I wish I had a communicable, uncurable disease right now

I decided that since I was running late to the gym I would just get in a little treadmill action. It's not ever my first choice of activity because it involves me making an actual self-motivated effort to sweat.

In a class I am sort of guilted into pushing through because everyone around me is too. When I work out by myself I usually get bored and quit early.

Today though I actually pushed myself and...RAN. Not super fast or anything, and only for a few minute burst, but I did it. And I didn't die. It's a good start.

After about a half hour I decided I wanted to be done, but I knew Audrey would have a Britney-scale freak out if I told her it was time to leave the kid care room. She loves that place.

I decided I would go upstairs and, no matter what the 10:15 class was, I would take it.

Lucky me, it was that "dance" workout class, Zumba.

Not wanting to puss out, I stayed. The teacher was really sweet so I wanted to at least give it a chance.

The second I decided to stay, I saw this woman walking towards me who I recognized from Audrey's first preschool. I don't remember her name, so I'll just call her "Bitch that won't shut the hell up" or BTWSTHU for short.

BTWSTHU started in immediately. "HI! How've you been? Carson is in preschool today so I'm here taking this class, it's fun, I've only done it once, but it was really really fun, how's Audrey? I think about her all the time, I knew I would run into you sooner or later, do you do swim lessons? We do them at Happy Splashes, and my sons love it, it's two times a week so they really liked it, it's expensive but I think it's worth it, you will love this class, it's not that hard...."

No breaths taken. No pauses for responses.

And she's one of those who, instead of taking a breath or a break from yapping, she inserts a "well, like I said before" to segue back into something she already beat to death 10 minutes ago.

It's impossible to escape conversation with her short of being hit by a car.

Thankfully the class started and the music was so loud I couldn't hear her. Finally, she stopped talking.

I'll admit the class was kind of fun. I'll probably do it again but really, if I feel like dancing around like an idiot I'll do what I normally do and throw back a few drinks before heading downtown to the gay bar. Duh.

I stopped to take a water break at the same time as an old lady in the class. As soon as I had the water bottle to my lips I heard, "Excuse me. I think that's mine".

I felt really bad, but it wasn't really my fault. She put her water, which looked exactly like mine, right next to my stuff.

"I'm so sorry, " I said. What was I supposed to do? So I added, "Um...I don't have cooties if that makes you feel any better." and kind of lightly put my hand on her shoulder to really bring the point home.

What do you think that bitch did? Bristled! BRISTLED at my friendly gesture. And then took the other water bottle and went out of her way to throw it in the trash.

Oh, for the love.

I ended up leaving the class early because I had had enough of both BTWSTHU and Crotch-face old lady. Plus I was getting hungry.

As I was leaving I made sure to make eye contact with Crotchy and mouth the word "Herpes" and blow her a kiss.

That'll show her.

One Track Mind

I love the exercise class I take on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The Monday and Wednesday ones not so much (stupid cardio), but Tue/Thur gets a hearty thumbs up.

It's a strength training class which I dig, and the teacher is really hard on us which I need.

Today was more difficult than usual because it took everything in me not to completely embarrass myself by laughing my ass off.

She had us do this move where we got down on all fours (which is funny all on its own) and alternate a raised right hand/left leg then vice versa. A set of those led to not only raising said leg/arm combo, but also touching opposite hand to opposite leg and following the path of our arm with our head (to improve our balancing skillz, yo) which the teacher insisted on calling a "reach around".

And if that wasn't enough to me into fits of juvenile giggles, she then started shouting "NOW, JUST THE REACH AROUND. NO HEAD! JUST THE REACH AROUND. NO HEAD!".

I don't know whether to feel sorry for her husband or give him a medal.

I found it charming.

One summer back in college I had a boyfriend who was sweet and funny and a little bit crazy. It was fun.

I had met him years before we actually dated when I was sleeping with one of his roommates. Who would have thought, years later, we would end up together for a while?

One night while Summer Boyfriend and I were hanging out, he told me that his bedroom was directly above his old roommate's, and he used to be able to hear us having sex through the floor.

And he would masturbate while he listened in.

Happy Columbus Day!

Today I discovered that step aerobics doesn't have to suck. One might say it's opened up a whole new world, quite by accident really.

I love gay porn

Last night, I finally got to watch 300.

I've decided I need to run my house as King Leonidas did. From now on, I will not politely ask my children to clean up their messes.

