gonna make you sweat

Since n.o.c. and I have made gym-going a priority, I thought I'd share a bit about my exercise regimen.

First off, I think you should know that my gym locker room always smells of babies and formaldehyde, like some macabre perfume made from the fetal pigs I dissected in high school, a hint of powder, and a touch of something spicy, like cinnamon. And yet I still go, because I am dedicated.

The locker room has several mirrored walls, and since we don't have a full-length mirror in our apartment, I often begin my time in said locker room with an inspection of the day's outfit. Note: it is a terrible f*cking idea to inspect an outfit after you have spent the whole f*cking day wearing it. For example, today I wore a pair of pants that I thought were serviceable, if not exactly chic. According to the mirror, however, the fabric sags in the ass and billows oddly around my thighs, so it looks like I'm wearing a filled diaper beneath an ugly pair of jodhpurs. This makes me very sad, since the only thing I strive for professionally is to have a coveted wardrobe.

I spend much of my gym time avoiding people. I am horrified at the thought of encountering one of my students while I'm in a state of dishabille, so I generally try to put on my workout attire without getting undressed. This often begins with my shoe-shod foot becoming tangled in my workout pants and ends with my arm trapped inside my sports bra. Occasionally a tumble is involved.

I also avoid other teachers. I once made the mistake of speaking to a colleague of mine (who is bat-shit crazy) while she was lolling along on a stationary bicycle, and now she stares scarily at me from beneath her electric blue eyelids and sparse, mascara-caked lashes and asks if I'll be at our place later. For some reason, she feels compelled to keep her "exercise" habit a secret, so she usually asks me this through clenched teeth in the manner of some inept secret agent.

But I digress. After exiting the locker room, I search for celebrity gossip magazines, since I can imagine no worse fate than an hour with only my thoughts to entertain me. Magazines procured, I choose a treadmill, avoiding those sandwiched between stinky people, fit people, or people who grunt unnecessarily while running.

Then I run. I flip through my magazines. I think about dinner. I think about having a cocktail. I think about how, according to some very unflattering photos, I appear to be thinner than Jessica Simpson; I think about this because I am shallow and an ass. Then I think about how happy Paula Deen looks and wonder if I should just step off the treadmill, eat some delicious deep-fried butter, and call it a f*cking day.

I'll let you know.