I joined the gym today, with my aunt and my mother. Mom said she’d pay if I promised to go three times a week.  I promised I’d go three days a week until November, when my AGC classes start.  One day into it, and I’m already sorry that I did.

The gym we go to is a pretty small womens’ gym.  If you took my townhouse and flattened it all out and took out all the bathrooms and what-not but added the carport, you’d have about the size of the gym.  I like that it’s a womens’ gym – no meat market aspect (as if I really have to worry about that).  The first time we went for a tour, it was during the step aerobics class.  There was the instructor and two other people in the class. The good part is that the trainer-trainee ratio is about 3:1.  The bad part is, that means they’re always watching you.  You can’t cheat, and you can’t quit.  Not even when you really, really want to.

The guy who owns the place, Harold, is about 65 years old.  Harold is kind of this fitness guru, but he’s really soft-spoken and low key.  He’s pro Whole Foods and anti AMA.  He has two Boxers, one of whose name is Vander.  They go everywhere with Harold, including the gym.  He has a girlfriend named Pinky.  I haven’t met her yet.

Harold had me doing weights.  Twenty of this, fifteen of that.  The first four reps of this Suzanne-Sommers-Theighmaster type thing and I’m going, “Hey – no problem!  can do the Theighmaster type thing!”  the fifth rep, I almost died.  It was the same way with all the little machines.  He says to me: “Kerry, I’m only going to have you do one set today.”  Inside, I was thinking: “Your goddamned right you’re only going to have me do one set!  You’re only going to have me do one set for a loooong time, buddy!” Outside, I was doing a little Smile Therapy.

Can I tell you how much I hate doing weights?  I mean, seriously: I hate weights.  I don’t mean that as in: “Eww, they put tomatoes on my sandwich – I hate tomatoes.”  I do hate tomatoes, but the feelings I have toward tomatoes doesn’t hold a candle to the feelings I have toward lifting weights.  Every single moment that I am lifting things, or pulling things, or pushing things, feeling my muscles hurt, I hate it.  I hate that I feel all crampy afterwards.  I hate that I want to quit after four reps.  I don’t mean just quit the machine; I mean quit altogether.  I want to get up, give Harold the big middle finger, walk out, and never go back.  I want to burst into tears; I want to throw a tantrum.  Don’t worry; I realize how absolutely rediculous that sounds.

I am cerebral enough to analyze my hatred.  I am a pretty strong person.  I am stubborn.  I am strong-willed.  I can debate with the best of them.  I am very independent.  I don’t take a lot of crap from anyone, and I get my way (through the power of persuasion, nagging, compromise, or plain old Jedi Mind Tricks) about 75% of the time.  Doing weights makes me feel weak.  I see this piddly thing that I’m doing, ten pounds here, fifteen pounds there, and I realize that twenty reps makes me want to curl up into a ball and die, and it pisses me off. The idea of being weak, or not being able to do what I want to do when I want to do it, makes me angrier than anything ever could.  It just wasn’t in the realm of possibility for me not to be able to do something that I should be able to do.  That I can’t do something that is so simple troubles me to the core of my being.

Here’s the thing, though – and this is pretty profound, so look out:  There could be two of me.  Really.  I could slice my body down the middle, change a couple of atoms here and there, the way that God made Eve, and be two living, breathing human beings.  They’d be pretty emaciated, but they’d be alive.  Now that I think about it, I’m going to look into having that surgery performed.  I could use an extra Me.  Someone to run mindless errands like going bank (I hate the bank) and the grocery store (and the gym, of course) for the other me, who would go to work and watch television and read and go shopping at Ikea and do home improvement projects (they know my name at the Home Depot).

I hate weights, but I like step aerobics.  It is so much fun!  I like the little sound that everybodys’ feet make when they step on the little step and then off the step and on the step – all at the same time.  Listening to the steady beat of everybodys’ feet along with the music is enough to make me forget about my apple-red face and the gallons of sweat that are pouring off my body.

I even laugh during step aerobics, which is nice.  I laugh at my apple-red face and the gallons of sweat that are pouring off my body. I laugh at the sound of everbodys’ feet, because it is like we are all little aerobicizing sheep following the leader up front, which I find sort of funny.  Also funny are other people in the class.  There was one guy at this other gym who had black, sort of shiny Bryl-Cremed hair and a thin moustache.  He always wore tank tops way too big for him and shiny spandex shorts and shiny gold chains around his neck and sort of bibbed and bobbed and shimmied and shook with each step aerobics step.  We called him “Rico Suave,” but not to his face, of course.  I could hardly stop lauging about him.

I am good at step aerobics.  I am fairly coordinated and get all the little steps down pretty quickly – even the complicated ones – and that makes me feel good about it, so I like it.  I used to do step aerobics five times a week. During the four months I did that, I was losing 3-5 pounds per week, not changing anything about what I ate.  Then I got the flu and quit going, and I was right back to where I started.

I’m thinking about asking Harold if I can just do step aerobics.  That’s my first plan.  If Harold says no, negotiation begins.  I’ll ask if I can just do step aerobics, if I promise to come to the gym four times a week.  If he still says no, I’ll raise to five.  If he still says no, I’ll ask for proof-positive that weights are important at this stage of my work-out career to accomplish my goal.  If he provides proof, I will provide other proof (there are always contradicting proofs in the excersise industry) that weights are not necessary.  If he still says I have to do weights, it may come to blows. I don’t really want it to come to blows. He’s kind of a nice old guy, and I’d hate for him to have to kick my butt right there in front of everyone.

I have been feeling Harold out a little, to see how far I can push him and/or how much I can get away with.  I’ve watched his mannerisms; watched how he acts with other trainers and gym members.  While Harold is very nice and soft spoken, he is probably as stubborn as I am, possibly more so, and doesn’t let people wriggle their way out of anything. I am a great wriggler.  If I go up against Harold with my fabulous wriggling skills and lose, I don’t think I could take it.  Then I would not only be weak, but I would find out my wriggling skill, which really is one of my best skills, didn’t work.  It would probably be more humiliating than lifting weights.

Maybe if I cry, he won’t make me do weights. I wriggled my way out of a Fish & Game ticket that way, once (Real tears, though. I never cry fake tears). I am concerned, however, that I will burst into tears where my mother and aunt will see me, while pouring my heart out to Harold or right there in the middle of the gym because of the frustration and shame of being weak, and they will roll their eyes at me and – worse yet – be disappointed in me. Can’t have that, either.

So, I am at an impasse.  To cry in front of people, to cry alone on the drive home (like tonight).  I’m not sure I like either option.  I’m really not much of a crier.  Don’t really like to do it.  It’s messy and I get ugly when I cry, so I try to avoid it at all costs.

I go back again tomorrow. Can’t do weights two days in a row (one of Harold’s rules – and thank goodness for it!), so that will only leave me one more day this week of doing weights. Unless he makes me come four times during the week. Or five.