"THIS IS OUR HOUSE! YOU WERE BORN TO SERVE OUR HOUSE! LET NOT YOUR TOYS LAY UPON THE GROUND WHICH YOU SERVE!"

I'm going to start warrior training immediately. My girls are 3 and 5 1/2. Enough time has been lost already.

We'll start simply. There are a plethora of smarmy squirrels running rampant in the backyard, perfect for target practice. We'll move on to throwing open safety pins at the mail carrier after that.

I've got a handful of flat sheets that aren't being used right now that will be perfect for capes and/or togas.

Now, does anyone know where I can find a few dozen ripped, virile half-dressed men?

Not for my project. I'm just wondering where I could find some.

Can't I just take a pill?

I dragged my ass to the gym today. I've been slacking off because of the move, vacation and just general summer mayhem, so it was time.

I decided to take it easy and not take the class I would have normally taken on a Wednesday. It involves a lot of cardio, and I wasn't really in the mood to have a heart attack today.

I was making my way around the weight machine curcuit when one of the gym's personal trainer guys walks right up to me and starts saying something. I couldn't hear him at first because I had Ira Glass blaring in my ears, and frankly I was a little confused.

I don't talk to anyone around me at the gym unless we are in a class together. I feel weird even making eye contact with anyone while I am on the weight machines, and here's this guy I don't even know striking up a conversation with me.

"Would you like me to show you a better way to work out your chest?"

"Excuse me?" A thousand snarky and/or pervy retorts immediately flooded my brain.

I think the gym is trying to drum up business for their personal trainers so they are sending them out on what essentially boils down to "cold calls".

I can just hear their morning meetings:

"Well guys and gals, no one wants to pay the ridiculous personal trainer fees we have so why don't you get out there and try to get some of our memebers hooked by giving out a few freebies. Try the "mom types" first. They're desperate for attention."

I figured it wouldn't kill me to see what this personal training thing was all about even if I'll never have the extra funds to actually hire one.

He was nice and seemed to know what he was talking about. He was sort of cute in a clean cut way, but...he was wearing cologne. Why cover up the very thing you are trying to be while at the gym?

Sweaty can be sexy, though for the record, there are different kinds of sweaty. Sweaty from exercise, mowing the lawn, sex or fixing shit is hot. Sweaty from the anticipation of getting to the next level of a video is not.

So this cologne-wearing pretty boy is showing me some free weight stuff and some stability ball exercises I can do and offers me a free session. Free is good.

Then he asks for my name and phone number, "I'll call you tonight if I have any kind of scheduling conflict."

Part of me hopes that he does have some sort of conflict. It feels really strange to have someone standing there, watching me do exercises and now I have to do it for a whole hour.

What have I gotten myself into?

"Hooked on Ejaculation"

BIG LOVE to Katie Schwartz for sending me this little gem. Remember Ladies, if he won't buy you some $2.99 shrimp from Long John Silver, he ain't no real man.

Long, but more than worth it.

Don't be a slave to the penis power

One time I hated my neighbors

Last week at the grocery store, I ran into our old neighbors. Unfortunately, it wasn't with the car.

When we bought our current house, these people had only lived in it for 4 months. Through their realtor we found out that the husband (Chuck) had had some heart problems and his doctor told him, "No stairs, no mowing the lawn, and no fast food." So they had to move to avoid two out of the three.

We took full advantage of this information by only paying two thousand dollars more than they paid for it. I know they took a bath on the transaction. I felt a little guilty for practically ripping off an sick old dude and his wife, but all's fair in love and real estate.

About six months after we moved into our house, we got new neighbors next door. I was outside, playing with the dogs when I saw an older couple waving at me from across the fence.

"Remember us?!" a witchy haired crone hollered, a sack of greasy fast food in her claw.

"Uh...."

"It's us! Chuck and Cindy! We sold you your house!"

I was instantly bewildered. The house next door, except for less square footage and one less bathroom, is an exact replica of our house. The not-so-secret information their former real estate agent played in my head. Why would they buy a two story house with a big yard? Why, when they had almost the same thing less than a year ago? Why?

I was wasting time wondering about these issues when there would be a whole host of others to contemplate in the years to come.

For instance, why would they rip out a perfectly good fence, tear up the grass next to the driveway, then fill it in with gravel?

Answer: So they could pull their truck up that extra 10 feet to the back door. I think they were afraid the Wendys, McDonalds, or Hardees they ate almost every day would get cold if they had to carry it too far. Also, I don't think they wanted to get any inadvertent exercise.

