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November 27, 2005

the facts of life at the gym

I wasn't a total homebody this weekend. The past three days I did manage to get out of the house to go to the gym, sometimes with Gurl and sometimes by myself. I especially enjoyed riding down streets on my bike this weekend on the way to the gym with very few motorists to threaten my life. At one point on Logan Circle the road was actually clear and I did my best Pee Wee Herman imitation and swerved all over the road just for fun.

Gurl often has a habit of migrating from one gym to the other as their populations wax and wane. It seems that a lot of people do that as the service or quality of one Washington Sports Clubs gym drops when a manager moves to a new location. For a while it was a secret that the new WSC at Gallery Place had few people and a cheerful staff and clean locker rooms. Then it got crowded. The WSC at 1211 Conn. just south of DuPont Circle has been a mess for over a year now, despite me complaining to the manager and writing a letter to their regional offices - with no response. Equipment goes broken for months and you have to hunt around for cable machine clips or handles. And the locker/sauna situation there is just an outrageous circus. When the 1211 Conn. WSC was just opening my ex was managing it's launch, and gave me a tour of the place before it opened. When he showed me the sauna and steam rooms which were tucked back into an 'L' shaped alcove facing the showers, I remember saying to him, "Uh-oh, this one's gonna be a cruiseteria for sure." Sure enough, it is.

But Gurl, being the dutiful gym scout that she is found a new one between K and L Streets in the building that was once the Peace Corps office back when I returned from Kazakstan in 1996. It's very roomy with few people - for now. It has a number of interesting characters there. Me and Gurl like to name the characters of each gym that we frequent and share stories when either of us are not there, such as Choo-Choo Charile who piles towels up on his stairmaster and has to articulate his every breath with gusto, or of course the notorious Wooden Toenail Man, or the long-gone and much-remembered Wobble Board God, replete with towhead hair and empeccable stretching and balance board technique.

At this new gym we've decided to nickname the regulars there after the characters from that 80's television show The Facts of Life. While they're all guys, each of them remind us of the girls from the house, casting call as follows:

Blair Warner (the pretty one): the tall gorgeous Australian who always wears tee-shirts with rugby team logos, works out every night of the week;
Ms. Edna Garrett (dizzy housemother): the dude who has been working out forever, probably wore Zubaz zebra-stripe baggy pants back in the day, with leathery skin that has seen too many tanning booths. Always lugs his gym bag from machine to machine, much like Ms. Garrett did with her purse;
Natalie Green (the big girl): he's always on the treadmill, workin' hard to lose the pounds;
"Tootie" Ramsey (the hyper black girl on rollerskates): the hyper aerobics instructor who says hi to everyone;
Jo Polniaczek (the dykish one with the motorcycle): my favorite, the hypermasculine guy with the hot schnoz and beard who is scowling most of the time, looking out from under his simian brow ( I fucking LOVE that! ). He has impeccable stretching technique, firm junk in his trunk, and runs and lifts dutifully. Jo is what will probably keep me going to the gym through this winter.

Posted by jimbo at November 27, 2005 11:47 PM

Comments

Posted by: copperred at November 28, 2005 9:49 AM

Posted by: GURL at November 28, 2005 10:06 AM

Posted by: moby at November 28, 2005 3:15 PM

Posted by: Glenn at November 28, 2005 5:37 PM