The president of the Vall d’Hebron volleyball club – the largest volleyball club in all of Spain and the club with whom I have played for the past four years – called me the other day to see if I was interested in returning to the team this year. I didn’t know what to say.

I love playing volleyball, being forced to work out on a regular basis, and hanging out with the guys on the team, but the matches are on the weekends and they sometimes clash with rehearsals for the plays that I direct with my theatre company. Since I’m the boss, I can usually juggle the rehearsal schedule, but I inevitably have to miss a few games.

Over the years, I have proven my ability to be on the starting roster for the team but, because I have had to miss some high profile matches, I have also earned the reputation of being someone who can’t always be counted on when game time rolls around. I don’t want to mess them around, but I don’t want to give up either of these things either.

So I told the president that I would be there this Tuesday night for the first meeting of the year / first practice / try-outs. I’m pretty much guaranteed a spot on the team if I want it. I figure I’ll start with the team as usual and, if anything huge pops up in the theatre world, I’ll tell the team right away and then continue to train with them during the week but not play on the weekends. That would be easier than telling them “no” now and then maybe trying to get back on the team later.

I quickly realized that I hadn’t participated in any serious physical activity since the end of the last season in May. I think I actually heard my muscles atrophying while I was in Edinburgh. So, when Jan woke me up at noon today to tell me that she was going to the gym, I jumped up and told her that I’d join her. I don’t have a membership to her gym, but when I asked the girl at the front desk if I could pretty-please just work out with the machines for an hour, her heart melted and let me sneak in without paying the 9€ single-day fee.

The gym was packed full of people. While I was on the “Lat Pulldown” machine, I started to think how cool it would be if there was a gym that generated all of its needed power from generators attached to all of the exercise equipment. Wouldn’t that rock? Exercise bikes, stair masters, rowing machines, bench presses, and lat pulldowns powering lights, televisions, fans, and drink machines. I was so excited with this stroke of genius that I Googled the idea when I got home in preparation for my patent application. Wouldn’t you know it… someone beat me to it. Someone else actually pointed out that “having a gym of say 40 Olympians all pedaling at top efficiency for a full hour would yield a revenue stream of less than $1.” I was dumbfounded. I was also doing too many lat pulldowns with too much weight. I’m gonna be sore tomorrow night!