As I may have mentioned, I am now a full-fledged muscle-woman-gym-hare: two times in as many weeks with my very styling friend, Azita. Of course, I'm happy to be putting my upper body through some faint semblance of the ongoing honing that my lower body gets daily. I'm equally happy just to have a mid-morning activity to share with a companion. I'm a social exerciser in the same way some people are social smokers - I'll do it if others are doing it, just so I can be with the other people. This works far better than social eating-large-meals-at-pricy-restaurants-and-drinking-pricey-cocktails-that-make-me-sick, which I don't really do. We've found ourselves the girlier corner, with the newer strength machines that replace any semblance of "weights" with "resistance levels." This is far less terrifying, as it tends to repel the hulking grunting men drizzled in their own sweat and basted in unspent tears (while risking severe injury with truly regrettable form I might add). Our "section" is appropriately near the stretching area. It's also much easier to reach the sanitizer spray.
If America's a melting pot (I guess more literally so after this Global Warming rot that we've all contracted), then the gym is more of a petri dish. talk about a cultural experience. Although I am sorry to say, I have yet to be able to build a chandelier out of anything to be found at the gym (http://io9.com/5979903/a-chandelier-made-from-petri-dishes-that-actually-grows-bacteria). But, yes, germophobia aside, one of my favorite aspects of going to the gym is people watching. Sure I could work out at home - do in fact from time to time. But my house (thank god) does not have such a swath of almost unbelievable character types. Working out in public is somewhat like stumbling into the wasteland for discarded dramatis personae.
There are the fillers of course. At noon, there aren't too may gym kittens about, but there are some well-heeled retired women who are following their post-menopausal strength training regimines. Oddly enough, their male counterparts appear to be of an entirely different species: I saw two elderly gentlemen wearing suspenders and pants that could almost be called steam-punk if not for the condition of the wearer and the likely authenticity of the ensemble's age. Complementary to that are the elderly men who appear to have looted Jack LaLane's wardrobe shortly before he was interred. The make constipated faces and grunts, occasionally eyeing us "kids" suspiciously. And of course, there are the squat but hardy athletes - triangular in shape and blocky in mien. Many have mostly deadened eyes with an ooze of aggression at the corners. I suspect at least a few are in the process of a divorce (or, the first stage we like to call "less than ideal marriage") and a few more live alone in very small places and don't have many friends. There's just that edge about them. And of course, there are the perfectly normal looking young athletes, and overweight folks on the cardio machines, who likely just have different schedules and some incentive (be it New Year's, Doctor's Orders, Vanity, or That Upcoming Race) to hone themselves into something new.
Azita and I are our own universe of slightly giggly girlies occasionally lost in a sea of shiny tools and strange "illustrative" pictures describing how to use various machines (I pull that through my esophagus ? I'm not sure I see how that tones my delts...). I will say, I do a mean warm up on that rowing machine, and I think we both bring our dance backgrounds into using good form with our pittances of resistance (I am on the upper end of average strength for a woman in my upper body, although once I switch to lower body, I can max out some of the machines). Still, I think if this continues I'll need to add to the gymnastic atmosphere by purchasing a spandex unitard immediately. My black track pants and tank are just too plebian for such a glorious morning task.
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