It is nice to be less uncomfortable at the gym though. I've made a separate peace with the muscle-bound lords of the gym. After gasping through some row exercises a few days ago, I was privileged to overhear a story by two enormous dudes at the station directly opposite mine. Enormous Dude #1 (hereinafter ED1, because who doesn't love a left handed 'penis-joke/insult'?) was telling Enormous Dude #2 (hereinafter ED2, because ditto) about one of his (ED1's) acquaintances (ED3). Here are the salient points of the anecdote:
ED3 was/is a body builder
He competed in a certain weight class (I didn't catch this. I was exercising, after all)
One time, he weighed in a half-pound above the cut-off for his weight class.
To rectify this, he spent an hour spitting into a bucket.
And just like that...it was no longer important for me to ever join the ranks of the ED. Again, we're shooting at least for vaguely flabby, but not visibly squishy.
Speaking of visibly squishy, lets relate an embarrassing workout story! Part of the gym experience is being able to totally ogle yourself as you chisel and sculpt, thanks to the mirrors all around the perimeter of the gym. For those of us who are still closer to the lump of clay than the finished pot, this is an opportunity to notice horrendous, soul-deflating things about how our bodies look in the clothes we use to workout.
Now I wear old t-shirts to the gym. I am not now, nor do I ever anticipate being, someone who can straight-facedly wear Under-Armour or sleeveless T-shirts (either naturally or artificially sleeveless), etc. This means that my old T-shirts that I wear to the gym are all shirts that I don't really wear anymore because either they're 1) dirty or, 2) too small. Today was a slightly-too-small t-shirt day, unfortunately, because that gives rise to the uniquely flabby-waisted experience of: The Face in the T-Shirt.
The Face in the T-Shirt is much like The Man in the Moon, a face born of suggestive features and suggestible viewers. Combine a squishy spare-tire, with a gradually in-cratering belly-button, with small but sweaty man-boobs. Stretch a t-shirt over this and you have: a face. Two sweaty eyeballs, a vaguely nose-like indent at the break between chest and stomach, and a round, somewhat priggish mouth. The best station at which to observe this disgusting yet compelling phenomenon, is definitely the back-exercise machine, wherein you sit down, hunched over with a padded bar on your back, and then lurch (I don't think lurch is the clinical word. its what I do.) backwards. This gives your Face in the T-Shirt the chance to progress three sets of ten times through a pretty staggering range of emotion, from fear/surprise at full extension, to anger/disapproval, as you squelch back to the starting position, depending on your own physiognomy/t-shirt combination. This is why I'll never ever be able to wear the super tight, extra muscle support 'under-armour' et. al. to the gym. The Face-in-the-Armour would totally belie any claims to physical fitness my outfit would be making. It would sound like this as I exercised: "Whuaaaaa? I DISAPPROVE! Whuaaaaaaa?!? ITS ALL A LIE! Whuuuuuuu?!.... etc. x10 x3. I need more t-shirts. and probably more self-esteem. I think this gym-going could be exhausting my supply of both. BUT I PERSIST!
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