Tag Archives: gym

Slapstick at the gym, starring me

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Ok, I have not kept up with my gym routine.  But this week I resolved to get back into shape (a pear with rhombus accents).  So I spent two days getting psyched and yesterday I went to the gym. 

First, I have to say in my defense that I am sleepwalking most mornings before 10am so while I thought I was packing a gym “outfit”, I was, in fact, packing a gym “misfit”.

I am in the locker room and to my horror I discover that I packed running tights that go down just below my knees and are form-fitting.  Two things to note — since Labor Day, I can’t remember when I shaved my legs, and if form-fitting looked good on me, I wouldn’t need to go to the gym.  I soldiered on and experienced the unpleasant sensation of my butt touching the backs of my legs and creeping around my body to engulf my hips.  If you are eating while you read this, please stop one or the other.

I have a geeky t-shirt that stops at my waist making “my look” particularly unattractive.  If my skin were pasty, I would have won the Woody Allen female impersonator award.  Not pretty a pretty sight at all.

Nevertheless, boldly, I go upstairs amid the lovely, the young and the buff and claim rights to a Stairmaster.  Not the easy pedal kind, but the full-on steps.  I am going to do 30 minutes no matter what.

After 5 minutes I think I will die.  Then I decide that I should have turned on my iPod that is lying on the tray all tangled.  I am trying to untangle the iPod, while on Stairmaster and wearing bi-focals.  Well that lasted for less than a second because I am crumpled on the ground having banged my head.  Buff, beautiful and thin people come over, offering helpful excuses like, did you have a seizure?  Did you have a drink before going on Stairmaster?  Have you eaten?  No, in fact, multi-tasking on a Stairmaster when you are a klutz AND you are wearing bi-focals is stupid, but not an illness recognized by the medical community or any support group known to me.

Bruised, but undaunted, I return to the Stairmaster to conquer this beast.  I start the program over AND I up the level from 5 to 6.  I’ll show the machine who is boss.  I make sure to put my ear phones in first.  But after 5 minutes, I am ready to collapse.  I decide it is time to email my college friends to catch up.  At some point I knocked my ear phones out while thumbing a message on my blackberry.  Ah!! Another trick, you dangerous and mean Stairmaster!! You want me to retrieve my ear phones so that I can fall off again.  No, I say, NO!!!  I will not succumb to your evil tricks!! The ear phones are not near any mechanism.  I WILL CONTINUE FOR 30 MINUTES AND MY FORM FITTING OUTFIT WILL LOOK BETTER FOR IT!!

I spend the next 20 minutes on Stairmaster looking at the closed captioning on the TV screens (the bifocals did come in handy, or seemed to, anyway).  I am bored out of my mind.  But I am determined to burn 200 calories and climb over 2 miles.  I even do the 1.5 minute warm down after the 30 minutes are over.  Take THAT, you evil machine.

Triumphant, I walk around the gym floor looking at other tortures waiting to be vanquished.  Then I catch sight of my gym stalker in the mirror — that middle-aged gray haired lady getting a little thick around the middle.   You remember, the one who looks suspiciously like my mother.  I sigh.  My reflection and I have had enough of the gym for today.  We go home together.

But there is always tomorrow . . . . . .

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Lucy and Ethel go to the Gym

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Some days you wake up feeling like a Mack truck has run over you.  Today was that day for me.

But my sister wanted to go to the gym today and do weight exercises because, she conveniently slipped into the conversation, she had been in the ER yesterday and has a stress fracture in her foot, is using a cane and wears one of those ugly, sling-like shoes (I guess the word, “ugly” was redundant).  I told her even if the shoe was comfortable and resembled an Easy Spirit style for one’s tenth decade, it was not a fashion statement she wanted to make.  My sister need diversion and so I dragged my sorry self out of bed and away from my son who was watching less violent cartoons (must be something about Sundays).  I had a sense of an on-coming migraine, but it is my sister and she was in the ER alone the day before.  Anyway, migraine pills are always at the ready.

We both belong to a wheelchair accessible gym but you have to go outside and up a ramp to get to the elevator which doesn’t go to every floor.  Ok, so like most things in life the advertising is better than the product. My sister hobbled up and skied down the stairs (the latter was scary because my sister is no Picabo Street).  Here is a picture of the latest sporty ambulatory footwear (some day I will master the reformatting of a picture but for now, please turn your head sideways, thanks):

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My sister plans on a whopping twenty minutes at the gym.  I channel my old trainer and yell “thrust the bust!!”, “breasts out!!” and other crazy things that only a perky 20-something can say to a 40-something person.  My sister laughed too much and ruined her posture while using the weight machines.  And I sounded like a moron.  But I got into it and kept yelling, “breathe IN, breathe OUT”.  Another episode of “Ethel and Lucy Go to the Gym” but without the laugh track.

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Random Thoughts

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I realized that I was talking to someone on her cell while she was in the office bathroom.  I heard people talking and flushing.  I need to sterilize my ear.

