No! and then Yes!

Gone are the lazy days of Thanksgiving where I had almost 4 full days off (almost). This week was back to a normal schedule of 12-hour days and lots of running around. To complicate matters, this week Lindsey was in the area for a workshop only about 1.5 hours away in a suburb of San Jose called Morgan Hill.

Shithead had told me that she would be in town from Monday till Friday, so I blocked off Monday night and possibly Wednesday night to see her. Late Sunday night she told me she wouldn't be in till late Monday and couldn't do dinner. Thanks a lot, fuckwad. I've only been asking for your flight itinerary for 2 months...

Shortly after having this conversation over text message, I went into the supermarket. I was in the personal care aisle and saw that they sold lube. Scout and I had run out of lube that weekend, so I pulled out my phone to ask her if I should pick up some more. Practical problem, innocent question.

When I got out to my car I noticed that I in fact hadn't texted Scout about the lube, but instead I'd asked the last person I'd been texting: Lindsey. Fuck you, iPhone!
Still, I assumed Lindsey had figured out what had happened and would still be down to have a very G-rated dinner on Wednesday night. I took Wednesday afternoon off of commitments and canceled my Thursday morning appointments so that I wouldn't have to be up at 3:30 in the morning the next day. I heard nothing back from Lindsey on Monday night confirming she could do dinner. Nothing by Tuesday afternoon. Tuesday evening I called and left a message asking her where/when I should pick her up. It wasn't until I was getting in bed Tuesday night that I got a call back from her. "There's nowhere to eat around here," she said.

"Lindsey, I don't care where we eat, that's beside the point. I don't care if we go to Denny's."

"Oh, well there's a Denny's right outside."

"Okay, well I don't really want to go to Denny's." I then went on to tell her about how I'd cried myself to sleep over a little old lady I'd seen eating oatmeal alone in a Denny's on Thanksgiving. I kept saying "we" as I told the story.

"Who's 'we'?"

"Me and The Girl."

"How's that going by the way?"

"Really good, actually." End of sentence. End of topic as far as I was concerned. I didn't want to get into that with her. It was none of her business.

"So what was that text message...?"

"Uhhhhhh, yeah. Sorry about that. That wasn't meant for you... I just... you know how I text the wrong person sometimes..." (this has happened before).

"Yeah, I was with my girlfriend Jenn when I got that and..." Dropping the girl's name sounded forced. I rolled my eyes. Whatever. I knew the new victim couldn't have been around for more than a month anyway. Poor sucker didn't know what she was in for.

"Well I'm embarrassed about it, so let's not talk about it anymore. I'll pick you up at your hotel at 8."

At 6:00 the next morning she called me. "What's up?" I asked her after I was out of my session.

"Oh sorry, I must have ass dialed you. I'll let you know later if I'm still up for tonight."

Long pause. I was deciding whether to throw my phone across the room or give her a piece of my mind. I'm sorry if me taking off of work to drive 1.5 hours down there and buy you dinner is inconvenient to you, you stupid cunt! I wanted to say. "Yeah, whatever," I said in my flattest, you're-the-biggest-fucking-loser-I've-ever-met voice I could muster. "Just let me know before 6 if you're going to be a flake." Then I hung up.

No confirmation at noon. No confirmation at 2. No confirmation at 3. At 4:30 I texted her to see if we were still on. At 5:57 I was getting out of the shower and hopping in the car when I got a text message: "I've got an exam tomorrow and I've gotta study and get to bed at a decent time. I'm really sorry."

I wanted to scream. I wanted to drive down there and tear her throat out. I wanted to call her up and tell her just how much of a fucking loser she was. I wanted to stomp her face into the pavement. When half of life is just showing up, she still can't get shit done. I'd thought that suddenly and unexpectedly being in the same neighborhood after 5 months she would take an hour out of her day because that's what you do. But no, Lindsey has never done a single thing in her life that she could possibly get out of. She almost missed her brother's wedding. I wouldn't be surprised if she missed her dad's funeral.

I texted her back saying, "You've never studied a day in your life" (you stupid cow, it's only a 2-day workshop anyway) "and I've been up since 3:30 and already put in 12 hours' work. I don't have to play this Chase After Lindsey game anymore. Go to hell."

I was furious. Not because she'd ditched me. Over the past couple of weeks I couldn't see anything positive coming out of the reunion at all. But what made me so pissed was the inconsiderateness and disrespect of it all. This whole time I had thought that she had treated me like shit because she was trying to prove something, and people do horrible things to each other when they're breaking up. But no, she really just is that self-centered, stupid, lazy, and disorganized. She hadn't even taken the time to be vindictive. She'd just discarded me like a CD she was sick of listening to. And I had let reading into her malfunction ruin my life. I wanted to drive over there and tell her what a fucking loser she was, then I wanted to call all her friends and tell them the same. Then I wanted to sell her dog to a nice family with a dog house to make the beast sleep outside every night.

