She's cheer captain, and I'm... on the floor next to that static ab-work bench, crying.

Longtime readers might remember this post from last year, in which I recounted a series of unfortunate events that ultimately resulted in a decision to never, ever engage in formal exercise again. (For those disinclined to click through, suffice to say that my left boob was involved, as was half the hipster population of Williamsburg.) This decision made sense at the time; when your daily commute involves three miles of walking, it's easy to be all, Gym? HA! Why should I go to one, when French people don't?!

But then, I got a job. A job that required daily commute by car, to the most unwalkable place on the planet. A job so soul-sucking that I had no choice but to spend every lunch break comforting myself with bagels! And in the absence of regular exercise --and in the presence of my undeniably enlargened ass -- I began to reconsider the whole "gym" thing. I actually reconsidered myself all the way into the parking lot of a local fitness center, armed with $200 worth of signup money, ready to fork it all over for the privilege of giving up Bagel Time in favor of spending my lunch break sweating on an elliptical machine.

I reconsidered, until the point at which I saw people exiting the fitness center -- frowning, unhappy, clammy-looking people in ill-fitting gym wear -- and plodding joylessly to their cars whilst shrieking at each other with Long Island accents.

At which point I reconsidered myself over to a nearby TJ Maxx, where I successfully eradicated the horror of what I had just witnessed by spending my signup money on several pairs of really cute boots.

And that was that.
Until I got laid off, after which one of my first rational thoughts was: Well, maybe I can take this as an opportunity to lose those couple-of-ass-pounds I seem to have acquired during the past year!

(Admittedly: I have no idea whether such a thing is possible. I'm sure I'm not the only person around here who has a 10-pound-ish range of weights that I can see on the scale and think, "Yeah, I'm okay with that"; however, I do wonder if I'm the only one for whom 7 of the 10 acceptable pounds correspond to a number I have never weighed. Those bottom seven are aspirational weights that I might, MIGHT, have seen on the scale sometime before my 7th grade growth spurt. But dammit, a girl has to have dreams!)

And that is why, when my little brother said, "Hey, do you want to come to the gym with me tonight?", I thought about it for a second and said, "Yeah, okay."

Yeah. Okay.

I'd like to say that this ended up being a rebirth of sorts, in which I discovered that I was wrong all this time -- that I love the gym, and its sleek machines, and its burly occupants, and its saturated walls that positively resonate with the sound of free-weight grunting and the heavy scent of MAN MUSK. But instead, this happened:

1. My toes fell asleep on the elliptical machine.

2. And then some random dude came through the door and caught me right in the middle of trying to belt the words to "You Belong With Me" while running on the elliptical machine. (Note: This is more difficult than it sounds.)

3. And then I completely abandoned the embarrassing and toe-deadening elliptical machine in favor of the Slanted Bench That You Lie On To Do Crunches, only to find, when I tried to get up from said bench, that I had gotten stuck in it.

4. And then I fell on the floor and hurt myself.


Yeah.
NO.

I suppose I might attempt the gym again, someday -- for instance, if I become wealthy enough to afford a personal trainer and/or state-of-the-art bionic body parts. But right now, I'm anticipating a winter full of a lot of walking.

On the downside, it will be very cold.

On the upside, I do have several pairs of really cute boots.