Who Wants to Be Cool?

I recently left the Bally's gym down the street, after being there on and off for about three years. It was good at times, but I never stopped feeling anxious, shy, and overall, like I had to work my brains out to use the membership properly.

You know what it's like. A lot of people at gyms, and a lot of women I know, have the mentality of work-out-like-a-manic-it-feels-so-good-can't-do-it-enough. So when you're me, and you like to keep it mellow, you feel like a turtle rotating on the elliptical, dumpy and slumpy as these svelte gazelles elegantly sweat at dizzying paces. And then you look at other girls, the maniacs who are not only bone skinny or have beautiful abs, but they fucking LOVE working out....man, it just makes the whole experience icky. Yeah. This ain't me.

Felt like a tool most of the time, like I'm not good enough or motivated enough or working hard enough. So the thought of "shit, I'm just not pushing myself enough" leads me to take things like intense spinning classes, which might as well be hell on a bicycle, palpatations of the heart and some seriously aching knees and hips, which are already dodgy due to years of dance.

My kind of spinning:

So I left. And I joined the local pool. And now, I'm officially an old lady! I joined Water Aerobics!

Well, and doing laps too, but it's sure funny to be in the midst of thirty middle-aged ladies doing motions in the water. I've gone from feeling old and fat at Bally's to a misplaced young'un at the pool.

Rawr!

But it's fun! It's easy on my old-lady joints, and it's like playing in the water for a half hour, which is a lot more enjoyable than burning up in a non-ventilated room, where all you can smell is the sweat of thirty women mingling whilst the mirrors fog up.

No, instead, all the sweat is in the POOL, slopping up against your body.

(Just kidding. But a hell no to the hot tub, I thank ya.)

I used to come to this pool when I first started living in the States - it was right down the street from our shitty apartment, and since I didn't have a school or work visa, and therefore had nothing to do or nothing I could do, I joined the pool and swam every day. Then I got hooked on the whole Bally's pitch (endless classes! fit and happy! every machine you could want!) and left.

Now, to remember my lifeguard training from high school and look like this underwater....

(J/K)