Survival of the fittest

Lastnight it was too hot to sleep, plus I drank too much red wine at the party I went to in my New Orleans dress, plus I could not turn over in bed -- a minor problem -- because of the Total Body Sculpt class I went to the day before yesterday.

Imagine me, sculpting my body. It must have hurt the Venus de Milo when she was chipped away at and it hurts me, too.

There is this deal at the Buffalo Athletic Club. If you have this Blue Cross health membership, which I do, they will pretty much pay for your gym membership. Except you have to sign up for certain classes, and attend them for a certain number of weeks. Hence, the Total Body Sculpt. I had to sign in on a clipboard so Blue Cross would know I was there.

But heck, all they'd have to do is look at me, and they'd know I was there! Because honest, I can not walk. At the end of the class I could not move. I was lying there on my mat like a dead person. The instructor even knows my name, is how abject I am. He is this muscleman and he likes to count down our exercises in German, just so we really feel as if we are working. And he kept walking over to me during the crunches that ended the class and sort of poking at me. He made as if he were checking that my middle was against the mat right, but I think he was really checking to see if I was alive.

A big if!

Yesterday I tried to talk Howard into coming to some classes with me. "Howard, come on," I said. "Check out Total Body Sculpt." Howard is always talking about wanting to be buff.

But Howard said, "I just want a class that does stretching."

"Then take Pilates," I said. Pilates is the class I really love. "That's stretching."

Howard was suspicious. "No, that's hard core." (Hard core, get it? Har!)

"It is not," I said. "It works out your core. You do a lot of stretching." You do. The stretching takes 15 minutes. What I did not tell him is the stretching is the hardest part of the class.

Howard was dogged. "I want a class like old people take where you stand in the water and stretch."

OK, guess I won't be seeing him on any mat near me at any time soon!

Exercise is a solitary affair. It always is, it always will be. You wait for an exercise buddy, you will wait forever. You will get fatter and fatter. So next time I go to Total Body Sculpt -- which will be next week, thank you Blue Cross -- I will be by myself.

I wonder if I will be able to turn over in bed by then.