Anything Said: February 2006

Monday, February 27, 2006

Informercial Products For Which I Have Secretly Lusted

1. The "Monster Ballads" CD collection. This came out when I was in college, I think, before the whole online music downloading movement had really picked up much speed. Where else, the informercial implored, could one attain such a collection of hairband hits all in one place? The first track on Disc 1 is "Heaven" by Warrant, a song with such a fabulous rockstar key change that it compels me to shout out "Key Change!!" every time I hear it. I wanted these CDs bad, and I'd like to say that my desire was rooted purely in irony but let's be real here. I went to see Bon Jovi in concert at the age of 25. I just wanted the CDs because I enjoy me some monster ballads. Fortunately for me, I moved in with a roommate for 3 brief months post-college who already owned the set. I dubbed them onto cassettes. I still rock them in the Hyundai.

2. The Quick Chopper. This one, I actually bought. I'm not proud of it, but I did. It was not quick, and it did not chop. Seriously, the blades weren't even sharp. They just kind of roughly massaged any vegetables you inserted into the thing, then spit them out as a lumpy paste. Tasty.

3. The Tempur-pedic Swedish sleep system. Dude. It molds to the shape of your body! You can get out of bed without disturbing your bedfellow(s)! You can put a glass of wine on the mattress and then jump up and down -- it won't spill, for the love of God! This informercial is so convincing that I can almost forget that they're talking about some kind of Styrofoam bed. After all, the Swedes designed it. And if you've ever been to IKEA, you know the Swedes know what's what, with the meatballs and the $1 desserts and the cheapo picture frames and the furniture. My sister-in-law is in Sweden right now becoming a masseuse. E, does everybody have a Tempur-pedic Swedish sleep system over there? Or do they just call them sleep systems? Like, you know, the whole "In China, do they just call it 'food'?" question. But I digress...

4. Here is the reason I am telling you all of this. I am dangerously close to purchasing a Magic Bullet. Have you all seen this informercial? When Laurie was in town over New Years, I think I made her watch it three times. It's a wee little individual-serving-sized blender/food processor/marvel with a "specially-designed blade." You pop your ingredients into a little cup, stick the cup onto the base, and push a button. Then, in a magic instant, you remove the cup and enjoy your smoothie or your chicken salad or your salsa right out of the perfect little container. My favorite part of the infomercial is when they whip up a little cup of chocolate mousse. The Magic Bullet is wee and precious and adorable and TOTALLY a scam. But that didn't stop me from putting it in my shopping cart at Target a couple of weeks ago (I know, it's supposedly "not available in stores," but Target's not a store, it's a magical kingdom) and wheeling it around for awhile before lovingly placing it back on the shelf.

People, I'm hovering very close to the edge here. They're offering 2-for-1 Magic Bullets online now. I could make multiple kinds of teeny frozen cocktails at once. I could make individual servings of egg salad and chicken salad simultaneously. I don't even eat chicken salad, but still I heed its call. Help. The Man beckons, and I fear I might answer.

Sunday, February 26, 2006

Bitchin and moanin

This week was kind of sucky.

Here's the thing: I work three part-time jobs. This was a conscious choice on my part, and at times I even remember why I chose it. See, when I went to grad school to become a librarian, there were lots of things they didn't tell you. Like, library grad school is full of weirdos,for one. And also, the number of people entering library grad school FAR exceeds the number of available positions in this country, so you better buy yourself one fabulous interview suit. And, perhaps most importantly, whatever type of library you work in during grad school will most likely determine your future career path. So choose wisely.

I entered grad school wanting to work in public libraries, maybe with children or maybe with adults. I took classes in public library reference and administration, children's literature, and library services for young adults. And, for library experience as well as for extra cash, I took the first two part-time jobs that were offered to me during the first year of my degree: both in small, private libraries, coined "special libraries" within the field. They were fine jobs; I got good hands-on experience and made enough money to live on. I worked them both all the way through grad school. And then I graduated, and started applying for full-time jobs. I thought prospective employers would be interested in the focus of my degree, my specialization in youth services, my coursework completed in public library collection development. But lo and behold, the only places that would even look twice at me? Were special libraries.

