So I've now managed to spend most of my day - which I was going to spend writing - playing Tiger Woods PGA Tour on my Gamecube. I suppose it wasn't an entirely bad way to spend a Sunday, especially since I was apparently able to tear myself away long enough to write THIS much of a column. All the same, taking a break was probably a good idea. I've been beating the game pretty badly, and I think taking a break will do it some good. I've been incessantly trash talking my opponents, which is great, because I so seldom get to bust people down with my amazing smack talk*. With razor tongue and iron thumbs, I have torn through various members of the PGA and some made up players as well - including one that was apparently based on my little sister.
 Now the game's programmers have obviously had a great deal of fun in designing these made-up golfers - the first one in the game is sumo wrestler, for example. Yet somehow in the midst of dreaming up these players, some game designer hit upon a pretty good approximation of my sister, who in fact is on scholarship for golf while at college.
The character is nicknamed "Sunshine" in the game. She's got a pretty typical feminine "video game" shape to her, with long brunette hair pulled back into a ponytail. She's wearing a short - yet fashionable - skirt and top with white knee socks and a pair of those clodhopper Birkenstockesque shoes that the kids love nowadays. I'm not really sure how easy it is to play golf in an outfit like that, but "Sunshine" has a pretty wicked short game (no power, though). The best part about her is her profile which indicates that she only plays when it's 72 degrees, and the wind is less then 2 mph, thus making it ideal "hair weather." She also refuses to play anything but the blue tees, because she apparently has something to prove. This all sounds really, really familiar to me…**
The funny part of me spending all this time playing golf on a game system is that I actually hurt too much today to really do anything BUT sit on the couch. See, I joined a fitness center, and I had a nice little "fit start" session with a personal trainer yesterday. On the whole, the experience was decent, and I'll be going back tomorrow morning. However, today's all about my generic bottle of Ibuprofen and making little "owie" noises when I lift my arms (my shoulders are the only part that hurt, surprisingly). The hardest thing I've actually had to deal with at said fitness center thus far hasn't been the actual exercise - it's been the incessant hard sell by the staff to get me to sign up for prolonged schedules with expensive personal trainers and the like. I know that little game, people, and yes, while you're correct in asserting that most people stop coming to the gym before seeing results, I'm reactionary enough to know that you pushing me harder is merely going to make me want to work less. I'm there for my own intentions and agenda, not to subscribe to any "exercise is the solution to all of life's problems" theories. If I want solutions to my problems, I'll go see a really expensive therapist instead of coming to your really expensive fitness center.
I'm not really sure why I'm so vehement with this "leave me alone" attitude toward physical fitness. I'm not totally convinced that it's the exercise itself, because I LIKE the idea of being able to run around without ending up wheezing like a pudgy dachshund who has run into the kitchen at the sound of a can opener. I think my aversion to toxic levels of encouragement actually comes from the impression that people who make going to the gym their lifelong ambition are kind of cultish.  (After being taken around and meeting the staff on day one, I felt like I needed to show up next time not only in my Nike shoes, but also in a black robe and carrying a bottle of special Kool-Aid. The gym is great… there is only the gym…). I wonder if those addicted to the gym are maybe missing the bigger picture about being physically fit. Great, so you go to the club every day… what do you DO with your fit body? Something decent like using your muscles to lift lumber at a Habitat For Humanity site? Do you even go outside the gym and participate in some kind of organized sport - in the beautiful out of doors? Or do you just continue to go to the gym, striving toward no goal beyond being decently in shape and staying that way? I for one am going to the gym to shed a few pounds, get some tone, and just be healthy. No real goal beyond that, aside from preventing my oh-so-perfectly-athletic, sort-of-in-a-video-game sister from maliciously calling me "fat" again.
*And I'm wasting it on a video game. That I'm playing by myself, no less.
**Actually my sister's nothing like that, aside from the part about playing the blue tees to try and prove something. That actually happened once when my dad and I were playing a round with her.
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