Today is my last day of being 51. As of 8:15 a.m. on May 22 I will officially be 52, or, to put it in technical terms, Even Older Than Dirt.

An intelligent, evolved, self-aware woman might use this day to reflect upon the year past, celebrate the good things, make peace with the bad, think about lessons learned.

Me?

Well, I stood in the mirrored stretch room at my gym and contemplated my aging carcass, taking special care to obsess about the size and shape of my butt.

I am such a credit to my gender.

Alrightie then. Six and a half months at the gym and you'd think I would be pretty buff by now, right?

You might think that, but you would be so very, very wrong.

All of me needs more work but especially my arms. My arms make me mental. I have a severe case of that dread disease which strikes many middle-aged women, Kimono Arm.

Oh, I have been working so freakin' hard on those arms. I have done a bazillion tricep, bicep, any-arm-cep exercises in the hope that I could erase those oh so attractive pouches of skin which insist of dangling down when I hold out my arm. While I have shrunk them from their previous bat-like proportions, they are far from gone.

I will continue to tackle them. In my optimistic moments, I tell myself that I will have lovely firm upper arms in a few months. When I'm feeling less optimistic, I tell myself that I can always move to Hollywood and audition to be a stunt double for Rocket J. Squirrel if they ever make a sequel to the Rocky and Bullwinkle movie.

I am all about the realistic approaches to life.

Hey, have I mentioned that I think every gym should give its female members Their Very Own Gay Guy? Yep, I think when you sign up they should give you your fitness assessment, your workout routine, your locker and Your Very Own Gay Guy.

I have one and he's simply wonderful. More than once he's kept me pushing through my routine.

First off, we're almost the same age, so he understands how hard it is to haul an aging body through a fitness routine.

The whole sex dealie is off the table. We each think the other is nice in an amorphous sort of way, but he likes outies and I'm an innie. Me, I see him as a brotherly kind of person, and can talk to him about anything, without fear that it will be misinterpreted. (Not that I'm a sex object to most straight men under 80 with 20-20 vision, but, well, you get my meaning.)

Oh, and another great thing about having your Very Own Gay Guy at your gym? The body envy issue is gone. Completely. He's working towards one standard, you're working towards something completely different, unlike the blonde goddess with the Sports Illustrated swimsuit model's body two machines down whose utter perfection makes you want to weep.

Not that I would be speaking from experience or anything.

No, uh, it's just something I've heard other women talk about.

Ah, and competitiveness just doesn't make sense either. See, my Very Own Gay Guy is insanely strong and it would be madness for me to even begin to try to match what he's doing. I mean, lookit, he's using 50 pound weights for his biceps. Me, I can barely pick up 50 pounds with two hands.

Not that I'm competitive or anything. No, not me. (Someone who looks a lot like me almost crippled herself at my gym trying to beat the squat weights hoisted by an extremely skinny teen-aged boy, but, ah, that couldn't have been me, because, well, That Would Be An Extremely Stupid Thing To Do.)

So, to sum up, here's pretty much all the insight I can offer upon entering my 52nd year on this planet:

Kimono Arm--bad.

Gyms giving women members Their Very Own Gay Guy--good.

No need to thank me. I live to share these priceless nuggets.

--Marn

Mileage on the Marnometer: 270.24 miles (434.8 kilometers)
Goal for 2003: 500 miles - 804.5 kilometers