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Pickett Fences:
Phat
by Jim Pickett |
| Gym
bunnies, nipple ponies, steroid sissies, muscle Marys.
Pumping it up, posing and strutting, perking them out, lifting
and separating, working it, feeling the burn, getting ripped,
making it hurt for Daddy...
The poor dears. I used to find enormous pleasure making fun
of these body-obsessed queers. Having not stepped hoof into
a health club or gymateria for something like a decade, and
with the growing America’s Dairyland waistline to prove
my disdain—the proof was in the pudding for real—I
felt sorry, pity really, for the hordes addicted to the Pec
Decks and Stairmistresses and all the other devices of narcissistic
torture that swelled ones titty titty bang bangs and emptied
their heads of reason
Of course, prior to my fitness ban, I was one of them, or rather,
trying my gosh durndest to be one of them. I worked out every
day. I pushed and I pulled, I grunted, heaved and strained,
gettin’ physical, physical, wantin’ to feel my body,
wantin’ to get a body to feel. I even got a trainer who
worked me out so hard, I couldn’t get up, or down, the
stairs on the Broadway bus. Grannies in Blue-Blockers were poking
me in the back with their seeing-eye canes, growling, “move
your ass, skinny.”
And that’s just it. All that hard work, all that limping
and crying, and I was still, still a skinny dork. Sure, it was
a firm skinny, but I continued to disappear if I turned sideways.
I was still, still but a sparrow, flap, flap, flapping my bony
wings against the wintry winds that gust through the greater
Cowtopolis, getting blown over by octogenarians in a hurry.
So, when I got a day job that not only messed with my work out
schedule but required continuous pot smoking and enforced breaks
(state mandate) to eat boxes of chocolate Entemanns and hit
the Indian buffet across the street, I left my dreams of muscular
pulchritude behind without a second thought. Ballys no longer
received its buck two fifty a month, and maybe some of the boys
in the steamroom missed me, but to be honest, I didn’t
miss them. I was liberated, I was free. The madness was gratefully
over.
Then I tested positive, then I turned 30 a couple of years after
that. And lo and behold, I started to get fat. Baby started
to get some back and ya know what? I loved it. I loved being
called “big guy” and it not being a snide swipe at
my wispiness. I really was a “big and tall man” with
a big, fat, juicy ass shake shake shaking and it all just kept
getting bigger. By 37, that eensy weensy 31 waist had become
a 36. There were a pair of short pants that were, clutch the
rolls, a size 38. That’s plumped my darlings, not pumped.
Part of me, okay, a big part, felt like this large living was
insurance. When the HIV started to work its evil magic, I had
plenty of raw material, which I embraced. I was not going to
waste away into a skeleton anytime soon. And the plump cheeks
on my moonface just kept expanding. Fat and happy. Mootastic,
mootacular, moorific, moopendous…
Then 2003 came along. Sometime in mid-January, before my 37th
birthday, I ran out of mowiewowie, and was too fat and lazy
to go get some more. No more pot meant no more cans of Pringles
and no more double orders of fetuccini alfredo with cheesy garlic
bread wolfed down with a couple of cokes at midnight. And lo
and behold, I started to lose weight.
By April, I was buying a whole new wardrobe with waistlines
at the 34 marker, and some sluttier 33’s even for the occasional
hot date.
A few months after that, I met someone, a triathlete someone,
who would inspire me, unbeknownst to him, to start becoming
physically active again. His lifestyle integrates physical fitness
and working out in a way that is not manic or looks-obsessed.
He’s in great shape so his body can do the many things
he enjoys, not to stand and model in too-tight clothing.
Being pretty quick on the uptake, I sensed this. And one day,
out of the moo, I was walking into the neighborhood gym and
asking for a tour. Ching-ching and I was a member. Soon I was
swimming, lifting weights, and yes, even running (something
I had always detested) on a regular basis. The whole new wardrobe
was soon obsolete, and for the first time in my life, I could
actually touch my toes. I can’t tell you how much joy touching
my toes brings me. What can I say, I’m a simple gal….
I’ve found that I love the gym and exercising, like I never
did in my twenties. My perspective has changed, and the reasons
I am doing this are different from the herd mentality I was
subscribing to. While there have been some improvements in my
body appearance—though the slimming did come with clucks
from worried hens in my coop who thought I was getting sick
cuz I no longer sported that hearty Scandinavian farmer look—that
is not why I relish my daily physical exertions. Okay, I do
like being phat, not fat, but it’s all about the endorphins,
babe, the natural high, the stress reduction, the way my rollercoaster
emotional and mental states are managed, and it’s the oodles
and tons and bundles of newfound energy. My job has become increasingly
demanding and I could never keep up if I didn’t have this
new source of vim and vigor that gets me up at the crack, leaping
out of bed excited to face the day, and keeps me going, going,
going til I crawl back under the covers, and fall asleep in
seconds. Interestingly, I crave only healthy food now, fruits
(go figure) and vegetables. Before it was an apple a year…
Now I munch them like I used to munch Milky Ways, without trying,
without feeling like I am giving anything up. Dig them apples.
Several months into this new regimen I went in for my quarterly
T-cell and viral load tests. I was sure that my T’s would
have skyrocketed with all this healthy granola cardiovascular
protein-conscious living. I was wrong. They came back the same,
though the percentage figure had gone up one point. Big whoop.
I wanted something to show for all this hard work and all I
get is one lousy percentage point?
Alas, lassies, some things tests can’t measure. My overall
state of emotional bliss, the increased ability to manage stress,
and the thrill of touching my toes and being able to swim a
mile again, will never show up in hard numbers on a blood chemistry
panel. Though I’d argue they play a crucial role in those
measurements, visible or not.
My next T-cell count is coming soon. I’m hoping for a dramatic
increase, cuz that’s just how I am. |
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