I vented and then I moved on.

The next day I was in a session with a client when a certain well-known San Franciscan, Korean-American gay activist comedian came on TV. "She's not looking strung out anymore," I said. "She must be off the coke if she could gain weight after being on Dancing with the Stars. I'd love to see what her training looks like..."

Yeah, be careful what you wish for.

That night I got an email from Ducky with a lead. His line said, "You want it?" and then began the forwarded message:

Hi, I'm looking for a personal trainer to do a bootcamp style class for Gargamet Show [name changed to protect the Claire] and 2 others on Saturday at 4pm. It would need to be at the venue she's performing at, the Nob Hill Masonic Center. Please contact me if you have someone that might be interested.

Uhhhh, YES! Okay, well my first though was, will there be cameras?! But I told Ducky I'd do it.

Immediately Lindsey was forgotten, except that I wanted her to know that while she was so self-important about a workshop for a job that paid her less after 3 years of being a mechanic than I used to earn after 3 months selling bikes, I was now making about three times her yearly income and training celebrities. Loser!
But I was frightened too. I would be in unfamiliar surroundings, with no equipment, and training not only a celebrity, but someone I had been a huge fan of since high school. The rest of the week I was shitting bricks.

I did not have a quiet day to get ready for My Big Break. Instead, this was the morning of the Lollipop Run 5K; the culmination of all our hard work with the elementary school girls. It was pouring with rain in Golden Gate Park, but 8 out of the 11 girls showed up to run anyway. Still, more Running Buddies (adults who volunteered to run with them) came than we had girls. As I walked to the start, I started to get a little misty-eyed. A 5K is a really long way for a 3rd, 4th, or 5th grader, especially our girls who didn't get much physical activity. Most of the girls wore a bigger shirt size than I did, and all of them had actually started to grow on me. Yes, I actually loved these girls and I was just so damned proud of them! I made sure I hardened up before I actually had to see anybody though.

The rain stopped before the start, and the girls and their running buddies set off. I waited until all the girls and all the Running Buddies from all the schools in the Bay Area had crossed the starting line, then I started running through the pack. As I caught up with each girl I talked with them for a little bit. They'd all started out too fast, they'd all gotten a cramp, they were all tired, and they all finished. I ran through the crowd from the very back to near the front and heard the same conversation: (little voice) "I'm tired, my legs hurt..." (big voice) "Do you want to walk?" "Let's run again when we get to that tree." "You're doing great!" "Pace yourself, slow and steady." And then one, "You can walk when you finish!" As they crossed the finish line, each one had a huge smile on her face, even the ones who were too cool for school in practice. I couldn't have been more excited.

I rushed across town for one more session before going home to change, then coming back to pick up some yoga mats and dumbbells for Gargamet Show. I came into the empty venue and they showed me to a room in the basement where I would be training her. They introduced me to the security guys who would be protecting us, and pulled down the blinds so you couldn't see the room from the street.

When she finally came in with another one of her roadies, I stuck out my hand. "Hi, I'm Claire."

"I'm Gargamet," she said just at the same time as I was saying, "I know who you are and turned my attention to the short girl next to her and asked her name."

I make a fool of myself in front of celebrities, so I just stuck to my job. Fill out the Physical Activity Readiness Questionnaire (How would you rate your state of health? "Excellent" circled), sign the liability form (AUTOGRAPH!), discuss training history and current aches and pains briefly. Train.

We started with bodyweight squats, and somehow I wound up leading them like an aerobics instructor. Here I am, doing squats face-to-face with a woman who used to dominate my headphones back in the days of Napster, and she's watching me do squats. "You have really nice legs," she said.



"Thanks," I said. "Cyclist."

"Is that what does it?" I shrugged. I was resisting the temptation to tell her exactly HOW MUCH weight I'd gained since moving to California (10 pounds, but 5 of it muscle somehow).

I had them moving the whole time, and kept small talk to a minimum. Gargamet Show didn't really seem interested in stories, she just wanted to train. By the end of the session, the ice had melted a bit though. "Am I going to get made fun of tonight?" I asked finally.

"No," she assured me. "I do this in every city. It's not part of my act. I've had 30 trainers in 30 cities though, and this has been by far the hardest. I like it."

"That's fantastic!" I said. I handed her my card. "Next time you're in San Francisco, give me a call."

