Mar
26
Last Sunday at the Big Climb I saw hundreds of people wearing bright yellow shirts that read Climbing for Caleb. They were part of a team raising money in Caleb Thornstein’s name, and every t-shirt included a graphic of the little boy’s face. Before JB and I started our own climb we saw Caleb in person, being toted in his grandather’s arms, his lovely calm face as recognizable as a celebrity’s. People milled around, yellow everywhere. I tried not to cry.
There were so many people smiling and offering encouragement on that day. Volunteers everywhere, pointing out where to check in, where the bathrooms were, where to line up. When our start time was called and all of us 11:15 climbers began walking to the starting point, people cheered and clapped and swung plastic noisemakers in loud clattering circles. We were released in three-second increments and jogged across the outside of the building before entering the stairwell, and every single person who crossed that entryway passed a man with his hand outstretched. He stood there smiling and saying “Good luck!” over and over, as each person slapped his palm.
In the stairwell we wound upwards and everyone’s breathing got louder and soon there were more volunteers waiting for us with small paper cups of water and heartening words. “Great job,” they said, and “You’re doing awesome!” and I don’t know how many climbers they had watched puff on by but no one looked bored or distracted. They stood and adjusted air blowers so cool breezes rushed over the sweaty panting people hiking up and up and up and they helped find a seat for those who needed to take a break.
Near the top they told us that we were almost there. Just a few more flights. Soon there was music playing and you could hear shouts from the volunteers at the top. And when we came staggering through that last door, cheers and applause. For all of us, one after another, and it didn’t seem silly or dumb or embarrassing, those strangers clapping for me felt like what I imagine it feels like to believe you are loved by God.
I’ve been feeling scratchy and restless lately, having a cyclical bout of vague dissatisfaction and that self-absorbed oh what is it all about feeling and you know, I think the answer is so much more simple than I make it out to be. It’s about connections. It’s about being the person clapping, it’s about being the person being clapped for. It’s about the yellow shirts. My aunt is going through a hard time and there are people standing by and holding out their hands to her and that’s what it’s all about.
I don’t want to be here alone, I don’t want to be skating along the surfaces, and I guess maybe it’s about choosing not to be.
Mar
25
I mentioned it over at Bodies but I don’t think I’ve written here about how I joined this crazy personal training gym a while back. There was an article in the paper about how the guy on the Bachelor (now forever known as “that douchebag”, I guess) worked out at trainer gym in Bellevue and I was all, hey! I want to look like the Bachelor! With the abs and the ever-present rose and all!
Well, okay, not really, but the article talked about how this gym does all kinds of intense one-on-one circuit training and really focuses on helping you meet your fitness goals and anyway, I’ve been going there once a week for about a month now and it’s awesome.
Last night I showed up at my 6 PM appointment and was informed by the owner that instead of a regular workout, I’d be doing a fitness test, including weight and measurements. They do this quarterly, so you can see what kind of progress you’re making. “Great!” I said jovially, because this is the type of person I am, the kind who says great like a total fucking boner when I’m faced with something I’d rather drink paint than do, instead of just being honest and saying, “Well THAT blows.” (No lie, I once said “sounds great!” when my doctor said it looked like it was time for a pelvic exam, so why didn’t we just go ahead and do that today. SOUNDS GREAT I LOVE IT WHEN YOU CRAM THAT FREEZING METAL DUCKBILL THING IN MY GIRL PARTS AND SWAB MY INTERNAL ORGANS WITH THE MASCARA WAND OF DOOM SOUNDS GREEEEAAAAT.)
The first thing I had to do was step on the scale, which made me super uncomfortable. It wasn’t that I was ashamed of my weight, really, it was just . . . I don’t know, there’s something so intimate about someone weighing you with one of those doctor’s scales — you know, standing there so close to you, slowly sliding the thing along to the right until it stops bobbing up and down? And it ALWAYS settles like five pounds higher than your digital home scale? If someone is going to be doing this to me, I prefer that it be a matronly nurse holding a clipboard, not an attractive young gym trainer guy with delineated biceps.
As it turned out, I shouldn’t have bothered fretting about the scale, because the best part was yet to come. The part where the attractive young gym trainer guy measured my FAT with a CALIPER. Seriously: he brought me in the office and had me stand while he carefully and professionally used his fingers to pinch various sections of my body, gathering up the skin into a fleshy blubberroll before fitting the caliper clampy mouth-part around it. I could actually feel myself having something like an out-of-body experience, not dissimilar to the brain-melting moment before Dylan’s birth when I realized that below the surgical drape the nurses were putting a catheter into my epidural-numbed lower section while I was lying there sprawled all frog-legged . . . and nothing was covering my bulbous naked self . . . and the room contained medical professionals who were NOT WOMEN.
The humiliation continued with the actual exercise stuff, which involved cardio endurance and strength tests — I was abysmally terrible at the jump rope segment and managed to whack myself in the back of the head with the rope not once, not twice, but THREE TIMES — and afterwards I got a little printout of my fitness report, including a section titled “GIRTH MEASUREMENTS”, which is so totally the name of my new all-girl, all-D-cup punk band.
It turns out I am formed of approximately 28 pounds of fat, which is thrilling to imagine as a separate entity that slithers around my body depending on what unflattering outfit I have chosen. It’s nicer to think of it in terms of percentages, which at 22% is less disturbing than comparing my total fat-weight to the mighty heft of my 1-year-old, who weighs 25 pounds. Also, apparently my “subscapular” region is made of 20% body fat, which I might care about it if I knew where that was.
Anyway, it was quite the evening. My trainer pointed out which numbers he thought I could improve on over the next few months, and mentioned that nutrition is 90% of the game when it comes to reducing body fat. I nodded sagely (great!) and when I got home, I got rid of the last unhealthy food items lurking in the cupboards. Of course, I did so by dumping them directly into my mouth, but still. I’m on the right track, baby!
-
My product review site:
[