ugh, stupidity on the street again
You were doing so well, San Francisco!
I had the most orgasmic workout of my life thus far today. No, literally, I mean I was on the ab machine and that’s what was happening, it was wild. I started to chase that feeling and ended up doing 100 slow, careful reps on that thing, this after making sure I got all the bicep/tricep work in because, as you all now know, my ultimate fitness goal is to look like a threat.
But I forgot why that was until I left the gym. I was walking to Whole Foods to stock up on some protein-packed fancy beef jerky, and this dude walks in step with me and, rather than the proper greeting he would presumably give to anyone else, he says, “How’s the recovery?”
“It’s not recovery,” I tell him. “I was born like this. My body is exactly what it is supposed to be.” Now I have some badass friends who did become athletes in the wake of injuries, and their bodies are exactly as they are supposed to be, too: what I was correcting, here, was this guy’s assumption that I have a thing I’m getting back to, rather than something I’m becoming.
My tone, when I speak to him, is not friendly. I’m clearly pissed off. He says, “Do you work out regularly?”
I say, angrily, “Quite. My biceps are a LOT bigger than you’re imagining, they’re covered up right now.”
He laughs lightly as though I’m trying to charm him. “That’s good,” he says, as though his praise means a damn thing. I get to the door of Whole Foods and he says, sweetly, “Bye!”
I shout, enraged, “BYE!”
This is what I hate about the West Coast: there’s a cultural assumption that if someone who registers as female is deliberately being a bitch to you, it’s high-minded and courteous to talk as though you’re responding to politeness. To me, that’s disrespectful. All it tells me is that my full-of-himself recipient is not listening.
Still, it was an invigorating workout and I’m back in a good mood now. I did something this afternoon that I’ve never done for a workout without my trainer there: I kept my headphones off.
Today, I didn’t need Fergie motivating me by asserting that she’s up in the gym just/workin’ on my fitness, or even Gwen Stefani asking do you think I’m lookin’ hot. All I wanted to hear was the sounds of everyone at the gym getting more comfortable in their skin, more crazy-excited about their basketball game, etc.
What’s the opposite of misanthropy? Anthrophelia?
Felt that today.
