Gym freak

After three years of being "In a relationship" (Facebook speak), I emerge in the frightening and alien environment of the Bright Young Single Things. Several things strike me - or frighten me: a) their apparent confidence b) their aptitude at small talk and c) the variety and quality of their matching bra and pant sets, none of which I have. And yes, being single will be the object of this latest post - so boring, I know. Yet so topical.

Its not so bad, I think. My cheek muscles have been given a real work out recently - that is, of smiling like a crazed idiot at people I barely know, in various social situations. Recent party in London for instance - my face felt like it had been stretched apart by two tiny little men pulling on fish hooks embedded in my cheeks. The real advantage, however, besides deepening my future laughter lines, is that I no longer feel guilty about having a casual flirtation with someone, even if they are completely unbearable/repulsive.

Despite new advantages in the social circus of life, privately I am already well on my way to cementing my reputation as an old woman, with the mental age of a 90 year old. My friend was genuinely concerned, and forced me out into the Young Whippersnapper World last night. The amount of gin I ingested was quite a shock to the system. But I cannot help fearing that I might suddenly find myself at the point where I will end up leaving messages on the answer phone for my flat mate. Messages such as "Emmy, your good friend Sarah Buckle has just taken a piece of cake out of the rubbish bin. You will probably need this piece of information for when you check her into the crazy clinic."

I also fear I will turn into that most mysterious of all female-stereotypes: The Gym Freak. Once a week with the promise of a sauna at the end will turn into every single goddamn day, voluntarily. I usually sidle up to the crosstrainer like its a faint acquaintance I give a cursory nod to every now and then. In my single state, unable to deal with having so much time on my hands for myself for the first time in three years, the cross-trainer will become an old friend you see each day for lunch. Except this burns away the calories, painfully and with much unladylike grunting and sweating. 'Ladies glow' my arse - I'll happily admit to sweating like a mule.

Then again, my father still retains the opinion that "Sarah has a great aversion to anything that constitutes exercise; she has never felt any inclination either." Now this might've been true when I was a surly and tempestuous 14 year old with hormone surges and bad skin. Books are non-judgemental and preferable to the scathing eyes of teenage males. I also had a rapid and effortless metabolism. I could eat a block of cheese a day and see no scrap of it on upon my skinny frame in the coming weeks. Now however, the metabolism has slowed down, preparing itself for true adulthood, and child-rearing. Depressing and self-whiney as it is, my body now sees fit to give up in areas where that really is not appreciated. Cellulite is the devil's word. I rarely wear short skirts, and its all about the toning.

Be assured that I am aware I am far from what can be called 'fat'. However, I do remind all my scoffing female readers (yes, my imaginary readers) that I am still a woman, enslaved to the expectation of female beauty as much as the next person. However much I scoff at Grazia and the perfect specimens within ("Superficial drivel, tsch"), I hold onto the niggling thought: "THIGHS. THIGHS. THIGHS."

And so, this term I will doubtlessly find myself in the gym, secretly eyeing the latest twig to enter the arena. She sits primly upon her spinning bike, in her Nike tracksuit and Reebok tone trainers, hair pulled into a tight ponytail, whilst I sweat and groan over the treadmill, ready to die. A brief thought in my brain tells me to give up - cellulite is hereditary, you haven't shaved your legs for a month and a half. Its all downhill from here. Another part ignites however, and whilst eyeing her twiglets for legs, I am filled with an overwhelming urge to tie her down and force-feed her lard, washed down with a glass of Crisp n'Dry.

True, I don't think I ever really entered the 'phase' of typical self-pitying, sobbing sofa-bound female. I haven't felt the need to dress in unflattering, volumnous pyjamas and a tea-stained old dressing gown for a good few weeks - this is partly because it was already part of my daily routine anyway, my flatmate will tell you. Instead, I've developed a taste for straight gin. Perfectly healthy.

Either way, I'm quite happy on my own for a while now. It means I can make jokes about the whole thing, and write more appalling, rambling blogposts on similar subjects for my loyal three readers. As for the gym, apparently everyone is skeletal/perfection in Canada, the place I plan to go next year. I am unphased however: the aim is get down to a size 8 by 2030..no pressure.

Health and Safety and the death of the world.

