(OR HOW I SPENT MY DAY AT THE GYM)
There are a kind of people who jump into things and finesse them and then share it all humbly with anyone.
They can do it with style and abandon or sheer insane risk, admirable dexterity, and humming speed. They are at ease in their element which is the human race.
I am not, nor ever have been one of those comfortable people.
When the walkathons and races and tennis playing joiners of the world asked for my participation, I dismissed it as something I had never been able to even get CLOSE to doing. I just excused myself remembering all those cheerleader types I had been harassed by and was happy not to be involved in anything close ever again.
And when venturing over to more exotic continents, I had to have my connections in place first, so I could scrabble from handhold to handhold and not feel too lost. I always get there past the time that’s opportune, due to testing and retesting the waters. Why? Because I know myself. I’m good at getting lost. I’m good at being out of place. In fact, I do that with genuinely stellar performance. Put me in the unmarked outskirts of Kyoto and I’ll outdo myself. Which is in fact how I ended up in downtown Osaka at 2:00a.m., but … that’s another story.
Objects about me know this and conspire to that same end. It’s as if my psyche itself is the one lifting the fork that spills the noodles on my blouse when I’m interviewing for a post I know I really won’t fit into. It’s the brain that turns the key that turns the tire that has the flat the same morning I finally decide I really have to go to that motivational talk my co-worker has urged me to attend. It’s like everything turns to a device of my own making. A device that keeps trying to kill me, run away! run away!. You don’t belong here!.
This is just for the everyday stuff. The all-the-time stuff in life — stuff with no ethical or moral foundation.
Now if there WERE, I am your woman. If there WERE, — Were there a woman in a burka I needed to smuggle out of a camp of Taliban members, or a wall to help dig under to smuggle family members out from behind the 1960s East German Iron Curtain, or a group of children I needed to drag out of a burning building, I’d be instinctive. I’d probably even be thoughtlessly heroic. It raises my hackles. Altruism or righteous indignation or justice or even just danger are all I need to push the right button — which is why I guess I’m still genetically here.
But in places where sheer social bonding is the only common goal, or even when functional co-existence assures I will play a coggish part in a wheelish play, will immediately flee such an environment instinctively.
This was never more true when I ventured out, pushing and dragging my blushing ego the whole way, to a simple morning exercise session at a gym I’d finally steeled the nerve to join. My earnest motive: Become the girlish slender person I once was. Everyone seems to be able to do it this way, don’t they? They all say that’s the way to go, that it’s the only sure thing that works. They all say do it. Just do it. Just …..
Just RUN UP THE TREE LIKE A SQUIRREL, god I look awful in these clothes, perhaps I can put them on at home. Never really use the locker room at all. Ok, make that deal with the delicate insecurity that is my image and put these clothes on first. I look like someone I’ve seen in Missouri dressed this way. Oh Gawd I need to be seen in this stuff? While SWEATING? I’d rather not ruin anyone’s lunch…
Oh Gawd. How will I do this?? I’ll drive there and see where it is and have a look around, and bring what I need, and if it feels right I’ll just do some exercises that trainer showed me.
[I've got a good trainer: Why? Because I didn't have to pick her. She's an Israeli girl-on-a-mission, and she was assigned me, somewhat like a dogtag. Great, I thought. Relief at being done with that decision. Just, OWwwww, and obey.] But this will be my first day alone. I hope I don’t need to talk to anyone.
I can’t believe I’m driving there to do this. And I’m NOT going to the gym where I get trained with her, but to one of the other ones nearer to home. Which entrance is it in this complex of buildings? Ooops. Wrong one. That’s for the monthly people. Back up, awkward moment….. A few more loops down into the garage and I’m totally confused. WHERE IS IT? Back up and I find a sign that says “LA Fitness”. AHA. Other side of the first floor. Well, that’s wasted 15 minutes. I wander out of the car checking that it’s locked about three times. I just clicks silently but on the third it beeps at me. EnOUGH already with the locks.
OH! the lock. Damn, run back and get the locker lock. Ok. Up the stairs into a stone-paved lobby where I see a guy with a towel in hand going into an elevator. I get in, presuming he’s going there. My hand pauses over the buttons. MC is what he pushes. (what’s an MC? Master Card, Master Calendar, Monster Crap, Magnum Crash, Mexi Cal, Mission Catastrophe, Mezzanine C (where’s A and B?). Through some doors, and voila!.
