Originally Posted Thursday, June 26, 2014
It has taken me about two weeks to understand what the instructors are barking out at the front of the room underneath the way too loud music, the kind I hated already and have learned to hate even more now. One day I asked if they had a class that spun to folk music. I am not as appreciated there as I would like.
But I have learned something about controlling the bike and the resistance I need to do the exercises so that I can make a consistent effort throughout the entire hour or so. But I know what I must look like from the front of the class where the instructor resides--a fat old drunk struggling from the very beginning. Why is he touching his chest? Is that old fuck ready to have a heart attack? I am positive that is what runs through their minds as I put my head down, mouth agape, chest heaving, thighs burning. . . a picture of medieval misery.
On the other hand, I can be cute. I used to be in shape. And I have nice hair. I mean. . . I pay enough for it.
Last night I spinned/spanned/spun with an instructor I had never seen before. She came in a hard ass and never got nicer. And. . . whatthefuck. . . she decided to pick on me? Ten minutes into the class she was asking me if I was O.K. Then she was hitting me with her towel and telling me to pick it up. A bit later, she came to where I sat my bike and asked me if I needed a hair tie. All of this on the microphone. Then she took the bike next to me an turned it around, a feat accomplished with much effort and weirdness, and sat next to me and rode the bike and me both.
"Are you O.K.?"
"My puke meter is about on 9," I said.
Into the mic: "Are you going to puke?"
"If I do, it will be in your direction."
The cute girls in the class, all spinning along without sweat, were turning around and laughing at me.
"What are you doing?!? Leave me alone!" I said to her.
But I have to say, I rode harder through embarrassment and impotent anger (she had no trouble talking through the most difficult parts of the ride) than I have and the results were impressive. I was spent. Done. Kaput.
After class, I lay on a mat stretching out. The maniacal instructor was talking to the cute girls who rode in front of me. She was complaining about people like me who couldn't stay in synch with the rhythm of the course.
"I can hear you," I said.
She came over.
"Did you think I was going to have a heart attack or were you just trying to give me one?"
"I like your hair," she said.
O.K. One for my team.
I am going three times a week and it is working. You should see how clear my eyes are. The whites are pure white again. I drink less, too. And I'm not hungry, of course, after I workout. And there are results. That little animal I've been carrying around on my lower back, the one that has wings, that little animal is shrinking. I don't weigh myself, but I know what I am looking like. My legs are sore but getting shapely again. Shit, I make myself horny :)
Which could segue into the other reason I can't sleep, but this has been long and boring enough. I have much to do this morning, and I must decide if I am going to go to work. I am not a soccer fan, but I am a fan of Brits talking about soccer. It is a literary language all its own. American sportscasters are idiots and oafs, but the smooth-tongued Britons are something else. And the U.S. plays Germany at noon. Four years ago, I was in NYC during the world cup. I remember what that was like. Every bar, every pub across the entire island. . . and when the U.S. scored a goal, it was eerie. You could hear the cheers coming from every direction near and far. It was as I would imagine a choir of drunken angels yelling in heaven might sound. I might just have to find a good place to watch the game and have a pint. And since the game begins at noon, I wouldn't know how to schedule work in at all. And now that I am getting legs again. . . maybe I'll wear shorts and let the people gaze upon my splendor.
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