Eating My Feelings (20 page)

The warm-up concluded and the real workout began. I began following Tony and his team as they jumped up and
down, squatting and lunging and crouching like the Jedi Knights they weren’t cool enough to be. After the first series of workouts concluded, I realized I was sweating like a wildebeest. Beads of sweat were pouring down my face. I looked up at Tony and his friends as they were taking their thirty-second break. They looked fresh and ready for the next series of workouts. I looked at myself in the mirror in my room. I looked like I had just run a twenty-six-mile race where I was brutally gang-raped at the end. Before I knew it, it was time to resume working out. Tony was not fucking around during this whole jump-training fiasco. There were six more sets of workouts, each more excruciating than the next. As the plyometrics DVD came to an end, I suddenly realized why Tony had told me not to eat beforehand, because I’d never felt more nauseous before in my life. Pair that with the fact that I was sweating as much as Oprah and Gayle do when questioned about their sexuality. By the time the DVD concluded, I nearly passed out, I was so physically exhausted. I hopped into the shower and tried to stop sweating, but beads of sweat were pouring down my face. I showered for a full thirty minutes and when I wouldn’t stop sweating, I decided it would be best if I simply dried myself off and walked around my apartment naked. After an hour of pacing my apartment, chain-smoking in my underwear and still sweating my balls off, I put on jean shorts and a tank top (or my “gay-famer” look, as I like to call it—put a pitchfork in my hand and we’d have had a horrible reality TV series on our hands) and walked out the door.

The summer of 2010 was the hottest on record in New York and I realized just how hot it was after I walked down the street and began perspiring even more than I was while working out. I got to my corner and was drenched in sweat so badly that I wondered why I had bothered showering in the first place.
When I got to the subway station, I realized that my tank top was literally soaked in sweat. Before getting on the subway, I took my shirt off, wrung it out, and stood on the sidewalk for a moment. As I stood there topless, at least twenty people walked by looking at me. In my mind, two days into a new workout, I was now looking like a Greek god and everyone was noticing. It wasn’t until a toothless homeless woman told me to “put some fucking clothes on” that I realized I was making a scene.

For the next three mornings, I met with Tony and company and did a shoulders-and-arms workout, a kickboxing workout, and legs-and-back workout. After each one, I felt better than the time before. Apparently putting your body through excruciating pain every day can make you feel better in the long run.

That Saturday, I hunkered down for my last workout of the week before I could take a break from it all, the yoga workout. For whatever reason on the bottom of the screen, there is a timer on all P90X workouts to let you know how long you have been working out and how long you have left. The yoga workout was a cool ninety minutes long and before I even got started, I was bored. I find yoga very relaxing, that is, until Tony Horton starts blabbering on and on. I could not get in the right zone, so about twenty-five minutes into the yoga workout I simply stopped trying and decided to eat a Skor bar in lieu of working out. That was my one and only attempt at yoga.

Since Sunday was my day off from working out, I decided to focus my energy on taking Ron’s advice. I suppose I was too fabulous to be single forever so I went on Manhunt to see if there was anyone worth going on a date with.

My profile on Manhunt is pretty basic, with my tagline being “I don’t give a fuck!” because … I don’t. It tells everyone what I look like and what I am looking for, which is: white
guys under forty to hang out with. It also says that I have a “swimmer’s build,” although I haven’t gone swimming in over a decade. Naturally, 90 percent of the people who reach out to me are men in their fifties who are either black, Asian, Latino, or all of the above. I guess gay people can’t read. Anyway, as I fend off creepsters, I do a quick search to find hot guys who look like Abercrombie models to no avail. I usually end up settling for someone who looks like a Sears Catalog model, but a girl can dream, can’t she? After signing on, I immediately got a few interesting e-mails.

IWANNABLOWU wrote, “Hey, cool guy over fifty, looking for younger to travel with. Will pay expenses.”

How flattering that someone thought I was a hooker. I truly believe that is the highest honor one can bestow upon another human being so I replied:

“Thank you so much but I can’t travel anytime soon, and in this economic climate I don’t think you should be offering to pay for people you don’t know to go on vacation with you, but thanks.”

