G 6/5/02

Work Diary, 6/5/02

Each morning I wake up at 4:45, shave, brush my teeth, feed the
beagle, and then drive to the gym. I like to go before work because
there isn't a snowball's chance in hell that I'll manage any exercise
after a day spent in my work cube.

The gym is used by many of my co-workers, although at that early hour,
only a couple manage to show up. They arrive with hair askew and grumpy
dispositions, carrying their work clothes over their shoulder and
muttering "hello" to the lady at the front desk. The desk lady is
relentlessly cheerful; she has a huge helmet of red hair and wears a
black t-shirt with STAFF printed on the front. I like her because she
appears to be the only gym employee who's willing to use a rag and some
Windex to clean the equipment, all of which smells like a teenage boy's
bedroom on a hot summer day.

My co-workers and I don't talk much at the gym, mostly because they
haunt the free-weight area. Free-weights scare me because they're hard
and heavy and have no sympathy for flesh that gets in the way. So, I do
a lot of aerobic, sweating out nicotine while thankful that there's
hardly anyone around to see my bright red face and gaping, gasping
mouth.

Once done with my workout, I maneuver the locker room. The locker room
requires maneuvering because, for some odd reason, it's full of very
old men. These are men whose stomachs sag over their unmentionables,
their bony shanks taking up the benches while they hack and wheeze
their way through toweling off. I'm not sure why they're toweling off;
I never see any of them actually break a sweat. What I do know is that
they sit and repeat themselves to no one in particular, saying things
like, "In my day the stock market was where you bought a pig," or,
"Those pills cost me an arm and a leg, and I've already got one
missing, heh heh." These old men are also the owners of the Cadillacs
and BMWs parked around my own modest Subaru in the parking lot. They
are richer than God, and I'm not fooled.

But I'm working on not looking like them.