"I will put you in my phone," she said in a funny "tough guy" voice, actually looking at it.

"Thanks!"

I started explaining to them that if possible they should keep moving for the next hour or so to prevent soreness. "I don't know exactly what you guys do to prepare for these things, but I don't want you to be stiff on stage tonight."

"Are you coming to the show?" she asked.

"No, I kind of had plans..." (to buy more pants for work) "I didn't even know you were in town until I got the email on Wednesday."

"Well a couple of my friends can't come tonight, why don't you take their seats?"

"Okay, I've been trying to be cool about how I'm a huge fan," I admitted.

"You're sweet!" she said in a voice I suspected she reserves for ga-ga fans. "You can bring your... friend? or? whatever...?" she was looking at me inquisitively.

"I'm sure she'd love to come," I said.

"Great!" she said. "Thanks. You kicked my ass!" Then she left.

"You kicked her ass!" the roadie told me. "You're going to have a really great time at the show tonight. It's a good one. She's really funny."

"She said you kicked her ass!" the publicist said when she came in to pay me. She took my name to put me and my Plus One on the guest list.

Three hours later, Scout and I stopped by the bathroom on the way to the will-call window and ran into Esbie. "Look!" she said, bubbling over with excitement and showing us a vinyl album with the cover signed. "SIGNED! I didn't know you guys were going to be here."

"Yeah, neither did we until Claire scored free tickets a couple hours ago," Scout said. I was a little bit embarrassed. I didn't want to upstage Esbie, so I kept my mouth shut.

When we picked up the tickets from the will-call window, the woman left and came back with two back-stage passes as well. I looked at Scout like 'Oh fuck!' Then the usher escorted us to the center of the orchestra seats about 10 rows back. We still couldn't see because we were behind some tall queens, but that could have happened in the second row.

The show was funny, if a bit crude and afterward we debated whether to go to the afterparty at all. "The guy next to us just texted Michelle Tea," I wrote to Scout. "We're among the creme de la creme of San Francisco gay society." I usually shun the "cool" gay crowd in the city.

Still, we decided to stay in the surprisingly small crowd (about 20 people, one of whom I had worked with in Santa Cruz almost a decade ago and so we had someone to talk to) and drink bottled water and diet coke backstage waiting for Gargamet to come out. When she did and began moving her way through the room and posing for pictures, I just continued my conversation. I would NOT be one of those people.

Finally she noticed me. "HI!" she said. "You know I'm high from that workout. Like seriously. High. I feel great!"

"Oh good!" I said. "Are you sore at all?"

"No, I walked around for the next 45 minutes just like you told me to," Just like I told her to! "And I feel fine. Just like in la-la land."

There was a matter of a birthday present: a sex toy that resembled a chainsaw, then some more chatting, then she told everyone that she was tired. "SHE" (pointing at me) "really kicked my ass today."

Too bad the hipster sex toy crowd didn't look much like the type to be potential clients. Their fitness programs consisted of coke, trendy fixies, and organic food. I thanked her for the tickets and said good night. "Thanks again," she said.

"Give me a call next time you're in town," I said. "We'll do it harder." I was proud to draw a laugh from the coolest gay kids in SF.

And if I were a 16-year-old girl writing in my journal, I would end this entry with:

Best!

Day!

EVER!

When your back's up against a wall, fight like hell

My life is still completely unrecognizable from one week to the next, but things are finally stabilizing. For the first time since I moved to San Francisco, I've had a chance to take a look around and see where this crazy four-and-a-half-month ride has taken me. I've finally been laid off for the season at the bike shop, so I have my weekends back. I'm training people anywhere from 12 to 17 hours per week and writing more than I ever wrote when I was unemployed and the freelance gig was my only job. I live outside the city. I am now considered "full time" at work, and spend 12+ hours at or near the studio a day. I'm responsible for the company newsletter. I'm sober without AA and don't even remember to count how long it's been anymore (about 4 months). This week, for the first time since September, I was able to afford a full grocery trip. I had to remind myself not to feel guilty for buying shampoo.

But these past two weeks have been the scariest yet. In one week I reached the tipping point where I could not grow my business anymore without a key to the studio. Also, I would be paying more by giving them 40% of my income than if I just went on "full rent." To get the key, I would have to stop the 40% payment plan and come up with $1300 in a week. On top of that, a $400 debt that I had deemed "unessential" for four months finally asserted itself as "important" by having a collection agency call me and tell me I had 2 weeks to pay it. That day my phone got thrown clear across the room, nearly hitting one of the owners who was perched on a bench. "Here, you dropped this," Ducky (not his real name) said in that tone of voice that men have for avoiding women's temper tantrums.