So, depressed and anxious for work, I accepted an offer from one of these special libraries, an interesting nonprofit I thought could offer meaningful work. And it did, albeit low-paying and heavily laden with office politics, for two years. But I felt stuck, like I was headed out on a career path I didn't necessarily choose. So when the husband and I moved to Chicago, I thought: this was my chance, my opportunity to get myself back on track. I would look for a couple of part-time jobs that would allow me to get experience in my areas of interest, to figure out what I'm good at and what I like, to set myself up for a more fulfilling work life.

And the job search proved to be pretty easy. I was able to find positions both in children's services and in adult reference. The positions I found had complimentary schedules and were relatively well-paying. They would offer great experience with only moderate responsibility. They would allow me a flexible schedule, time to run the occasional errand during the day, the ability to let the dog out for bathroom breaks and walks.

Or at least that's what I thought. As it turns out, I was right about the great experience and moderate responsibility; that much is true. I like my work. Which is sort of a new thing for me. But the schedule? Sweet merciful Jesus on a pogo stick. The schedule is making me CRAZY. A sample day goes as follows: Wake up, dress, and eat breakfast. Take dog out for bathroom break. Crate dog. Run like a track star to Job #1, which is located four blocks from my house. Work four hours. Run home. Let dog out for turbo-pee. Crate dog. Retrieve car from assigned parking space, which is two blocks from house for reasons I won't even begin to explain. Make 40-minute drive to Job #2. Eat lunch in car. Work five hours at Job #2. Drive home. Feed dog. Walk dog. Feed self. Acknowledge existence of husband. Check email and blogs. Feel guilty for writing neither emails nor blog entries. Collapse into bed. Dream about scary clowns. (For real, I did last night.)

The good news is that one of my jobs, the one that involves working with kids, is a temporary ten-week position that is already about halfway over. But until that point the action-packed schedule continues, and I've just got to find a better way to manage it. People, my "Entertainment Weekly" has been here for two days now, and I haven't even read it yet! This is serious business.

There are other non-work-related reasons my week kind of sucked. Thursday was the women's (I refuse to call them "ladies" -- what's up with that??) figure skating finals, my unabashed favorite night of Olympics coverage. All afternoon I was so careful to avoid all news sources that could give away the already-established results. I wanted to watch the event with anticipation; I wanted to be surprised. And I succeeded, making it all the way to the opening minutes of coverage with nary a clue as to who would be awarded the gold. And then. During a commercial break, I checked my fucking email. Which a year ago, when I primarily used a hotmail account for email correspondence, would not have been a risky move in any way. But of course, now I have a gmail account. And gmail runs ads and headlines along the side of your inbox, items chosen specifically for you based on snippets they pull from your incoming and outgoing messages. Are you seeing where this is going? One minute I'm innocently reading my mail -- the next minute I'm screaming "NOOOOOOOOO!" as the words "Japanese skater wins gold; Sasha Cohen silver" flash across my screen before I have time to hide my eyes.

I'm sorry, but that's just poor form.

Anyway, now it's Sunday. A fresh start, the beginning of a new week. One which will be non-sucky, I've determined. I'm going to take the first step towards making it so by going to Trader Joe's this afternoon to buy myself tasty treats, healthy frozen things I can make for dinner on my craziest of days. And then I'm going to read my "Entertainment Weekly." And then I'm going to clean out the dog's nose wrinkles. Because if that's not fun, I don't know what is.

Monday, February 20, 2006

Open house party

In the spirit of Madness, Marigoldie, and others, here are some of my favorite household points of reference (at least for today, anyway):

This is my "Grown-up Clock." My grandfather makes one for each of his grandchildren as they pass from youth into adulthood. Where I come from, this means: when you get married. In my family, it's common to get married right out of high school; therefore, most of my cousins got their clocks by the time they were 20 years old. I didn't wed until the ripe old age of 26, practically a dried-up old hag by rural Indiana standards. But tradition be damned: I was living on my own for years before that, working, paying bills, and I wanted my Grown-up Clock! So like the true grown-up I was, I whined to my mom about the injustice of it all. She pulled some strings. My clock arrived in the mail several weeks later.

