I’m going to try to keep this short, mostly because I didn’t start this blog to write about my fat-kid adventures. Plus, I’m not sure that my loyal readership (mwhahaha) really cares to hear a bunch of stories about how I failed at the gym.

No! You don’t say!

Either way, it’s important to make a few points. First of all, my gym chronicles come from a really honest place. While people may tire of the “guess who couldn’t jump rope for thirty seconds straight?” stories, the truth is that I’m not some anorexic girl bitching about not being able to resist my daily saltine. I’m a real girl who is genuinely trying to rectify the problem (or at least throwing money at it). I get my ass up and go torture myself because deep down I want to see results. (Truthfully I want to see results ala cocaine habit, but as I learned from my recent pot foray, this girl doesn’t do drugs. Or rather, this girl does drugs and then passes out mid sentence in her party dress… Whatever.)

So, Monday morning.

Monday mornings are actually a pretty great time to go to the gym. In truth, the day really can’t get much worse so why not start it off on a complete low point? To compliment this Monday, the man and I haven’t done laundry. And, because I’ve been exercising, I’ve had to bathe regularly. I had no idea how many articles of clothing I could go through in two weeks. I don’t think the hubs could either. I’ve been through like 79 pairs of pannies. How? I don’t know. Anyway. Out of workout clothes, sock, and down to the pannies with prints on them. You know, like bunnies and stuff. No? Oh. My mother sent them to me.

In addition to being figure challenged, I should also mention that I’m not exactly tan. Some may say I’m not exactly pigmented, but I think that’s cruel. I’m just not exposed to the sun that often. On the other hand, I don’t plan on looking like a purse in a few years. I’ve always been fine with being “light skinned”, except that I recently noticed that my stems looked much better in, say, black leggings. Which is exactly what I wear to workout in. Unless I havent done laundry. Then I have to wear shorts.

So there I was in shorts. Mesh ones, no less. And an old tank top the EXACT same color as urine. I don’t even know why I bought it, but I’m sure it cost me $40 or something. I can be a total idiot about the simplest things.

Lindsay (should I have given her a pseudonym?) was giving me the usual torture routine: lunges, squats, lunges, squats (like I’m some sort of child star who can’t figure out that they are the SAME exercise), and then throwing in some lunges and squats with kettle bells. It was miserable, but I’m used to the routine. Occasionally she’ll throw in a hop or something, but other than that, it’s a lot of lunging and squatting. I’m like the Tanya Harding of Equinox.

What happened after the lunging and squatting I could not have prepared for. There was cardio. Now, there’s been cardio before, but it’s been 30 seconds on one of those Jazzercise steps. (Does anyone know why they have never thought to change the color of those things? Black perhaps? A nice grey? Why are they still purple and turquoise?) But Lindsay wanted me to be “stacking”– a gym term referring to stressing out a single muscle group successively. . . or something. I got a little nervous when she described the cardio bit because I realized I couldnt do it. Not only was I not wearing appropriate breast compression, but I just couldnt do it. Like paraplegics don’t do hurdles. They are talented mother fuckers, but they dont hurdle. Just doesn’t happen.

I went along though because part of Operation Barbie is pushing myself to go the extra step. I stair stepped, hopped, jumping jacked, and then jumped rope. I actually felt pretty good when I finished the second circuit. Clearly I was getting stronger.

And then my nose started bleeding.

Nature, dry air, whatever. I don’t fucking care. Of all the people in the gym with a bloody nose, why not the stick in the lululemon getup? Why me? Why the white girl in the piss top and meshies?

Because this is my life.

I couldn’t help but think how lucky I was that I was at Equinox and not some poor people gym. Lindsay could help me stop this and we would be back on our way.

As twelve different trainers ran around trying to find some gauze, one stayed with me. She haphazardly pressed ice to my face, which caused bloody water to stain my face, something no one thought to tell me before I paraded through the gym after the saga was over.

Apparently gauze isn’t a gym necessity, and there wasn’t any to be found. There was talk of making me put a tampon up there, unfortunately they only stock regulars and there was a consensus that only a light days would fit in my delicate nostril. Eventually they did find gauze, though… sort of.

And I sat there while the sticks in lululemon scanned their fingers, met with their trainers, while the clock ticked away five minutes–protocol for a nose bleed.

With an eye patch shoved up my nose.

I’m not positive, but I don’t think Barbie allows Midge to put an eye patch in her nose. Just a guess.