Recently I've been spending a great deal of time at the gym. This new found, or rather renewed relationship is necessary for my physical well being, especially at this point in my life! Just scroll back through some of my previous bloggings and you'll see the whole story behind it. Suffice it to say, I'm skipping off to the gym 4 or 5 days a week ... OK, skipping might be a bit of misnomer, but I do manage to drag my sorry behind there with alarming frequency.
This particular entry is not about my trials and tribulations with regards to fitness (yeah I did manage to go 30 mins on the treadmill at 4.7 mph today - I so rock). This entry is more to do with what happens after I work out. I'm a sweater, no I don't mean the kind you knit & wear, that get adorned with sparkles and reindeer at Christmas - I mean that I'm the kind of person who sweats a great deal when they work out. No ladylike glistening for me, no sensual dewy face, no erotic single bead of sweat dripping down between my breasts - no, I sweat! I soak through a T shirt to the point where it can be wrung out, sweat flies off my face when I shake my head and worst of all, a rather clear snot continually runs out of my nose. My sweatiness is not the stuff of erotica; rather it is the stuff of hard work and let's be honest, smell. A gasping, premenopausal, sweaty woman is an entity unto itself.
My gym is pretty awesome and the locker rooms are wonderful. The women's locker room at The Donalda Club has a card playing area, hot tub and steam room; there's frightfully well lit make up area with lots of make upy stuff such as q tips and cotton balls, various hand lotions, sunscreens and hairsprays; there's an unlimited supply of fluffy Egyptian cotton towels both in bath and hand towel size. The showers have a personal changing area and contain razors (disposable), shaving cream, shampoos, conditioners, body wash and even little disposable shower caps. Oh there are even paper slip on flip flops (that don't fit my big feet). The men's locker room purportedly even has a full size billiards table! In short it's a veritable locker room paradise and a definite step up from my local Good Life!
But back to the issue of nudity, which is why I know a great many of you are reading this.
I was at my locker, stripped off the sweaty work out stuff, wrapped a towel around me and headed off to the steam room. To my surprise, there was another woman who was already ensconced within the steam room, which wasn't really a big deal, since the room could hold at least 10 people, but what surprised me was she was almost completely mummified in towels! Far be it from me to judge what one wears to the steam room, but I felt rather scantily clad in my single towel. The one thing I've noticed in female locker rooms as I've aged, that the older one gets, the more one covers up.
A million years ago I used to work out in the Yonge and Eglinton area of Toronto. The gym was quite the singles place, which worked for me because I was single. Most of the clientele were in their 20s and 30s and fairly fit. The locker room back then had a lot more nudity than the locker room I inhabit today. Mainly I think it's because, on the whole, the members at Donalda are much older (which is OK cause I am too). There are the sins that too much good food, too much good wine and too much gravity have played upon our bodies. A good towel is a good thing.
I mentioned the whole towel thing to John, who has also experienced too much good food, too much good wine and just as much gravity (if not more cause he's older than I am), yet he was immensely unconcerned about wearing a towel to cover the imperfections of his body. His attitude was "if I never wore a towel in a locker room before, why would I wear one now?" It's kind of hard to fault the logic and demonstrates are far more healthy bodily image. According to him, it's an attitude that shared by most men in his locker room. With a little introspection, I think it all ties into the expectations we're fed by the media. Women have become so self conscious as well as self critical, it's no wonder they take solace in a towel.
Maybe I shouldn't worry about what size my jeans are, but instead I should worry about the size of my towel!
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