The fellow on the right is a magical garden gnome. The husband and I acquired him when we were newly living-in-sin in our first one-bedroom apartment in Boston. We were shopping at Target one afternoon and happened upon the outdoor/patio furniture section of the store. We did not have a need for deck chairs or garden accessories; we lived in an apartment complex and did not even have a strip of grass to call our own. Embittered, we glared at the collection of lawn ornaments. They seemed to be dangling the idea of a better lifestyle in front of our impoverished noses. We decided to take back the night. Just because we didn't have a garden, didn't mean we couldn't have a garden gnome. We chose and bought the dapper-looking guy you see above. He lived in our bathroom for a couple of years. Now, happily, he gets to live on a back deck. His friend is a garden turtle, a wedding present from R. The turtle was on our wedding registry. It was on our wedding registry because I let the husband play with the barcode-scanner-gun in the store while we were registering. It was his one unsupervised contribution to the gift list.

A display of kitchen favorites, including the joyful first purchases I made on the day I became a full-time employee with benefits in Massachusetts for the first time: a tiny salt-and-pepper set and three glass canisters. I had been working part-time overnight shifts at the women's shelter for a few months, and the schedule was making me miserable. When they decided to offer me a full-time position, I was so happy at the promise of regular hours and a salary that I ran out to spend my paycheck before it even came. The cow creamer was a later purchase, a slice of kitsch we found at the craft store that was affixed to a Vermont bed and breakfast where we once spent a few nights. This particular B&B was owned by an older couple who wanted to talk politics with us over breakfast, particularly about the topic of gay civil unions in Vermont. The wife of the couple was very opposed. It made for uncomfortable dining conversation.

Welcome to the Game Emporium. On the bottom floor, you will find the strategy-geek games my husband favors. They are, for the most part, of the "conquer foreign lands" variety. The middle floor offers a variety of trivia and word games, much more to my liking. And the top floor is host to, among other things, the shiny new Dutch Blitz set that was given to us as a goodbye present from dear friends in Boston, the new Cranium game we won in the yankee swap at the husband's office holiday party, and our vast collection of souvenir playing cards. We have a deck from pretty much every place we've been since we've been together.

Yes, I'm aware that I already posted a picture of the pug this week. But I say it's only gratuitous if it's more than once a day. Or maybe twice a day. Whatever: admire the dog!

Sunday, February 19, 2006

Things I would tell you if I talked about work on my blog, which I don't

1. Before delivering a storytime for a particularly WASP-y group of preschoolers, I introduced my animal-themed first book by asking the children if they had any pets at home. A little girl and a teeny little bite-sized boy politely raised their hands. The boy said, "We can't have a dog because my dad has intense allergies." The girl followed by sagely nodding and adding, "We can't have ANY pets because we live in a condo."

2. At the adult reference desk a few days ago, I was approached by an elderly man who barked out at the top of his lungs: "You! Girl! Give me six rubber bands!" When I told him that, sadly, the only office supplies I had available for distribution were scrap paper, scotch tape, and staples, he lost his shit, waving his arms in the air and yelling "I'm entitled to six rubber bands! I pay taxes!"

3. At the same adult reference desk, a patron phoned to ask what year it was.

4. And to find an answer for her crossword puzzle. As it turned out, the name she was looking for was Maya Angelou. Her inquiry was as follows: "Can you tell me the name of the black lady who goes on Oprah a lot?"

5. Finally, last week I found myself uttering the following words: "Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to put on your socks and shoes and get up, please. The floor of the young adult computer lab is not an appropriate place for meditating."

Thursday, February 16, 2006

To purchase the collector plate or not to purchase the collector plate

That is the question.

I mean, come on people. It's trimmed with 23kt gold.

