I Wanna Quit the Gym!

The following is a re-post of something I wrote on Facebook Note circa 2009.  I think Note was Facebook's attempt to dip its toe into the blogging world before it realized it does better as a Micro-blogging platform.  It's hard to find Notes on Facebook, this one came up in my Memories and I am not allowed to edit it, which tells me these will soon be deprecated even further.  

I Wanna Quit the Gym!

(2009)  I've been a member of the Ray Meyer Fitness Center at DePaul Unversity's Lincoln Park campus since 2004.  It was a great deal at the time: a discounted alumni rate and it was on the way home.  All I had to do was pack my workout bag in the morning and after work, get off at Fullerton Brown line stop, go work out, and get back on.  

At first, I was even able to complete a workout and get back on the EL within the same 2-hour transfer window.  But the workouts got longer as I'd include a spin class.  That prompted me to switch to a monthly CTA pass.

Over the years, things have changed.  Though my office is located near all of the major El lines, I don't take the brown line to work anymore, so it's not as convenient to take it home and stop at the gym -- especially if I leave my car at the blue line station in Irving Park.  Also, the gym mostly caters to students, not alumni or other non-student members.  This is evident by the elimination of many of the late evening spin classes.  

So after realizing that I hadn't been to the gym since February, I called and asked about canceling my membership.  You can't just do it over the phone, you have to fill out a Membership Cancelation Form (MCF).  The lady who took my call offered to fax me the form.  About a day or two went by when I realized I didn't receive the fax.  I called back and asked for someone to fax me the MCF.  This went on for a couple of months.  I'd periodically remember that I wanted to quit the gym and would call and never receive the fax.

I decided to drop in one Sunday afternoon before going to mass since my church, also DePaul is across the street.  Alias, the Membership Relations part of the gym was closed at the time I got there (about 90 minutes too late).  No one could find the MCF form although a nice polish kid did try to help.  I started to count this as one of those times when it would be helpful to speak the language of my ancestors, but it turns out it wouldn't have made a difference because he couldn't find the form.  

I politely suggested that putting the form on the website might be 1) useful, 2) 21st century and 3) a FUCKTACULAR idea. His response indicated that he had drunk a full gallon of the corporate cool-aid when he said "oh the reason we don't is because we have it right here where you need it when you want it". 

"But you don't have it here," I pointed out.  he smiles and shrugs his shoulders while checking the same file cabinet for the fourth time to see if the MCF had magically appeared.

Flash forward to Monday.  I called the gym again for the MCF.  This time it actually arrived at my fax machine!  I filled out the form and tried to fax it back.  I'd hear the busy signal and the report sheet would come back busy/no response.  The thing about cancelation is that if you don't do it by the 15th of 

the current month, you are charged for the next month.  I'd be able to use the gym but since I'm not using it now, it's kinda a moot point.  I was determined to get this resolved, so I called and asked if their fax machine was, in fact, working.

The lady who answered -- same voice as the one who promised to always send me the fax -- said it was working.  Let's call her name is Trudy.  I explained my issue and Trudy suggested I try it again, and added, if it doesn't work I can email it to you.  I know what she meant, at least I hope she meant that I could email her a scanned document, but if not, I'm not sure how her emailing me something would help. 

After trying to send the fax several times over the next couple of days, I called back and got the same lady and asked if I could scan the MCF and email it to someone.  She said sure and gave me an email address.  This is on a Friday afternoon and With the 15th of the month deadline drawing near, I could just see my email sitting in someone's junk/spam folder.

Finally, at the end of the day, I get an email that say:

Icarus

I am out of town until Tuesday, I will have Trudy follow up with you regarding your cancellation.

Thanks for letting us know.

Nancy

Now I'm thinking that the fate of membership, whether or not I will be charged another month's dues, depends on the skillset of Trudy, the lady who couldn't or wouldn't fax me the MCF all these months.  The lady who thought the problem with her fax machine could be solved by emailing me.  I'll be lucky if I don't get charged twice each month from here on in!

While heading home I entertain a wild thought:  there's a scene in the movie Reality Bites where Winona Ryder sets camp at a gas station and offers to pay for everyone's gas in exchange for cash.  I start to figure out if there is a way I can do this with my gym membership.  Maybe just send homeless person after homeless person into the gym to use the shower and take advantage of the complimentary towels!  Alas, I recall that they check my gym card against a photo they have on file.

The good news is that Monday I did receive an automated email from Campus Recreation:  "We received your request for cancellation. Your membership will expire on 7/31/09. "  The bad news is I've gained some extra pounds and could really use a gym to work out right about now.  

That time I took dance lessons

About a decade ago, as part of a New Year’s Resolution, I decided to take professional dance lessons. While the euphoria of the New Year was still in the air, I mentioned the idea to several friends and they all jumped on the dance bandwagon. Of course they immediately all disappeared our schedules didn't mesh well enough to take classes together. I decided to take a class anyway, thinking it might be better to do this without knowing anyone in the class.

