This gym business has certainly taken me down unexpected paths. Not only has it put me in touch with my Inner Camel (yes, water Retention R Us among other things), heck it's even allowed me to watch morning TV without guilt.

    Try not to bitter, 'kay?

    There seems to be distinct waves of people who pass through my gym. The early morning crowd looks to be guys who are very serious about fitness and set the TV by the treadmills to things such as the weather channel or The Sports Network.

    Ewwwwwww.

    My second visit, when I came in around 9:00 a.m., I found My People--middle-aged women of dubious fitness. And these people set the TV to the worst morning programming possible--stuff like Maury Povich. I am sooo loving this.

    Today I was on the treadmills with two women about my age that I don't know. For our cardio-vascular warm-up we each walked about a mile on a machine that doesn't go anywhere and watched a Maury show. There is probably some sort of correlation between the two activities, but I'll leave that to others.

    The thing that cracked me up was that my co-treadmillers kept yelling the snarkiest things at the people on the show, which was about mothers who have daughters who dress like boys. I mean, this was not the passive TV watching we do here at my place. These women were active participants in the show.

    After a few minutes I was right in there.

    I wish there had been some debris around the treadmills. I'm sure we would have started to throw it at the tee vee.

    I have led far too sheltered a life, eh.

    Oh, and I got a keen phrase to add to my vocabulary, too. See, one of the mothers on the show held up this sexy little dress she had bought her daughter in the hopes that her daughter would wear it.

    The daughter--clothed in huge baggy pants with the crotch to the knees, several shapeless layers of tops, completing the ensemble with a wood cap completely covering her hair--retorted that she wouldn't wear the dress because it would make her look like a "hootchie momma".

    I *heart* the phrase "hootchie momma". I plan to work it into conversation whenever possible. Sadly, it's looking more and more like this won't be nearly as often as I would like.

    In other gym related news, today I added between five and ten pounds to each of the eight weight-related machines I use. I know it isn't much, but it pushes me out of my comfort zone and back into what the gym folk call "the burn".

    I'm not sure I would have had the grit to do this without the e-mail and guestbook encouragement I got from you kind souls out in the ether. I was pretty discouraged yesterday when I got home from the gym, eh, so hearing your experiences really made a difference.

    Yep, as far as I'm concerned, you're ALL hootchie mommas.

    Hey, maybe working that phrase into conversation will be easier than I thought, eh.