I, like most people just shy of thirty (really more frightened than shy, but I'm not the one making up colloquilisms... yet), tend to view anything I did in my twenties as the recent past. For example, I thought it'd be fun to play basketball for an hour last year. A friend asked me if I wanted to join him in the game and, being mindful of the fact that I used to play all the time, I said sure. One collapsed lung, two pulled hamstrings, and several bouts of dry heaving later (This is a tangent but any time I make a list like that I think of the 12 days of Christmas song. Now I'm not one to bash Christmas songs, I think they're great, heck, I'd be loath to bet against 80% of the songs on the third Christina Aguillara Christmas cd being better than 'Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel', still I recently looked up the lyrics to the 12 days of Christmas and I have to say I was left wondering about the song's intended audience. Ostensibly, this is about someone getting their 'true love' a gift corresponding to the day of Christmas. Only, on the eighth day, the gift is eight maids a milking and the ninth day's gift are nine ladies dancing. I don't want to read to much into this but I'm pretty sure the number of people who'd thank you for getting them dancing girls and women with tireless forearms are limited to those blessed with the Y chromosome. Anyway back to my sentence.) I realized that the last time I'd actually played basketball had been about 7 years prior, which while recent in my mind, wasn't exactly the kind of pre-game warmup that prevents you from asking those circled around your prone borderline corpse if it's possible for your intermal organs to spontaneously combust.
I bring this up because I went to the gym yesterday. I used to go to the gym, granted I was 21 and playing basketball at the time, but I went. So when a friend called me out on my whole 'I'm going to start going to the gym next week', rather than saying, I forgot to bring sneakers and workout pants, I went out and bought some (Don't buy the Reebok workout pants, they have elastic at the bottom and well, I looked like a white MC Hammer). I don't want to say this was a mistake, but after work today I plan on filing for social security disability.
You see, I'd apparently forgotten alot about gymming. First, someone with a mouth as big as mine should probably be a lot more scared to be in a room filled with heavily muscled people and blunt metal instruments. Second, I'm very white. It used to be a gym could only humiliate you in one way; make you look weak and impotent. Not that I was OK with that, but it comes with the territory (plus, and I have no scientific data to prove this, but I'm incredibly virile, so my confidence in my boys was never too shaken). After yesterday however, I remembered there's a second way a gym can strip you of your manhood. Kickboxing. I know there are plenty of white people familiar with rhythm, but on the white spectrum they're more seashell to my cosmic latte (I'd call myself 'anti-flash white' but I know the words to 'Gangster's Paradise' and made an MC Hammer reference so I'm obviously disqualified). My point is, kicking is difficult for my 29 year old groin. Kicking high is both difficult and painful. Kicking high to a beat, is hard, painful and apparently, impossible. Only, everyone else, including about 20 women, half of whom have never seen the hungry side of a diet, seemed to think it was decidedly possible (Yeah, I'm not feeling to proud right now). Third, it's hard to respond to an instructor with witty banter when you're crying.
All of this is to say, is it possible 2001 was that long ago?
P.S. Yesterday's post was reprinted with a new intro and 100% fewer masturbation jokes on thevertexblog.com. It's a cool site, check it out.
Showing posts with label gym. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gym. Show all posts
Jan 6, 2010
Jan 4, 2010
IN THE LAND OF BLIND MEN, MASTURBATION IS PROBABLY AN ISSUE
Happy New Year Readers. After doing some research I've discovered that this blog wasn't active last New Years season or in 2007, and well for that matter while it was active in 2006 I didn't actually do a post on it, so while this post isn't actually a blog tradition, its still a pretty good idea and those are rare for me most Mondays. So I give 2010's first list:
TOP 5 NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS TO AVOID
#5 - Don't resolve use your gym membership - You can resolve to join a gym, I think that's a perfectly reasonable use of the money you were going to give to charity. Going to the gym and actually using the machines, however, seems like it might be biting off more than you can chew. I mean it is, in actuality, three resolutions. First, joining the gym, then getting undressed, redressed and venturing out into the cold, then, once you get there, leaving the smoothie stand and, you know, pushing machines across the floor, or whatever it is people do in gyms.
