Whine & Roses

I hate working out. I hate the machines, I hate the weights, and I hate the skinny girl who’s been on the treadmill for 45 minutes. She’s light and springy and breaking only a light sweat. I’m slogging away, wearing black baggy sweats and a Star Trek t-shirt that reads, “Resistance is Futile.”

There’s got to be some irony in there somewhere.

Why do we put ourselves through this? To be sexy. Yes, cardiovascular blah blah, but to be quite honest, we really only put ourselves through the exercise nightmare so that our behinds do not look like a sack full of turtles.

I’m not quite there yet.

I ride the stationary bike, frantically pedaling but getting nowhere. I use the elliptical, climbing like a maniac but remaining just where I am. I get sweaty, red in the face and breathe heavily, but I am no further away than I was 40 minutes earlier.

Obviously, it's a struggle for me. I so badly want to bring Sexy back, with all due respect to Mr. Timberlake. Although to say I want to bring The Sexy back implies that I had The Sexy at some point, and am now making a return trip. Not the case.  I have, however, been near The Sexy. I have waved at The Sexy. I may have even had a little Sexy stuck to my shoe once or twice. But I’ve never really been in full possession of The Sexy.

I’ve tried. I’ve tried, I’ve tried, and I’ve tried. So far, no luck. I’ve never been considered a classic beauty, so I figured out early on that I had better go down Personality Lane. And from my residence on Personality Lane, I’ve been able to observe The Sexy from a distance. I’ve taken notes. I’ve run experiments. But you know what? I still don’t know what in the hell it means. I once had a guy tell me I was “pure comedy.” I know he meant well, but all of a sudden I felt like I was wearing floppy shoes and a squirty flower. I’ve had men tell me I’m smart, I’m interesting, I’m quirky…and yes, that’s all very nice, but I’m more than my brain. I have boobs, you know.

It doesn’t help that everyone seems to have a different opinion. (Ok, not totally true. Like the dentists in the commercial for sugar free gum, 9 out of 10 women would probably recommend Jon Hamm.) But as far as what constitutes sexy in a woman? I have theories, but as yet no conclusive evidence. And men and women often seem to have differing opinions about it too. Curves, or no curves? Stick thin? Big tush? Little heiney? (I’m not going to even mention breasts. I know men are into them; as long as you don’t have three I’ve found they really don’t care.) And who are we all doing this for? I hear women all the time say, “Oh, I just do it for me.” Bullsh*t. We do it for men. If we were going to be doing something to just make ourselves feel good we’d be have having pedicures 24/7 and eating Cool Whip with a ladle.

Side note: I once took four hours to get ready for a party, just so I could look effortlessly put together. Shower, wash hair, condition hair, shave hair that shouldn’t be there, exfoliate, tweeze, moisturize, spackle, line, curl, apply, color, buff, shine, adorn, glitter, and strap. By the time I was ready to go, I was exhausted. The guy I was with? I think he brushed his hair. I’m pretty sure that’s why men bring us flowers – so when we’re coasting on hair spray fumes they can distract us with something pretty to look at.  (P.S. Jewelry works better.)

Sometimes the work pays off, sometimes…not so much. Take Jennifer Hudson. She worked very hard and lost a lot of weight. Her figure looks great, but bless her heart, her head now looks HUGE. Whenever I see her in a magazine now, all I see is a Big Giant Head in a Herve Leger dress. If the poor girl opens her mouth to sing, I’m afraid it will cause a rip in the space/time continuum and we’ll all get sucked into an interstellar rift. (She always wears great shoes, though.) There is another singer who has recently lost 60 pounds, and she described her workout routine. “We have fun!” she exclaims.

First of all, no. Secondly…no.

The first tip that the trainer gives is to do intervals – make your heart rate go up for four minutes, then let it fall back down. For me, the moment my heart rate falls I’m going to sit down. It’s done. It doesn’t want to get back up. Don’t give me an opening. They also say that if you don’t like traditional exercises, find something you enjoyed doing as a kid. That will make it “fun.” The problem is that as a kid, I liked to sit. Sit and read. Sit and draw. Sit and write stories about me and Han Solo. See a pattern here? While I do enjoy sitting, unless I’m watching the aforementioned Mr. Hamm or perhaps Nathan Fillion on the television, the heart rate is going to stay pretty much on the low end. I guess I could just do what most young actresses say they do to stay fit – drink water and do Pilates. (Yeah, right.) Now, it can be taken too far. We’ve all seen examples. I have two words for you: Teri. Hatcher. She’s starting to look like a praying mantis.

I was also never good at sports, so that’s out for me. I have the hand-eye coordination of a stoned lemur, and I throw like a left-handed girl whose left hand has been tied around her back. I played Extremely Far Right Field from the second through the eleventh grade. (After that I got to be in charge of the beverage cooler.) For a stretch of several days in the tenth grade I was inexplicably made to play goalie in our gym class soccer game. Yeah, that makes sense. Take the girl whose instinct is to DUCK and COVER and put her in front of a speeding ball. This is not good athletic strategy.  I can’t dribble a ball and run, and every time I tried to bump in volleyball the ball would go backwards. I’m pretty sure it’s not supposed to do that. I tried out for cheerleading in the eighth grade (stop laughing), but I guess I couldn’t muster the requisite amount of perky, because I didn’t make the squad. I was in marching band, and that’s as close to athletics as I ever got. Well, think about it – we had to march in tandem, turn corners, occasionally move up and down a field, AND play an instrument. For someone who can barely walk and chew gum at the same time, this was a major accomplishment.

Eventually, I will head back to the gym. I will get on the elliptical and move my chubby little legs in an oval until the proverbial cows come home. I will lift chunks of round metal, and put them down. I will drink my water and think about Pilates. I will resist the urge to trip the springy girl on the treadmill, and I will always be a good gym citizen and wipe the copious Jen-sweat off the machines after use. I will picture my ass in a positive light, and I will do it for me.

And maybe George Clooney. Just a little bit.