Answer #2: So their beautiful golden-white Labrador wouldn't have the joy of romping in a big back yard, but would instead be locked up in an 8x8 pen. Wouldn't want the dog to get any inadvertent exercise either.

I didn't get why they even had a dog. I never saw him play with it. Cindy was afraid of it, so he never never got to come in the house. I know not all dogs are spoiled rotten like ours are, but they never brought him inside. They had a perfectly good garage that they didn't even use. They could have put the dog in there when the weather was bad (ie; the ice storm that poor dog endured one winter). Sure, he had a makeshift plywood doghouse inside his pen (giving him even less room to exercise), but it killed me to see him laying on top of it everyday lonely and bored.

So bored in fact, that he barked incessantly. At first, Chuck would yell out the kitchen window to tell his dog to shut up. Over time, that apparently took too much effort as he eventually hooked up an intercom system, pointing the speaker out the upstairs bedroom window to yell at the dog.

Oh, and the dog wasn't neutered either. When I asked Chuck one day if he was planning on showing the dog or breeding him, Chuck looked confused. I pointed out that his dog wasn't "fixed" and I wondered if he was a show dog or was he planning on starting a puppy mill. He got pretty defensive. I started anonymously calling Animal Control about the barking.

I tried to be somewhat friendly with them, but when he casually referred to the renters across the street as "Ni***r Whores", I washed my hands of them. The bumper sticker on his truck of Calvin pissing on the word "France" pretty much sealed the deal of my immense hostility toward them.

I was so damn happy when they finally sold their house and moved. They said they were moving to Las Vegas, and all I could picture was that sweet dog dying of heat stroke in their backyard.

But they didn't move to Vegas. They moved across town. And now I'll probably run into them all the time. Last week "broke the seal" so to speak.

I was nice to them. No sense in being a bitch just for the hell of it. I save that for my husband.

They were pretty excited to see me and the girls.

"Chuuuu-uuuck! Come see your kids!"

Excuse me? "Your" kids?! I know she was trying to friendly and her statement was sort of a "Oh we think you guys are great/your kids are great/we care about you" kind of thing, but it made my blood boil. I didn't like her familiar tone.

"I don't like you!" I wanted to scream across the grocery store, "I think you're a couple of racist, lazy animal abusing fucks! I hate you I hate you I hate you!"

But I didn't. I mentioned that we were in the process of selling the house, and Cindy nodded, "I know! I saw the sign!" (if it's not apparent by now, Cindy yells everything).

Then, without thinking I asked the million dollar question, "Wanna' buy it?"

We shared an uncomfortable chuckle, after which Chuck rolled away in the handicap grocery cart contraption, basket filled with pizza rolls, sausage and whole milk.

Gonna' make you sweat

Why do they have to play such awful music in the exercise classes I go to? It's like a gay nightclub circa 1992, except without all the sexy sweaty homosexuals to dance inappropriately with. (*For the record, I LOVE going to gay nightclubs any chance I get.*)
"Cool down" is even more embarrassing. We travel from The Manhole to a cheesy, lite rock cruise ship. Celine Dion is a screeching mess of a woman. I have no interest in stretching while she's singing. Retching, yes. Stretching, no.

And why did they have to hire "Hot Guy Painters, Inc." to paint the gym? Management could have at least sent out a mass email warning me that I'd be doing squats four inches from the window they were edging. The worst part? They didn't even look up from what they were doing. Dammit people! Throw a girl a bone.

I like exercising. It makes me feel better, sleep better and ultimately squelches any guilt I feel about the cupcake I ate after breakfast this morning.

For me, it's not really about health though. If it were, I would have given up cigarettes and french fries a long time ago. It's about vanity.

I'm chugging through my 30's here and after a couple of babies, the body starts to rebel a bit. I absolutely refuse to wear "Mom Jeans". High-waisted, peg-bottomed pants will never hang in my closet. I also refuse to willfully wear anything with words printed across the ass, but that was an executive decision passed down in high school. And no sweat pants. Thank the babyjesus for yoga pants (all the comfort, none of the humiliating elastic).

In order to still be able to shop for fun clothes and not cry in the dressing room, I work out. I have to. My genetic makeup demands it.

I suppose the gym may be onto something hiring these delicious young men to repaint the walls. Maybe it's subtle motivation.

I'm not sure what they're thinking with the music.