Sore Muscles

Two, maybe three, years after I first started planning to go to kickboxing, I found myself at a class.

The sky looked ominous all day, so I guess I shouldn't have been too surprised when softball was cancelled. I'd already eaten dinner, was wearing workout clothes and parked in the parking lot near my field. It seemed like a waste to just go home with all my motivation so I ran through my exercising friends. I hadn't hung out with Rupa in a while, so I gave her a call.

"Hey, Roop! My softball game was cancelled, wanna work out?"

She was heading to a class (she didn't specify which) so I picked her up and we went to her gym. As we were parking, I said something about bikes (last time we tried working out together, it was for spinning class and they ran out of bikes by the time we arrived) and she said, "Oh, no, we're doing kick-boxing." I swallowed a groan at how much pain I'd be in tomorrow and trailed behind her inside.

Again, I could feel the fat in my ass jiggling (ew ew ew). I made it through about 30 minutes of the high-intensity aerobic workout before I could feel my heart pounding in my ears, which is always my sign to quit. I coached myself that I couldn't expect to make it through a whole kick-boxing session (much less an intermediate one with a hard-core instructor) so soon after starting to exercise again (when i play sports, i talk to myself and call myself baby. it's definitely one of the weirder things i do, but it does wonders for my golf swing).

Rupa and I sat outside the room and stretched, waiting for the warm-down portion of the class to happen. She turned to me and said, "Sorry if I smell," and I said, "Ditto."

Roop's been having a rough time at her job, fairly similar to my experience at Autofin, except without all the inappropriate touching. At the end of the day, every group of men deteriorates into a lower class of humans. Don't get me wrong, I love (most) men, but I have watched the most civilized man turn into a jackass because he's in a group of fellow jackasses.

The workout finished, and we headed back to her place. She wanted dinner, but I had to get home in case maintenance stopped by (there was water dripping down my bathroom ceiling last night). She got out and was walking around the car when I decided that, fuck our sweaty clothes, both of us could use a hug. I hopped out and said, "I know we're smelly, but I haven't seen you in a while, so c'mere and gimme a hug." She obliged. That girl bugs the hell out of me sometimes, but I still love her like a sister. Or some other lame teeny-bopper saying.

Now I'm sitting at my apartment, drinking my ionic calcium (I'm turning more and more into my mother by the day), and trying to come up with a stratagem to avoid the three days of agony that happened last week when I played softball. Maybe Medium has anti-lactic acid properties.