Suzy Says

I know you’ve all been dying to know how My Slothfulness is faring at the gym, so I thought I’d give you an update.

Remember my distaste for communal showers? So very prison, or worse yet, gym class. Well, I don’t have communal showers to deal with, because when I’m done I just throw on my coat and walk the four blocks to my house, so I can have a bath like a civilized person, in peace and comfort, but the locker room is, well, communal. It’s a good thing that I’m so completely shameless, because we all change in one big area. No private dressing rooms. You could, I suppose, change in one of the stalls, but there are only three and they are tiny. Also, no-one else does, so it would probably be a violation of some unwritten locker room code, as well as making you look very prudish to a room full of girls cheerfully dressing and undressing.

And before you guys start thinking how cool that would be (and yeah, I had to mention prison, too, so I know y’all are thinking about those B grade Women in Chains movies from the 1950’s, and if you weren’t before, you are now), let me tell you that actual girls look nothing like girls in movies or skin mags. We aren’t airbrushed. We have cellulite, even the skinny ones. Gravity has affected us. However, I know that girls are far more critical of the female form than men are, and given the legendary status of National Geographic, in which gravity has really, really taken its toll, I feel confident in saying that pretty much any girl in any state of undress is OK with you guys. I hate to shatter any remaining illusions you may have, but in the 6 weeks or so that I’ve been frequenting the locker room, I have yet to encounter any pillow fights or smooching, or even arm wrestling. The movies are, as usual, much better than real life. Fiction is nearly always better than fact.

I have discovered that the Ramones are the perfect thing to listen to on the treadmill or that elliptical thing, which I do for half an hour after my trainer has spent an hour with me. There’s something so amusing about listening to songs with titles like “I Wanna Be Sedated” while practically running. And if walking/running in time to any given Ramones song doesn’t get you up to target heart rate, you must already be sedated.

I have discovered that jumping rope is not at all the same as it was when I was a kid. As a child, you can jump rope happily almost indefinitely, and as I recall, it was fun. Doing it for 5 minutes as an adult feels more like something devised by the Spanish Inquisition on a particularly bad day. As I suffered through it the first time, my trainer informed me that Jennifer Lopez does it for 4 hours a day. I shot back, “Well, she’s paid for her looks,” whereupon my trainer laughed and changed the subject.

My ability to make people confide in me hasn’t deserted me, either. Total strangers on planes and other confined public spaces have told me their problems, and I once had the nurse practitioner administering a Pap test to me tell me all about her boyfriend problems throughout the entire procedure (bonus: distracting). My trainer told me all about her boyfriend problems last week, and before we knew it, we had worked out for almost an hour and a half (also distracting and why people watch soap operas, movies, read, and listen to music while they’re at the gym). I should have my own talk show.

When I get out of there, it’s usually about 4:30, and the bus boys from La Folie are sitting on crates on the sidewalk, polishing silver for the evening, laughing and talking in Spanish, and they always say hi as I walk by.