Everything, it hurts

I made a terrible mistake, which began, as it so often does, with me venturing outside. To the gym, specifically, where I made the second mistake, which was to work out with great vigor and enthusiasm. And now my body is wrecked.

My schedule went all to hell in the spring, with the book launch and subsequent tour, and ever since then I have been less than disciplined about gym-going. I know this is a problem for many of us modern peoples, with our careers and families clamoring for our love and care, but I really don't have valid excuses. I live three blocks from the gym. I work from home. My son is in school. Surely, you would think, I could cram an hour of exercise into my schedule at least a few times a week. Especially knowing how much exercise benefits my delicate moods! Not to mention my bones, which will soon have the density and strength of meringue! (Thanks, osteoporotic ancestors!)

And yet.

The need to get back into it really hit home when I was on a plane a couple of weeks ago. I lifted my suitcase to get it into the overhead bin, and I got…stuck.  I got it three-quarters of the way toward the overhead bin and there was no way my arms would lift it any higher.  I just stood there, frozen, my suitcase in mid-air, desperately commanding my arms to continue upward but they WOULD NOT GO, until a nice fellow passenger helped me out. A beefy man took pity on me. I was furious. Why, I had lifted suitcases MUCH HEAVIER than this one, back in the day! The day being only a few months previous! I bet once upon a time I could lift that young man right over my head, by gum!

Anyway, I've been TRYING, you guys, trying so hard, to get back into the routine. And so Wednesday I went for the second time this week, and until Wednesday I'd been going fairly easy on myself because I knew I was out of practice. I don't know what shifted inside me, this Wednesday.  I went a little nuts.

Weight-lifting dramatically lifts my mood while I'm hoisting away. I was having this fantastic endorphin rush, the kind I hadn't had in a long time--I missed it so!--and I went into automatic and chose weights I had been using when I was lifting all the time. I was holding my usual weights while LUNGING! And SQUATTING! And then I did some chest presses and inverted rows and etc.! In my enthusiasm I forgot that I was now a wasted spindly shell of what I had once been!

I woke up yesterday fairly sore, nothing remarkable, but as the day wore on, every time I stood up I felt even more sore, and then even more, and today I am WORSE. Every time I get up I want to cry.  Walking down the stairs is the worst thing ever. What monster invented stairs?

As uncomfortable as I am, I refuse to relive what happened yesterday when I was sitting on the toilet and realized there was no way in hell I could stand. Just no way. I decided to slide myself off the toilet onto the floor, and fortunately we have a full-length mirror in the bathroom so I got to watch my pathetic descent onto the tile, with my pants bunched up around my knees. That tile was cold. It took a while to shimmy my pants back up. There may have been some whimpering. I will never let that happen again. I don't care if my thighs rupture when I get up. I WILL HAVE MY DIGNITY.

Hey! Let's catch up on some things!

I've received a few emails asking me what ever happened with my Crossfit attempt. Here's what! Nothing. Crossfit is kinda pricey, and I can't rationalize it right now, especially now that I'm working on some longer-term projects that aren't delivering insta-paychecks. Or actually any paychecks at all. At least not yet. NOT YET. So maybe later, Crossfit. Or maybe never, actually. I'm still considering my options.

I haven't even been able to face going back to the gym, for some reason. Actually I know perfectly well why. Before it got super-crazy hot, I got into running/walking/crawling-sobbing in the park--that's why. Also Henry was home, and he's definitely too old for the gym day care, so I was doing push-ups and so forth while he acted as my coach. He's the world's worst coach, I have to say. He kept turning off my timer when I was in mid-plank because he TOUCHED IT when I told him NOT TO TOUCH IT but it's my iPhone, so it's a magical thing that must be touched.

I have no excuses not to go since Henry's been at camp (he's returning in two days! My Littlest Excuse is coming home!).  Except that it's hot, which I know means it'll be crowded at the gym, and UGH. People. Am I right, folks?

I don't think of myself as a total misanthrope, but I had drinks recently with two friends (Hi, Sarah and Jennifer! I'm talking about you!) and I brought up the topic of Other Parents and how I hate chit-chatting with Them at school pick-up and what if they want to be FRIENDS, what do I DO, and from Sarah and Jen's reaction, it was clear I was alone with this feeling. Look. LOOK. I like lots of parents at Henry's school. I just don't like Parents as a category. I like people. It's Humanity I have a hard time with.

It's possible I'm just a dick.

Oh! Speaking of being a dick! Here's a little story for you that's been haunting me for, well, years. I was living in New Jersey, and I was at my then-psychiatrist's office. She was someone I had a great rapport with, so I felt chatty one day, and decided to (gently?) poke fun at this artwork that was on her wall. It had a purple flower on it, and it said, "Love. Faith. Believe." I was staring at it, and before I knew what was happening, I was saying, "Why 'believe'?"
"Excuse me?" she said. (Or something like that. Let's pretend I remember.)
"If you're going to write 'love' and "faith,' shouldn't it be 'belief'?"
Here I thought she was going to chuckle, as she was wont to do, and think, oh, Alice, that is so you. Or maybe she'd think lord when will this asshole leave my office, isn't her time up? But either way, she would appear to tolerate my antics.
Instead, she looked vaguely stricken, and said something noncommittal about not having considered that. I may have imagined the tension, but I don't think so. I am usually oblivious to tension that I've directly created, so for me to be aware of it really says something.  I left feeling like I'd turned into Larry David. Her MOM probably made that, you guys. And now I had ruined it for her.

