Exercising my will, or lack thereof...

The other day, a friend was describing her day to me, and saying how she takes time out of the office to work out on the escalator machine.

I thought that was noble, but I had to admit my ignorance and say, what the hell is an escalator machine? I'm familiar with the stair-master idea (although I've never been in favour of it) but isn’t an escalator the mechanistic definition of laziness? "Hey, I've got an idea, let's make these stairs move, so you don't have to!" How do you make exercise out of that? I suppose it must be stairs that move and you have to keep on climbing them? Can you tell I haven't been to the gym for a few years?

It seems to me that most things at the gym work on some kind of subconscious level of anticipatory frustration. You row, but you don't get anywhere. You climb, but you don't go up. You can bike for hours, but you'll still be at the gym. Maybe that's why no one looks happy at the gym... wherever you're going, you're just not going to get there.

Gyms are intimidating to me. I went once for about three months, beyond even that "stay for a month and you'll get hooked" thing that everyone insists on, but I still didn't like it. Between the guys flexing in the mirror and measuring each other’s sweaty thighs, and the women who could quite easily kick my ass, I just somehow felt intimidated. And don’t even get me started on the changing room afterwards, I’ve never figured out the protocol in that netherworld of social impropriety. Besides, I would rather run around playing soccer any day than run on a treadmill. Don’t get me wrong, I admire people who can do it. I just can’t. I’m a big, lazy guy, and exercise without a point, without fun, is like work I don’t get paid for… I’ll do it, but not for long.