Display by Label: Gym

Sometimes I come here wanting to tell you something important. Other times, what I have to say is so small and frivolous and irrelevant that I wonder if you will think me petty, or an idiot, or both. Sometimes I want to tell you something true, but can't, so I tell a little fiction instead. Other times, I want like hell to lie my ass off, but instead I wind up vomiting entire chunks of my personal life. Sometimes, brothers and sisters, my heart is filled with so much love that I want to just throw my arms around all of you and give you sloppy wet kisses on the mouth and get all naked and dance in the mud like it's 1969. And other times I want to burn every bridge I've ever built and cut the head off of this blog and tell you all to fuck off.

And today might be a day for one of those things, I'm just not sure which one. Because today, I've just come here to declare this: I'm jealous of all the people at my gym with their white, white shoes. I mean it. I don't know how they keep their shoes so clean, but they do, and I hate them for it. It's a dark kind of hate, the kind I only reserve for chipmunks and people who prefer to pull their toilet paper from the bottom. Every day I have to walk in there with my graying shoes, so joyless and devoid of life, and it makes me feel sad and alone and embarrassed. Makes me want to click-wheel over to some Neko Case.


I've tried to keep up with them. Don't think I haven't. I'll go out and get a new pair of shoes every four or five months, and each time I'll resolve to wear my older ones for the dirty tasks, like mowing the lawn, or shoveling mulch, or playing a game of "bury the shoe in the mud" (God, I love that game). But then I find myself outside in my brand new shoes kicking a soccer ball with Honey after a fresh rain, and it's all over—those suckers are destined for a life of shame and ignominy as I trudge over to a stretch mat and lie down next to some woman who looks like she just picked her shoes up from the dry-cleaners. And I know she's sitting there judging me, wondering why the hell I don't buy a new pair of shoes already, not realizing I just bought them last week.

Oh, I feel your judgement, and let me tell you, it stings. And so this is just to say I'm not going to let it bother me anymore. You understand? This is who I am, dammit. I'm a guy who wears gray, dirty gym shoes in public. And though you might not believe it, I am human. If you prick me, I assure you, I do bleed. So get off your high horse and show me some love already.





link to this | comments (6) | File:  TheLine  Music  Gym 

Saturday. A father and his little boy. I walk by the two changing in their row of lockers. Dad, buttoning shirt. Boy, balancing on one foot, stepping clumsily into jeans. I find my locker in the next row. Begin changing. And there's this exchange:

"Daddy?" The kid's voice is the only sound in the locker room. And the octave range—I forgot they made voices like that—puts him at about four. He seems to be chewing over something, like he's on the brink of asking one of life's most perplexing questions. You know, something like, Why is the sky blue? or Why do men have wee-wees? Something profoundly important.

"Yeah, son?" Dad seems accustomed to relentless questioning.

The boy sighs. He is searching for the right words to express this worrying thing ... and then, he finds them:

"Do you like my Spiderman shirt?"

I can almost hear the father's grin. Or maybe it was my own grin I heard. After a pause, dad says: "Yes, son. I like your Spiderman shirt very much."

"I do too," says the boy.

And I could tell it satisfied him very much that they both liked his shirt.

And if you want to know the truth, it satisfied me too. Because I miss the days when having a Spiderman shirt on—and having your dad like it—was all you needed to feel good and right in the world.

link to this | comments (4) | File:  Overheard  Gym  Chewing 

As I've already indicated in my previous post, I'm kind of in love with our local JCC, with all it's sexy modern equipment and Wifi-equipped cafeteria. But as with all good things, there's usually some kind of trade-off. This time, it's this: apparently, the main workout area doubles as a high-school teen hangout (read: "meat market") during the late afternoon and early evening hours. I've poured over all the literature I received from the Center and this is definitely not mentioned anywhere.

Please believe this in case you forgot: There is nothing subtle about teenage flirting. Holy crap. You can barely see through the haze of hormones in that gym at five o'clock. The guys offer their ridiculous demonstrations of physical prowess while the girls try to appear cool and unimpressed — but then let the whole loosely-erected facade collapse with a hand to the mouth, a whisper to a friend, and a cascade of giggles. It's so cliched you could pull it out of just about any teen movie. And as I lay there on the mat yesterday absorbing the rush of endorphins from the jaunt on the stairs, as I lay there feeling the good ache in my chest and arms from the weights I haven't touched in months, as I lay there doing these various stretches and exercises, as I lay there listening to Galaxy Kings Napoleon's Palace on the iPod, as I lay there . . . I began to feel this uneasy sensation and I suddenly realized I was surrounded by all of these teenagers involved in some primitive mating ritual and it occurred to me just how sad and vulnerable I was to these creatures. There I was . . . actually exercising. Actually sweaty. I was easy prey, and the sheer number of them made me a little nervous. They could take me out, no problem. Somehow, I'd been cornered off from the rest of my clan, and I looked around frantically for somebody my age, shit even somebody in their early 20s would do. I could make out the bobbing heads of a few stationary bike riders on the other side of this group of kids and I longed to call to them, but it was like one of those bad dreams where you open your mouth and nothing comes out. My throat was dry and scratchy. All I could do was make this hair-ball retching sound. It was not pretty.

