From the Discomfort of my Own Home

            I must have been very good this past year. I have racked my brain to see what kind of “good” I could have possibly been. As you may have learned from my writing, I haven’t been good to my body this past year, I’m not a good person most of the time, and I’m not really good at anything of the things that I should be good at.
            Nevertheless, I know I must have been good in some way because Santa was very good to me and I got a lot of my favorite presents: gift cards. I ask for them from just about anyone (because I can’t think of anything I really need and I would much rather go shopping than just about anything else). A few of my gift cards were to my favorite place, Amazon.com.
            I first discovered my love for Amazon when I purchased my Kindle. I actually love reading more than anything in the world, including shopping. A book doesn’t make your ass look big, but an excess of it can actually make your ass big. Think about it.
            It wasn’t long before my Kindle Wish List got too long for me to keep up with and I started exploring other areas of the site. Amazon has just about everything I would need! (or really don’t need.) So last year, an Amazon gift card meant some new books. This year, an Amazon gift card is as good as money for anything.
            I ended up with over $100 in gift card credit to Amazon and started dreaming of all the wonderful things I could buy. Maybe a new watch? Nope, I have a pretty nice one already. How about another coat? Yeah, I need that like I need another twenty pounds on this.

What do I really need? Then it wafted into my brain like the smell from an open pizza box. How about something to help you lose some goddamn weight, fatty?

Of course. Something I NEED.  Put I preceded with caution. When Josh and I got married, we registered for some wacky shit. You never know what people are going to buy you. Some of it was fitness equipment. Some of it was power tools and alcohol. One of my friends looked at a treadmill we had registered for and remarked, “That will make a nice coat rack in a couple of months.”

It’s true. Millions of people buy fitness equipment every day and never use it. You can log on any day at Craigslist and EBay and there are swarms of people who bought with good intentions and are now tired of their equipment just taking up space. A couple of weeks ago, I was wandering through Target and dreamed of getting in some quick workouts at home on the days I feel I don’t have time for trips to the gym. So, I bought a stability ball and some hand weights. It’s pretty hard to hang up coats on those.

But they do collect dust quickly. I get an idea and locate the stability ball workout DVDs. The one that came with my ball was worthless. I select two, add to cart and buy. There, I feel skinnier already. Now where’s that pizza smell coming from?

They took forever to get to my house but they finally arrived. Both belong to the “10 Minute Solutions” family. There are five sections to the DVD: each section is ten minutes long and targets a specific part of the body. One DVD is supposed to be more “beginner” than the other but for the life of me I can’t remember out which one.

            I assess the house. The upstairs living room is spacious, but I’m worried about the amount of noise my moving body will make when Josh is trying to sleep or watch TV downstairs. The downstairs living room is smaller, but it’s more private.

            I remember when I had a Billy Blanks TaeBo video (yes, VHS) in high school. My living room on the farm is beyond tiny, and I would quickly run out of room as I was supposed to side step, kick, back step, squat. Mostly I would end up accidently kicking my parent’s steel frame couch and crying through my pouring sweat, “I fucking hate you Billy. I really, really do.”

            I decide to go with the upstairs living room. It really is very open and has very little furniture in it. I pick a night Josh isn’t home, and I wear a pair of shorts that are too short for me to wear comfortably in public. Hey, if I’m going to work out at home, I might as take advantage. I roll out my ball and pop in my DVD.

           I don’t what kind of house this chick lives in, but apparently it’s the kind that leads her to believe that normal people have a nice, hardwood workout studio at home. I stuggle to stay in view of our big screen T.V. We warm up with some squats, and then we work in an overhead toss with the ball. I know my ball has a small stabilizing weight in it, and I immediately discover this is not the type of ball you want for this DVD. I’m shy with tossing the ball up at first, but Little Miss Pilates Pigtails tell me to “Get into it! This is warming up your upper body too!”

           I squat, go up with my whole body and hurl the ball up. I guess I forgot I have a ceiling but the feeling of the ball connecting with my face reminded me. Dammit. It’s like junior high volleyball all over again.

            Now we are getting on the ball for some unstable workouts. I am supposed to balance my core, belly down, on the ball while I do some leg lifts. It’s not going great, and I glance sideways at my instructor. She is effortlessly whaling on her glutes. I scrutinize this. She is obviously much smaller than me, but I am quite sure her ball is bigger than mine. Yes, this is a problem. I have purchased a size medium ball, and now I look like a Mastiff trying to hump a Chihuahua. It’s ugly no matter what happens.

            But, I give it the old college try. I do the lower body portion to the best of my ability. By the end of it, my shorts have ridden up my nasty thighs and are starting to resemble a Depends undergarment. I have lost my balance a few times and am getting some sweet rug burns.

            I find myself on my back for the core portion, and my dog has gotten bored watching me. He wants attention and continuously hits me in the face with his rubber bone. But, he starts to leave me alone when I am doing some rolling exercises and I run over his tail.

            By the cardio portion I am tired, frustrated, and want to take Miss Pilate’s Pigtails and slam her face into her massive ball. I fantasize that it would have a rubber-sounding THUNK like a dodge ball when it hits a fat kid in the back, or a foot connecting with a kickball. I feel like I have not lived up to objectives of this workout, as I could not move as fast as my lovely instructor. But, I am sweaty as she thanks me and promises to see me tomorrow to do it all again.

           I have since glanced at my other DVD, which says “Stability ball recommended.” I think that might be the easier one. We shall see.