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Wed | January 17, 2007
notes on the gym
I have just started a 2-week trial membership at the Bally's two towns over. And found out today that what I really wanted to register for (because of a commercial I saw on tv during the Apprentice premiere) was the Discovery Health Challenge. That would give me an eight-week free membership through March 10. Now my only hope is that they will let me keep coming anyway. I will just tell them I am doing the challenge. I dunno. I missed the registration by a day, as it was available until midnight last night. They are pretty lax in their admission policy, anyway. There is a turnstile but you can walk right by the desk and no one stops you. Unless you stop yourself, as I do. There is a NY Sports Club in Springfield also, but they charge twenty bucks for a 2-week trial membership. I will probably visit them after all this Bally's stuff runs out. Just to see, maybe they will have something for free. Even if it's just a day. And then it will be spring and I might just get exercise outside somehow. Or maybe I will join. It's expensive though. I could join the three day a week plan for 30 bucks, that may be the only plan within my grasp. I think the more you think about how little money you have, the more you spend it, definitely. Recently I've been thinking about it and as a result I've gone shopping twice within the space of a week. Finally quenched my thirst for Uniqlo cashmere.
It is nice to be back at a gym, after all these years of not. It's like, there's people there. I am pretty isolated so it's nice just to be around living creatures (as opposed to walking the neighborhood and seeing people inside cars). And in a non-threatening way where I don't feel like I have to perform or feel undervalued like at work. I have no interest in the people at Bally's, for the most part, but they don't annoy me. Unless they are stinky- then they are annoying. But otherwise, it's ok. It's a middle-class, middle-aged crowd, which I almost prefer to the decidedly more affluent Summit Y, who remind me of where I should be, but am not. Bally's also has lots of men with big muscles, who are interesting to look at, but nothing more. And a whole bunch of shapeless middling people whom I would not have expected to see at the gym, but I guess everyone is getting in shape now. Or trying to.
What I find funny about Bally's is that they have a soda machine there, which is half full of water bottles, but still. And they also have a juice bar, which is okay, I guess, but still. After all that effort at burning calories it seems stupid to then consume some. Also, one of the reasons I never did really like the gym is that it seems like such a waste of energy. I never did get over the incredible futility of running in place on a treadmill, or doing repetitions of anything for the sake of the movement itself, without any real purpose. I mean why aren't all these machines hooked up to a generator, or something. All that lifting and running energy could be harnessed to power the lights at the gym.
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