I found a Studio near my home and a beginner's group class that fit right into my schedule.  Here's the write up of that experience on my commercial blog. Like a lot of my posts on the commercial blog, I  left out some stuff.  Enjoy:

Some personalities have already developed. There's Stripped Shirt Steve. S3 is this older guy -- white hair, I'd guess in his late 40s early 50s. He is with Patty who is quite striking, probably in her early 40s. Our first time dancing together, she managed to let me know she's divorced. [Remember, we are together for less than 60 seconds.]

Last week S3 kept a low profile but last night he decided to be "boyish" by making mock strangling actions behind Christa's back. I guess he didn't realize that she could see what he is doing in the mirror. He would also wander over to the girls side to be with Patty. So when Christa has us line up, there's more delay thanks to S3.

Now I'll make fun of myself. When Christa was demonstrating a turn move, I couldn't see her footwork because these guys in the front row were blocking everyone in the back. She noticed this and had me get up there and dance with her during the next demo. You might think anyone who was in that class should have seen that I can't dance, but it had the opposite effect. People then thought "well the instructor picked him, he must be good" and the next line up, two ladies actually "fought" over getting to dance with me.

Lent Obligation from Hell part II

The following is a re-post from an old blog/column I wrote for another medium a long time ago. I've tweaked it a little to bring it up to date while hopefully keeping the content intact.

In a previous post, I wrote about my Lenten penance of doing charity work instead of giving up my beloved French fries and the headache that turned out to be. Well the saga continued well after Lent ended.

Each day I would get an email, phone call or thought sent via telepathy guilt tripping me into putting in a few more hours at St. Clements. Eventually I’d cave in and show up to put in a few hours of work. Most of it would involve climbing up a very unstable ladder to an extremely high spot. On top of that, the Executive Producers kept having this misguided notion that I knew what the hell I was doing. I was beginning to think that maybe in order to be successful play producers, they had to start drinking really early in the day.

The two people in charge had slightly different philosophies on how things should run. Jason didn’t want anyone to get killed working on Stage Crew. Bart on the other hand felt that a 10% casualty rate was acceptable if it meant finishing on deadline.

A big problem was that we didn’t have enough people to get the work done in a timely fashion. They shot themselves in the foot on that one, as far as I’m concerned. When they were doing cast call, they asked us to keep the months from January through April open and devoted to the play. I would have gladly done this had I been selected. But because they insisted on adhering to their rigid requirement of having only talented people in the play who can sing, dance and act, well I had to make other plans for my time.

But getting back to the story. The only other person on Stage Crew was a girl named TJ. She was a spunky gal who was a firm believer in “Girl Power”. One of our tasks was to drill holes in the wall of the Gym-turned-Theatre area. Naturally it required climbing really, really high to make these holes because God knows you wouldn’t be able to use holes in the wall at ground level for anything useful.

TJ insisted she could climb up and take care of all the hole making. I had no problem with this as I had a feeling the St Clements insurance policy was more of a rumor than an actuality.

And now that the play is over, I’m still touched by this group via the listserv. Every time I check my email there are dozens of emails from this group, most of which are responses to a single conversation thread or joke. What’s strange is that this listserv has been around for months, but it wasn’t until the week of opening night that the actors started using it. It was as if they suddenly discovered email.

When it was all over, Jacob emailed me to thank me for helping out. He also mentioned that when the next production comes along, he’d be sure to let me know. Thanks, because I will definitely want to change my phone number.

Lent Obligation from Hell part I

The following is a re-post from an old blog/column I wrote for another medium a long time ago. I've tweaked it a little to bring it up to date while hopefully keeping the content intact.

For many years I’ve given up French Fries for Lent and doing so has been sheer torture. The rest of the year I can go weeks without eating fries and not give it a second thought. But somehow when the time comes to intentionally go without the fried spud, it seems like there is temptation everywhere.

It feels like every food item you order in the world seems to come with a side of fries. Even if there are other choices, they all somehow sound unappetizing. “Would you like fries, Cole slaw, or monkey entrails with that?”

So one year instead of giving something up I decided to do some charity work instead. A lot of Catholics don’t realize this Lenten Loophole exists. Now you would think that it would be easy to find a soup kitchen to work in, or a homeless shelter to help out, or even a crisis hotline to answer the phones at for a few hours a week. The problem is none of those places are within walking distance of my apartment.

While sitting at home, waiting for charity work to come knocking on my door, the phone rang instead. It was Jason from St. Clements calling to ask if I could help out on stage crew for the spring play. The reason Jason has my number is because I actually auditioned for a part in the play back in November during open auditions, but wasn’t talented enough to get cast. Something silly about needing to be able to sing, act and not look like a buffoon on stage. They have such high standards in community theatre.

