thoughts on a monday morning at the gym...

My day today started out as it usually does on a Monday morning. As if to mock the early hour, I was awakened by the absurd radio station Dave has set the alarm to. In protest of the talk-radio station I had set it to a few days ago, he found some dumb station that plays not "the best hits of the 70s, 80s, and 90s," but "the lamest songs no one listened to during the 60s and 70s, and now you know why." Dave's not bothered by stupid music in the morning. He's just out of it enough that he's kept in a sort of stupor until he stumbles into the light of the bathroom. I told him he had to change the station because I cannot bear another second of whatever that music is supposed to be and he goes, "That wasn't NPR?" So like it or not, my day starts all too early to the tune of stupidness. I don't care who you are, that's a great start to any day.

We wake up at 4:30. It's an obscenely early hour to be doing anything besides sleeping, but in order to be one of the lucky winners of a treadmill at the gym (I use that term loosely -- It's actually the community rec center, and I think there are about 9 treadmills there), and to be done using it in time to get home and get the kids up for school, we have to arrive at the gym no later than 5:02. I discovered this last year, when I first started coming. After about a week of trying to get a treadmill before 6 and ending up on an elliptical instead, I showed up at the crack of 5 and secured one.

Already you have a good indication of my stupid level. I wake up every weekday morning at 4:30 to 70s guitar rock (I guess) in order to fight 15 other people for one of the 9 treadmills. That's pretty high on the stupid list, isn't it?

Even stupider is the insane need to comply with posted signs that keeps me and Dave from doing what every other rec center member does with no conscience: They all enter through the "exit only" door to get to the treadmills more quickly. But not me and Dave. No, some stubborn streak in us makes us walk all the way around the entrance area, because we will certainly not stoop to the level of going "in" the "out!" I'm sorry to say, we have lost the last treadmills for this hardheaded display of pride.

I used to go to a gym; you know, the real gym, with like 150 treadmills and 70 tvs, a weight room the size of wal-mart, and a women's weight room on top of that. The gym commands a different slice of humanity than the rec center. At 5:00 in the morning, at least half of the people showing up at the rec center are over the age of 65. This is good for me, because that means I'm still nimble enough to beat them to the treadmills -- or I would be if I didn't have to keep the rules. The gym, on the other hand, seemed always to be filled with far too beautiful people, looking far too beautiful to be working out, with far too coordinated outfits (think fantastic fitting yoga pants with some cute halter thinger and a great headband thing wrapped around amazing hair that looks like the wearer truly doesn't care how she looks, even though she looks completely fantastic, and I couldn't hope to look that good if I spent hours getting ready to go to the gym).

I fit better at the rec center than the gym. And I've become rather oddly attached to so many of the people there. After a year, I know two of them by their given names. The others, who we always smile and say hello to, have all been affectionately named by Dave and myself. There's Sweaty-John-Jones, who runs like crazy on the elliptical and sweats all over the place; there's The Man with One Red Arm, who actually has two arms, but who is always wearing a red, noisy warm-up suit and does all the "both-arms-at-a-time" exercises with just one of his arms. There's Margaret, who, though I'm fairly certain is not really named Margaret, reminds us of Margaret Houlihan from M*A*S*H; I wonder why we don't call her Hot Lips. There's Evan, who runs on the elliptical in his swim trunks and has an uncanny resemblance to Dave's 3-year-old nephew, Evan. There's the PPSSHH Guy, who grabs really heavy weights and curls them about 2 inches, exhaling with a PPSSHH sound on every rep. There are the Raucous Laughter Duo, the two big guys who often show up in camos and beanies and spend a lot of time sitting at the curl machine... well, laughing raucously. Then there's the new guy I call the Jazz Man. He wears shiny purple shorts to work out in every day. He only started coming at the first of the year, but the first time I saw him, I thought, Wow, someone actually picked out shiny purple shorts for himself. On purpose. Purple. Must like the Jazz. Go figure. I worry about him because the man puts his whole body into everything. When he walks in, he takes up a lot of space, despite his somewhat lanky appearance, because he swings his arms wide, and takes a wide stance as he walks. But most striking about this man is his active use of his head while exercising. He swings his head backward and forward with every repetition. Not just a little, but enough that I can't help wondering if he's gonna hit his head on the butterfly machine someday soon.

I wonder what someone would affectionately name me and Dave... Red-faced Girl and Baldy? Wimpy-Thing and Strong-Man-Muscle-Shirt-Guy? I'm good with that. I mean, at least I'm there, having braved the stupid music on the radio, the terrible hour of the morning, and Sweaty-John-Jones'...well, sweat. It's a brave thing I do every morning. Can't wait til tomorrow.

Course, I can't wait til Saturday even more. Saturdays know no 4:30 am.