Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Milestone One, Thanks and Other Stuff

I want to start by saying that I missed a great opportunity. I can't believe that I did not wait till Tuesday to post my friend's "MJ" titled memoir on April 20th. I almost had a moment of synchronicity. Is there such a thing as "near synchronicity"? Because, if not, I am claiming it and coining it. I mean, I might as well own it considering the many near misses that make up my life. If you are thinking "Max", so am I.

I wanted to take some time as well to thank three really special women in my life. First, thanks to Hilly, once again, for sharing her awesome story with us and being my first guest post. You are a great friend. Second, I have no words to express my gratitude to Crazy Texas Mommy for her kind plug of my blog in her own, ever so popular blog. I am very glad that we met. Even if it was in a workplace that cannot find the humor in a talking Mary doll. Third, but not last, thanks to Nicci for promoting this blog on her tweeter. I know it is because of these amazing women that I can write the next paragraph.

I have hit milestone number one. My blog has reached one hundred hits. I know this may not sound like much, but it does mean that people out there are reading this and, though not many things do, this makes me feel all special and stuff like that. Then again, one hundred posts may not seem that important because at last count the number was up to 154, but I am sure that the extra people are from the help of my wonderful friends who thought enough of my blog to promote it. Next, milestone number two, one thousand hits. I hope you all enjoy the journey to it as much as I do.

Moving on to what I really set off to write about. I went to the gym for the first time in over 2 years on Monday night. I know what you are gonna say... actually, I guess I don't. It's kind of obvious that I haven't set foot in a gym for a while. Also, last time I set foot in a gym, I never did more than ride one of the stationary bikes because I could read at the same time so I have never been much for exercise. I figured I needed to start going to the gym again if I had any chance of a)looking better, b)feeling better, and c)finding someone. As luck would have it, one of the many guys I have met online seemed to be really into working out and, since I knew he was way out of my league, I figured we could at least be gym buddies. The whole idea was great in theory and I felt excited about it. That is right until it was time to actually enter a gym.

It was 10:25pm and I was sitting in the parking lot waiting for my friend to arrive. The more I sat there, the more the gym looked like a sacred place. It seemed like a religious place, almost church-like, in the sense that people walked in because they wanted to become better people and feel better about themselves and walked out changed. The building loomed large and ominous and with every second I became more and more anxious about the step I was about to take. Was I ready? Could I really commit to taking better care of my body? Anxiety slowly crept in and soon I was pretty close to having a panic attack. This was not helped by the fact that all the people I saw walking into that gym were skinny and seemed to be popular, happy and the epitome of everything that I was not. I do admit that last part might have been my imagination getting carried away. Still, I could just picture them laughing at me and whispering to each other "Look at that Fat Guy! He doesn't stand a chance! We will always be better than him." Sitting there, shaking with nervous jitters, I looked down and noticed that the over sized shirt I was wearing, because somehow I convinced myself that a huge shirt would be good because it would make me look less fat yet ruefully realized it was worse since it made me look like a shapeless blob, had a big stain in the front. That is just what I needed. At that moment, I started hyperventilating. I wish I were kidding and making this stuff up but the foggy windows in my car didn't lie. My heart was pounding and I was breathing heavier than if I had just run a 5K. Then again, I have never ran a 5K, so I may just be exaggerating a bit. Regardless of my running history, I figured that I'd had enough exercise for one day. See how efficient I am? I was done exercising and I had not set foot inside the consecrated gym floors. Heck, I had not even moved at all!!!