IWANNABLOWU responded, “That’s cool. Come over now and I will pay you to blow me.”

Inviting me on vacation made me feel like at least a high-class escort. Now I felt like a common streetwalker so I blocked him. I know writing is not a lucrative career, but I am not quite ready to enter Hookerville. Yet. I got another message.

Rimfan88: “You look like you have a nice ass.”

I found this comment extremely interesting, considering the only picture I have on my profile is that of my face. I responded:

“You know, rimming is a really good way to get hepatitis.”

I didn’t hear back from Rimfan88, but shortly after I was
asked to pee on someone, and some black guy asked me if I wanted to take part in some sort of gang-banging in Harlem. I politely declined both invitations and moved forward. Then, a twenty-year-old asked me if I wanted to take his virginity. I really had to think about this, but again declined the invite because if he was anything like me he would need a Vicodin and some serious consoling afterward and I still had to deep-condition my hair that day. Taking someone’s virginity is a very personal thing and not something I ever plan on doing again. All of this was very time-consuming, so I decided to get a move on and wait for my iPhone to arrive so I could get grinding. Clearly I was getting nowhere trying to find a boyfriend on Manhunt.

It was time to begin my second rotation with Tony Horton and his crew of well-toned misfits. Since it was Monday, it was time for another go at the chest-and-back DVD.

After having done the chest-and-back workout once before and realizing that it was simply a series of pull-ups and push-ups for an hour, I mentally prepared myself for what was to come.

Just pretend you’re in prison for one hour and have nothing better to do because the other inmates will kill you if they find out you watch
One Life to Live, I thought.
Think of how this will pay off and how hot you will look the next time you go to Fire Island
, I repeated to myself.
If you finish this workout you can eat an extra bag of Reese’s Pieces for dinner tonight and not feel bad about it
.

Meditating on these things over and over again not only helped me work out harder but also helped me get through the
workout in one piece and without having to stop for a cigarette break. P90X was the hardest thing I had ever attempted to do physically, and considering I am that guy who will literally abandon anything if it’s too hard, I needed to tell myself these things in order to continue. I was really invested in this P90X business and wanted to make it work. I kept chanting to myself and before I knew it, the workout was over and I came out of the ordeal feeling pretty good. That is until I remembered there was a fifteen-minute abdominal workout that I had forgotten about the previous week. I then continued to do the abs workout, almost vomiting the whole time but finishing relatively intact.

After I was done working out, I decided to check my Manhunt account before heading off to work. My iPhone still hadn’t arrived but I was feeling better than ever about myself. I leaned over my computer to check my e-mail and sweat began to roll off of my face and onto the keys of my computer. It was so goddamn hot outside that I was expecting to look out my window and find a giraffe pop its head in. I was officially in darkest Africa.

I logged on to Manhunt and saw a very attractive guy named Ben had e-mailed me back. We had a few exchanges over the past few weeks and he asked me if I wanted to grab a bite. Something about the way Ben responded to my e-mails bothered me but I concluded that I needed to take Ron’s advice and at least try to date. He couldn’t have been that bad and I had no plans that weekend, so I agreed to meet Ben that Friday.

To look as good as possible for my date, I followed the P90X routine to the letter. For the next four days, I did the shoulders-and-arms workout, the legs-and-back workout, the kickboxing workout, and the dreaded plyometrics workout. And maybe because that one-legged bastard was secretly judging me the
whole time, I worked out harder than I ever had before. I was starting to feel great and smoke more cigarettes than I thought was humanly possible. Something about Tony Horton and his chain gang of workout buddies made me want to pound cigs after I was through working out. I figured since I had basically just gone through hell, each cigarette that followed a workout was considered a “victory cigarette.”

That Friday I met up with Ben. He had a shaved head, was about my height, and had a lovely set of pearly whites on him. I love a guy with a big, bright Colgate smile.

“I’m so happy we’re meeting,” Ben said as the waiter poured water into our glasses. “We’ve been chatting for so long, I guess it’s about time, huh?”

We sat and ordered our meals and continued talking. All I wanted to do was go downtown on a burger and fries, but I ordered a salad instead. I had eaten nothing but granola bars, bananas, and cigarettes all week and couldn’t ruin my diet now. Besides, I hate eating in front of dates. I always think people are still judging me while I eat. I will always be a fat kid at heart, no matter how skinny I become.

