I am writing to you folks this evening, simply because I can... Most of you don't know this, but I have a surreal little side gig as an aerobics instructor teaching "Total Body Conditioning" to 30 young working girls and some soccer moms on the side.




It's not something I was adamantly looking for; I never went out of my way looking for this gig. It's not like I woke up one morning and said, "hey! I think I want to be an aerobics instructor so that I can be the only guy exercising in a room full of women that would end up reinforcing the already ambiguous accusations about me not being straight (I haven't had a girlfriend in over 6 years). Nevertheless, last fall, fate had it that the Boston Sports Club needed a permanent substitute for a "Total Body Conditioning" club offered to the members. So, when the original aerobics instructor decided to walk out on the club to get a higher paying job as a chicken inspector at a local slaughterhouse ( or whatever the reason),in a desperate attempt to fill in for as a sub one sudden night (and against my own wishes) I was picked.

I didn't want to get involved. I've seen these classes and how they go: These women that do these aerobics classes in health clubs are hardcore -- they're all about you giving them an insane workout complete with a perfect cadence, a stupid headset to yell orders at them, and preferably, you being under 150 pounds. I had everything going against me. I had no rhythm, no prospects, and worst of all, no top 40 cheesy 'jock jam' playlists in my IPOD -- AND I currently weight 215 pounds. And even though I can at least say that it's a somewhat fit contest weight, how the hell do you fit in to the stereotypes of teaching an aerobics class if you're not tall, slim, supertanned, and worse, if you're a guy - straight???

It's funny; somebody will eventually make an OXYGEN movie about my life, and my times spent as a personal trainer at the Boston Sports Club is will be worthy of a few scenes...So I found myself thrown into the wolves that night and it couldn't have been a great workout since three people showed up the next week.





But I stayed adamant: Sticking to playing some of the most unbelievably absurd world and industrial techno music I could find (which of course I had to like), and along with the fact that for the workout I'd make them use some of the most absurd contraptions to do exercises (such as wrapping giant rubber bands around your body), I developed a small cult following. Today, I can at least boast that I am one of the few people on earth with an engineering background that has two classes full of women waiting for him every monday night to teach them how to get in shape.

So it kind of sucks that I am writing this journal entry this evening under the conditions that some bonehead in management thought I wasn't going to show up for class, I SHOW UP, but they got some crusty lady to substitute teach for me as my usual group of girls are leaderless this monday. That is why I am in the back room as we speak just going online and falling asleep here. My only crumb of comfort was when one of them happened to walk by me by a bubbler and asked my why I wasn't teaching the class and with with an almost saddened look of despair added that she was worried I was never coming back, I said to her "I'll be there next week" -- only for her to reply, "the other lady, she's got nothing on you!.."

..kind of made me smile.

It's such a stupid plot for a movie it might just make a good chick flick!