Monday, February 13, 2006

Feels like home

One of the big reasons for my husband and me to move back to the midwest was the promise of close(r) proximity to family. My parents and siblings all live about two hours away from Chicago, in northern Indiana, while the husband's siblings and their offspring live about 6ish hours away in Minneapolis. We were able to take advantage of this proximity over the holidays, driving from family to family with relative ease. This past weekend, we tried again, loading up the car for the drive to my peeps in Hoosier country.

In life, there are things that anchor us, that fix us soundly in place and time and remind us who it is that we're supposed to be. For me, it's the loud, deep tones of my husband's voice; the sound of classic country on the radio. It's reading and re-reading the Little House on the Prairie books, and using them as points of reference in my life. (Over the weekend, when my parents and grandparents were talking about a recent pig butchering hosted on my uncle's farm, I chimed in with "When Laura Ingalls' pa butchered a pig, Laura and Mary would blow up the pig bladder like a balloon and play with it! And then they roasted the pig's tail!") And maybe more than anything else, it's driving the stretch of stark and open highway that spills through northern Indiana.

Indiana highways are nothing like the roads in New England. In Massachusetts, in New Hampshire and Vermont, you could drive for hours through lush green forest, hills gleaming off in the horizon. It's beautiful there, in autumn almost other-worldly. I loved those roads like a vacationer, an appreciative visitor for the five years I drove them. But I was raised driving through farmland, pastures and flatlands and dry rows of corn as far as the eye can see. Bleak looking truckstops and rickety rest areas, pickup trucks driving too slow in the fast lane, a lonely neon sign planted in the middle of nowhere advertising the "Motor Home/RV Hall of Fame." When you turn off the highway onto the smaller country roadways, there are Amish homesteads tucked back in the distance, buggies clogging up the traffic, clotheslines dotting the landscape. It's not the kind of scenery you stop and photograph, but it's the kind I know best: driving 15 miles over the limit, listening to Johnny Cash and Gillian Welch, U2 and Aimee Mann, stopping for gas and smelling the air for signs of snow.

At my parents' place, we slept on the couch and the living room floor. My parents and my four teenaged-to-adult siblings all share the same three-bedroom house. I grew up in this house; it has always, for as long as I can remember, been stuffed beyond capacity. We spent Saturday night crammed together in the living room, eating pizza on paper plates, watching the Olympics, playing cards, playing with the puppy. After everyone else went to bed, I stayed up and watched part of a Lifetime made-for-tv movie, an incoherent one starring Punky Brewster and Wil Wheaton, and I was curled up on the floor in a fleece blanket my mom sewed together from scraps. This is an anchor for me too. This will always be an anchor for me, even when I'm 95 and my parents are gone and I'm gumming down my pizza and Lifetime movies are beamed down from outer space or something.

On Sunday night we came back home. We fed and walked the dog. The husband made me grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup, and then he de-virused the computer. I read on the couch and listened to a Talking Heads album. And then we went to bed feeling exhausted and safe, held fast by this new anchor, the one we're making together: just the two of us, the pup, two cans of Campbells condensed, and the Sophos virus detector.

Thursday, February 09, 2006

The hope and the glory

People, the Olympics start tomorrow. Do you understand me? The OLYMPICS. The winter variety, with the figure skating and the downhill skiing and the luge and the snowman building. Not to be confused with the equally delightful summer variety, with the gymnastics and the springboard diving and the track and field and the oily porn-fest disguised as beach volleyball.

Every other year, when the hallowed Games roll around once again, I am faced with the same dilemma: to stop for meals, or not to stop for meals. I love me some Olympics. I watch it all, even the lame and usually culturally offensive opening and/or closing ceremonies. I can't explain this obsession. Would I ever voluntarily watch a freestyle swimming competition on its own, in a non-Olympics year? Of course not. But, when it's part of the Olympics, do I sit and slurp it up like it's slathered in fake cheese? Why yes, yes I do.

