I haven't gone inside the rec center yet, and I completely missed last year.
I'm not in shape enough. You might be thinking with the heavy sarcasm that is the only
marketable skill we graduate with, that I am missing the point of the rec center. But I
know what I'm talking about here. Unfit people are out of place in a weight room---we're
aesthetically displeasing and we get in the way. I go to the rec center with so much
trepidation and self-consciousness that I often trip over myself, and consequently have
yet to learn how to use the equipment. It's hard to keep my posture straight, my
breathing even, and my wedgie to the wall while I'm frantically trying to program the
Stairmaster. "Two minutes until the Himalayan Sprint!" it cheerfully beeps at me, and my
one hand not busy with the wedgie desperately punches every button in sight. Often I
have to resort to unplugging it. So I prefer to stick to a basic workout, specifically the only
machine in the rec center that I know how to work besides the water fountain: The
Rowing Machine. I sit there, with my eyes at buttock level, hating every toned ass in the
place while I'm flailing in the grip of what is essentially a gigantic rubber band.
But frankly, I don't care, because I am way too young for perfection. Hell, I just hit
legal drinking age. I love red meat, preferably so rare that I can hold conversations with
it. I even enjoy a cigarette occasionally--those occasions being morning, noon, night, and
anytime one hand is free.
Apparently there are ways to get in shape and have fun, although personally I think
such people are just kidding themselves. For instance, did you know that we have a
synchronized swim team? I caught their choreographed videotape at W&M Activities
Night back in August and let me tell you, there's no better argument for keeping humans
land-bound. I suppose I'm biased, though--I'm about as adept in the water as a piece of
toast. While the other kids butterflied and breaststroked, I clutched my way around the
side of the shallow end, checking those little filters for frogs. Occasionally, and always in
private, I would try to make peace with the pool. As an exercise of sheer will, I would
plunge into the four foot end and determinedly, like some sort of retarded bottom-
feeder, pull myself along the cement floor until I involuntarily popped straight out of the
water, gasping for air and entangled in those damn ropes. Despite this attempt at self-
therapy, I always hid in the bathroom if someone organized a pool game, and I'd make a
break for it if that game was Sharks and Minnows. If ever I accidently found myself in the
middle of one of those games, I panicked, kicking the Sharks in the face and grabbing
hold of the other Minnows until, as if in some bizarre aquatic mating ritual, we would sink
to the bottom of the pool. I was always a real hit at pool parties.
Thus, I've realized, in my attempts to establish a fitness regimen, that water sports are
out--at least group water sports. I tried Aerobics Plus, but I could barely afford the fees,
let alone the Spandi-Wear. I tried Ironbound, where I found it easy to blend in with the
six-foot-plus men of steel, but the machines made the rec center's look like Fisher-Price.
So it's down to a war between my body and my mouth, and I fear that my mouth will
prevail. It usually does, particularly in awkward social situations such as funerals, and
always at fast food places.
So until Richard Simmons arrives on my doorstep with the Deal-A-Meal Fried Food
plan, my potbelly is here for the duration. Potbelly is maybe too genteel a description,
especially since that bitch in Pulp Fiction ruined the word for those of us who know what
a pot-belly really is. I have a gut--and it's so big that I should probably have hair tatooed
on it. I honestly consider it a handicap, and am in the process of applying for special
parking as we speak. In shops I linger in the crop-top section, fingering them longingly
and wishing I could wear one sometime, somewhere--perhaps in a foreign country. Once
in a while I get inspired by those daytime talk shows (and don't think this inspiration
doesn't occur all the time), but I'm referring particularly to those shows with "Huge
Women Who Like to Wear as Little as Possible." Now, you eventually want to applaud
her proud-to-be-me attitude, but can't help sneaking un-P.C. glances at her thighs to
confirm that, yes, they probably cross several time zones. She certainly has lots to be
proud of.
I often refer to talk shows when life gets tough, for I am a talk show addict. I feel as if
I need some sort of twelve-step program (and a life). But I don't usually get addicted to
shows; I've never even seen an entire soap opera episode and I routinely tear up photos
of the 90210 cast. But when I'm tooling around at home during the day, busily eating or
cleaning or skipping classes or eating, I'll leave the TV on, and talk shows are on every
channel, second only in frequency to Rogaine ads. I can graph talk show hosts by "skills"
and "charisma," and I can distinguish the audiences by socioeconomic makeup. I can also
tally the repetition of specific themes on every show, such as "My Mother Dresses Too
Slutty," one topic that I have always found personally compelling since my mother
secretly belly dances at bachelor parties every weekend. Just kidding, Dad. Even Oprah is
guilty of her trashy moments, although in her search for a different audience (read: old-
fashioned housewives) she has evolved into some sort of Good Housekeeping goes
video.
Just when I thought that the bulk of daytime television had reached clonedom, those
clever talk show hosts came up with even newer gimmicks, like the Charles Perez
Players: touching little skits with today's guests ("Catholic Transvestites with a Thing for
Trout") acting out tomorrow's show ("Mothers Who Hate Their Trashy Teens"). And just
the other day I saw Rikki put a new twist on the old "indecent bikini" theme by choosing a
member of the audience to apply suntan oil to the Adonis posed on a four foot lifeguard
stand in the background. Apparently, he was a prop. But no longer do they even bother
to create lame topics to justify blatant nudity; some of these new shows would be more
accurately titled "People Who Want You to See Them Naked Right Now."
So you can see that these shows provide me with a certain degree of intellectual
stimulation, or at least enough to justify the fact that I watch them. As a sociology major, I
have a sincere desire to look upon the most honest, painful, and shameful issues in our
society--and wonder, just how much do they pay these people? These shows make no
pretense of offering any answers. The lipsticked "expert" gets drowned out by the credits
every time.
Talk shows are definitely a thing of the nineties. It may be common practice to
identify specific decades by fashions, presidents, or spouses, but I have a very random
chronology system that includes daytime talk shows and "popular music." No, not even
music, but songs, and usually really bad ones. For instance, when I think "seventies," I
think "Horse With No Name." This song captures, with its distinctive instrumentals and
distinctively stupid lyrics, the sound of brains still sizzling after the sixties. The nineties, on
the other hand, can be identified by song and group names which, if not openly hostile,
usually make absolutely no sense. (I offer the group Smashing Pumpkins as a case in
point, no angry response letters required.) When this fountain of name creativity dries up,
perhaps we should try simply numbering our groups, much like world wars.
The eighties, comparably, were the warm fuzzy years of music history: "Friends and
Lovers," "Ebony and Ivory," Ren and Stimpy. But the eighties nostalgia really hits when I
hear anything by Journey or Chicago. Seriously. Suddenly, I'm fourteen years old again, a
hormone-drenched, pimple-sprouting, math class daydreamer. I used to close my eyes
and dream that someday, some boy would say to me, "I am the man who would fight for
your honor/I'll be the hero that you've been dreaming of for Junior Prom." When my
friends and I now reminisce as women, I share this part of my childhood with the group.
Instead of humming along, though, they all look nauseated and make me wonder if I
shouldn't renew that lithium prescription. I have yet to meet anyone who remembers
liking either of those groups. But since they were at one point undeniably big, I am led to
wonder: Did these guys have an anonymous group of worshippers? Were their fan
letters unsigned? Were their concerts always empty? Were all their album sales by mail?
How do you think this made them feel? I'm sure Rikki can find out. Just look for "Naked
Aging Geek Rockers" sometime next week.