Body 31 Mar 2006 11:42 pm
a schedule addendum
By the way, those days on my schedule marked “rest”? What that’s been meaning for the last few weeks has been, “hang around complaining that I am too sore to walk.” Holy crap.
In other body news, I’m getting tantalizingly close to being able to do a front split. It’s nice to do something I’m pretty good at, after sweating over my little 35-pound seated row.
There I am in the free weight room, my own wimpy ditzy plump feminine self, and I’m surrounded by extremely large and serious-looking men, the nearest of whom are giving me some mighty funny looks. They’re all lifting huge weights, and there I am struggling with three- or five-pound dumbbells. (Goddamn shoulders.) It’s awkward as hell. I wanted to do free weights, and I had good reason for it, but now I feel like a dork, a wimp, a loser; I feel like I’m letting down Team Girl by being so weak and easily injured. And while I’ll be damned if that’ll chase me out of the weight room, still, I’m not having a good time. So I finish my sets, and I sigh to myself, and I put the weights back on the rack in their correct spots. Suddenly I notice that all the guys who were giving me the stinkeye have relaxed. Ha! So that’s what it was about! They weren’t defending the sanctum of sweaty masculinity; they just didn’t trust the obvious newbie to pick up after herself.
Coming out of the weight room, I got a sort of pleading look from one six-foot-huge heap o’ musculature. I think he wants me to come back and bring my friends.
on 01 Apr 2006 at 7:39 am 1.Rechercher said …
I don’t think you are letting down “Team Girl”. I think most guys would either give up or hide (lift at home).
on 02 Apr 2006 at 12:21 pm 2.GPq said …
Keep lifting. No one will not care how little you lift, and you will never have trouble getting someone to spot for you.
BTW, not putting the weights back, is a faux pas on the order of serving lobster at passover. Obey this and all will be well.
on 07 Apr 2006 at 7:59 pm 3.Cam Sculpin said …
I’ve kept lifting. Though, oh man, I’ve had to seriously re-arrange my ideas of what I can do.
That stuff about my feelings there wasn’t meant to gain reassurance, by the way. It’s just the dumb stuff that goes through my head sometimes when I’m trying to handle stereotype threat. And then *poof* it blows away like a cloud. And I think, “Look at it go!”