“So, what is it you do again?” I asked Ben.

“I’m unemployed right now, but I’m an actor,” he said. “I already know what you do. You’re an alcoholic, right?”

“Uh, yeah, but that’s not my profession,” I said. Fucking Google ruins every first date for me.

“Right. I mean, you write about alcoholism?”

“Among other things.”

“That’s cool.”

“So, what are you doing with your spare time since you’re not currently working?” I asked.

“Not much.”

“Come again?”

“Nothing,” Ben said again. “I go to yoga, hang out with friends. That about completes my day.”

“Seriously?” I asked.

“Yeah. I don’t do anything.”

“So do you audition or …?” I trailed off. How do you do nothing all day every day in New York?

I didn’t know that was possible, there’s almost
too much
to do in this city.

“Well, I have a job booked for December, so until then, I am pretty much just hanging out.”

We sat there and did not chat very much during dinner. As we were eating all I could do was wish that I had ordered that burger instead of the salad I was eating. I was so fucking hungry. Not only that, Ben was so boring, I really didn’t care if he thought I was a fat-ass for eating what I wanted. What a waste of a “first-date salad.” As we ate, Ben just stared at me.

“You know what?” he said.

“What’s that?” I was grasping at straws. Anything Ben said had to be more interesting than staring in silence.

“I sang the basketball song from
Promises, Promises
for my last audition,” Ben said.

Perhaps staring at each other in silence was more interesting than what Ben had to say. I tried to pepper the conversation with my predictions on who I thought was going to win
So You Think You Can Dance
and we reveled in our mutual love of the movie
Boogie Nights
. I wondered what Ron was up to. He was probably off at some fabulous party filled with Asians that I wasn’t cool enough to attend. I wondered what Tony Horton was up to. He was probably off in the Hollywood Hills doing bench presses and taking his pent-up rage from all of the steroids
he did in the eighties out on some helpless girl with no self-esteem. Hell, I was wondering what the fucking Dalai Lama was up to at that point, and while we’re at it Lorenzo Lamas as well. Ben was so boring that I literally sat there and planned out my meals for the next week, which included granola bars, bananas, cigarettes, and now eggs as well. I deduced that it was best if I at least threw one protein in there.

As we finished our meals, the waiter approached.

“Would either of you like—”

I cut him off. “JUST THE CHECK!” I yelled.

“Oh,” Ben said. “Are you sure you don’t want—”

I cut him off, “No, I have to get going.”

I was going to fall asleep if I had to listen to any more of Ben’s inane ramblings.

Ben and I said our good-byes and I went home and ate a king-size Kit Kat bar. I was sweating my balls off from the walk home from the subway and had worked up quite the appetite.

I bulldozed into my third week of the P90X workout. By day fifteen, I was finally beginning to feel better about working out. It took some getting used to, but I was getting the hang of it. That Monday I did the chest-and-back exercises with the greatest of ease. Tuesday I did the shoulders-and-arms workout effortlessly, and on Wednesday I rocked out the legs-and-back workout. Thursday came and went with an amazing kickboxing workout and on Friday I had all but mastered the plyometrics DVD. Tony and I had gone from archenemies to best friends in
less than three weeks. I was feeling great about my latest workout endeavor and looking better than ever.

Saturday afternoon I got a call from an unknown 212 number and picked up.

“Mr. Rosenberg?” the voice on the other end of the phone said.

Fuck!
I thought, another bill collector.

“Perhaps. Who is this?”

“This is Kyle from the Apple store at Lincoln Center. I just wanted to let you know that your iPhone is here and ready for you to pick up today.”

“OH THANK GOD!” I yelled. Thinking that Kyle probably thought I was a crazy moron (and he wasn’t far off), I replied, “I’m sorry Kyle, I just thought you were a bill collector so I got worried.” I chuckled but got no response. Those Apple employees are like trained robots: They don’t have feelings; they just reprogram your computers and send you on your way. They’re like a one-night stand. They give it to you good once and then you never hear from them again. “All righty, I will be by later to pick up my phone.”