People are fascinating creatures. People watching when you're alert enough to care can be pretty entertaining. I had a lot of coffee (and sudafed and allergry meds) before class this morning and waited in the hall while watching people pass by. It reminded me of something I meant to blog about a few days ago, but I'm glad I waited. I've got more to add now.
The gym. The gym is a fantastic place. Somewhere I can get my swole on, do yoga, or run on the stupid treadmill when my IT band on the side of my knee will only allow me to run uphill. The gym is also home to some of the most fascinating people in the world. Let's start with Tights Guy. By the way, I go to Gold's Gym which is mostly a bunch of male and female meatheads.
Tights Guy. I walked into the gym the other day and spotted a fairly fit guy wearing tights. Like leggings. He also had a tight tank top on, both black. He was on a calf raise machine where you step up onto the step and get your shoulders under the pads that are shoulder height, then stand up straight and do calf raises. This guy was fairly fit and I was distracted by the whole tights thing, so naturally I had to check him out while making my way to the pull-up bar. Turns out the tights have been used quite frequently because they were actually a bit see-through. And he was wearing a thong. I had to hold in my laughter as I went past him. It caused me to ponder this whole situation for the next couple of hours.
First of all, there are plenty of people who lift just fine wearing regular gym clothes. And if you need to use the leg press machine, you can put a pair of spandex shorts on under your regular gym shorts so that nothing, well, falls out. So the option to wear tights to the gym was a bit of a puzzle. The other puzzle was the thong. My first thought was "Gross!". But then I realized what would be worse would be no underwear at all, and it's not like you can wear briefs under a pair of tights. And really, now that I think about it, if you wore regular "tighty-whities" (only in black I would hope) you would get that dimpling where the elastic sits. You know what I'm talking about. When your panty-line causes extra cleavage, for lack of a better word. So then all this thinking took me back to full circle- why wear tights? The next time I came in he was wearing the same thing. At least he's got a nice body, but still.
She-beasts. Also at Gold's can be found the massive she-beasts of the body-building community. Most of these women work out in their underwear or competition clothing. I mean the body-building competitions. Which is pretty much nothing. Although I must say, I have yet to see a girl working out in high heels at this gym (part of a competition outfit). However, they do work out in two piece bikini's. I've seen several now. And all of them can kick my ass. But I'm willing to bet I can run further than any of them... in case they were chasing me. I try not to stare at these women, but whoa.
I was coming down the stairs into the weight room and overheard a snippet of conversation between one particularly massive she-beast and a non-she-beast. Apparently the non-she-beast was nervous about her first competition (in what?) and the massive (and I mean MASSIVE) she-beast responded in the most manly voice I've ever heard come out of a female, that it's normal to be nervous at your first competition. I kept moving.
Out of control. My personal favorite. I know gyms can be a tough, intimidating environment. I basically majored in gym etiquette as an undergrad and even I don't get all the stuff that's in there. I just discovered a couple super cool machines that allow me to strengthen my weakened hamstring without re-tearing it. Score! Anyway, so back to my out of control girl.
So there I was. Doing my stretches in the multi-use room. There were a few other people in there, but it was mostly empty. Everyone had on their headphones and were doing their own thing. In came this girl with a tank top that said "Out of control". How true that would turn out to be.
Do you see this thing here?
This is a platform generally used for aerobics classes, or really anything else you might need a raised platform for. The purple things are adjustable legs that are not really connected to the green thing, you just stack them on top of each other and because of their shape, they fit fairly securely. You can put as many of those things as you want under the green thing...probably to a point. I really don't know what the stability limits are on those things. Anyway, so that's what you do. For one platform, you grab a green thing and some purple things, and you stack them up.
In the back of the room was a ton of green things and two tons of purple things. Apparently this girl has never seen them used before. It didn't help that there were a few other people in the room and so she probably did not feel entirely comfortable roaming about the room trying to find a solution to her issue. It took me awhile to even figure out what her issue was. As I stretched, I watched her adjust and re-adjust 4 green platforms. Four of them. Two side by side and the other two stacked on top of those. You should not stack the green platforms on top of the green platforms. Maybe she did it because that's how they were organized in the back of the room, but they do not fit that way and they offer no stability while stacked that way.
