Gettin' Jiggly With It!

I've never been a girl with many curves. I've always been rather noodle-y, as a matter of fact. Long and thin...and limp. Here, a self-portrait of me as a kid:

See what I mean? And it's never changed much. Here's another portrait updated for when I hit puberty:

There. Not much curvature, is there?

Well, have I got some exciting news for you! After some 30-odd years of stick-straightness, I've got some curves!

Well, okay, just one.

And it's not the desirable kind of curve. It's just belly-fat. Buuuut—it's fun! It's squishy, it refuses to stay within the confines of a waistband, it's wrinkled (thanks to Jake) like a raisin that's been soaked in water overnight, and it jiggles like...well, you know.

So I recently took some preemptive measures: I joined a gym. It's been 5 years since I've had a gym membership, and...I find it just as intimidating and odorous as I ever did. I mean—c'mon, I'm a NOODLE. I've never been athletic to any degree—I've NEVER been able to do a cartwheel (no matter how many lunches I devoted to trying to master them in the fourth grade); I'm more likely to get the ball into the other team's goal then my own; I can't even walk down an empty hallway without running into the walls and injuring myself...seriously. I have a scar on my forehead from tripping over a dog (the dog was unharmed). I have another scar on my lower lip from tripping over a blanket (the blanket was also unharmed). I am a menace to myself and to anything else within twenty feet of me.

And if that isn't enough, I also sweat like a pig on fire. Seriously. The sweat pours like Niagara Falls, or Tammy Faye's mascara—I'll soak a shirt completely through in fifteen minutes.

I feel a little guilty walking into the gym and NOT wearing a Surgeon General's warning on my back.

And not only am I threatening the lives of all those around me, but it's just plain humiliating being a noodle in an aerobics class. First of all, the aerobics teachers are ALWAYS small, compact little people with the only enormous thing about them being their chests and their enthusiasm. Little cheerleaders, bouncing up and down with so much energy and satisfaction in what they are doing it makes me dizzy.

Next, they put mirrors on all the walls, so there is no way I can escape the comparison: a roomful of people, so athletic-looking, powerfully jumping around and kicking the air and smiling—for Jiminy Cricket's sake!—and then there is me, with an expression on my face that looks as if I'm trying to pass a horseshoe, bobbing up and down like a 12-year-old Irish boy in his first Riverdance tryout. Sigh.

I'd just skip the aerobics, but I know I'm too lazy to be trusted to do anything else. (I'd walk for 5 minutes on the Stairmaster, and then say, wow! I'm bushed! and spend 50 more minutes reading a book in the car.)

Anyway, I'll be going back. Again, and again, and again. Please wish me luck, pray for the innocent bystanders, and hope that when I fall down (which is inevitable) I'll be able to take down at least a few overenthusiastic exercise-enthusiasts with me. Curse them.