In my opinion, Steven Slater is a wonderful man: a shining beacon of sanity in the dark and murky world of Health and Safety. And the following explains, albeit in a very long-winded fashion, just why.


Slater launched himself down an escape slide from the side of an aeroplane, beer in hand, after finally losing his cool with an abusive passenger. "Marvellous, he must've thought to himself, yes. I'm fed up of these complete morons, and there's no way I can win. The airline is sued if I don't tell the bastard to sit down, the airline is sued if I do." - bound by red tape niceties, you could say.


 This entire incident only seems to demonstrate to me the sheer stupidity of some members of the general public. When did they become so aggressive, so disrespectful, so lacking in common sense? It is a known fact that cabin crew's word is law in an aircraft -  there is more to their job than presenting you with unpleasant, damp tuna sandwiches and in-flight complimentary drinks: they are there to ensure your safety. If they tell you to sit down, you damn well sit down. 


It would appear this passenger obviously thought herself exempt from aircraft safety procedures, by attempting to remove her luggage from an overhead compartment whilst the plane was still moving. Such utter moronic behaviour and arrogance boggles the mind. And indeed, it hit poor Slater on the head. And yet, as police descend upon his home, desperate to find something 'foreign' and 'suspect' about his character (as everyone is a potential terrorist) the passenger, who instigated the entire proceedings, is not reprimanded in any way. Indeed, the police and media are more concerned with highlighting the "potential hazards Mr. Slater posed to the ground-staff by releasing the emergency exit". 


They are more concerned about what might be, rather than what actually happened. That is exactly it - Slater's dramatic exit from his career as a flight attendant only seems to be 'the tip of the iceberg' as it were (how I despise using such idioms). It only acts a pointer towards a society - our society- that is so wrapped up in red tape and permission forms, health and safety lunacy.. There are so many managers at my local hospital, they outnumber the actual professionals, the doctors, the people qualified to do the job in the first place. Why, I ask, is it necessary, to have people to manage people to manage people to manage people to manage the department to manage the consultants, to manage the staff, to manage the patients..need I go on?


Oh but I shall.
Let us consider: in today's health and safety conscious society, a single health and safety man can inflict more damage on business and industry than an army of Gordon Browns. My father has had to put foam coverings on the corner of windowsills in his practise waiting room, on account of them being 'a potential hazard' to unruly children. What the hell is wrong with instructing your unruly child to sit down like a good boy? Rather than letting him run amok around the room, showing no respect to the furniture, fittings, staff, or other peoples' eardrums? And when the said unruly child knocks his head on a pointy windowsill, what does the mother do? Instead of saying 'I told you so', she files a complaint. I could almost pull my own hair out at the idiocy.


Welcome, my friends, to the mad and dangerous world of the Health and Safety executive. They do an  important job, they say, of preventing nuclear power stations from blowing up, or stopping schools burning down. And naturally, I don't deny the Health and Safety gods prevent children from climbing up chimneys, and banning baby walkers as there is a risk of the toddler toppling into a fire.  And then there's the need for preventing the 'incalculable human cost' of a person falling over every three minutes in this country. The human cost of the Holocaust was incalculable, whereas I slipped on my kitchen floor only this afternoon and it cost nobody nothing. 


Health and Safety, they say, is "the corner stone of a civilised society." - and it would be, if everyone and everything in the world were wrapped in fifteen layers of bubble wrap. But I disagree - they appear to have missed the point. Our society is gradually reaching a point where being 'safe' is more important than being happy. 


I'd rather go through life taking a few risks - slipping in the shower, abseiling down a cliff without filling in a risk assessment, taking a picture of my children in a play without being accused of paedophilia. I'd rather follow Slater's slide down the emergency exit slide of life than spending each day working to stay upright whilst filling in a form. 

Bed-wear.

Here is a comparatively short nugget of thought, product of my insomniac brain. I am sleeping less and less nowadays, and in my furious panicked attempts at slumber, odd things occur to me, usually inspired by the background mumblings of the BBC World Service. Ah, yes the World Service. The station for fishermen, farmers and insomniacs. It is preferable to my other attempts at getting to sleep.