Anyway, on the audition form, there was a little box asking if we would be willing to help out in any other manner if we were not cast for a part in the play. I did not check this box. Naturally they called me anyway. I ignored the message left on my answering machine last December and figured that was the end of that. But alas, Stage Managers, Telemarketers and Con men have the unique ability to not take no for an answer.

Jason called again a few weeks ago and did the unbelievably sneaky and dastardly move of complimenting me on the enthusiasm I showed during the audition and felt that the play could benefit from that energy. Guilt Trip Tactic #1: pay someone an extraneous, irrelevant compliment. Remembering my Lenten promise, I called back this time and as no good deed goes unpunished, my good intentions have lead me to the Lent Obligation from Hell.

So I show up for the first afternoon of stage crew duty. There is only one other person on Stage Crew: a girl named TJ. The guy in charge, Bart, actually has a degree in stage development and is also a few hours short of his computer engineering degree. His day job is being an attorney. Those are three excellent reasons to hate the guy right off the bat. He then seals the deal by calling me “Ichy”.

Bart asks us what we are doing for the rest of the Sunday between then and Easter as it turns out that Sundays are the only day Bart is available to work on stage setup. I mention one Sunday that I know I’m committed to something else and then he changes the subject before I can list any other reasons I can’t be Stage Crew guy. Guilt Trip Tactic #2: the old bait and switch. Instead of it being about when I can’t come in, it becomes more of what one day do I absolutely need off?

So now that we’ve indentured ourselves into Stage Crew Servitude until sometime slightly before the second coming, Bart starts telling us what we’re going to do. He rattles off a list of objectives, which sound relatively straightforward and doable. Hang some lights, speakers, build out the stage. Then the kicker comes: the three of us over the next three Sundays will do all this.

Bart then starts telling us what to get started on. He rattles off sentences like the following:

“I want you to take the ladder and at every strut juncture, drill a couple of holes in the wall about fifteen feet above the horizontal plane of the stage in and then drop some anchor bolts into them.”

He then goes off to work with another group of people doing something else. We heard something about a ladder. We position the ladder by the first “strut juncture” and hope that we can stall long enough for Bart to come back and show us what he wanted us to do.

Next year it’s back to giving up French fries for this volunteer.

Don’t Let Summer Get Away from You

Summertime in Chicago is just too short. While Summer seemed to arrive early this year, a typical Chicago Spring is still chilly, rainy and outdoor unfriendly. Around May this changes and natives experiment with taking off the parka and downgrading to a simple pea coat.


Essentially you get June, July and August and then it's over. Even though the weather might be nice in September and even October, conventional wisdom defines Summer as the time between Memorial Day and Labor Day.

When June arrives you think: I have the whole summer ahead of me. Visions of attending baseball games, popular street festivals and hanging out at the beach come to mind. Maybe you’ve always wanted to check out Summer Dance or the Waste Taste of Chicago. Perhaps this is the summer you will finally bike to the Botanic Gardens. Excitement oozes over the new summer blockbusters.  In your summer fueled excitement you invite friends from out of town to visit so you have a legitimate excuse to check out Navy Pier.

Trips to Ravina for concerts under the stars get tossed around and plans are penciled in. 

Soon it's July and you're trying to figure out who's cookout to attend and where to see the fireworks. You still have a lot of summer left but you also realize that you have to make those plans a bit more concrete. Spontaneous plans to dine al fresco get formally scheduled for August because July is so overbooked. It really is time to fill up the bicycle tires already. Can we still catch those blockbusters at a matinee?  Is my friend arriving at Midway or O’Hare?

Then August arrives and you realize that you just have a few weeks to squeeze everything in! You have to choose between the concert at Ravina or the Best Street Fest of the Summer This Weekend.  That bike you never got tuned up sits there hoping you'll notice it.   What do you mean we missed Summerfest?

Before you know it, another summer has set sail and it's time to get the parka out of storage.  Those blockbusters are now available on Blu-ray.

How to get a good seat at a wedding

The following is a re-post from an old blog/column I wrote for another medium a long time ago. I've tweaked it a little to bring it up to date while hopefully keeping the content intact.

One of the greatest honors a friend can bestow upon another friend is to invite said friend to his wedding. One of the next greatest honors a friend can bestow upon another friend is to not invite them to his wedding.

As I recall from my single days, wedding area single person's nightmare. Between the married couples and the couples who want to be married, a single person can be hard pressed to find a friendly face or even someone to hang out with at a wedding. But at least you know this going in and can prepare for it.

Weddings are supposed to be joyful, momentous, once in a lifetime experiences that are shared with loved ones. However they often turn out to be stressful, expensive and frustrating events that put almost everyone involved on their last nerve.

