I've become a regular gym goer and when you become a regular you start to notice the other regulars. One of the craziest things to me was some of those beautiful people that you seem to always see at the gym, most of them you only see once or twice ever, and if you do seem them again it's only once a week. Gym friends are an interesting breed because I don't really want to know any of them outside of the gym but I do see them every day. So some of the regulars I've gotten into the habit of at least saying hello each day and continuing to encourage them to keep coming. I think my favorite guy is the janitor, he's a latino fellow who doesn't speak much english, and I don't really speak any spanish but I made sure to start waving at him and now seeing him smile every day makes me just a little happier. If I don't initiate the hello he does it now so it's a nice little thing we got going. These people that you end up seeing every day you get to know little things about their life, there's a gay fellow in his late 30s who has two kids that I will often talk to in the hottub. There's a pretty muscular guy who I got to know about a year ago when we would throw a football in pool (usually around 3 am when no one else was there). I know he works late and so he usually comes in every day around 11 and stays til 2. Then there's the guy who's lost 40 pounds because he's trying to win a million dollars through jennie craig. I probably talk to the biker guy the most, the one who got into a car accident a number of years ago and had some brain damage. He's a good fella, often tells me the same things and he is super republican but in the gym you can't really fault people for that kind of stuff. I'm pretty bad with names so I don't actually know any of their names. The funny thing is there are only about 3 people from my outside of the gym life who I also randomly see at the gym, there's that one beefcake guy I met at one of those "real college parties" who's really into UFC. Another is my buddy Rob S. who always takes off his glasses to work out so he can never see me. And then once in a while I'll run into one of my best friend's step father Baha. But I don't usually go at the same time he does.
The gym is a really interesting place. I've been going now for about two years. In high school I was super skinny and could eat anything I wanted, my freshman year was when my metabolism slowed down and I started sleeping 17 hour nights. I can't do 17 anymore. I did 13 the other day but that was a fluke. I allowed myself to get heavy pretty much through depression and apathy. Now I want to get healthy but it's a lot harder to get healthy then to just maintain the health. Today was a very good day though. I ate only vegetables and peanut butter and blueberry jam sandwiches, and then I ran on the elliptical for a grand total of 10 miles. My cardio is doing awesome right now. I also did some weight lifting and swimming. The interesting thing is since I've been going to the gym so much I had to create some things to do. Over the past two years I've created the perfect workout mix. I go through my gigantic 200 GB worth of music and I can only have upbeat songs, even if I like them, I can't have songs which have a lot of silence, it's a big weeding out process but it's also caused me to really delve deep into a lot of the music I acquired from other friends and listen to a lot of stuff. It turns out I really like The Talking Heads, oh and I really hate Judas Priest. My whole collection is on my main computer but on my ipod is only stuff I can work out to. I make some really epic dance mixes now. Running to dance music is awesome.
The other thing which gymming allows me to do is think a lot. Today I was looking at my blog and I found a "hidden" blog I made in 2007, mostly just a place where I could put journal entries and anything I wanted to write that I didn't want other people to see. After reading those I realized I really was incredibly depressed in 07. I'm glad I pushed myself to move to Boston at that point cause it really helped me with a lot of my issues. It was fun looking at those though cause I had time to think on it while at the gym today and realize that though I still have a number of those problems, they don't effect me as much anymore. I feel a lot better about myself personally and so a lot of those things which drove me crazy no longer drive me crazy and some of those things I actually love about myself now. It was refreshing to get that kind of perspective especially since I had forgotten a lot of the things that happened back then. It also gave me some good material and so I day dreamed a bit today and worked through some more material for my eventual stand up comedy premier. It'll happen some day I hope. Mostly I just want to find some open mic night and do it there.
Now it's 2 am and I AM SO SORE RIGHT NOW. I ate at midnight and I have a rule to only go to bed 3 hours after I eat something so I've got another hour. I think I'll watch some more Cheers. I'm currently in the ninth season. The first season was by far and away the best season. Since then it's sorta dropped in quality as each season progresses, now it's gotten a bit hard to watch sometimes but overall I do still like the show, and I am close to finishing. Right now the best characters are Frasier and Lilith. After Cheers it's on to Frasier.
For those who TL,DR: I ran 10 miles at the gym.
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6 comments:
2007 was...the majority, if not the entirety, of our friendship. Maybe some 2006, too. But we didn't talk much about stuff. I mostly remember you doing nice things for me - driving me to the airport to pick up Skye, randomly stopping at my house to watch British Office and...Annie Hall, was it? I thought you were so cool, Jon. I probably wasn't a very good friend to you, but you were to me.
Oh and a sweet conquistador shirt, I remember that, too.
I remember your Boston Days. Technically, I only remember about an hour of one of them, when I randomly saw you in church there, which was awesome.
Also, at first I read that you ran on the eliptical 10 minutes instead of miles. Miles makes it much more impressive.
@krebs -- You're actually in one of the journal entries saying something like, "I met this girl named Summer who's a bright spot in an otherwise awful existence." One of the things I've always been really good at doing is hiding any sense of depression when other people are around. Some people have been able to see through it but only if they spend a lot of time with me. So yeah you met me right in the thick of it. I'm glad you were there though because from what I do remember I probably would have been even worse had you not been there. I don't remember the shirt though.
@Shinobi -- I totally forgot we saw each other in Boston. I love those cross country moments. Also I'm currently so sore that I never want to leave my bed.
Ten miles is impressive! I went to the gym here for the first time and I ran 1 and a half miles. And I'm exhausted! I feel like such a whimp, but your dedication is inspiring (also... top ten workout songs?).
:)
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