I See Naked People, Volume One

You might as well just inject me with MRSA now because I just joined a gym.

The papers were signed over a month ago, actually; the fees paid. But who joins a gym in the midst of the holiday season and actually goes? (Who friggin‘ joins a gym in the midst of the holiday season anyway?) So, let’s forget the fact that I signed up a month and a half ago and only went once in that time (thrice if you count the two introductory days one of the trainers took me through) and let’s say this whole gym thing just started.

I had been seriously pondering the idea for a while after doing a weeklong trial membership this summer and really digging some of the group classes, particularly Zumba. But, the summer being what it was, it didn’t make sense to join then and besides that, the whole thing is pretty costly. Because our gym is affiliated with our local hospital, it’s really well-maintained (read: not totally gross) and actually a very nice facility (read: not totally gross and also gets some natural sunlight), but you pay for it. I think it’s about $140 a month for both Dan and my memberships and this is on top of a pretty hefty sign-on fee. But, my normal walking routine is somewhat limited by the cold, I’ve grown to loathe all of the instructors on my workout videos (c-bombs have been dropped), and after my mom’s death, I knew that I needed to take measures in order to soften the blow of what, when it occurs (the risk is imminent), will someday be referred to by survivors as: The Perfect Emotional Storm. This is the culmination of three awful, life-threatening and terribly destructive circumstantial fronts. 1) Seasonal Affective Disorder 2) bottomless, unceasing grief that takes me down at the knees at least once a day and 3) the fact that I can’t watch the new Oprah channel because we still have lame, crappy, deplorable basic (like five-channel basic) cable.

We’re battening down the hatches (Dan’s hiding the booze), but the gym membership is intended to keep this dinghy afloat.

Now, a word on gyms. Ick. I have never been a gym person other than during a short period in my early twenties when I paid $10 a month for a membership at a place located a few shops down from the restaurant I was then working at. I went one time and was motivated solely by the fact that I had lost power in my apartment and I didn’t want to miss Ellen whose show I knew would be playing on one of the gym TVs. (I’m not sure about a bullet, but at that point I would at least take a treadmill for Ellen.) When I was younger, the only thing I knew about gyms was that some of my athletic friends went to our local one and all of them reported seeing, at one time or another, a few of the teachers from our high school...naked. The humiliation I would suffer if ever I encountered that scenario was enough to keep me from ever joining up. This brings me to my fundamental problems with gyms----they seem to be the shrines at which thee of extreme comfort with nakedness, worship. I cannot, I simply cannot, understand the ease with which women cross the room, stand at the mirror or engage in other casual locker room behaviors while partially or totally naked...like naaaaked. I’m practically walking into walls as I stow my coat, just trying to look down and avert my eyes from all the boobs hanging out all over the place. It’s like an episode of Scooby Doo when the lights go out and it’s totally dark except for pairs of eyes everywhere.



I don’t understand it.

I don’t understand how anyone can even handle being naked next to anyone else (other than in the obvious scenarios which necessitate nudity like with your partner or at the therapist’s office.) I don’t even understand changing clothes in front of other people which is a private-stall matter at stores, but public as a watering hole at the gym. Since when is it acceptable to engage in casual chatter while wearing only your underoos? (This is also my argument against bathing suits. It’s underwear! Bathing suits are simply bras and underwear that our culture has painted nylon, spandex and polyester and deemed acceptable for public consumption. It’s an emperor-has-no-clothes thing to me, this acceptance of bathing suits. And it’s not just women. If a speedo isn’t sexual harrasment, I don’t know what is. Burqas in the pool, I say!)

Now I know, in part, the problem is mine. You don’t need a PhD to know there are at least a couple of issues at work there. (Whatever, nakedness is a sin.) But Dan agrees with me that the gym culture of nudity is just bizarre (not that I advise validating your own neuroses with your spouse’s as common practice). That man has seen more old-man ass than a person should have to suffer in one lifetime and he’s as outraged as I am. (“Today I saw a guy holding a towel as he walked naked to the shower,” Dan reported. “Then I turned the corner and another guy was shaving at the sink, no clothes, his junk practically resting on the counter top.”)

So, besides the risk of contracting genital warts from the stationary bike, the nakedness and the mystery of gym culture that it represents, was another reason I was hesitant to join. Gym people are born gym people; you’re either in or you’re out. If you look cutesy or athletic in cropped yoga pants and Nikes, you know where you stand. Likewise, if your workout attire transforms you into a 14-year old with braces and your sneakers are the size of Ronald McDonald’s, you’re on the bench with me. Sorry, kid.

