So I'm sitting at my desk at work. We had a couple of power outages right after lunch that kept the computers off until almost 3:00, and that was good. Any time we get to just sit around the office and bullshit without getting into trouble is good. But, alas, the power was restored and we're supposed to be working, now. But I had finished my module just before lunch, and there was nothing left for me to do but e-mail it to the guy who's doing the rest of the program and wait for him to encounter bugs. (I'm pretty sure my algorithms are sound; I expect things to be pretty slow here at work for the next couple of weeks. Maybe I'll have a chance to do some work on my webpage.)
But during the two hours that there was no power, I was talking to Matt (did I mention we work for the same company?) and we agreed that if the power was still out when we left work, we wouldn't be able to go to our water aerobics class tonight. But the power came back on, dammit. So now I'm trying to see if I can come up with some other reason not to go to class.
I wonder why it is that I do this to myself? I hate exercising. I can't think of a single type of regular exercise that I enjoy. I don't like games that require physical activity much, either. Well, I enjoy dancing, but dancing alone in your apartment feels really dorky, and going out to clubs just to get exercise is a little expensive.
The problem is, when people ask why I don't like exercising, or they suggest activities for me to try, my reasons for hating it come across as mere excuses. Whiney excuses, even. I can't stand feeling sweaty. Chlorine makes my skin itch. I hate changing clothes in the middle of the day - especially if I'm wet. I have yet to encounter a bicycle seat that doesn't give me a wedgie. I have a bad back. I have bad feet. (That one's medically documented, at least.) I hate the dirty feeling that comes with sweating and doing floor exercises like situps.
And all that's true. But that doesn't stop it from sounding like whining.
My Weight Watchers leader, Deby, gave us a suggestion that I thought was good a while back - when you're watching TV, get up and march or jog in place during the commercials. There are a good 15-20 minutes of commercials in every hour of TV. Unfortunately, we don't usually watch any TV at all in the evenings. And when we do, Matt isn't usually the sort to turn on to a particular show and just leave it there; he has to flip around the channels. And not just during the commercials - Sometimes, just as I think I might enjoy some show, he gets bored and changes the channel. It's usually not worth the bother to tell him to turn it back. The point remains that we don't watch enough TV to turn it into my exercise schedule. (Maybe when the new B5 show starts... But that will still only be once a week.)
Why can't I just suck it up and deal with it? Why does it seem to me that my 45-minute aerobics class eats up half of my free time? (Well, it does; I get off work at 5, the class runs from 5:30 to 6:15, and since I have to change clothes afterwards, we don't get home until almost 7. And I have to start getting ready for bed by 9 or there's no way I'll get enough sleep. So two hours out of my four-hour evening is half.) But there's got to be some form of exercise I can do that won't be so time-consuming and oppressive... It's not even like the class is that hard - but three times a week I find myself dreading it; hoping that Matt will forget about it so I don't have to go; looking for an excuse - any excuse - that will get me out of going to that damn gym and putting on that damn bathing suit and getting into that gods-be-damned WAY too cold water and changing in that WAY too cold locker room afterwards...
Pathetic, isn't it?
I need to have an exercise partner, because otherwise I won't do it. But by the same token, I don't know anyone who's as out of shape as I am, and I'm so fucking competitive that I hate exercising with someone who's better at the activity than I am, so I just start to resent whoever my partner is. It's not quite as bad in the aerobics class because I can just internally complain about how rude the old women in the class are, which keeps me from having to hate my own husband. But I still hate it.
I want an exercise that I can do in my own house that will let me read a fucking book so I don't have to think about how much I hate it. When I was living with my parents, before my feet got so bad, I walked on their treadmill and watched TV. (It had to be subtitled TV because the treadmill was so loud, but hey. I've got an anime collection.) That worked, even though I got *really* grossly sweaty, because I didn't have to get up early so I could just get up and do it before I took my shower. If I got up any earlier than I do now, I'd have to start going to bed at 8.
Dammit, I'm whining again. Sorry, guys. I'll be more upbeat next entry. I'm just so fucking discouraged today.
Update: Finished that entry about five minutes before I left to go to my water aerobics class. After typing it all in, I was even more irritable about it than before. Snapped at Matt as we were getting in the car, drove in complete silence to the gym. Well, not complete silence, because I was crying most of the way. Can you believe it? Crying! I don't even know why. I take that back - I was crying because what I really wanted to do was scream at the top of my lungs that I hated exercising and I hated my body and that the world was unfair and I hated it, too. But I couldn't, so the anger sortof backwashed and I started crying. Dumb, huh? Sometimes I wish I weren't a woman.
Anyway, we got to the gym and gave them our tickets. (Stupid dork taking the tickets tore the last ticket off my bracelet and tried to give me the empty, useless bracelet back. Duh!) And we went into the locker room. I changed, amid way too many people. (I hate changing clothes standing up. I used to be able to do it, but I'm too fat now.) Went into the pool area, and started down the ramp into the water. For once, the water was a reasonable temperature. Got in about up to my waist, and Matt starts giving me these "Don't come any further" gestures. It turns out that our instructor, Nancy (who I really like, by the way - no matter how much I hate exercise, I like the instructor for this class)... Where was I? Oh, yeah. Nancy was sick, and hadn't been able to find a replacement. They had told the people at the front desk, but given the half-drugged stare of the guy who took our bracelet tags, I'm not surprised he didn't remember it.
For a few seconds, it was like having your teacher out sick on the day you were supposed to read your book report. I can just turn around and go home now, I thought. I was relieved more than anything else. I'm going to turn around and go dry off my legs and put some lotion on them so they don't get all itchy and then I'll get dressed and go home and read a book while Matt makes dinner. So I opened my mouth to tell Matt that I would meet him in the lobby.
"Well, it's Lap Night. We can do laps without Nancy here."
Who said that? Not me, surely. All I wanted to do was go home and flop down on the couch. "Are you sure?" Matt asks, looking surprised.
Oh, shit. That was me... And for no apparent reason, I cheer up all of a sudden. Oh, I'm not Miss Congeniality or anything like that, but I'm reasonable enough to smile and crack a few jokes with the other people there for the class. Almost everyone who came in stayed anyway. Everyone else appointed one of the long-time members the leader for the night while I loudly denounced them (jokingly) as conformists and Did My Own Thing for forty-five minutes. But I did the laps. All eighteen of them. And then I did some arm exercises. I tried the abdomen exercises, but decided I still didn't want to deal with that much water in my hair, so I gave up. But I was there for the entire duration of the class. And now I'm home, and my darling husband (who is, I can tell, extremely relieved that I recovered my sense of humor) is in the kitchen making one of my favorite dinners. (Don't read anything special into that - we take turns making dinner, and it happens to be his turn. And we have Cheating Chicken Cacciatore almost every week anyway, because it's easy and fits well into my diet. But I still appreciate that he's nice enough to trade off cooking duties with me, because neither of us is a big fan of cooking, but him less so than me.)
Anyway, after that big whine-fest up at the top of the page, I thought I'd just post a quick update to let everyone know I didn't make poor Matt's life miserable all night.
Now I'm going to go flop on the couch and read a book...
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