Short Nights

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I don't mean "short nights" as in "nights when you wear shorts." I mean that now that I've been trying to get to the gym about 2-3 times during the week, I find myself arriving home later than usual, and so not catching all of whatever nonsense questions NPR'S Terry Gross (or her fill-in) has asked her guests. I don't miss it much, but it makes for a shorter evening. I barely have time to watch one TV show before it's up to bed to read. I'm becoming an old lady--turning the TV off at 10:30 to be sure I have lights out around 11:30.

Lately, I've been reading Ian McEwan's Saturday. I really like him. He takes his time with descriptions, but not in an indulgent way. This book doesn't have the same intensity as or Atonement, but the form is neat--the whole book takes place on one day (guess which day?). Liz had an idea the other day that I should starting writing an Evie novel and one of the first chapters could begin with the line, "Evie didn't consider herself a prude." A good beginning.

On an unrelated note, I like my gym and seldom have any complaints. It's never too crowded to get a machine and there's a good mix of people of all shapes and sizes. I feel spoiled by the TVs on every single piece of equipment (oh, that reminds me: have you seen or heard of this MTV program called Smackdown? That might not be the exact name of it, but the premise is that you have two wimpy guys who are being bullied by some other dude and the MTV people offer the bully $10,000 to go two rounds in a ring with a professional beater-upper. It's totally brutal and awful and impossible not to watch. Of course, the bullies always get the shit kicked out of them. I kept thinking like, Hmm...I wonder what percentage of these bullies were beaten as kids?). Okay, but a few gym pet peeves include:

1. The girl who wouldn't stop coughing. She coughed every 14 seconds (I timed it) for over 45 minutes. Get off the machine if you have an illness or even if it's just a nervous tic.

2. People who leave the TVs on after they get off. They probably are just being forgetful, but it's irritating and then, like a busy-body, I make it my mission to go around and turn off all the unwatched TVs when I'm done.

3. Really loud spinning classes. That would be all spinning classes, because they are uniformly intense and seem to require a techno soundtrack.

4. People who give other peoples STDs through mat contact. That has happened to someone I know (not me, I promise).

Comments

Liz said…
I turn off the tv's too thanks to you. Sorry i missed our gym date...but i was having a nervous reaction to my blackberry not working and I had to resolve it. it's fixed. Sat and Sun definitely!
10:18 PM
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