Saturday, February 20, 2016

I Don't Understand How Your Lululemon Leggings Get You In The Front Row!


If there's a lingering doubt in the mind of anybody regarding a woman's ability to fight on the battlefield alongside men, I suggest those doubters head over to my gym and try to get into my aerobics class on the half hour, when Stretch Those Sinews lets out and the Shrink-Your-Big-Butt Step Class attempts to enter using the same doorway.

Getting into the classroom and claiming your spot on the studio floor is like a Knicks-Bulls game in overtime. The slamming you see on the rugby field? The full-force body-checking you watch at professional ice hockey games? Nothing, compared to the elbow jabbing, hip-checking, Capezio bag battering mayhem that erupts as we attempt to squeeze through the single door into the workout studio. Watch out, that Evian bottle is loaded and the safety catch is off; you're going to be sloshed! Duck! She's got a backpack and I think it's loaded -- with leg weights! It's like merging on a particularly vicious LA freeway where your fellow travelers are dressed in tights, thongs and Avia cross trainers. At the heart of the struggle is -- what else in New York? -- real estate. In this case, a prime spot on the studio floor.

At my aerobics studio and at most others across the city, country and the world, we women know the drill. Those just finished with their class know better than to try to exit while we're on our way in; rather than be flattened by stampeding hordes of Lululemon-clad Amazons, they stand aside, backs pressed against the studio wall and watch, eyes wide, as we pour through the doorjamb, a multi-colored mob running in a panicked frenzy as if it were an Entemann's give-away; charging toward the "best" spots (the ones in the very front with the full-length mirror view), or just a spot claimed out of some neurotic habit.

Once inside, personal workout space is claimed, staked out and protected as strictly as territory delineated in the Treaty of Versailles. Water bottles and aerobic shoes are dropped into little white piles all over the room as boundaries are marked. Women stand stiffly, hands on hips, legs wide, defying anyone to enter their tiny exercise realms. Any negotiations for additional space are purely symbolic: no one's budging. Latecomers plead for an extra inch or two, attempting to nab even the tiniest view of themselves in the mirrors from their spots in the back of the room, next to the dreaded radiators. (Next to the radiators is no man's land, where you spend the whole class trying not to jump your jack onto a hot metal picket.) They'll get an inch if they're lucky -- if the leotard-wearer blocking them shifts to the side that much -- granting maybe a view of a shoulder or a hip. But once all the invisible lines on the hardwood floor are drawn, and the exercise music starts, the battle really begins.

You just don't know how frightening exercise can be until you've experienced an aerobics class in almost any exercise studio in America. This is a world where women's thighs run the show, don't let anybody kid you, and there's no better place to experience that truth than in a mirror-lined room with 25 women who are not completely happy with their figures. You can read their minds: "Why do I have to have hips at all? I'm obviously never going to have children!" they're thinking, as they rip off their jackets and throw backpacks helter skelter under the coat rack. "I love this class!" one woman lies to another. You can tell she's lying because she's earlier made reference to the fact that this teacher is the hardest. "You get a really good workout with Don!" she assures a newcomer. Translated, she's really saying, "I made it through the class without actually crying and I want the world to know!"

We'd all rather be home watching Oprah, let's be honest. And yet, we women do love an event where we get to see what everyone else is wearing. It's like a party, only with fewer clothes. There's the American Beauty, whose socks and shoes always match her jogbra. I don't know how she does it, but somehow she manages to pull it off three times a week. Then there's The Dancer, wearing leg warmers and what look like sauna shorts. This woman is the picture of grace. She knows what they're talking about when they order an arabesque, while the rest of us are just throwing our legs out in back, trying not to look like a dog burying something behind him. There are even a few punkettes looking for that sculpted look cigarettes and coffee alone just can't accomplish. They sport black Converse high tops, stitched bustiers and fishnet support-hose. And then there are the usual types that populate every exercise studio: the ones who are carved and chiseled into shapes that defy any intake of nourishment; the ones in full make-up who reapply their lipstick just before class; and those new to exercise, who look like they never saw a tennis shoe prior to 2000 and always thought the weights in the weight room were car parts.

Once the instructor starts the warm-up, the ones up front had better be good, or at least have sharp outfits, because if they don't, the ones behind will creep into their territory and do homicidal arm lunges within inches of their backs. Interlopers try to sneak, floorboard by floorboard into each other's space during the "grapevine" (step, cross, step, KICK!). Some women protect their fiefdoms by jumping wildly, flailing their bodies in such a way there's a chance of suffering grave bodily harm if you inadvertently leg-lift yourself onto their property. We've all learned to stay far back from the one in a skimpy black outfit who fends off encroachments by flinging her dreadlocks in a mad whirlpool of aerobic enthusiasm. Think "Ben Hur" and lethal, protruding spokes on chariot wheels...

