ANXIETY HELL

(This is how the pool at my gym has looked since the Olympics started airing.) 

Normally, after three to four seconds on the elliptical machine, I am gasping for breath like a freshly caught trout with a Marlboro red addiction as the Whitney Huston-style sweat tsunami pouring down my flushed Irish face gives off the impression that I have just doused myself in pomegranate juice to cool down. Couple this with my rage at having to avert my eyes from the Fox “News” channel that is playing on every TV, because after all, I am stuck in Newport, A Great Place for Brain Cells to Die, and you can practically see the steam blowing out of my scarlet ears. It’s all very attractive, I can assure you. I know this because I draw quite a few stares from my male gym companions…and the female ones…and the cleaning crew.

While my body may not be in peak form, my Body Dismorphic Disorder most certainly is as I typically pass whole workouts entertaining the kind of negative repetitive thought patterns that would give Tony Robbin’s an aneurysm. But the days of staring down at my NordicTrak display in bitter boredom, spiced up with intervals of panic attacks, are long gone because the past few days at my gym have been the most fascinating ever.

The best thing about the Olympics is that they inspire unathletic people of all ages to go out into the world and, without the necessary training or medical backup that could save their lives, proceed to emulate their favorite gold medalists. My gym is now more crowded than ever and it is a regular smorgasbord of people watching of the highest caliber. This new breed of future Olympian is lifting me out of my usual monotony-induced suicidal contemplations with their grit and determination that is magnificently mismatched to their physical abilities. The fact that they have never before sprinted is deterring no one from taking their treadmills up to 22 m.p.h. like Jamaica’s Usain Bolt. Their legs disappear in cartoonish blurs that, like a cartoon, foreshadow just how far they will fly once they lose control. And I can’t help but wait and watch.

From my semi-visible spy perch overlooking the pool, I peered down with glee to watch a baker’s dozen worth of novice swimmers, their head’s tightly squeezed into swim caps, as they battle the stranger in the next lane in what they seem to have mistaken for a serious qualifying round. Qualifying for what exactly I cannot tell you, perhaps the race to see who can make their head look most like Ron Jeremy’s penis crammed into a midget condom? Yes, if so, then the corpulent fellow in matching Speedo and goggle set shall surely secure this victory. I expect to hear a loud Thwop! as he plucks his cap off his head triumphantly, but alas, all I can hear is the Hispanic couple on the elliptical machines that are separated only by me as they carry on a very loud and intense conversation in Spanish with one another, passing an agua bottle past my face, deterred neither by my annoyed presence or the basic universal rule that applies to indoor voices.

Tired of not being able to adequately eavesdrop on their cryptic conversation and lightheaded from the old man doing lunges and wafting Aspercream in my direction, I decide my time for athletic glory has ended and I leave it to the pros, taking one last look at the pool. Amid epic splashes and flailing arms, the butts of former couch potatoes rise and fall in some energetic take on frog propulsion and I rate their enthusiasm with perfect scores. Gold (Balm Medicated Ointment) all around.