I'm sure a lot of my obsession has to do with the commercial mythology surrounding the Games: this is the pinnacle of athletic achievement! The gold medal is the highest honor bestowed upon humankind! It is shiny, and awarded to representatives from shiny countries, as is their due. Or to representatives from poor, unshiny countries, in which case it will surely lift them from spiritual poverty. Pursuit of said medal brings countries together by pitting them against one another in competition and forcing them to listen, really listen, to one another's national anthems.

The last time the Winter Olympics came around, I watched the figure skating competition at R's house. As I remember it we were both weepy, totally and predictably done in by the classic-underdog-edit the network gave to gold medal winner Sarah Hughes. See, she was a plucky semi-ugly-duckling, just lucky to be there, and she went and won the whole damn thing. See? See? During the Athens summer games in 2004, I fell in love with a decathlete named Tom Pappas. Tom Pappas was a golden god, a Greek-American with rippling muscles and a stunningly dorky smile. I subscribed to his email newsletter, I made his picture the screensaver for my computer, I organized a Tom Pappas party to be held on the final night of decathlon coverage. And then, a couple of hours before the footage was to air, he got injured and dropped out. The party went on as planned, but I scrapped my plans for a Greek-flag-themed cake and instead served half-baked chocolate chip cookies in honor of a dream left incomplete. Sigh.

I understand the Olympics are not perfect. Yes, there is the hideous perma-narration from Satan's minion Bob Costas. Yes, there are the human interest stories, written in convenient fill-in-the-blank formation: "[Name] hails from [Developing Country]. Her beloved [Immediate Family Member] died suddenly when she was away at training camp. Now she wants to win the gold medal to honor his/her memory. Root for her if you have a soul!" And yes, there are the awful sexist gymnastics/figure skating commentators who praise male athletes for their shows of brute strength while critiquing female athletes for failing to smile as they defy gravity.

But you know how I deal with all of them? By drinking a tasty cocktail made from the Mute button and a U2 cd. I suggest you try it; it's best served on ice. With a side of luge. I've always thought that sounded like something one would eat, anyway.

Monday, February 06, 2006

Crash into me

Saturday night, my life flashed before my eyes. I was driving home from work at dusk, a light snowfall dusting the highway in front of me, when my car hit a patch of ice. I couldn't brake, couldn't slow down, couldn't do anything but try and steer my way out danger. Rapidly approaching the minivan directly ahead of me, I swerved left, a move that was apparently unwise as it sent me spinning into a 360 degree turn across all four lanes of traffic.

Did any of y'all ever see that movie "Intersection," the one where Richard Gere gets in a car accident that lasts about 10 minutes in slow motion and he keeps yanking the steering wheel left and then right, left and then right, over and over again, his curly grey locks falling into his bewildered eyes until finally he slams into some truck or rolls off the side of the road or something? You know, that one? Well, that was me, except without the curly grey locks or disarming sex appeal. I turned and turned that steering wheel into the spin to no avail, all the while hyperconscious of what was happening to me. "Wow," I thought, "this is really dangerous. I'm going to crash this car. What an anticlimactic way to go."

Finally I was able to pull out of the spin, but my car remained in motion - this time headed for a short line-up of cars that had all stopped in their tracks upon seeing me twirling around like some kind of metal circus freak. Terrified of ramming into one (or several) of them at full speed, I managed to steer my death trap of a vehicle in the direction of the gate lining the side of the road. I braced myself for the head-on collision that would inevitably occur. I felt a jolt as my front tires jumped the sidewalk and then...

Nothing. Sweet, merciful, miraculous nothing. I guess the impact of hitting the sidewalk worked to slow the skid, because the next thing I knew I was sliding to a peaceful stop along the side of the road, both car and person completely and fully intact. I have never felt so lucky, and so freaked the HELL OUT, in my life. Some lady came over to see if I was ok, standing beside my car for a few minutes and helpfully flipping the bird to all the cars who honked at us for holding up traffic. She then (so very very sweetly) walked beside my car as I inched my way forward about 20 feet into the nearest parking lot, an empty car wash, where she left me to call my husband and have a melt-down.