Then there are the ones who attempt figure intimidation; flaunting their iron hard bodies in thongs and modified G-strings; in short, one-piece unitards; in screaming paisley-patterned Pranas whose design defies all warnings that loud patterns make the wearer look fat. "What are YOU doing here!" the rest of us scream silently. Since they're always in the front row, we have to stand behind them, fuming. We're forced to dodge their butt as it swings its way toward us during the squats; obliged to stagger our kicks so we don't boot them into the next row. Every once in a while though, I let a high kick fly and I fan 'em, like a pitcher fans back the batter, just to let them know I'm back there. It's every woman for herself, truly survival of the fittest, and also of those whose outfits fit best.

But we all have our strategies and this is mine. I go to class three times a week. I wear the baggiest t-shirt I can scrounge up, a pair of my ex-boyfriend's boxer shorts, one long sock and one short sock, and Keds. Plaid Keds. I limp into the back row right before the class starts, dragging my Step platform behind me (the idea is I'm too weak to lift it). I position it upside down like a blue canoe and then I stand there pretending to ponder the mystery of where the risers go until the instructor, with a thinly veiled look of contempt, suggests I come up front since I'm obviously an exercise moron.

It's been 6 weeks now and he still hasn't caught on. I've managed to get to the front row every time and, although I never look as cool as the women who surround me, I'm happy. Like finding a cheap one bedroom apartment three times a week, it's my little real estate victory. The front row, across from the mirror; the best piece of property in the whole studio!

Let it be a lesson to outsiders: aerobics are not to be taken lightly. As we improve our bodies, we hone other skills. Strategy, negotiation and finally, compromise come into play within these mirrored walls. And once we get up to speed, we're a force to be reckoned with: we women (and men) who, for forty minutes, move with the music, in step, as one, together! (Somewhat together.) We become a team, a unit, a unified wedge of cardio-active machinery! Give us a task and we'll complete it, as one!!

Just don't stand in front of us.

Sunday, February 7, 2016

I Totally Do Not Understand How to Tell if It's On or Off. I Mean, Everything.

Back to things I don't understand anymore: remember when buttons for off and on were understandable? Clearly marked? Made perfect sense?


When you knew that when you pressed a button, and it responded, the power would be on? And when you pressed it again it would obviously be off? Because it was clearly marked "power"?


These days we have the "smiling cyclops" which indicates nothing when it's pressed. It offers no information, it assists you not, and one might actually forget if one has pushed it, because if it is pressed and nothing happens, one might believe it hadn't been pressed at all.


So today's "I Don't Understand Anything Anymore" post: the contemporary and ubiquitous off/on button. I don't get it. Whose bright idea was this?



Wednesday, February 3, 2016

Um, I Don't Understand How to Operate Your Shower...

I'm one of those who travels for the holidays; not to anywhere interesting but to the homes of friends and family who put me up in the spare bedroom, on the couch, or who kindly kick their small children to the floor so I have a place to sleep. These small children still seem to like me, because I'm their Aunt who they don't see that often and so I have the advantage of always being a novelty to them. Kids between the ages of 5 and 14 have a kind of instinctive caution about talking back, rolling their eyes, using the kind of foul language reserved for the bowels of slave ships, and borrowing my clothes, which they reserve for their parents and those who they see regularly. In fact, as long as I show my face only once a year, they actually roll their eyes TO me, in a conspiracy against their parents, and how "dumb" or unreasonable they are, especially when those parents ask them to eat vegetables, turn off the video games, or not to have sex with the goth guy in homeroom.

So all in all, it's great, except for the problem of the shower. I live in NYC where, on the Upper West Side where I live, the shower valves haven't changed since 1941 and therefore have a "Hot" device and a "Cold" device, clearly labeled, separated by a natural distance and incredible in their logic and simplicity.



I mean, just by looking at them, you know: 1) how to turn the water on, 2) how to make the water "Hot" or, alternatively "Cold", 3) how to get the water to come out of the overhead valve onto your head, 4) how to turn it all off at the end of the event. You can also figure out fairly quickly what to do if the water is: 1) scalding and your skin begins to redden and peel off, 2) freezing so that everything made of flesh rises in self-defense, 3) brown with chunks.

