I want to talk about going to the gym today. And no I'm not GOING to the gym. About a year and a half ago my husband wanted to go join the gym. SO the whole family joined. We lived on the outskirts of what is the wealthiest neighborhood in the state so most of our shopping and our gym going is right in the heart of it. This means of course that we need to keep up a little so we do not attract too much negative attention when going about our day. It means upon joining this gym we had to then spend a couple hundred dollars on a work out outfit and then more on the right shoes and a bag and a lock for the locker and whatever else. The gym is like a fashion show for trophy wives and gay trophy life partners/husbands/boyfriends.

On our 3d visit to the establishment I was on an elliptical machine watching the tight toned, size 0 ass of the blond in front of me on the treadmill in her Juicy Couture workout outfit and a number of high end accessories like a little pouch for her bottled water and her perfect hair cut and color and gel nails and other such gear and I became suddenly repulsed. Not by her but by the whole thing. Here were all of these people, because there was a whole line of the same kind of people all looking the same and all doing the same thing and I thought to myself that this had to be a metaphor for the gluttony of America. Here were people who got into their $50,000+ cars to drive to a multi million dollar building which costs thousands to keep lit and climate controlled every month, paying money to be here to mindlessly run like hamsters in a wheel to burn off the excess they consume. I thought how much more useful these expenditures of energy could be. What if these same machines were hooked to generators to at least offset the energy used to keep the building powered. What about if these same people instead of wasting 1 to 2 hours running and lifting dumb weights and eating power bars and drinking fruit smoothies with various "boosts" would instead volunteer that time and energy to Habitat for Humanity or go out and clean up a park or volunteer to build a playground or go clean the house of a bedridden elderly person or clean kennels at an animal rescue or take dogs from the impound out for walks and both get some exercises or any number of other useful and helpful things which could make the world better. Instead they are all lost in their own worlds, putting on their fashion show, listening to their Ipods or texting on their Blackberries or watching other people play an actual camaraderie building sports activity. All alone surrounded by people. All wasting energy because we are so gluttonous that we have energy to waste like this while holding it as virtue. That moment I stopped the machine I was on, and went to the locker room and put on my leaving the gym clothes and canceled my membership. My husband still goes but I refuse. It was a strange moment I had and to this day I get a knot in my stomach whenever he says he is going there. I get it more now because having moved again, I live in a sea of boxes which he feels because he works at a desk all week he should not have to help me move and unpack. But he willingly pays money to go expend energy at that shrine to American gluttony. So strange.

I'm not knocking being in shape and looking and feeling good I'm knocking the methods used to get there. I was never in better shape than when I was building Habitat homes and when I was landscaping my yard. I do go jogging with my dogs and my husband in the AM or PM sometimes and I get into shape when I rehearse for the stage shows I do when the band has shows. It's just the whole industry of the gym which bothers me.