Like a Stuck Doorbell....

It's funny. Since summer took a walk to the other end of the globe...and it's been too cold and the air has been too full of woodsmoke for me to be able to continue my outdoor "powerwalking" program,...I've been turning to that queen of video workouts...the exercise phenomenon and guru of us chubbies....Leslie Sansone. People adore her. Worship her. They collect her massive output of DVDs and religiously march, side-step, and kickback to the beat of driving synthesizer music with which can barely be heard above Leslie's constant perky chatter and her frequent giggles. Depending on the mood I'm in...I either ignore the babble and just focus on her directions and the counting of the steps...which are remarkably accurate and all one needs to keep up with what is going on on the screen, without needing to watch...or I amuse myself by hurling insults at the hapless motivator who is innocently continuing with the drivel and the lines which by now are burned into my frontal lobe by the daily repetition and by the fact that the same jokes, the same information the same steps are reiterated on every single one of her forty million videos.

And yet, there is comfort in this familiarity and I feel quite certain that Leslie herself is quite unperturbed by my repeating the very same comebacks and insults which I fire at her daily as well...It is like a comfortable ritual...You drive me crazy...while you also completely ignore the fact that I am relentlessly mocking you as both of us step and sweat together in the quest for slender fitness. And Leslie, I do have to admit...you've gotten me from the point of falling breathless to the ground after a fairly leisurely one mile....to being able to HUSTLE at full speed for a solid 60 minutes of aerobic walking and exercising with nary a gasp. And that, my friend in tights; my sister in sweat....is a major miracle.

So I'm sure that my gratitude for her program far outshines my mockery at her bubble-headed femininity in which I am sure I share no part...despite the double X in my chromosomal makeup...Leslie and I are different animals altogether....but one thing we both share: our sexy tushes and our ever-thinning thighs and our passion for hustling our fit bodies into quivering sweaty masses of gratitude at the 5 mile marker....

And now...nursing two hips destroyed by arthritis and facing bilateral replacement surgery in the immediate future, I sadly say adieu to my stacks of videos and dvds all graced by Leslie's perky self and I fight the temptation to play them just to pretend like I'm still sidestepping with grace accompanied by Leslie's inane chatter...which I (don't tell any one because I'll deny it) now sorely miss.