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I have just spent the last three hours reading nonfiction books on fitness and health. I have fiction books languishing on my reading pile, but when we, my husband Jon and I, went to the bookstore for two things we bought more books. We usually do, but neither of us bought fiction. My rule is that I have to read at least one book off my reading pile before I buy something new. It seems reasonable, but I make an exception to the rule for research for my own writing and things that will help us live better, eat smarter, or workout more productively, so that’s what we bought. We also have one gun magazine, Newsweek, and a photography magazine that sparked an idea for another blog. We also bought DVDs of TV shows. We bought no movies and no fiction. That was weird enough, but that I have been happily puttering, making notes on sticky notes, underlining phrases, and making margin notes to double check the science later, for three hours in all those nonfiction books surprised me.

When did I stop reading other people’s fiction? For me, reading fiction seems to hit many of the same areas of the brain as writing my own. Since I write anywhere from forty to a hundred hours a week on my own writing, that part of my brain gets a serious workout. It’s tired by the end of the week and wants to do something else. So, I read nonfiction, I research for my fiction in nonfiction, and I watch TV shows that I missed the first time around because I was too busy working. When none of the above appeals I get physical.

The things that relax me have all become physical, or nonfictional. A friend sent me one of those on-line questionnaires, you know the ones: What Dog are you? What Firefly character are you? This one was What D & D character are you? Yes, I did play when I was younger and had more time, but I found that role playing games also use the same part of the brain that my writing uses, so it was like working, not playing to me. But one of the questions on the list asked: Which would you rather do for two hours, or enjoy doing for two hours? Choices A through D included read a book for two hours, or go to the gym for two hours. I answered truthfully, I’d rather go to the gym.

When did this happen? When did I go from being a bookish nerd to a gym rat? I felt like I’d betrayed my people. But I spend so much time at a desk writing either for my own fiction, or for blogs, or emails, or twitter, or Facebook, that when I have leisure time I want to get up and move my body. This new change means I’ve gone from a size fourteen to a size eight in jeans. It means my back no longer aches constantly from all the desk time. It means I’m now in better shape than I was five years ago. I’m healthier, happier, with the most cheerful moods I’ve ever had, which means a lot of the moodiness of my twenties might have been fixable with enough gym time. Who knew?

It’s all such good stuff. I love my life, my husband, my body. My teenage daughter told me last week, “You have great legs, Mom.” How cool is that? But with all the positive I am still left with a nagging sensation that I’ve gone over to the enemy. That I’ve suddenly become the athletic kids that used to make the bookworm me feel so uncomfortable in high school. I’m not sleeping with the enemy, I am the enemy. I am that woman at lunch that gets the salad and makes you feel guilty because she’s not having that high fat, high calorie, sandwich. I don’t tell you about my exercise routine like it’s a new religion, or try to force feed you my nutrition plan, and I’m not perfect on it by any means, but I’d rather get on the treadmill or lift weights than read. I can talk for hours on fitness and health and be genuinely interested when I meet another kindred spirit. I also owe an apology to all the exercise loving people. I used to assume that you lived in your bodies because your mind wasn’t a deep thinking sort of place, now I know you can actually have a healthy body, and a good mind. Again, who knew? In fact, I’ve made a close friend that I can actually spend hours talking about exercise, fitness, and healthy eating, or books, music, science, and the latest funny thing on the Internet. My apologies to all the people that I thought were too pretty, too perfect, over the years to have a serious conversation with, I may have missed out on some really wonderful friends. But I was still stuck in that high school mentality that I was the other kind of kid, the one that read a lot, and wanted to be a writer, and sucked at sports.

I never thought there was a way of crossing the great divide between bookworm and gym rat. Maybe I can have my books, and some kick ass biceps, too?