And so I wrapped it up as quick as I could and retreated to the locker room. And in that warm, humid oasis, it looked like maybe I had just narrowly escaped . . . or so I thought. At first, it was just me and this old naked guy in there. Gray hair, sagging boobs, probably in his late 70s, a perfectly normal encounter for a community center locker room. Exactly what I was used to at the Rhode Island Avenue Y. Old men with boobs and sacks that hung down to their knees. This was men's locker-room gold at it's finest. And there he was, old naked guy, laboring over getting undressed — maybe this was his workout? And there I was, thirty-something aging hipster, unplugging my earbuds, applying the dozen or so layers of clothing I use to keep warm this time of year. And that's when these two teenage boys came in, fresh from the hunt, stinking of cologne, engrossed in this heady discussion — presumably about one of "the hunted" — and old naked man and I were lucky enough to be a party to it.

The conversation went something like this:

Teen Boy 1: "So, what do you think of her?"

Teen Boy 2: "Not bad."

Teen Boy 1: "Dude, if she wasn't so dirty I'd be all over that ass."

What?! I had seen the girls in question. They couldn't have been more than fourteen. My cousin is fourteen. I felt strangely protective. You punk. Yeah, I have no doubt you'd be all over that ass . . . tonight . . . in your head, alone and under the covers. Abusing yourself. You pimply dork. Do you even know where your dick is?

Teen Boy 2: "Man, I don't know." Then changing the subject (by his tone, I think he may have actually liked the girl in question): "Hey, have you heard this song? Listen to this shit."

Teen Boy 2 fumbles with his iPhone. Yes. Teen Boy 2 had a freakin' iPhone. While Teen Boy 2 does that, Teen Boy 1 has ample time to come up with another witty remark. This time he decides to call into question Teen Boy 2's sexuality.

Teen Boy 1: "Do only gay people listen to this kind of music?"

Teen Boy 2: "Yeah, which is why I thought you would like it ... Shut up and listen."

They listen for a bit to something which I didn't recognize (did I mention that I'm an aging hipster?), but basically sounds like your typical hip-hop/rap song.

Teen Boy 1: "Cool."

Teen Boy 2: "I like that sort of mix of techno and wrap."

Teen Boy 1: "Tight."

At this point the old naked man heads for the shower. He has to step between the two boys. As he disappears around the corner, the two boys do not bother to restrain their snickers.

Teen Boy 1 (laughing): "Did his dick hit you?"

Teen Boy 2 (also laughing): "No."

Teen Boy 1: "Do you wish it had?"

Teen Boy 2 (still laughing): "Dude, that's nothing, my uncle knows this guy who got hit in the head by Wilt Chamberlain's dick."

Teen Boy 1: "No way."

Teen Boy 2: "Tellin' you . . . it happened . . . "

Teen Boy 1: "Hold on . . . my phone is vibrating . . ." Into the phone: "Yeah? We're in the locker room, we'll be out in a minute." Teen Boy 1 hangs up. Then, to Teen Boy 2: "That was them. They're waiting outside. Alright, back to this guy your uncle knows . . . dude, that guy is lying."

Teen Boy 2: "This guy doesn't lie." Then, in a leap of logic that was completely lost on me, but seemed to make sense to Teen Boy 1: "He's like 90 and plays tennis every day."

Teen Boy 1 (nearly convinced by that tennis remark, but still skeptical): "Okay, how'd it happen, then?"

Teen Boy 2: "Okay, here's how he tells it . . . "

By this point, I was dressed and, while I hated to miss the details of the unlikely encounter with Wilt Chamberlain's member, I figured I had about all I could take of these two.

I guess I have more of this to look forward to out here in the NJ burbs — rich, homophobic kids with iPhones talking about tapping ass when they've probably never tapped anything other than their own sweaty palm.

*Sigh*

I've always hated teenage boys, even when I was one. If C and I have a kid someday, and it's a boy, then I may have to kill him before he reaches puberty. That's all I'm saying.

link to this | comments (6) | File:  Gym  Ho_Hum  Brats