And the next time I came in? It was gone. GONE. What could I say? "Hey, remember that print that you had up that I mocked? Why's it gone? DID I MAKE IT GONE?" There was nothing I could say. I thought about it every time I came back. You want to know the reason we left New Jersey? There you go. (Not really.)

Behold my fitness

I am now a person who goes to the gym. I am a gym-goer. Me.

At first I was forcing myself to go a couple of times a week, and now I'm up to four or five weekly visits. I am sad if I have to miss it. How could this have happened? I used to stand outside the gym, peering in the floor-to-ceiling windows, watching all those people running to nowhere while I ate my donut. I wiped powdered sugar off my cheeks and wondered why people would do that to themselves. Then I went back to the donut place and bought four more. Then I would sit outside the gym because standing was too much work. Finally I would lie down, waving dollar bills at passersby and asking them to bring me more donuts.

Okay--there was no powdered sugar. I prefer a classic glazed. And don't even mention sprinkles. I don't want to HEAR IT about the sprinkles. Do not sully my glaze.

Moving on.

I have this trainer, as I have mentioned, and he's making me do all sorts of weights and push-ups and activities with medicine balls, most of which feels comically old-fangled, like I should be wearing a woolen unitard and sport a handlebar mustache. As silly as I feel, I can't deny that there have been, well, results.

I have progressed, for instance, from being completely incapable of performing a single push-up to sort of doing a modified push-up without crying. Actually I can do three sets of (knee) push-ups (uh, on an incline) without crying or throwing up or anything disgusting at all. If you don’t count sweating. Or swearing. This is serious progress for the likes of me. My trainer keeps saying things like, "When I see how far you've come from before" and "You’re nothing like you were in the beginning..." And then he gets this haunted look in his eyes. He's also stopped comparing me to his clients who have had strokes and related brain injuries! I've really come far!

I can now see how strength training sucks you in. It's like gaining a superpower. When a weight you couldn't lift before suddenly becomes comically easy? It's like you've just traveled to this new planet and a car fell on you but the car is made of TIN FOIL so you can toss it aside but why is everyone so shocked? Why can't they lift it? Because. Because you are the strongest person in their world.

They're also very impressed when you do your girlie push-ups on your slight incline, on this planet. They are residents of the Planet of the Very Weak. But no matter. You are like a god to them.

Eye of the tiger!

So I have a trainer now, which is hilarious for all kinds of reasons. Me, with a trainer! Who am I, Oprah? Do I get a cook next, or a lifestyle assistant? Who's responsible for these fucking soggy crudités, anyway? Also, there are at least three dead bugs in the reflecting pool. I cannot live like this.

I am betting that there are people out there who will assume the trainer was scheduled after one of my commenters railed against my enormous ass. (I had no idea my ass could make someone so angry. Not to mention my teeth! Let me at that weird freak who's like some kind of Pink Floyd cartoon! A giant walking ass with teeth coming out of it!) (Said commenter rocketed me back to seventh grade, when my group of "friends" sat me down and detailed everything that was wrong with my weird and misshapen body. Apparently I was problematic, and needed to be informed. No mention was made of my ass and teeth, strangely, but I do recall them being concerned with my overly pale complexion and need to grow breasts. I didn't go to the tanning salon or get implants, though, as I was twelve. Anyway, thanks, pals. As you can see I'm over it now. Sure, go ahead, friend me on Facebook! ) (However, if that commenter tries to friend me on Facebook, I will ignore her. I will ignore her so bad. Ah, delicious revenge.)

What was I—oh yes. My trainer! Actually I had scheduled time with the trainer after I joined the Y a few weeks ago and discovered just how cheap the personal training was, and also the one time I tried to use the weight machines I couldn't muster up the strength to adjust the seat (hmm, is the pin stuck? No it is not stuck I AM JUST WEAK AS AN ANEMIC KITTEN) and I was so horrified I scurried out of the room and back to the safety of the elliptical machines. I know how to use those things! You just put your feet on them and don't get distracted and fall off. Simple!

I may have fallen off a couple of times.

I told my trainer--whom I shall call Kevin, for that is his name—that my goal is to get strong. Freaky strong. "I want muscles, Kevin," I told him. "Big ones. Of course I know this isn't going to really happen, because I have the bone structure of a sparrow. But still, you get my point."

"I have never heard that before from any woman," said Kevin.

"Look," I told him. "My mom is in her seventies and can beat me at arm wrestling. She often does, for the amusement of her friends. This cannot continue."

Kevin nodded. "I see."

"Sometimes I arm wrestle with my son and I pretend to let him win, but sometimes I am not pretending. Seriously."

I waggled my tricep flab at him, and he had this weird coughing fit.

"Osteoporosis runs in my family, Kevin. My grandmother 's bones were like meringue. She sneezed and her face broke. KEVIN. DO NOT GIVE ME GIRLY EXERCISES WITH THREE-POUND WEIGHTS, DO YOU HEAR ME."

He heard me. Now I am walking funny, and I cry when I put on a shirt. But it's worth it, damn it. The next time my mom challenges me to a match, I am going to break her. (Not literally. The osteoporosis is from my dad's side.)