I am for universal health care coverage, but I will not pay for hearing aids or ocular implants for people who blast music in their ears.  Especially on my subway car.

I saw a man standing just outside the employees entrance at a funeral home looking at the traffic going by.  Was he waiting for something to happen?

My partner promised to handle a matter but left my cell phone number.  Lesbian merger or dumping it back into my court?

How nice do I really have to be?

Would I get away with driving a person off a bridge if I promise to devote my life to public service (even though that wasn’t the quid pro quo for Teddy)?

If a bald, portly nerdy guy doesn’t see that he is lucky to have the girlfriend he has, will a baseball bat knock sense into him?

How come men think they are way better looking and way more desirable than they really are?

If you are blasting Karla Bonoff or The Pousette Dart Band and dancing around thinking you are cool, should you be entitled to social security benefits out of pity?

Did Sarah Palin drop off the face of the earth or was that just a fantasy I had?

Does Dick Cheney sometimes crawl back into his secret bunker for old time’s sake?

Do I have to go to the gym or can I imagine just how gross it is?

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Repeat after me

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I ran into my sister at the gym.  She and I spoke during the day, so she asked, “how was the rest of your afternoon?” I started to tell her about my son’s day at camp (see other blog entry) and she said, “Yeah, I know, I read your blog.”  I am repeating myself before I open my mouth.  Then, I looked around the locker room and she asked, “are you feeling a bloggable moment?” She was reading my mind.  I didn’t have to utter a word.  Hmmm, eerie.

She  finished her work-out and I was just starting, so we kissed good-bye and I left the locker room.  After one second outside, I ran back in and caught her as she was about to go into the shower.  She said, “the guy in the midriff and the nylon short running shorts who smells?  Yeah, I smelled him on my way in.” I opened my mouth. I closed my mouth.  I opened my mouth.  I closed it.  Struck dumb.

I decided not to blog about this.  Nope I am not blogging about my slow metamorphosis into a bloggy-eyed, crazed, typing, mute.

Wait.  What am I doing?  Uh oh.  Uh oh.  Uh oh.

Sigh.

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I shouldn’t even go to the gym

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I’m in the locker room trying to be careful to minimize my “space” because we all know those “space invaders” — naked on the bench (no towel underneath) or, another favorite, naked or half-naked texting.  Uh, excuse me while I try to get around your still sweating body toward my locker and change.  Skin cancer is a very serious disease and we all should be vigilant about noticing moles, etc.  BUT USING THE MIRROR AT THE GYM?  I race out of the locker room.

Now I am in the gym “proper”.

Ok. ok. ok. ok.  There is a guy who is in his late 60s, has a perma-tan and wears nylon running short-shorts (the one that really captures the perspiration smell) with one of those new-fangled half t-shirts that show off  the midrift (is that a word?).  For his age, he is in great shape.   His clothes are a sartorial tragedy. 

Not that I am much better.  I look like an anemic 40-something lawyer who hasn’t bought new gym clothes in years.  Let’s be clear that I never went for the thong look — I believe in the more covered-up the better.

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Speaking of the gym

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My last post made me think of the guy whose shorts were dripping with sweat all over the floor and still he wears nylon that reeks rather than absorbing cotton. Let that image sit for a second. Imagine being on the bike next to him. Either a rain poncho or a haz mat suit. Just a thought.

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Gym etiquette

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There is a man who wears the same thing every time I see him and it is not just because of our work-out routines. He is also a grunter and doesn’t wipe down machines. I like to think that he thinks air-drying is better for the environment. There is a girl chatting with him now. Do I tell her that he is always wearing the same clothes and sneakers with no socks? (I forgot to mention that lovely piece of info.) Ewww. Ewwwww. Ewwww. I ponder and I walk away.

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Life in the gym

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No scary episodes in the locker room so far today although it could have been the “I have mace, so back off” look [note to any law enforcement personnel reading this, I don’t carry mace], so I wasn’t the person to be near. Then I got this prurient fascination with trying the naked saunter myself, but I wasn’t sure my breast were perky enough and I wasn’t confident of the bikini shave status and really, it is NOT me. But I did want to feel what it was to be cell phone and blackberry free, although I suppose I could hold them between and under my breasts, but that isn’t really what the naked in the locker room “thing” is about. But then again, I did see naked women with cell phones so they probably don’t think they’re naked or vulnerable. These emotions they would feel if fully clothed without a telecommunications device.  As I delve into this, it is more textured and nuanced than I originally imagined. More thought is necessary.

Big 1950s hair curlers being used at the gym. She was not naked, though so I guess that’s ok.

 

 
Ok, so I’m back in the locker room. Another naked woman is walking around. No shock there. But she is wearing a birth control patch. Too much information. Maybe we should all tattoo personal information on our bodies so that strangers can know intimate details. That way we don’t have to scream into our cell phones in public places. We can just strip.

 
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