I have been in my share of car accidents in my lifetime. When I was fifteen, my girlfriend Kelli drove me to the mall the day after she got her driver's license. She ran through a stop sign, slammed into another car in the intersection, and totaled her new blue sportscar. When I was seventeen, my high school boyfriend took his eyes of the road to mess with the car stereo and ran us smack into the car in front of us. Twice. And when I was nineteen, my ride home from college tried to get all fancy with the lane-changing and ended up in a heap on the side of the road. I am well acquainted with the art of the crash.

But this was my first experience being behind the wheel, unable to control the vehicle. I know stuff like this happens all the time, but -- damn, when it happens to you it is some seriously scary shit. After I got myself together, I did manage to drive the rest of the way home, sitting straight up in my seat and white-knuckling the steering wheel the whole way. I passed a number of accidents as I went: cars that slid off the interstate into the ditch below, an SUV smashed like an accordion against the median wall. It was that tricky black ice, the kind you don't see until it's beneath you, until it's too late to do anything about it. I heard that if your front wheels are skidding on black ice, you're supposed to take your foot off the gas and shift into neutral, while if it's your back wheels you should steer in the direction of the skid. But when your car's in motion and the world is spinning, it's hard to have the presence of mind to think anything other than "Holy shit. This wasn't in the plan."

Man. And to think: I'm afraid of flying in airplanes. If you sat around and thought about this stuff too much, about the myraid ways in which you are never ever safe, you'd never leave the house. You know?

Sunday, February 05, 2006

Breaking up is hard to do

One of the things I love most about celebrity breakups -- and really, what's not to love about celebrity breakups? -- is the time-honored tradition of the Tastefully-Worded Post-Split Statement issued to announce the wistful demise of the relationship in question. Sometimes the statement is issued by the couple's publicist, as was the case for Heather Locklear and Richie Sambora on Friday. "After 11 years of marriage," Locklear's unfortunately named publicist CeCe announced, "Heather Locklear has filed for divorce from Richie Sambora. This is a private matter and there will be no further comment at this time."

Other times, the couple breaks the news themselves in a joint statement to the press. Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey rocked the joint statement, as did Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston, and most recently: Sheryl Crow and Lance Armstrong. "After much thought and consideration we have made a very tough decision to split up, " the yellow-bracelet-hawking pair announced on Friday. "We ask that everyone respect our privacy during this very difficult time."

Funny how that whole "respect our privacy" thing seemed to be less of an issue when they were, oh I don't know, peddling their marriage plans on Oprah to sell Crow's new album, or when they were running around at the Grammys wearing clothes that someone mistook for a snack.

Personally, I love how these statements always go to such great lengths to emphasize how much time the celebrities spent agonizing over whether or not to book their ticket to Splitsville (despite the fact that, usually, their marriage lasted about as long as your average commercial break), and how much love and respect they have for each other. It would be awesome if one of these times, a couple just busted out with something like: "Dude, look. We got married for the "People" cover story; my husband is clearly gay; this was a no-brainer. Seacrest out!"

Just once, I would like the opportunity to release a Tastefully Worded Statement about MY marriage. There are things that my admiring public needs to know. Like this: "After careful consideration and entire minutes of thought, Melinda and The Husband have decided to part ways for the evening. He will be playing card games on the computer, while she will be watching Animal Cops Miami. They have no plans to reconcile, until it is time for 24 or the dog has to pee, whichever comes first."

Or this: "After two and a half years of marriage, Melinda and The Husband have come to the very difficult conclusion that the chicken casserole they just removed from the oven is undercooked. As they are hungry, this is a sensitive matter, and we ask that you respect their privacy during this time."

Thursday, February 02, 2006

Let me hear your body talk

So, lately I've been gym shopping. Having a gym membership is very important for someone like me. And by "someone like me" I mean a relative couch-potato who counts Fake Cheez as a major food group and whose outdoor skills involve walking to the car, walking to the grocery store to buy more Fake Cheez, and dragging my overweight dog around the block. I don't run, I suck at sports, and I'm an embarrassment to anyone who ever threw or caught a frisbee. Unless she wants to get fat or drop dead, this girl needs a treadmill.

