1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and get them sit ups riiight and

I joined a gym this week because, as I wrote as my reason on the registration form, "it's a real slippery slope to suddenly being full on fat." I have a crippling fear of exercising in front of others. This is why I like jogging, because I can just run right by people so even if they know me they barely have time to realize it before I'm gone. But it's cold, and fears were meant to be conquered, and the fat-slope has gotten slipperier in the past few months. A beefy man with a shaved bald head and beady eyes sold me my membership. He looked like a guy who would get into a fight at a bar. Actually, he looked like that idiotic cop Herc from The Wire.

Tonight I went in for my free training session, in which I explained my aforementioned crippling fear to the nice lady and asked her to show me how to use all of the machines. Even the ones with actual instructional illustrations on them. She was the only employee wearing glasses who didn't have a creepy hard face to go with the hard body, so I lucked out. I saw two coworkers and I'm afraid I'll totally see more people I know basically every time I go. Damn you, Chicago! I did alright, meaning I managed to completely ignore the fat 50 year old man sitting on a weight machine, blatantly staring at all of our squatting and lunging and not even pretending to exercise for 15 minutes.

Oh and when I stood by the front desk, nervously fiddling with my paperwork while waiting for the personal trainer and staring into space, some older dude started asking me to help him sign up. I said I just joined and he was like "Oh I'm sorry, you look like you work here!" I guess I just command an air of authority and have an amazing body. Definitely wasn't because I was standing right at the door holding a form. Yup, 35% body fat according go this weird gadget, jeeealous?