After having myself scanned in by a nice smiling young guy, a blonded American-Latino girl chewing gum, a couple other bulky guys in attendance, I get to the club through a long hallway and go to the locker room and lock up in a far corner.
I have four things with me once I arrive at the stationary cycles: Thermos tumbler of icewater, small towel, car ticket for validation, and locker key. I have counted My Four Things, proudly assured I will come out with four things and nothing will conspire against me.
I start by putting my water tumbler down too near my pedals and knocking it right over, water on the rug, OH NO, mop it up with towel. Look at towel that would have been used for face. Eww. Well now I’ve ruined that. I cycle, changing levels and buttons at random, still not comfortable with a level after 15 minutes. I’m getting gross and sweaty and I have to let it be so. My towel is snickering. I carry all my things jostling over to another machine.
Over and over I look at contraptions and walk away. They look so large and somehow like scary medical equipment with their vinyl covers… and then when I sit down at two of them, first one, then the other, I realize where ever I go, there’s an OLD MAN WAITING for my machines. He’s quietly standing. Waiting with his fresh white usable towel. Sweat is leaking mascara into my contacs, and my unusable towel is laughing at me. I go upstairs away from Stands with Towel to the other weight machines.
I go across a hallway through a set of glass doors. Oops, wrong part of the building, the locker room is back there. The doors lock behind me. I’m locked out of the gym. Oh GAWD. I have my cell phone. I could call and have someone come up and unlock the door? Look this way, look that way…. um……..well……Behold! A giant Russian guy wanders by and frees me, seeing me waving frantically behind the wall of glass. [I love how irony completes circles].
After watching a number of moves of a woman practicing weights, I do them myself as closely as I can. Now I’m exhausted. Ready to go, I feel all successful, and I pick up my things, one two, laughing towel, ?????? where’s four? WHERE’s MY KEY?
I retrace steps. I go up, and down, and to the cycles, and then panic and run for the locker thinking someone’s taken it and already broken in and grabbed my STUFF, but …. no, it’s still locked. I try to go back to where I got locked out, it’s not there.
Downstairs again. It’s not under any of the machines. It’s not anywhere. I’m really tired it’s been 20 minutes now and I want to GO HOME.
I ask if they can cut off the lock. Sure, says American Latino girl. She knows I’m new and has seen me bewildered on the stairs several times.
She brings what look like hedge trimmers in, and tries to chop it. No luck. The lock is actually too small for the grip she has on it, and it’s in a close location so she can’t get a closer grip. She finally grabs it and chops, pressing, and finally twisting—- but bends the hasp into a curve instead. Uh-oh. Man, she’s really mangled it. She goes away.
She returns with Smiling Guy. He trods into the locker room after her, and tries again with giant clippers. He’s not much more help, remarking over and over that these clippers aren’t the right size for this close and small a lock, and tries prying the hasp back into place. No luck. He’s twisting and the sides of the locker cabinet are being BASHED with a hammer and chips fly off the plastic trim and he tries prying the door and we hear a CRACK sound and he stops. Nope, it’s still holding. The locker is beat to shit.
I know something about metal, and know where to strike, but I don’t dare ask to to touch it now. God knows what would fall off next.
I’m apologizing profusely, when a tiny Mexican lady enters. Building Manager maybe? She comes in, takes the giant choppers in her little hands and turns the lock just so and BEEKK! It’s clipped.
Suddenly she’s Joan of Arc. Damn. Down on one knee, knaves!. Then she picks up the hammer at just the right angle and whacks the hasp back in place. Chatters on her cell phone in Spanish to someone for a bit while I stare at the floor. Why do they put carpet in these places?? She jiggles and fusses until it opens at last. I thank her, they rejoice, they leave, and I want to head immediately for the nearest underside of a rock.
I had only planned to be a faceless person who went to slave over machinery like the next sheep in the herd for a mere hour.
I have to go back tomorrow. I need a Zorro mask first.
For her. Yeah.
Me, I’ll just be the one under the paper bag.
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