Augh—I'm back in gym class!!

Well hellooooooo there, Missus Mullinator…can I, y’know, buy you a drink? What’s your sign? Mind if I smoke? What’s a nice girl like you doin’ in a place like this? Hubba, hubba! If I told you you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me? I love my wife, but oh, you kid!

Ow! OW!!! Damn it, Eve!

Finagle-
you beat me to it! I was going to mention the “Jaws” survivor!

I always hated going to the gym, although I liked the results. But it was hard to stay motivated. About five years ago I started bicycling to work twice a week (California weather caveat), and in no time was hooked. One nice side effect for a slothful person like me was that once on the bike I was committed–I had to get to work, after all–no wimping out after a few miles. This has become so enjoyable that I try to take as roundabout a route as possible, given time constraints. Some days this translates to a 60-mile, four-hour roundtrip, but most days the commute is 40 miles.

None of this is in a dense urban setting, however. I doubt that I could be able to summon up the kamikaze mindset of a bike messenger to survive in that arena.

Tae Bo, Tae Bo, Tae Bo!


Plunging like stones from a slingshot on Mars.

Thanks Ike, I just knew someone would do that. I would have expected Wally, but his heart probably wouldn’t have made it through the first pickup line.

I hated gym class with the blinding passion of 10,000 suns and wouldn’t be caught working out in a gym. But I guess I have an excuse. Lucky, lucky me.


“I hope life isn’t a big joke, because I don’t get it,” Jack Handy

The Kat House
Join the FSH Muscular Dystrophy Webring

If you hate the gym, the best thing you can do is get involved with a sport, whether it be individual or team. I’m not good at it, but I love racquetball, and it doesn’t get boring. Surely you can find a casual game of basketball somewhere…

Tangential, but handy, tip:
Don’t schedule your Art 1 class immediately after swimming class. By the end of swimming class your legs are too tired to walk to the art building in enough time, and once you get there your arms are too tired to hold a pencil up in front of you.

This probably explains why my art teacher described most of my drawings of nudes as looking like “the Pillsbury Doughboy.”

How do gyms rate for picking up people? You know, like for dates, not bench pressing them.

Well, you can just blame the model for that!

“How do gyms rate for picking up people? You know, like for dates, not bench pressing them.”

—Well, back in the '80s, they were great, I met a lot of boyfriends there. Now, people seem more interested in working out than going out.

Gee, this couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that I was young and cute in the '80s and now I’m a middle-aged dowager, could it? Hmmm . . .

Ah, grasshoppa, you laugh, but do not see it’s wisdom…

Actually, that’s what I thought at first two but it’s amazing how it really does work you! It’s not aerobic but it IS really great for strength and flexibility. I run about 3-5 miles in the spring/summer/fall and was a gymnast growing up etc etc and this thing is kicking my butt. I’m actually learning it out of a book called “Power Yoga”.

Mullinator: Well, whaddaya expect, you leave a dame like that all alone at the bar while you go off to play pinball?


Uke

Look Uke. You and I both know that the seductive bells, flashing lights, and bumpers of a pinball machine are hard to ignore.


Have you voted for your favorite, huggable Mullinator today?

Ah, Mully, dear, but what of the seductive bells, flashing lights, and bumpers of your wife and I?

On the subject of how gyms rate for picking people up…nothing ticks me off more than some sleaze bag disrupting my concentration while at the gym. Or even a non-sleaze bag. I love working out, and go to the gym four days a week at the least, and hate anyone talking to me while I’m there. For those who hate the gym, join a league of some sort. I joined a soccer league about a year ago, we play indoor October - March, and outdoor Spring and Summer - something to look forward to every week, and you meet a lot of great people. Oh, and you don’t have to know people to join, they always have lists around to sign up as a single…look for your city’s sport and social club, they usually have all sorts of different sports.

Well Eve, I think it is safe to say that I would choose my wifes flashers and bumpers. Of course, after that last post, I am now stuck with the though of you and my wife together.

Yup, dang glad I joined the SDMB. Finally paying some dividends.


Have you voted for your favorite, huggable Mullinator today?

So, saraam, YOU’RE the surly, unpleasant person I always see at the gym?

I smile and even chat with people whom I DO NOT EVEN WANT TO HAVE SEX. No, I don’t sit down next to them on the bench and start discussing “War and Peace,” but I do smile in a friendly way with both men and women and maybe make desultory chit-chat, just because we see each other all the time and I want to be, oh, friendly? That’s why I don’t like Walkmans—they may help people get through a workout, but gosh, they are anti-social!

Oh, Eve, you have got me wrong. I am by no means thought of as surly or unfriendly. Really. But I have been quite athletic all my life and like to work out hard. The gym, IMHO, is not a social center, and for those who think it is - go find a coffee shop. My social club membership (soccer), on the other hand, is a social atmosphere. The gadflys who flit around the gym trying to be cute are in the wrong place, that’s all I’m saying.

:::in a more serious vein::: You’re absolutely right, Max. I wasn’t joking about hating never seeing the scenery change (who wants to be surrounded by walls and sweaty, bored people? ick.). My gym is the world, and I get lots of exercise just powering around it on foot. (I canNOT walk slowly.) I really enjoy cruising the boulevards in my Keds, and taking exploratory detours into unknown alleys (so much to see and wonder about!). Anyone can do it, and it can be done anywhere… just get up and DO something! There’s hiking, white water rafting, vollyball, dance classes, evening bicycle rides through the neighborhood, really washing/waxing the cars, adventurous walks with the dogs, gardening (yeah, even that), and a zillion other ways to keep your heart strong and your body toned without having to PAY for the privilege of being stuck in a smelly torture chamber filled with 30 other pained individuals wrassling big, nasty metal contraptions. :::shudder:::

<font size=1>Of course, I must add that sex is also good exercise (and more fun than just about anything)!</font size=1>


StoryTyler
“Not everybody does it, but everybody should.”
I Spy Ty.