I took one ear bud out of my ear to offer some advice. She appeared quite focused and had headphones in. She was also avoiding eye-contact with anyone in the room. I put my ear bud back in and stretched my hamstring. This was going to be bad.
She would stack them one way, attempt to stand on them, and they'd slide out or collapse. OMG. I started to feel a certain responsibility as one in the know to try to avert catastrophe. I took my ear bud out again. She saw me looking and squared her shoulders, going back to work on her stacking. Fine. Hurt yourself. I'll try not to laugh.
It was like a train wreck. You don't want to watch but you can't look away. Out-of control girl marched out of the room and came back in with what I would guess was a 15 pound dumbell. Oh no. I took out my ear bud again in case the opportunity arose to offer advice. It did not. I put it back in and went to work on my quads, watching her out of my peripheral vision. This was going to be good.
She stood with one leg on one stack and the other on the other stack and proceeded to do a cautious deep sumo squat. I left before she finished her routine but I could only imagine the chaos had one stack given out while she was deep in squat. Out of control for sure.
And then the other morning, there was this guy. For lack of anything fitting, I shall call him "That guy". I know, there's tons of those guys, but this one was special.
That guy. Different day, same gym. Weight room. I found a quiet spot among the bench presses to do my abs and stretching. Suddenly there was a loud shouting- like a cry of pain from a male of the species (or she-beast possibly). I like to not react in these situations. I found that reacting never displays confidence on your part and it's always best to pretend that whatever just happened had absolutely no effect on you. Most of the time this works out ok for me. You just turn on your "feelers" and continue to reach for your toes while keeping alert for oncoming danger.
There was no danger, as I originally suspected. I'm not entirely sure what happened other than a 'roided out, cracked out guy (who appeared to be a regular) was high on whatever he ate for breakfast and was tossing weights about. I wonder if this ever pains him the next day. Anyway, he was incredibly loud and possibly hard of hearing as he actually had to shout any of his interactions with the other meatheads in the room. And boy was he bouncing about. It's best to avoid eye-contact in these situations.
School. If you ever want to experience a large amount of culture crammed into a fairly small place, go to a university. I'm sure it helps if it's the cheapest university in the nation.
I often wonder about the clothes I wear to school. If I were to wear a skirt, would I be weird? Are my jeans and t-shirt saying something about my character? Am I bland? Am I weird?
No. No I am not.
So while waiting to get in to my first class of the day, I stood out in the hall and watched people go by. I wasn't feeling particularly well (allergies or a cold, who can tell?) and my coffee was too hot to drink, so I mostly leaned against the wall and stared at the ground. After a few sips, I noticed the girl sitting on the floor next to me had some really cute boots on. I started looking at people's feet as they poured into the hallway. Lots of sandals, flats, a couple of boots. I watched how some arches rolled in wondered if their feet hurt. I saw guys in super skinny jeans. A lot of girls in tights (and no other form of clothing across their bottom half). Tights. That's an interesting concept. When I was younger, tights were for wearing under skirts, or in the 80's- under a pair of jean shorts. Apparently I'm totally out of touch, because tights (and some of them incredibly obscene) are now the "in" thing. I'm not going to get too far in to what parts of the female anatomy like to display themselves in tights, but I for one would not go about displaying those sort of things. Even in the comfort of my own home...and I live alone.
The door to the class room opened and out poured stressed students who had apparently been taking a test. Still mostly looking at people's feet, a girl walked out in fuzzy "Ugg" type boots...and whoa- the girl next to her was wearing slippers...I glanced up...and pajama pants....and a sweatshirt, wrapped up in a blanket with her hair all in a mess. No, I'm pretty sure I could wear whatever I want to school and it wouldn't make much of a difference.
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