Tuesday, February 28, 2006

So... one of the benefits of my husband's new job includes supercheap membership to a local fitness facility (hint: It's the one that the Village People sang about) and last night was my first night there.

Don't worry, this isn't going to become a fitness blog or anything, because, in my opinion, the only thing more boring than working out would be writing about working out... oh, and reading about working out - seriously, yawn.

So, I go into the gym and sign in for the first time, all psyched to be on the road to fitness* and I'm immediately struck by two thoughts:

1.) Crap, it's crowded!

and

2.) I'm pretty much the only person in there who doesn't look like she's a professional worker-outer.

I quickly assess the equipment situation - Treadmills? No thanks, boring. Elliptical machines? There's an idea... oh, wait, they're all full. Stair-climber? Nope, all filled up. Okay, the stationary bike** it is.

After several completely embarrassing moments of trying to get the seat adjusted, trying to get the computerized thing going, and trying to untangle my iPod headphones, I finally got going in a steady little rhythm - hard enough so I could work up a little sweat, not so hard as to make my asthmatic lungs want to abdicate from my chest.

As I'm rocking out to a particularly good mix of the music I've heard a thousand times before, I remember why I hate co-ed gyms - they're like high school, just with more spandex*** - it's all jocks and jockettes preening and posing and pretending that they're not. There's the total butter face chicks with the flat abs, great ass and pair of store bought boobs so big they require 3 sports bras to keep them under control, the herd of muscle-headed guys with shaved legs and necks larger than their waists****, the old ladies who look like beef jerky stretched across a skeleton, the old men with weird veins popping out all over the place - and then there's the geeks (me and maybe two other people) just trying to hold onto the machines.

I think I need a basic gym - I don't need all the computerized equipment, taunting me with the number of calories that I'm burning and alerting everyone around me when my pulse rate goes below maximum fat burning or what-thecrap-ever. I don't need to see girls with calf muscles that could cut glass bouncing around from machine to machine acting like they're only paying attention to their People magazine, I don't need gym employees to pass by someone who is obviously struggling with a machine (me) in order to lean against another machine and have a twenty minute conversation about endorphins and protein shakes with a guy whose had his neck replaced by a tree trunk... okay, so maybe I need less of a gym and more of my living room... somewhere with comfortable couches and no spandex allowed.


*Honestly, I'm not working out because I'd like to be mistaken for a supermodel, I'd just kind of settle for a little less jiggle in my wiggle, a tad less junk in the trunk... whatever, okay? I'm a girl, okay? I came prepackaged with the deluxe set of insecurities -

** And either my butt is excessively boney (it's not) or that bike seat was unfathomably uncomfortable - I think I have bruises on my ass - ouch, okay?

*** I say "more spandex" because I graduated in 1992, smack dab in the middle of the whole glam rock era - there was a lot of spandex going on to be

**** who thinks this looks good? Anyone?