I almost started my car and drove off a couple of times, but it would have been really embarrassing to have to tell my friend that I was not going to be able to make it because I had freaked out and psyched myself out just by sitting in the parking lot. So, I pulled my phone out of my pocket and started texting friends about how I was about to leave. I was hoping they would respond and convince me to stay. Unfortunately, of the one friend that I actually texted, I got no response. I did however realize that fiddling with phone did make me feel less stressed about the whole situation. So, I opened a little note-pad-like-thingy on my phone and started writing little notes so that I would remember what I wanted to talk about when I wrote this later on. And so, my nerves, though not cured, were relieved by someone any geek worth their salt has experienced in their lives: gadget relief. If you are not a geek, allow me to explain. Gadget relief is the one recourse a geek has when outside of his element. For instance, say you are at a party and you don't know anyone. More importantly, it does not seem like anyone is interested in getting to know you. The whole situation is awkward and extremely uncomfortable so, what does one do? Easy. One pulls out a gadget, usually a cell phone, and pretends to text someone or plays a game or anything that can be done with that specific gadget. Thus, you are still alone and unwanted, but it does not matter because you are not focused on the social interactions taking place around you but rather are preoccupied with whatever task you are doing with your gadget. It is the geeky equivalent of looking at your watch and pretending to wait for someone or waving at a stranger when you realize that the person you were waving at was not waving at you but at someone behind you. Now that we are all caught up, I shall resume the story. So there I sat, fidgeting with my phone and trying to keep my stomach from turning from anxiety when my phone beeps and I realize my friend has parked next to me and he is sending me a message telling me he has arrived.

Of course, I had resolved not to share with anyone what had transpired in my car because I did not want to be embarrassed. Yet, somehow that was the first thing I told my friend upon getting out of my car. I might have appeared a bit crazy, but at least I was honest. Also, I am not sure how me posting this in here counts as not telling anyone, as I had resolved not to tell anyone yet knew I was gonna post it, but go with me on this one. The actual workout was rather fun and my friend could not have been more gracious. I forgot to think about bringing a lock for a locker and he let me put my wallet, cell phone and keys in his. Granted, that was a bit courageous of my part considering I had never met the guy before, but my trust was rewarded by the end of the night when I got my stuff back. I also asked him to please take it easy as I had not worked out in a long time and he did. We only used the treadmill for walking and the elliptical machines to... elliptically-machine? Still, we have not attended the gym in the last two days which works out just fine for me as I am still sore from Monday. After all this is the price we pay for... well, whatever it is we go to the gym for.

6 comments:

Kristin said...

If you're interested in having gym buddies to choose from, drop me a line, I'd love to go!!!

Trinity (of haiku tofu) said...

Go you for being brave! The gym is an incredibly intimidating place the first few times you go, but learning the ropes turns out to be half the fun. Soon you'll know where to pick up your sweat towel, which treadmill has the best tread-thingy, and you'll also be better at exercising!

Anyone who wants to make a change has to start at square one. The first step is the hardest, because that's when you have the farthest to go! After that, you just get closer and closer to your goal.


I actually got sort of addicted to the gym when I was in college because I took a class called "Fit Camp", which I called "Fat Camp". All the people in my class were really chunky and funky (except one random physically fit girl), and we had such a blast getting our asses kicked every morning. I loved that we were all kind of misfits.

I'd love to gym it with you. I don't have a hardbody, but I do feel a certain power in knowing I can run for 4 minutes without stopping (hey, that's improvement for me!). Call me.

Not Typical, Yet Fun said...

Thank you guys for the encouraging words. As of now, this guy is working out great as a gym buddy. After all, we've only been to the gym once this week. I would love to work out with you guys. Maybe you can join us. We could make a workout group, better than a buddy because, you know, the more, the merrier.

Unknown said...

Yay!!! It is so great that you overcame your anxiety and went through with working out. The plus side too is that the more you work out you will find your stride and it will become second nature to you. One of the best feelings to is to crank your ipod up and rock out on a treadmill, by the time you realize it you can easily do 30 min or more and when you're done your legs feel like your floating on air when you walk :) oh, also thank you for the beautiful thanks but really the success of your blog is all YOU but it does mean a lot to me to know that you value our friendship so. :)

Zeke said...

So this is my first "blog" to read, but I thought it was really good, Couldn't help but laugh and say to myself, "how many times that happens to me," when you ended up telling your friend what you were thinking the first second you saw him. Glad to hear you stuck it out and had fun...hey next time you should leave your wallet in my locker! "Wallet, What Wallet?!!"

post script
Hillary liked your comparison of the church and fitness center.

Not Typical, Yet Fun said...

Hillary, Thanks for the encouragement. I am going to try to keep at it but I am not making any promises.

Zeke, Glad you enjoyed the blog. I trust you enough to leave my wallet in your locker. After all, I know where you live.

 
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So What if I am not Typical? I'm Still Fun. by Not Typical, Yet Fun is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.