I’ve been absent from here for a long time and I don’t know if I’ll be coming back regularly, but I figured I would post this just to keep things – y’know – up and running. Thanks for reading.
For as long as I can remember my parents have been telling me that I am a 65-year old stuck inside a [insert current age]-year old body. I can see why they’d say this. I have routines that I don’t like to break, there’s a particular way I like certain things organized, and for as long as I can remember I’ve had a love for sitting in the same chair and not getting up for a very long time.
In the same vein, I also harbor harsh feeling toward exercise and strenuous physical activity so it’s more than appropriate that my inner old man chooses to show himself in full force when I straggle through the doors of Results Therapy and Fitness Center every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
Yes, I go to a gym. I’ve realized that I can no longer eat as much as I want to without suffering the consequences, so I’ve taken a preventative measure – or so I hope. I joined Results last summer and went kindasorta regularly, eventually giving up. But this summer, despite my busy work schedule, I’ve been on the ball and, to my surprise, have grown a bit attached to the place. Here’s why:
Results has your typical workout machines and free weights, but it is mainly a rehabilitation facility for people who have just had reconstructive surgery. This means that, more often than not, I am one of the only people under 65 years old. This is a revelation to me because they all move at my pace (or faster) and I rarely have to deal with the emasculating presence of 11th grade jocks who have more muscle mass than I could ever hope to acquire.
I didn’t get to use my favorite elliptical machine on Monday and got stuck with the one that is rather rickety. I’m ok with that; it just makes things a little less smooth when the tracks are rusty and the whole thing creaks with each move.
I use the elliptical with all the agility of a knock-kneed puppy and usually do a half-hour session. Around 10 minutes in, I have to take my glasses off and rest them somewhere because my face gets so sweaty (these new fangled plastic frames tend to slide off, unlike the metal ones that simply stick to a sweaty face). I’m blind without my glasses (almost), and when I’m on the machine, I’m usually listening to my iPod nice and loud to drown out the pap they play on Mix 95.1 (The Four-State’s New No.1).
On Monday while I was churning away on the elliptical, I noticed an old man who would come around the walking track in front of my machine every six minutes or so. I paid him no mind because I was in the zone, but I did notice that he always slowed down when he passed me. Without my glasses, I could only recognize him as a blue-grey blob floating past before I receded back into my own private world of sweaty misery and peppy music.
I stumbled off the machine after finishing my cool down and put my glasses back on. When the world came back into focus, I went to grab a towel and drink. Leaning down to the water fountain, I paused my iPod and gave a cursory wave to the person approaching like I normally do. I finished my drink and noticed that the person passing was the same old man who had been slowing in front of me just moments before. He was wearing a blue-grey sweatshirt and hobbling around the walking track with a cane at the speed of thick molasses.
He looked perfectly charming and I guessed that from the rate he was walking, it probably took him a lot of time and exertion to get around the track even once. After I said Hi to him, he gave me a jovial laugh that reminded me of my grandfather and said, “Looks like that there machine was beating you down.”
It was clear now that each time he passed me, he slowed down because I looked so clumsy on the rickety machine. If what he said had come from any other person, my first inclination would have been to contemplate socking them in the face, but coming from this poor old dude who was struggling around a rehab facility walking track? Well, I kind of took it as a complement.
“Yes,” I said, “it gets the best of me every time.”
He chuckled and looked straight at me. “All you can do is try. That’s how I get through every day at this place” he said. And with that he was off to take another lap.
I walked away and began using the different weight machines. I guess you could say that this nice old man inspired me to work-out harder on Monday because when I was finished, I was absolutely exhausted and ready to drink the water fountain dry. I wiped the sweat off my face with my already drenched towel and walked over to the other side of the gym. It was here that I saw something that will forever stay in my memory:
Every exercise machine – from the bikes to the treadmills to the rowers – was occupied by an old person. There wasn’t one free machine – I checked! It was truly a beautiful site: all of these septuagenarians huffing and puffing through an exercise regimen that none of them seemed to be enjoying, but that all of them probably know was absolutely necessary. I felt an immediate bond with all of them.
It’s in a moment like this that I know I can stumble through the door of Results and know without a doubt that I’ll be in perfect company.
I.O.U.S.A. (2008, dir. Patrick Creedon): I got a chance to see this during a one-night theatrical event followed by a live panel discussion with Warren Buffet and a bunch of other financial geniuses. I.O.U.S.A. is a very well-done documentary which shines a much-needed light on the national debt and how we as Americans can’t ignore it. There’s a lot of doom and gloom, but Creedon ends things on a positive note. I was actually smiling as I walked out of the theater. Short, exciting, and illuminating.
Bottle Shock (2008, dir. ): Poor Alan Rickman. Perhaps it is a nice story, but it is so lazily put together that you could never tell. I was ready to give it a chance and, indeed, I was until one of the main characters had this bar-side conversation with his girl:
The Proposition (2005, dir. John Hillcoat): I’d been wanting to watch this before John Hillcoat’s adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road comes out later this year. Last weekend, I discussed with someone how if the film version of The Road is as violent as the book, there is no way it could get a R-rating. How would Hillcoat do it?
