, and I am resisting impulses to regiment or organize or overplan it into the ground. I found out today that the first weekend of the New Orleans Jazz Festival features Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra as well as the Dave Matthews Band, James Taylor, Joe Cocker, and Earth Wind & Fire, among others. It looks like I'll stay all three days so as not to miss a bit.