Nowhere to Go But Up

I've been working on this quasi-resolution/aspiration/goal thing, mostly the one about acting like a skinny person, exercising and such, and brother, is it hard.

Not the actual working out part, although that goes without saying, really, but just the going-to-the-gym part. Because I don't know if you've noticed, but mostly, at the gym?

It's all fucking skinny people. Even the not-quite-skinny people are kind of mean, like the gray-haired lady in the water aerobics class on Saturday who rolled her eyes at her friend, and said, (loudly), "I give all these people until March."

Seriously. I have to really work myself up for it, telling myself, "You have as much right to be here as anyone. You paid your $50. You are working on improving yourself. You have as much right to be here as anyone."

All the while, I am scanning the room for someone fatter than me. Come on, you know you do it, too. The quick I'm-just-seeing-if-there's-anyone-here-I-know routine, when really, you're mentally doing a guess the weight game in your head. And after a week of doing this scan, I can attest that no, there isn't, in fact, ANYONE FATTER THAN ME. Sheesh.

Today, after I finished the 25 minutes of PURE HELL that others refer to as the "elliptical machine," I went down the pool to do some laps, where at least I am submerged during my workout. And as I'm going up and down, up and down, I see out of the corner of my eye, in the next lane over, a girl who, if not larger than me, is at least about my size. We smile at each other. It's a moment. I feel better about the Y in general.

Then, she dusted my ass.

Mind you, I have no illusions about the speed at which I swim. At my former pool, I was routinely dusted by both the 80-year-old man ordered to swim to improve his circulation, and the girl with one leg. (No, I am not kidding. One leg. And I first noticed her because she was swimming AT A SPEED WHICH I ASPIRED TO.)

Even so, today, it hurt me to be beaten by my size-twin. I can now attest that, no, there isn't in fact, ANYONE SLOWER THAN ME.

SHEESH. And HARUMPH.

I tell you what. Next week? I am so moving to that other resolution, the one in which I get to sit at a coffee shop and write bad poetry because DAMMIT, it's creative.