6/4 It begins

Today is the first day of my summer vacation. I tipped the scales last week at 185. That’s 5 pounds heavier than I was the day I gave birth 12 years ago. My goal is to lose 30 pounds by next school year. I got up this morning at 4:10 and had my usual breakfast of coffee and cigarettes, with my favorite chocolate caramel coffee creamer. I psyched myself up for the first couple of hours by watching youtube videos of the air climber and various other exercise videos. I watched the ab roller and imagined myself using that: go down once, land on the face, and it’s over. I chuckled as I remembered the day I fell off the treadmill at the gym and broke my toe. Then I remembered that it is possible and how good I looked when Lisa and I used to go to the gym every day. That was our time. We’d dump the kids off in the daycare and work out vigorously for an hour as we bitched about our jobs, our ex-husbands, and then fixed our eyes on the hot guys. It was a lot easier to imagine that I was chasing one of them.

I worked up the nerve to use the air climber I bought a year and a half ago. I had to go on the hunt for the video. I remembered it had been stuffed under the dvd player since the one and only time I had ever gotten on it. Then last weekend when I got dish network, I moved it somewhere else where the installer guy wouldn’t see it. I guess I didn’t mind the machine itself. It was doing a fine job of holding the excess books that didn’t fit on my bookshelves. You could hardly tell it was an unused weight machine.

I found the dvd, found the tube (my dog chewed the comfy grip handle off one side). I pulled the cord for a while to make sure she hadn’t chewed anything else or we would have another unfavorable exercise accident. No wonder it smells like piss in here! After cleaning that up, I pulled the air climber out from under my books. I had to watch the introduction video again because I couldn’t remember how to set it up. I couldn’t read the numbers on the dial through the dust so I had to scrape some off. I got it set up and I was ready to go!
I skipped the workout for beginners. I wanted to use the tube since I hadn’t gotten past the first video last time. I started warming up. You know the peaceful sound of a crackling bon fire? That’s what my body sounded like as I stretched and creaked. The workout begins. Within the first five minutes I could feel my calves screaming expletives and I was pumping, pumping. Ten minutes in, I realized I must have left the laundry in the washer too long. I could smell the mildew rising up my body. Maybe it was just my unused female parts. As I worked out, I could feel the trickles of sweat beading out from under my boobs and dripping off of my glasses, like a tear. The sadness from my fat saying goodbye.
At 20 minutes I couldn’t take it anymore. Why weren’t their faces red and blotchy? Why wasn’t their hair slicked with sweat and sticking to them? The timer on the dvd player hit 21. I could do no more. I stepped off the stepper gingerly as I knew this was the point where I could seriously hurt myself. I decided to try to keep up with her from the floor. I had never let go of the handles so when they dislodged from the stepper, they slapped me in the back of the legs. I persevered. I kept up for another minute before I had to fast forward to the cool down. No ab workout today. Maybe next time.

I went to fill my water bottle. Of course the filter pitcher was in the fridge empty. Story of my life, cold and empty. I refilled and waited. I’m going to need lots of water to flush these toxins today. I’ll check back tomorrow. Better take some aspirin too.