Back in Boston, I had a fabulous health club situation: a women's gym right across the street from my workplace, allowing me to work out over my lunch hour three times a week. Before finding this club and establishing this schedule, I had never been able to set up a workout routine to which I would adhere faithfully -- I would always find a reason not to go to the gym. But the combination of an escape from work and a refreshing, delectable noontime shower created a workout experience I couldn't resist. I went regularly, for the first time in my life. And I felt great as a result.

But now, here I am: three months as an Illinois resident, and not a workout to my name. There is no gym across the street from my house, and I work three jobs in three different towns, so a workday workout is out of the question. What's a girl to do, but survey her options?

I checked out the local YMCA. Membership was cheap, at less than $40.00 per month, and was charged on a month-to-month schedule with no yearly commitment. In addition, according to the woman at the front desk, for $20 more per month I could join the Y's "Wellness Center," which offered private showers, private exercise equipment, personalized lockers, and a sauna and whirlpool. I asked for and embarked upon a tour. And about five minutes later, I was hightailing it back out to my car, having seen the following: standing water in the locker room, a surly man assigned to guard and allow women entrance to said locker room, communal showers of the gym class variety, and the world's ugliest cardio room. Oh, and that "private exercise equipment" in the Wellness Center? It was a stationary bike and a miniature treadmill, crammed into what looked like a padded cell.

Next, I tried Bally's. Bally's was having some kind of "free initiation" special, and also offered month-to-month membership to the tune of something like $60 a month. The thought of going to some big co-ed corporate mega-gym had always scared me in the past, but I thought I'd give it a try. I signed up for a trial visit and drove the twenty minutes to the nearest location.

As soon as I opened the door, all I could smell was sweat. Sweat and the stifled dreams of the weak and the awkward. On one side of the room were rows of tiny women in tights, intensely stomping on elliptical trainers. On the other side of the room were men, intensely grunting their way through free weight repetitions. I tried to back out before anyone noticed me, but it was too late: I had already been spotted by the almost comically muscled man at the reception desk. He shouted at me to come in, and I did because I was too afraid to say no. He shouted at me to follow him on a tour, and I did because I was too afraid to say no. He showed me all the scary shiny equipment on which all the scary shiny people were working out. He asked me to sign up for his 7:30 AM kickboxing class. I refused to take off my coat.

But then - oh, and then. Then I went to the little athletic club a few blocks away from my house. The little athletic club has friendly staff who gave me a fancy pre-membership folder and complimentary beverage. They have clean locker rooms, free towel service, and big shiny cardio rooms. All classes on their schedule are included in the cost of membership (which is not the case at Ballys or, surprisingly, the Y). And, people, here's the kicker: each and every piece of cardio equipment has its very. own. television screen. With cable. And an attached CD player, for perfect "watch the action but drown out the Bob Costas" viewing of the upcoming Olympic Games. If you know me at all, you understand what this means to me.

But there's a catch. You had to realize that there was a catch. The little athletic club a few blocks from my house costs $72 per month, has a $100 initiation fee, and requires a 12-month commitment. This is a quandary. A pickle, if you will. I know with complete certainty that if I join this gym, I will go regularly. I can pop out my door and onto some fancy machinery for a secret (secret from the husband, anyway) shameful viewing of "My Fair Brady," all the while healthifying myself in body if not in mind. But it's expensive, and a year is a long time to promise membership. Especially since it's no big secret that at some point within the next year, the husband and I are hoping to start the process of reproducing ourselves for the good of all humankind. When and if that blessed event should occur, will I really want to be hanging out on the stairmaster? And would I then be paying $72 a month for an unused gym membership when I could be applying that money to preemptive therapy for the kid-to-be?

I'm looking for advice here. To join or not to join? Do y'all think the price is too high?