I was pondering all of this Monday as I walked in for my first gym visit of the new year. The ultimate selling point of this place is the unlimited classes offered. Not only is there Zumba (which is not a current interest; I don’t have the ease of heart to dance yet), but there are all sorts of classes for cycling, body combat, Thai Chi and a bunch of others including a variety of yoga classes in the “Mind/Body Studio.” I was headed in for “Gentle Yoga and Meditation for Beginners” and rather than anticipating my discomfort with the gym people, I was worrying about my discomfort with the crunchy yoga people.

I’ll say it before you have to: I know I’m the problem. I know my labeling of these people is akin to the exact judgement to which I wish not be subjected in these scenarios. I know I am the fireball of insecurity from which all others are trying to shield themselves with their walls of white light and breath-born energy shields. I am the darkness inside that yoga teachers warn people to release themselves from!

But at least I’m fucking honest about it. (And how much like a Spiderman villain did I sound like there? I am the love child of the Green Goblin and Kathy! MUAHAHA!) I am just stupidly uncomfortable in situations of pubic movement (speaking, and existing) and instead of just admitting that it’s due to my own self esteem issues, I blame everyone else. Is that really so wrong?

And not only am I worried and loathing you for what I fear you are thinking about me (not that you even care), but I am totally judging you! I totally fucking judge you! I go, “Wow, that woman is really strong. She can hold that position for so long. And look how close her toe is to her ear. How does a person even try that for the first time? I bet her husband is having an affair. That’s why she’s trying to get all into shape. I bet she does yoga every single day and doesn’t even feel guilt for it. I bet she had really supportive parents. I wish I could pull off cropped yoga pants.”

It is just such a childish sensibility that comes over me in these moments and I think I’m that much more aware of it because this wasn’t my sensibility as a child. Sure, I had things I was self-conscious about---that’s why god gave us padded bras---but I was not nearly as shy and antisocial as I am now and I can’t help but wonder what changed and how I can get back to feeling so unaware of what I'm feeling.

For example, a couple of years ago I went to dinner at a restaurant with a group of about eight or 10 ladies to celebrate the upcoming wedding of a friend of mine (who was already good and pregnant so for whom a par-tay would not have been suitable). There was a girl there that I hadn’t seen much of since high school who moved to my hometown in seventh grade. During the dinner she told me that her memory of her first day at school with us was that I went up to her, introduced myself, and chatted her up. I felt so proud of little 12-year-old me but was also well aware that times had changed. Were the adult equivalent of this scenario to play out now...I would watch her squirm. Not out of unfriendliness as much as fear. Who am I to introduce myself? I bet she wants to be alone and is psyched she doesn’t know anyone here. That’s probably why she came to this gym. I better not bother her. And how the fuck does a person look so good in cropped yoga pants?

You see what I’m saying don’t you? I’d like to think I would behave differently (and my inner Gigi tells me I would if tested) but it is not as instinctual as it once was and in the place of all that confidence is an insecure messiness that I’m trying to sort out by pushing myself to attend such classes or giving such things a real attempt before I count myself out. I’m here to tell you it’s not easy which is, of course, why I know I have to do it. F U COMFORT ZONE! This is all part of Operation Build Up Your Goddamned Self Esteem, Live Your Life and Get the Fuck on With It! (Is this one of the Oprah’s new shows? I wouldn’t know...)

What I’d really like is by the end of 2011 to have tried all the classes offered at this gym including, I shit you not, Aqua Zumba. (Though, as I told Dan, it is very, very hard for me to want to attend anything that takes place in something called a “warm pool.”) In fact, you wanna know what I ordered online last week and are in the mail on the way to me this very moment? D’yawannaknow? I can’t even believe I’m admitting this. Bathing suits. Two of them. IN THE MIDDLE OF FUCKING JANUARY! ‘Tis been a long, long time since I bought a bathing suit (because if there’s anything more vanquishing than trying on bathing suits, I’ve never experienced it). That’s how committed I am to shaking this fear shizzle once and for all (or even just once). That’s the kind of game-changing going down with this gym membership, I tell ya.

I thought this blog entry was going to be an account of that first yoga class---hence the hint about the sensual hip circles---but it became this other thing, which sometimes happens. I suppose that means there’s going to be a volume two? Maybe even a little running thing about this whole effort if I manage to really get it off the ground. (One trip to a yoga class does not a reform maketh.) Writing about it could give me the push to stay on track and disciplined. And, if nothing else, I know you guys will wholly empathize with me on this journey. Right? Or are there gym people amongst us? Despite what I said earlier ("I totally fucking judge you!"), you are safe here. And perhaps you can even help me out. Maybe you can answer this little nugget I've been tossing around in my head: Who...what type...what breed...of human being...participates...in Aqua Zumba.

Regardless, I’m sure I hate them.

P.S. New Year’s Resolution, cuz this whole thing is not of that variety and I thought I’d try at least one: Swear less. MUAHAHA!