The Belly Dancer

She steps onto the elliptical machine, placing her hands on top of the handles, palms down, and starts to wiggle.

Moving slowly and deliberately, her shoulders make a gentle figure eight: left shoulder Forward. Out. Back. In. The right shoulder moving in a mirror image: Back. In. Forward. Out.

Her hips move in a similar fashion: left hip Back. In. Forward. Out. Again her right hip makes the mirror image.

While the rest of us stand perpendicular to the machine and work to keep our bodies aligned as we move faster along, she gyrates her way through a workout that can best be seen as a warm up to a day of belly-dancing. Slow. Deliberate. Undulating.

It hurts to watch her move, but I just can't stop looking.

Grunt

Not much has been going on at my gym lately. Maybe this is because I have not been going as often as I used to, which explains my current state of flabbiness. (And I did not say "fatness," which is different from being a little loose.) Anyway, when I have gone to the gym, I have noticed that the ratio of grunters to those of us who manage to work out silently has shifted dramatically. Really, if you are practically screaming from the effort of lifting a weight, it is probably too heavy for you. Why I know this and the grunters don't is beyond me. Then again, they tend to not be flabby, either. I'll take some jiggle and increasingly wide hips over the chance that I might rip my arms out of my sockets from lifting heavy weights. I think I would look very bad with no arms.

Speaking of ripping arms out of sockets, the best upper body workout I've had this year came from carrying my fat pet rabbit about a mile from the vet back to my apartment. I really did think that they might be pulled free from my body. The next morning, my biceps and shoulders were mad sore. However, I did not grunt once from the effort or the subsequent pain.

black lacy thong

All during my cardio workout, I was behind this girl. She had an 80s-style cut tank top over her sports bra, and some butt-ass pants that were so tight, I could see every detail of her intricately laced black thong panties. I would use the cliche of being able to read her credit card numbers, but her pants were so tight that there is no way a flat square credit card would even fit in there against her butt. She was using the elliptical, which I have no problem with, but she was using it such a way to accentuate the sensual movements of her butt. And it was all for naught, because nobody even looked at her except for me. And I was forced to, because I was sitting on the bike directly behind her machine.

********************

When I was done with my workout, I washed my face in the sink of the locker room. The girls in there stared at me like I was crazy. But then someone else came in and washed her face. Now who's crazy?

She's One of Us: Because it Feels Good to Beat the Crap Out of Something

My former blog exchange partner, Kim, wrote a great post a while ago on her blog In Full Bloom about some of the oddities she has seen in her own workout experiences. She is a keen observer and a great writer, and this is a really enjoyable post that I have meant to link to for a while. I highly recommend it.

So without further ado, presenting Because it Feels Good to Beat the Crap Out of Something.

conver-tetion

I went to Old Navy yesterday to replenish my workout clothes supply. (I think we have laundry gremlins.) The person ringing me up said "I take it you go to the gym." Looking at my 2 sports bras, yoga pants (that aren't for yoga), 4 tank tops, and pack of sport socks, I laughed and said "How'd you guess."

We then got into a mostly-one-sided conversation that was essentially about who's gym was better, who paid less, who took better classes (her, because I don't take classes), who needs to go more, who used to go more, etc. Everything I would say, she would one-up me. But then try to humble herself by saying "I really need to go to the gym more, but my work schedule is so crazy." I could have been drawn in and said "Well I work 8-5 on weekdays, so I know exactly when I'm going to the gym" but she kept talking about how great she was, so I paid for my things and left.

I think I lost the First Annual Old Navy Shopping For Gym Clothes While Bragging Competition.