Mountains Made Low

The package from LLBean did, in fact arrive, yesterday, and today I’m wearing grown-up clothes that actually fit…. I’m also still a bit in shock at the (size) numbers associated with the grown-up clothes that actually fit. I hadn’t bought a pair of non-jeans pants in a while, so I guessed, but I guessed right! And it’s amazing….

(And this is what’s called leaving you hanging, because—haha!!—I’m not gonna say!)

So I have four pairs of pants that fit, now (and I work 4-day weeks, at the moment—see how that works?), and I also got two new shirts in the process. The one I’m wearing today was called “claret red” and looked really red on the Website, but it turned out to be a little pinker than I expected. Not carnation pink or anything, but still pinker than I expected. I think, though, that I’m pulling it off.

And now I’m really okay with dressing as my dean would like me to dress for this job, mostly because I no longer have an extraneous pleat (or gather or bunch) in the fabric of my pants running down my ass. And that’s a very good thing!

I’ve been saying for a while that I’m weird. At least in terms of my clothing sizes.

I’ve had a two-size differential between my top half and my bottom half for a while. But I’ve noticed, also for a while, unrelated to my recent return to the gym, that I’m pretty much swimming in my shirts, especially around my waist, but recently in my chest, too.

So I decided to order a new shirt from LLBean. Because I didn’t want to be cocky about it, I ordered both the old size and the new(?) size. When they arrived yesterday, I didn’t bother with them. But today, I was a little cocky about it—I tried on the the new(?) size, first.

The new(?) size, is in fact the new size. Which makes the size differential down to one size. I’m not nearly as bizarre any more.

At least in terms of my clothes.

For those who might be wondering, the size differential is now “L” on the bottom, “XLT” on the top, at least in shirts from LLBean.

The second day of my return to working out was not as traumatic as the first. Yesterday, as I climbed on to the elliptical machine, I experienced a series of familiar sensations.

First, there was the burn in my muscles the made me think, “what the hell was I thinking getting back into this; I’m probably going to die on this thing; why can’t I just embrace the fact that it’s my God-given lot in life to be a fat man and move on?” This sensation occurs about five minutes in to the workout.

Then, there was the loosening of those knots and the muscles changing from feeling like they were on fire to feeling like they were working. Not unpleasant, just a workout—what I go to the gym for. And it started to feel good.

Finally, as I approached the target time I had set for myself, I was winded and really feeling the work my muscles had been doing. But I also felt like I could have gone on past my target. That’s the feeling I like, and one I’d gotten used to: feeling like I’d gotten to my goal and not been wiped out by it. That I wasn’t done (in), and could have kept going if I wanted to.

I didn’t keep going, though. I didn’t want to risk doing too much too soon. So I stopped at my time goal. 24 minutes (I’m trying to work back up to 42—where I was before—and we’ll see what happens from there). But in those 24 minutes, I did 2.18 miles. That’s almost 5½ miles per hour, sustained for 24 minutes. I’m happy with that.

Maybe given that pace, if it’s sustainable for even longer periods as I up the time, I’ll make my goal for now 44 minutes (as long as they don’t start enforcing the 30 minutes on a machine rule, which I’ve never had a problem with before). 44 minutes would be 4 miles.

So I’m feeling better about it. And now there are a funny thing from the gym.

I swear I must live in the most homophobic area in the world. Or something. During my hiatus, the YMCA, which is still under construction, opened its locker rooms. So the past two days, I’ve been using the locker room which is nice (I don’t have to change in the men’s restroom before I leave work). Well and good. In the men’s locker room, however, (and I assume the women’s as well, but who knows) there are, in addition to the standard accouterments of a locker room (full restroom facilities, showers, and, well, lockers), curtained changing cubicles. That’s right. You can go in, draw a curtain and not have to be in your underwear around other men. You’ve gotta be shitting me. What’s more, as I was changing back into street clothes yesterday, sitting on one of the traditional locker room benches in my boxer briefs, a guy came in, and went in to a cubicle. I can’t say any more than “a guy” because that’s exactly how much attention I paid to him: someone else came into the men’s locker room, so I assume it was a guy. But he felt the need to change in a cubicle. Me? while he was in the cubicle, I stood up, dropped my underwear, grabbed my towel and hit the shower. You know, the way you think of a locker room—particularly a men’s locker room—working. Not that I want to look or be looked at; but the locker room is traditionally a place without modesty, and after about the 9th grade, also a place without shame.

What is this world coming to? I mean, seriously.