exhaustion and exercise

back from my fourth and final trip east for the forseeable future. my best friend from high school, leia (and blogger on figure-this, where she chronicles her hilarious life in the classroom), is now married. (married? yes. married.)

i'll blog about that truly beautiful, fun, and exceptional wedding as soon as i get some PICTURES from those with digital cameras (mine, unfortunatley, is still out of commission). in the meantime, i have to tell you about this class i took yesterday at the gym.

(others haven't found this story too funny, but i think it's hilarious)

the instructor (named "gary") CLEARLY has Attention Deficit Disorder. as i was getting ready for the class (standing in one place, stretching, trying to wake up from a day at work), a red blur whizzed by my peripheral vision. he was running around the room - tapping the tape recorder, saying "hi" to regulars (and then running away), and throwing jumpropes on the floor at everyone's feet while the speakers screamed "i'm coming out". apparently, that was our warm up - jumping rope. during the entire class, he didn't speak but rather yelled in spurts that i could never really make out (they sounded like "WHOOP-WHUP!!") which, i guess means "switch sides" or "now do cartwheels" or "ok, stop".

occasionally, he yipped. "YIIIIIP-YEEE!!!"

while we were doing exercises, he started by demonstrating each exercise and then, because that clearly didn't constitute enough movement for him, he ran around the room - picking up props, putting others away, playfully trying to knock the balance balls out from under us, or pushing us a little to make us fall over, or adjusting our alignment, or playfully adding extra weight during an exercise.

at one point, he stopped to adjust my shoulder, and, feeling how tight it was, delivered some pressure to the knot and said "what is that?" then he handed me an extra weight and bounded off to another student across the room. that was the extent of our interaction.

even the class's music was totally ADD. there was no theme or rhythm or flow at all. no coordination of exercises to music. it was clearly something he put together thinking "OH! I LIKE THIS SONG! AND THIS SONG! WE SHOULD JUST ALL WORK OUT TO THESE SONGS BECAUSE I THINK THEY'RE GREAT! WHAT A TOTALLY AWESOME WORKOUT MIX! THESE SONGS ARE AWESOME!"

in the course of a one-hour class, we listened to:
Cake
U2
Keane
Various disco songs
G Love & Special Sauce

among other totally unrelated songs, artists, tempos and tunes.

how do people live with ADD? or live with people who have ADD? it's so exhausting!

it was perhaps the craziest exercise class i have ever taken. but, man, was it a good workout!