I started my exercise regime and changed the dressing on my arm (after a shower and shampoo- mustn’t get it wet, though). New routine, for three weeks. Twenty-seven days makes a habit - I think I read that in AA rules. So I’ll be short of a habit. Define habit (I’ll skip the clothes):

habit noun

1 a settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up: he has an annoying habit of interrupting me | good eating habits | [ mass noun ] : we stayed together out of habit. • informal an addictive practice, especially one of taking drugs: a cocaine habit. ..Psychology an automatic reaction to a specific situation.

PHRASES break (or informal kick) the habit stop engaging in a habitual practice. trying to break the habit increases the compulsion. YOU THINK?

ORIGIN Middle English: from Old French abit, habit, from Latin habitus ‘condition, appearance’, from habere ‘have, consist of’. The term originally meant ‘dress, attire’, later coming to denote physical or mental constitution.

We’re all victims of habit, not to say addiction. It seems to me I’ve been fighting addictions of greater or lesser strength all my life: doughnuts, pies, pastry, chocolate. I’ve beat them all, except chocolate. (Dark chocolate is supposed to be good for you.) Cigarettes, too - I stopped smoking after I read the first report from the Surgeon General (USA) before all these support things. I used to say, after I quit smoking and after I hadn’t eaten pie or doughnuts for many years, that if I lived long enough I’d be perfect. I’m not going to live that long, of course. St. Augustine said, “We do not leave our sins; our sins leave us.”

As I get older (and older) that seems to be true. But I’m not good, I’m just lazy.

Well, tomorrow is another day. Who knows what challenges await?

I’s early, 23 minuets after 6 in the morning and I’m not in the pool. I’Ve been puttering for hours, not useful puttering, just my digital dailies of the NYT and the Manchester Guardian that not only wake me up but upset me. I’ve had tea, then a Mandarin orange, and then a soft-boiled egg and now coffee. Soon I will be sleepy-tired enough to go back to bed.

I’ve been barred from the pool for three weeks. I had another thing excised, this time from my upper arm, and while the wound heals and I’m waiting for the results of a biopsy, I must not swim. Not only annoying, but quite disruptive of my routine. I think I must go to the gym regularly now. I was beginning to, for the fall season but now it’s an imperative. Have you heard of sarcopenia? (From a digital daily - might have been Jane Brody in the NYT.) It’s muscle loss after the age of 50. It was previously thought irreversible but new experts say not.

Now is my chance to search out senior exercises to reverse (?) my sarcopenia. I wonder if I can find a fitness trainer who specializes in seniors. And maybe get a new can-opener.