Indeed, it is blissfully painless compared to my attempt the other night: I decided it would be a truly excellent idea to do leg-crippling lunges around my room in a circle to Al Green, at half past two in the morning. Whilst it succeeded in giving my legs a strangely dull ache, sleep did not come quickly. Now, two days on, I am partially crippled. I am unable to walk downstairs without gripping to the banister for support, and unable to sit down in a chair without crying out in pain. And dancing, I found out last night, is a whole new world of pain. Bobbing like a lemming is definitely the new dance trend, according to me. It is also the least painful, when your thighs scream in protest at the prospect of stairs and burn as if on fire every time you attempt to sit down.

But I digress, once again. I am sat here twiddling my thumbs at half past one in the morning, and a memory has sprung to mind. This memory was of going to bed with a hat on, inside a house. A place of apparent shelter. I have only done it once, and I never intend to do it again, unless I happen to be camping (contrived poverty) on the side of Ben Nevis in mid-winter.

And what occurred to me as I lay there, attempting to devise a means of stopping the wind ripping through the rotting window frame. It was solely this:


Let's see. Coat, jumper, dressing gown, jumper, jumper, hat. I'm practically naked. 

Massage my bottom, please.

I spent three days at a health spa this past week. They're so popular because secretly everyone wants to revert back to a baby-like state, of throwing off life's responsibilities. The biggest worry constituted the slippers they had given me were in fact made for an elf. Or for people with no toes.

It is interesting to note that those who first arrive, fresh from the madness and and frenzied pace of London life rush about in a restless agitation, desperate to get somewhere, to do something. By my second day, I was wandering from the pool to the silent relax area as if I had ingested Valium, my head slightly lolling to one side, with the heady scent of lavender pillow mist still ever-present in my nostrils. It was exactly like being a baby, or at least how I imagine it is to be a baby, 20 years since being one. I spent 75% of my time immersed in some type of liquid, whether it was massage oil, body scrub, or thalassotherapy waters. My fingertips were permanently shrivelled for the duration of my stay.

Reflecting upon my experience, the spa environment is truly unique. Indeed, I was happy to spend an afternoon having jets fired at my bottom, in an attempt to 'expel toxins' and 'tackle cellulite' (which I do not believe is possible - it does not matter how much exercise I do, I will still never ever bare my bottom to the world.. obviously). I even tolerated a woman I had never met before to massage my décolleté, without raising an eyebrow. I allowed another woman I had never met before to massage a freezing ice-gel into my thighs  in another far-fetched attempt to dispel all the flab and terrible toxins modern living had instilled in my body. The cursory shake of the hand with your therapist - "Hi, I'm Michelle, I'll be your therapist today" followed by "I will now massage your breasts" does not compute, or should not at least. But in spa world, formality clashes with platonic physical intimacy in almost laughable ways. And I did laugh, silently, when the woman started rubbing my calves - I've now discovered that area is unbearably ticklish.

 

After emerging from the little bubble of bliss, I found myself rather startled by normal life. I found the wearing of normal clothes - adult clothes - profoundly uncomfortable, as it was no longer socially acceptable to wear a towelling robe amongst members of the public, for the sake of my own dignity. And - what fresh hell! - shoes?! What madness. Everyone, in my opinion, should wear slippers all day long, never mind practicalities. The world would be a far happier place if people had comfortable footwear, such as slippers. Pottering about in slippers immediately relaxes you. For instance, I no longer had to worry if my new Kurt Geiger pumps would tear my feet to shreds by the end of the day, nor suffer that terrible sensation of sweaty feet sliding around in unforgiving, rigid new shoes. To not be irritated by pinched toes, aching heels, torn Achilles tendons! People would become infinitely more patient and accommodating.

I have just re-read my psycho-babble. Good grief, that spa place has truly infected my brain. Some people stay there for two weeks. If I have trouble grasping the modes of behaviour of normal society after three days, then Christ knows what I'd be like after fourteen. Probably immobile on the floor - all productiveness would have been kneaded out of my muscles, no doubt. Fabulous! Guilt-free, low fat cake! Over-active digestive system resulting from an overload of pulses, beans, seeds, fruit, salad! Meeting Frank Bruno in the swimming pool! Turning into a prune in the jacuzzi! Fan-bloody-tastic. And not possible in any way, in the outside world. For shame.