Obstacles overcome

I did it. As of yesterday, I have succesfully (I think) used several pieces of gym equipment in front of God and everyone, including a bunch of jocks. Dave's inadvertent tip that there are pictures on the machines illustrating their use was particularly helpful. It was not as awkward as I thought, and I did not get any wedgies -- atomic or otherwise -- from any of my fellow gym patrons.

Wearing proper clothes was essential. I had to actually buy some white socks from the American Apparel next to my office; prior to yesterday morning, I had approximately 25 unique socks but not a single pair per se, by which I mean any two socks of the same approximate color, pattern, and length. This is normally not a problem since I always wear pants and rarely show both ankles at once so only the keenest of observers would notice that my socks don't match. But think about that: I had 25 unique socks, and only one of them was white. That's kind of amazing.




Anyway, I rode the bike thing again to make up for not riding this morning (it was raining). Then I did exercises I don't know the names of on three machines that I could not identify. I know that my arms and chest were exercised, though, since as I type this it feels like I couldn't lift a kitten over my head. I was using the lowest possible weight on all of them. This is the point that I wish certain aspects of my life could be like an 80's movie, because -- having overcome my fear of the gym and initial foibles -- there would definitely be a montage here, showing the retainer pin going in successively higher and higher weights until the end of the song, when I would be ready to ski the K2, beat the jocks in the talent contest, or do the Triple Lindy.

Okay, I'm going to shut up about it now.