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.

The Great Reducing and One Last Hurrah

n.o.c. and I have been reducing. We've reduced our carbon footprints, our consumerism, our time on the internets, and, most recently, we've decided to reduce our waistlines. We're a small people, but we've noticed a gentle and insidious thickening that is most upsetting when accompanied by the general doughiness of February. Heretofore, n.o.c. has ridiculed all slimming activities, scoffing at actual portion sizes and holding fast to bizarre, fatty theories about food and health. He has actually claimed that the consumption of Chipotle burritos has salubrious effects on the lungs, and he has touted the digestive properties of sausage. However, after a few disconcerting incidents with pant size, I received the following email:

According to a calorie counter I found online, I had 839 calories worth of drinks last night. Add that to the 459 calorie piece of pie I had yesterday a.m., and you're talking about a completely superfluous 1300 calories on a random thursday, for no good reason. A chipotle burrito has 1170 calories. How am I not 350 lbs?

He's a changed man. Two weeks ago, he wanted to eat a deep-fried, cheese-stuffed, bacon-topped hamburger; this week, I had to pull him away from the diet drugs at CVS. "It's just caffeine," he mumbled sadly.

Our strategy is simple, if sad and boring. We will only drink three nights a week. (It pains me to write that.) We will eat less cheese and bacon. (Pains me even more to write that.) We will continue our gym regimen, and, with luck, we will be more attractive than Our Favorite New Englanders by the time we go to the beach with them in April. The goal is not simply to look good; the goal is to look better than our friends. (That would be the gauntlet.)

BUT, before we began in earnest, we decided to have one last hurrah with Our Favorite Baltimorians. Their house (a whole house!) is fabulous, with a much-coveted amount of square footage.

The dining room:



They have the coolest shit. Like urns full of wind instruments:


One of the more colorful instruments:

And collections of heads:


Dinner was slap-your-mother good. Beer-braised brisket, Deborah Madison's leek and goat cheese galette (Make this. Immediately.), and beet salad with tarragon, followed by wine-poached pears in cardamom cream:





After dinner, we bid adieu to the joys of life with a Satie's Gymnopédie No.1. Lovely.



I promise not to bore you with tales of deprivation. Just know that if I seem to have a bit less happy, it's probably because I'm hungry and in need of drink.

On another track entirely, I forgot to mention the best part of my recent Professional Development Bof*ckingnanza. Toward the end of the day, things got touchy-feely, which, as you probably know, makes me want to gouge out my eyes with a dull spoon. The indisputable highlight came when we were asked to reflect on a teacher who "touched our lives," AND THEN THEY PLAYED "UNFORGETTABLE" WHILE WE "REFLECTED." There really are no words.