I took it and flung it into the bathroom. Someone came out of the bathroom a few minutes later and handed me my phone. "Someone left this on the floor in the bathroom," he told me. I threw it in the corner behind some filing cabinets and didn't dig it out until I had made good and sure that it would stay there without ringing and without being returned to me for at least half an hour. To top it all off, because of a clerical error my pet deposit ($290) from Shane's place was returned to the wrong place: to Shane. And he cashed it. In the thick of bill collectors calling me, now I had to call the property management company and use the same threatening language that I had learned from the grouchy bill collectors. I hated this. I missed the days of steady paychecks and benefits packages.

Miserable, I approached Ducky and Evil Kenevil (the owners) looking for a stay of execution on the $1700 I was going to have to pull out of my ass in 2 weeks, most of which was going to them.

"You've got to stay positive," was Ducky's advice. I was kind of hoping for advice that offered the words, "a free month's rent."

"How can I stay positive when I haven't been able to afford groceries for three months and now I'm supposed to come up with 150% of my average monthly income for that period in just 2 weeks???" I asked.

"When you've got your back up against the wall," Evil Kenevil said, "Fight like hell. If you didn't have a fire under your ass like this, you'd get complacent."

The advice was anything but what I'd been hoping to hear, but Ducky and Evil Kenevil had slept in the gym for two years to get it off the ground. Now they had a bank account a million dollars strong. I was here to learn from these guys, and although I sometimes bristled at their pushy big-business talk, I knew that I would never survive in this big, mean world without them.

Despite the long days and the stress, I've been feeling really lucky to have my job lately. I'm no longer "the new kid," and I've had the chance to see other trainers try to break their way in:

"He come in talking about how he was a 'Big Picture Guy,' and then the only business experience he had to tell me about was a gym that folded in the first 2 years!" Ducky said of one perspective trainer that he'd turned down.

"He's just 28 or some shit like that. He's just a young kid. He thinks he knows everything, but he don't know shit!" he said about another. Hey, I'm only 27!

"He comes in looking like a model and says he's some big-shot bodybuilder and I looked him up and he didn't even win that shit!" he said about another. "If you gon' brag about something, you better have fucking won it!" I was beginning to think that maybe Ducky wasn't as unobservant as I'd originally thought. He probably had noticed that I'd never held the title of "trainer" before, (even though I'd worked in gyms for years and been certified twice).

"Ducky, why did you hire me when you didn't hire all those other people with stronger resumes than mine?" I asked.

"For two reasons," he said. "Because you could write and because you came from Boston. None of these lazy motherfuckers that work here would ever pick up and move 'cross the country with nothing and try to build they own business! That takes balls. You're willing to do the things that most people's scared to do. If you come from Boston and you ain't got shit, then we will help you get started because we already know that you're willing to do whatever it takes to get what you want, but if you come from San Francisco and you ain't got shit, you's either stupid or lazy.

"All these people think it's like magic that I built this bu'ness up from the ground in the middle of a recession and now I got motherfuckers comin' in off the street who want to pay $80/hour to train with us. They don't see everything that it took to get there." He started walking, putting one heel carefully in front of the toes of the other foot. "I just started walking while all those other fools were sitting there in their comfortable 24 Hour Fitness jobs, and to those guys who wasn't looking they say, 'How'd you get from here to there? That must be magic!' But they don't see that anything look like magic to those fools who never take a step." Jim Collins calls that the Flywheel Concept, by the way.

A day or two later I asked Ducky if he would train me for a session just to see what his style was like. "I'm about to do a workout right now. Why don't you work in with me?" he asked.

We warmed up and then he asked me how I'd been training lately. "I haven't been doing much of anything to tell you the truth, Ducky," I said. "I haven't been training because I don't want to make myself hungry. When you can't buy food, getting hungry is bad."

"How can you train other people when you ain't training yourself?" he said in disgust and disbelief.

"I don't know... I mean I've been riding, but..."

"You'll see. You get back into training and you'll be on fire for your clients. Your clients will become like your fan club. They love that shit and then the referrals will start rolling in.When you ain't training, the quality of your workouts just sucks. You don't push people because you think everything's hard."

He was right. The workouts I'd been giving had sucked since I started going hungry because I was focused on where my next meal was coming from, not that I loved my job. I made it a point to take an hour out of every day and just train again, just to get back in shape. Can't afford it? Oh well, I'd just Act As If I could afford it. I'd deal with the what I was training for just as soon as training was a habit again. And wouldn't you know, my clients started opening up to me after that. New people started appearing through different avenues.