#4- Don't resolve to learn a new language. First, you won't. I'm not calling you stupid (today). I'm just being honest with you. Unless you're moving to a new country where they speak said language, or you just came back from vacation from said country with a walking talking fornicating souvenir you will lose interest in your new hobby. It will begin to feel like work and you'll ask yourself why you're working in your free time. You'll ask yourself what possible upside there is for you in all of this anyway. You can't afford to go on vacation to anywhere where they speak the language and you don't know anyone here who does speak it, well there's that person at work and sure you could talk to her in some other language, but she already speaks English, and besides she talks too damn much as it is! Unfortunately, before all this happens, you'll think learning a new language is so interesting that you'll feel absolutely compelled, as if by the almighty hand of God Himself, to share all the little "fascinating" factoids you come across on your journey to failing at your resolution.
#3- Don't promise yourself you'll finish your book this year. Honestly, haven't you disappointed yourself enough already?
#2- Don't resolve to do something everyone wants anyway. That isn't a resolution. It doesn't count. We all want to stay healthy. We all want to make more money or 'be in a better place next year' Unless you have a plan for accomplishing any of the above we're just going to go ahead and call them wishes. Mkay? Though I'll tell you what you can resolve to do. You can resolve to have better wishes next year. What? You've never heard of superpowers? Eye lasers have no appeal to you? Do you even have a pulse?
#1- Don't become more emotionally open and available. The world is a cold hard place populated by people who make fun of the elderly and mentally deficient (why is everyone looking at me?). It is a place where a textlogue can turn your favorite friendship into an acid tipped knife that rotates in your gut with metronomic disinterest. You are trading safety and, at worst, mild discontentment for disappointment and rotating gut-knife pain. This alone should probably be reason enough for you not resolve to fill up the moat around your feelings, but since some of you are stubborn I'll mention this as well. Even if everything works out and your openness doesn't allow for the sacking of your emotional castle, it's still really annoying for everyone else who has to listen to you. At most, and most of you aren't this lucky, there are two people in this world who want you to share more, everyone else is on their knees praying hoping you have the decency to limit yourself to "not bad" when they ask "how's it going?". How about resolving to cut them all a break instead?
P.S. No, the title has nothing to do with this post but it popped in my head and I didn't want to forget it.
TOP 5 NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS TO AVOID
#5 - Don't resolve use your gym membership - You can resolve to join a gym, I think that's a perfectly reasonable use of the money you were going to give to charity. Going to the gym and actually using the machines, however, seems like it might be biting off more than you can chew. I mean it is, in actuality, three resolutions. First, joining the gym, then getting undressed, redressed and venturing out into the cold, then, once you get there, leaving the smoothie stand and, you know, pushing machines across the floor, or whatever it is people do in gyms.
#4- Don't resolve to learn a new language. First, you won't. I'm not calling you stupid (today). I'm just being honest with you. Unless you're moving to a new country where they speak said language, or you just came back from vacation from said country with a walking talking fornicating souvenir you will lose interest in your new hobby. It will begin to feel like work and you'll ask yourself why you're working in your free time. You'll ask yourself what possible upside there is for you in all of this anyway. You can't afford to go on vacation to anywhere where they speak the language and you don't know anyone here who does speak it, well there's that person at work and sure you could talk to her in some other language, but she already speaks English, and besides she talks too damn much as it is! Unfortunately, before all this happens, you'll think learning a new language is so interesting that you'll feel absolutely compelled, as if by the almighty hand of God Himself, to share all the little "fascinating" factoids you come across on your journey to failing at your resolution.
#3- Don't promise yourself you'll finish your book this year. Honestly, haven't you disappointed yourself enough already?