I've been invited to dozens of weddings in my lifetime. There were some that I couldn't attend due to finances, schedule conflicts and even a broken leg. There were some I shouldn't have attended because I really didn't know the wedding party or there was no open bar. I've even gotten invited to the engagement party yet not the actual wedding. Faux pas or oversight?

The wedding present has evolved over time for me. My friend who got married five minutes after graduating college got screwed because while I did what I could, I just didn't have sufficient income to give them a decent present. Those who waited a few years before tying the knot were able to at least offset the cost of my plate with my wedding gift.

I use to do this thing where I would wait until after the wedding, and then go look at the registry. Usually there are a ton of one-offs like the last two pieces of an 8 piece plate or soup bowl set and I would swoop in and snatch these items. The bride is happy because she now has a complete set of her dishes or wine glasses or whatever.

Nowadays I generally give cash because it's easiest for me and preferred by everyone. Too many times have I seen wedding couples at the end of the night trying to collect a table full of presents that just won't fit in their car trunk. Hint to Guests: spring for the shipping and handling to have the present sent to the happy couple's home before the wedding. They'll appreciate it and you might even get seated at the cool table.

It Doesn't Pay to be Good

The following is a re-post from an old blog/column I wrote for another medium a long time ago. I've tweaked it a little to bring it up to date while hopefully keeping the content intact.

Lex Luther,  Anakin Skywalker, Michael Meyers and Elphaba Thropp have one thing in common. They started out as good people.

Spoiler alert: This column gives away plot points of Spider-Man and Star Wars: Attack of the Clones.

Over the last couple of weekends, I managed to catch up on my movie watching for the summer, which included the above-mentioned films.  I liked all but the last two minutes of Spider-Man.  I enjoyed the special effects and was pleased with how true the movie adaptation was to the Marvel Comics storyline.   I even liked the casting choices for Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire), Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst) and the other characters.  I didn't like "Man Waiting for Bus" in scene 14 because his performance was so unbelievable, but I digress.

What I really didn't like was the ending in the graveyard where Mary Jane suddenly professes her love for Peter, a.k.a. Spider-Man.  Unfortunately our fine webbed friend has to turn down MJ’s sudden discovered love because being with her might be hazardous to her health.  Parker has been in love with Mary Jane since the day she walked into his life and now that he final has her, he is forced to give her up because of a higher calling: The Sequel.

Now take Star Wars: Episode II.  In it the young Anakin Skywalker - who will eventually become the evil and dastardly George W. Bush - gets married to the lovely Padmé Amidala (Natalie Portman).  True he loses an arm, which is technically getting off easy with what weddings cost these days.  While we’re on the subject, is it just me or wouldn't you expect that if they have the technology to send a message across the galaxy, they'd know how to reattach a severed limb? Well, the former Queen decides to marry the guy anyway.  Why? Because chicks dig evil! 

What attracted Anakin Skywalker to the Dark Side in "Episode II."

"In this film, you begin to see that he has a fear of losing things, a fear of losing his mother, and as a result, he wants to begin to control things, he wants to become powerful, and these are not Jedi traits," he said. "And part of these are because he was starting to be trained so late in life, that he'd already formed these attachments. And for a Jedi, attachment is forbidden."
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/SHOWBIZ/Movies/05/07/ca.s02.george.lucas/

Let's look at television while we're at it.  In the television series Smallville, a young Clark Kent, who will later grow up to become Superman, also has to give up any hope of ever being with either Lana Lang or Lois Lane.  In episode after episode - and I am qualified to make this generalization because I've seen almost five complete shows - Kent has the opportunity to get in good with Lana, but has to pass it up because of some pesky obligation to save some helpless mortal caught under a overturned tractor. 

Sidebar:  Annette O'Toole played Lana Lang, the girl Clark Kent left behind in his youth, in the big-screen feature Superman III. Now she takes her new place in the Superman saga playing a teenage Clark Kent's mother, Martha, in the new action-adventure series Smallville. (Source:  http://www.thewb.com/Faces/CastBio/0,7930,81,00.html). 

Now I have to think of a TV example where a bad guy gets the girl.  The only one I can think of is Charmed.  In Charmed, a television show about three sisters who are also witches…or is it three witches who are also sisters?  Anyway, these are good witches who must fight the forces of evil.  Every week, they somehow manage to magically vanquish a demon or warlock without smearing any makeup or messing up their hair.  These witches are extremely hot looking and could have any guy they wanted.  Yet Phoebe, the youngest witch played by Alyssa Milano, chooses to marry Cole, an upper level demon working for The Source, played by Bill Gates. 

So it seems that if you chose evil, you get the girl.  Do the right thing, and you're spinning web fluid alone, if you know what I mean.  Can anyone tell me where to sign up with the Dark side of the Force?