Let me be the first to report that this is not true outside of Manhattan. Apparently everyone else in the world lives in a house that was built post WW2, and at some point, some smart-ass engineers decided that having separate faucets was "too much trouble" or maybe simply not cool, and started building these things into one unit so that the person of average intelligence, and perhaps even people with advanced degrees, cannot figure out how to take a shower without being injured or asking a 7 year old for help.

This phenomenon is most obvious at the gym, where a shower needs to be fast, not only because other people are waiting, but because there’s always a chance that the naked girls with the “buns and abs of steel” might shove you out of the way because, let’s face it, they’re stronger and worked out harder and need showers much, much more than you.

I don’t live far from my gym, so usually I work out and walk home and shower there, with my normal, logical shower that leaves me confident and cheerful at my ability to operate something mechanical without breaking it or having to call in professionals. But sometimes I have to shower at the gym because I’m headed somewhere other than home and I don’t want to have people do that sideways-shifting-away-on-the-subway-bench that I do sometimes when people are… let’s say, unfragrant. So at my gym, here is what I’m faced with:



Now I get the color scheme, ok? I get it. Red is hot, and blue is cold; this is common most cultures and I don’t want to visit the countries where it’s not. But… please. What the hell? There is no way to figure this thing out without getting in there and just – doing it. This means, in my case, getting alternately scalded and frozen, at least twice, until I find the mid-point of water comfort. Those shrieks and whoops coming from the third stall? That’s me, and I’m alone and there is in absolutely no sex involved. The small crowd that gathers around the extra towels awaiting my exit exhibit the collective expression of a group that is concerned, but maybe not enough to risk their own lives to find out what is going on in that glass chamber. And of course, upon my exit, I act like I don’t know where the yelling came from either and walk out shrugging blithely at the be-toweled clique.

And the problem only gets worse outside of Manhattan. This is Cleveland. House of Brian. Nice house, modern, many bathrooms.



There’s an “H”, a “C” and an “Off” which you’d think would make things oh-so-obvious, but is it hot when the faucet handle is pointed at the H or when the handle is pointed at the C? Why isn’t there an arrow? Where’s the color scheme? There are many teen-agers at this house and if you think I’m asking their help, when I’ve already been humiliated not only playing Wii baseball, but even the low-tech board-game “Risk”, you’re nuts.

My family is a “Four Christmases” kind of a deal, so from Brian’s house, I went on to Alison’s (his ex-wife and my friend), also built in the era of the ambitious engineer. This shower is in the redone basement, and so it’s super special, and makes even less sense.



It’s a kind of diamond shape (and tastefully, looks like an actual diamond! Your guests will actually think you have the Hope Diamond in your downstairs bathroom!) and comes to a point, leading one to believe that if you point the point at one of the key letters (H, and C), you’ll have Hot or Cold water. Getting started here is the issue. You pull it out and then you have to dodge that spray until you can snake your hand in there and adjust it until you can safely get the whole body in there. A flushing toilet somewhere in the house can add layers of confusion and trauma, trying to understand whether it’s you controlling the spray, or some outside agent, and whether you should passively wait until things settle down, or go bold, adjusting wildly as armies of 13 and 14 year old girls dab their make-up upstairs, tossing little tiny pieces of toilet paper away, flushing each time, in their quest for Bratz-like slutitude.

I also visited Kelly who just redid her bathroom (what’s wrong with having an old, functional bathroom? People: leave your showers alone!).



This one stumped me utterly. The Barbie was ecstatic: I was glum. What’s that long metal thing over there? What does that do? How can that help matters? Why do we need extra devices protruding from the spigot? It was getting late and people were waiting for me for yet another blended family walk by the water. I tried, I honestly did, but ultimately I had to open the bathroom door and call for assistance. Her 7 year old, with an expression reserved for people who visit regularly (that is: disdain, annoyance), showed up and said, “Let me do it” and she did, getting it right the first time as I towered above her, wrapped in a towel, reminding her that I had a Masters and a driver’s license and also many boyfriends and my own apartment, which didn’t seem to impress her. This one required doing something under the faucet at the bottom, which I pretended I understood (like when I took Chemistry and stared dumbly at the blackboard for a whole semester), just so I could preserve some dignity and not let the little girl get the upper hand. “Oh yeah,” I said, “that’s what I thought, it’s so simple, much easier than mine at home,” I suggested.

The holidays are over and I’m back home and I’ve been taking showers with no problem at all, and planning my trip to Miami in March, hoping against hope that either the retro-rebuilt town hasn’t touched the showers since 1941 or has redesigned them for the simple-minded, or perhaps, that a smart 7 year old is down the hall.