Laundry

3.18.20

I’ve discovered the GREATEST DAMNED THING about this social isolation stuff:

If – and I’m not saying this is you, but it might be – IF you have been neglecting your regular schedule and the laundry hasn’t been done (and why should it, since you’re clearly spending all your days dressed in your jammies anyway)…

…then you know who cares if you fish nasty old gym clothes out of the bottom of the laundry hamper to work out in?

NO ONE, THAT’S WHO.

Because online, no one can smell your screams.

(And of course you pick your retread-clothes from the BOTTOM; those clothes have had longer to cure. Perhaps the smelly bits have gotten old and fallen off.)

I had this brainstorm when the amazing Body Dynamics Gym in Falls Church, VA began offering training sessions online. Barbara, the world’s most astonishingly insightful and valuable personal trainer, sent me an email. We’ll meet on Tuesday at 11, like normal, but online.

Ew. I thought I’d managed to escape the question of health. “Can’t come in, so sorry, social distancing.” They were having none of it.

And EW. I haven’t done the laundry.

But… okay. I offer offense to no one but my own nose when I dress in the Garments of the Unclean. So let’s give this a try.

The video link worked beautifully. Even better, occasionally needing to move my iPad (so Barbara could see what I was doing) turned out to be an EXCELLENT procrastinatory technique. I’m not panting in desperation; I’m moving the camera. There – is that better? Hm. Maybe a little bit more here? Wait – I’ll try it over here…

If you know anything of Barbara, you’ll not be surprised to learn that she was STILL correcting my form from miles away. I’m amply padded, I wear a deliberately baggy shirt to mask the padding, I was in an indifferently-lit basement on an older-model iPad camera, and STILL Barbara was saying “pull your ribs down” and “where are your headlights” and “lift up through your pelvis.”

Now, maybe you’ll say that Barbara now knows me so well that she’s anticipating (not actually witnessing) when I’m cheating – but I don’t think so. We did all kinds of new exercises since my on-hand equipment is different from BDI’s. And she knew.

She always knows.

Today I worked out with Chip online, and that, too, was excellent and hard and DAMN IT I want to go back to bed! (So – in other words, successful. Can a work-out be judged as valuable if it does not include a little bitching, a little regret?) He said I was his first video client, which confused me. Aren’t we ALL supposed to be sheltering in place? Isn’t that the point of healthy people like me staying home? I’m doing what little I can to ensure the doctors and nurses aren’t hopelessly overwhelmed in the weeks to come. It has nothing to do with ME.

So why are all Chip’s clients still going in?

One of us is a sucker and a fool, and I hope it isn’t me…

I have two lessons, boys and girls. They are these:

1. People who exercise regularly – even those with ample padding and the need for deliberately baggy – and possibly smelly – gym clothes are BETTER POSITIONED TO SURVIVE THE VIRUS. If I get it, I’ll recover more rapidly because my general health is good. And that’s because of Barbara and Chip and Gwynn and Tracey and Gabby and all the big-brains at Body Dynamics. So thank you all!
2. If you’ve ever wished that you, too, could attend Barbara’s Balance Class – next week, Body Dynamics will be opening up her class to anyone who wants to attend online. In person, the class costs $19; I don’t know what or how they’ll charge for her class during the virus – but what else do you have to do? Thursdays at 10 Eastern. (Not tomorrow; they can’t start it until next week.)

If you’re wondering if #2 is right for you, please go back and reread #1. Come on in – the water’s fine. And you can’t smell me from there!

By the way – just to make the point: I am DIGGING all this social isolation, unlike most people. I’m writing a romance. It’s cranking along at about two chapters a day, and I am THRILLED with the world I’m creating. I cannot too strongly encourage you to write something – or paint something – or choreograph something. Create, my friend. It passes the time and engages the brain most bigly. Onward!