#2- Don't resolve to do something everyone wants anyway. That isn't a resolution. It doesn't count. We all want to stay healthy. We all want to make more money or 'be in a better place next year' Unless you have a plan for accomplishing any of the above we're just going to go ahead and call them wishes. Mkay? Though I'll tell you what you can resolve to do. You can resolve to have better wishes next year. What? You've never heard of superpowers? Eye lasers have no appeal to you? Do you even have a pulse?
#1- Don't become more emotionally open and available. The world is a cold hard place populated by people who make fun of the elderly and mentally deficient (why is everyone looking at me?). It is a place where a textlogue can turn your favorite friendship into an acid tipped knife that rotates in your gut with metronomic disinterest. You are trading safety and, at worst, mild discontentment for disappointment and rotating gut-knife pain. This alone should probably be reason enough for you not resolve to fill up the moat around your feelings, but since some of you are stubborn I'll mention this as well. Even if everything works out and your openness doesn't allow for the sacking of your emotional castle, it's still really annoying for everyone else who has to listen to you. At most, and most of you aren't this lucky, there are two people in this world who want you to share more, everyone else is on their knees praying hoping you have the decency to limit yourself to "not bad" when they ask "how's it going?". How about resolving to cut them all a break instead?
P.S. No, the title has nothing to do with this post but it popped in my head and I didn't want to forget it.
Dec 31, 2009
THIS HURTS ME MORE THAN IT DOES YOU
I'm not very good at acting on my decisions. Perhaps it has to do with my tendecy to procrastinate, perhaps it has something to do with Newtonian physics. I honestly don't know. However, the fact remains, my deciding to do something and my actually doing it, are not the same thing. I bring this up because after about six minutes of deliberation I have decided I will start going the the gym. This will not be the first time I've decided to go to a gym. I have, in fact, even been a member of a gym. That gym has since closed - though they did wait until they'd charged my credit card for every month of that year long membership before they locked up the butterfly machine.
Still, in the intervening decade the idea of joining a gym has occurred to me on and off. In fact, I even went so far as to buy a Total Gym. The machine, was endorsed by Chuck Norris, the man who brought us the push down and most likely invented, based on the two torn rotator cuffs I suffered, by Torqemada. Unlike the actual gym memebership the Total Gym has proven surprisingly useful, making for a great paper weight, door stop and, most importantly, a clothes hanger.
Given this history a new gym membership may seem like a bad idea, but that's looking at it from a selfish point of view. Sure the odds are against my using this membership to its fullest, and in favor of my flushing $50 a month down the drain, but think of how many people will benefit from that money. My membership fees will help keep the gym open (as evidenced by what happened to my previous gym once my membership expired), keep trainers employed and most importantly allow men women to work out. My money will keep people in shape thereby beautifying the world in general. So yes, the odds might say this is a bad idea for me, and you may try and tell me 'I told you so', when I tell you I've gone once in the last 6 weeks, but that's only because you're too self-absorbed to see that I'm doing this for your own good.
Still, in the intervening decade the idea of joining a gym has occurred to me on and off. In fact, I even went so far as to buy a Total Gym. The machine, was endorsed by Chuck Norris, the man who brought us the push down and most likely invented, based on the two torn rotator cuffs I suffered, by Torqemada. Unlike the actual gym memebership the Total Gym has proven surprisingly useful, making for a great paper weight, door stop and, most importantly, a clothes hanger.
Given this history a new gym membership may seem like a bad idea, but that's looking at it from a selfish point of view. Sure the odds are against my using this membership to its fullest, and in favor of my flushing $50 a month down the drain, but think of how many people will benefit from that money. My membership fees will help keep the gym open (as evidenced by what happened to my previous gym once my membership expired), keep trainers employed and most importantly allow men women to work out. My money will keep people in shape thereby beautifying the world in general. So yes, the odds might say this is a bad idea for me, and you may try and tell me 'I told you so', when I tell you I've gone once in the last 6 weeks, but that's only because you're too self-absorbed to see that I'm doing this for your own good.
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