But now that I'm back to working out, I can't believe how far I've fallen. I'm someone who's staked my whole self-worth for the past seven years on being extremely physically active. Fitness has been my job ever since my publishing job went under in May of 2009. It's humbling to get sore. It's even more humbling to not be able to do things.

The other day I dusted off my sexy bike and went to change the flat tire that I'd noticed when I hung it up almost 2 months ago. But all my spare tubes had valves that were too short for my rims, and I ruined two tubes trying to will the damned things to work. One tube wound up in a tree, and the Tarmac stayed in the garage. I took my new Allez out instead figuring that a bike's a bike if you're not racing, right?

A little bit about where I live: Pacifica is one of those coastal towns that has the beach, a coastal highway, and then mountains all within half a mile of shore. The mountains aren't tall, but they're sure as hell steep. I live near the bottom of a canyon on the back side of one of those hills. To get anywhere, I have to go over the hill.

I set out to find my way 10 miles along the ridges to San Francisco. I came out the driveway, rode a block, and started climbing... at a 20% grade. There is a half-mile climb out of the canyon, but it's an average of about a 15% grade with 2/3 of it being around 20%. My little Allez has two fewer climbing gears than my Tarmac (the smallest gear is a 25, not a 27). And I haven't been seriously training since May. I was a wreck.

I got to the top of that hill without getting off my bike, but people standing in their driveways were turning their heads to watch me pass because they could hear me huffing and puffing from three driveways away. When I got to the top of the hill I thought I was going to throw up. Then I made a left and got half way down the hill when I realized that I was headed back into the canyon. I should have gone right. Damn. Now I had to go back up there! I returned to the top of the hill pretty sure that I was going to die and still less than a mile from the house. Then I rode down to the coast.

By the time I got to sea level, I still hadn't recovered and my insides felt like they were going to rot out of my body. I had hiccups from breathing so hard, and they were so violent that I thought I would rupture something. I. Was. Miserable. I sat on a low wall for about 10 minutes until the Yuck in my body subsided, then I decided that I'd had quite enough and it was time to go home. One problem though: I had to go BACK over the hill. My lungs were sore and I was coughing for the rest of the day.

I was so angry with myself. How could I let myself get to this point? How could I be SO out of shape? Who was I anymore? Moreover, who was I trying to kid? I'd gone less than 9 miles. This was war!

The next day I got out my racing bike and got my new housemate's help in fixing it up. It involved adjusting the cables, bending the derailleur hanger, replacing the chain, and giving the whole thing a healthy dose of lube. Then I went for a ride. I took a less steep way out of the canyon and managed to find my way out to San Francisco all by myself. I took route 35, called "Skyline Blvd," which seemed like a pretty great choice for a challenging ride through the hills and along the coast. What they don't tell you is that Skyline becomes a fucking FREEWAY for a couple of miles. I mean FREEWAY with exits, shit on the shoulder, a 55 mph speed limit, on-ramps and all.

I was riding along, feeling quite pleased with myself and looking forward to the windy descent back into Pacifica over the road that I'd just climbed. I'd just crested the hill and was now in South San Francisco (which is not actually part of San Francisco). I could recognize the big radio tower and a few of the hills of SF up ahead of me. There were trees on my left and right and pine cones on the ground. Suddenly I saw a sign that said "Begin Freeway!" I looked around. There were three lanes of traffic between me and the divider and three more lanes of traffic before the shoulder on the other side. I would have to ride at least half a mile in the wrong direction to get back to the last intersection. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!! I thought. There was a tiny little sign with a bicycle on it that said "Share the Road," and I thought foolishly, Maybe that FREEWAY sign was a mistake!

Then I saw the 55 mph speed limit. Then I saw an exit sign. Then I heard cars behind me that might very well want to get OFF at that exit going 55 miles per hour just as I was crossing it. Then I saw the ON ramp with people coming off the interstate. I was going to have to cross that too, and people coming off the interstate onto another freeway certainly aren't looking for bicycles. I saw a break in the traffic and tried to cut right across the ramp back to the shoulder. A car kept coming. I kept making my intention clear. The car kept coming. Finally I came to a dead stop (on my bicycle, on the freeway) and let him go by. He had moved slightly RIGHT onto the shoulder, which meant that if I hadn't stopped, he would have most certainly hit me. Fuck that!

I found a way back home that was flatter and on frontage roads.

Last week I worked out six out of seven days, and when I walked into the gym in the afternoon Ducky told me that I was looking buff. "Yep, that's all it takes, two sessions," I told him.

So what are YOUR suggestions on what my next goal should be? Weigh in on the poll on the sidebar.