DB: YMCA

Having recently turned twenty-eight and realizing that my Christmas pooch wasn’t going to magically disappear in Spring…….or Summer, I have decided to take my metabolism back into my own hands and found myself applying for financial-aid at the Market St. YMCA downtown. I failed to qualify for the financial-aid, despite my weeping lip and starving artist shtick, it seems that I am not technically poor. That’s a relief, for a second, until the thirty-dollar a month membership comes with a seventy-five-dollar joining fee. I opted to pay the weekly fee of eleven dollars per week until the first of the month when my overspending is less obvious.

Money matters aside, I now have my very own YMCA membership and have been hitting the floor every weeknight (for the past week and a half) totally and utterly obliterated and very nearly dead. My Uncle Mike is a Tacoma Fire Fighter, and for as long as I can remember has had the physique of a Greek god. His son, Ryan is attempting to follow in his father’s footsteps and has been running marathons and triathlons and all sorts of strange manly sporting event things for most of our adult life. He is pretty much a jogging advertisement for Men’s Health, you may have seen him pacing cars downtown. Upon realizing that my body would no longer regain its original shape so I could tan it without embarrassment, I called Ryan and asked him for help. The conversation went something like this.

Me: Ryan, you got to help me, I need to look good. I’m going on tour and I don’t want to look like a slob from the stage.
Ryan: How much time do you have?
Me: End of November.
Ryan: I am at the YMCA weekdays at 4, let me know when you want to start.
Me: Monday, player!….wait….4 AM or 4 PM?
Ryan: Ha ha…..

Luckily it was PM, or I would be going through the biggest lifestyle change since I had that operation in 94’. As it is my lifestyle is in shock. All of the sudden it is totally inappropriate to have nachos for lunch, because cheese feels like lead when you are running up stairs. Also, I have found that drinking hard after a workout nearly totally erases all the work you did for the day. The next day hurts and you can smell the alcohol seeping out of your pores. So some habits are changing….but also some new ones are forming. Before I head to the weight room to humiliate myself in front of my cousin and all his “well developed” friends, I am supposed to “warm up”, which somehow means about 2-3 miles worth of jogging. Strangely enough there is cable television piped within range of nearly every treadmill and stair-master in the facility. So while I am laying in a pool of sweat trying to eek out another push-up or two before I am led to the next torture apparatus, I am thinking about why Roseanne wouldn’t just let Dan keep the dog the kids found in the park. Television is a TRIP.

Someone handed me the remote a few days ago, it took a while to figure out how to change the channels without flailing off the back of the treadmill, but I spent the next twenty minutes jogging to some strange science fiction show about what they are calling the “presidential elections” which are supposedly coming up pretty soon so I should get exited. Finally I turned it off, it was far to complicated and argumentative to understand, fiction has become so sterile and my workout doesn’t need any more meaningless fantasy.

All in all, the people here are friendly and good looking. The locker room is a scene that I have kept out of this narrative, due to my family audience, however ………………. whoa.

Really, though….everyone I have encountered so far is extremely friendly and willing to communicate about what machine they would like to use etc. For the most part its first come first serve, but the meathead macho show I imagined in the weight room just isn’t there. Perhaps my high-school trauma-gym-class episodes had me walking in there ready to take a punch in the manhood, but I don’t think the Y is that kind of gym. 98% of the people I have exercised next to were at least friendly enough to smile and give a what-what, you get the feeling that you’re all in this together.

Sweat is gross, so its good to have a place to get rid of it, shower and pretend like it never happens to you. A pool, racket-ball and squash courts, table tennis, weights, pa-ladies, runners, stairs, mats, balls, bags…the downtown Y is a well stocked facility, nearly every day they have some sort of class going that helps you exercise not so lonely like. Most of the classes I’ve seen are full of girls, but in High School they said I ran like one, so…