Curves

My oh my. It all began last summer when I saw my friend Neila, and she looked goood! Wearing leggings and a fitted shirt, she was toned. Nothing jiggled or shook. Granted, she has always had a phenomenal body, a dancer’s body with ballet posture and a small ribcage and long long legs, but she just looked good. I asked her what she was doing for exercise and she said she was going to Curves. This surprised me as I knew Neila liked unusual workouts. She was one of my belly dance students and once I went to her house and she was installing a pole in her living room to dance on.
So when push came to shove and I wanted to tone up my jiggly ass like Neila, I signed up for Curves. The bonuses–it was a five minute walk from my house and the workout is 30 minutes long, so I could go, work out, and be home in under 45 minutes. 
And so began my adventures with Curves.
I joined on Martha’s Vineyard, a fascinating group of New England women, many farmers and self-sufficient strong women who owned their own businesses and enjoyed a mild workout. After going religiously three times a week the whole summer and still feeling jiggly, I gave up.
It was harder to go once we returned to NOLA. It became a ten minute drive and the hours…drove me CRAZY!!! They were open in the morning and the late afternoon and closed during the hours I need them most–11:30- 3:30pm. I like to work out during Henry’s naptime. I went many times to find them closed, partly because of hours, and for many other reasons, important reasons…like it was raining.
This is part of the charm (and a very annoying aspect) of NOLA–many things close when they feel like it, and rain usually makes people feel like closing their doors. The NOLA Curves was completely different than Martha’s Vineyard. The women here were much more rambunctious. They talked loudly and laughed loudly and told wild stories–which was great for making the workout faster. Still, I went a few weeks and decided to quit and get a personal trainer as it wasn’t doing diddly for my jiggles. Until I realized I was barely trying. Somehow, I had got the notion in my head that the machines would work out for me.
In any case, everytime I went to Curves, it was an adventure. For example, I was working out in my pink outfit the other day. A little old lady in big sunglasses came up to me and asked me if I knew the band called Pink. “Yes,” I replied, “I love Pink.” 
“Are you them?” she asked me. I shook my head. Besides the obvious–I am one person and not many, and therefore couldn’t possibly be a ‘band,’ I also wouldn’t wear pink every day just because my name was Pink. She continued, “I saw that it says Pink Royalty on your pants and whenever I see you, you’re wearing pink, so I thought maybe you were that band.” Mmmm-hmmm.
Last time I went, I was greeted by a flamboyantly gay male working the desk. It was a little startling as there are rarely any males at Curves, but I went with it. The manager introduced him as the new employee and he greeted us with a gorgeous arabesque and a little ballet. There was a robust woman doing a very robust workout, a welcome change from the usual group of little old ladies falling over on the thigh machine, falling asleep and snoring on the bench, or working out in their perfect white keds, button down shirts and tweed pleated pants, careful not to mess with their hair.This woman was going for it.The manager asked Robust woman to show the new employee the “line dances.” I didn’t know what they were, but soon they were going for it, doing some wild second line dancing, which got me going, and the little old ladies around me, and soon we’re all shimmying and doing high kicks. A chunky line of Rockettes. Which was fabulous, until Robust woman sat back on a machine and worked so hard she fell over–still stuck in the machine. She took the whole thigh strengthener down with her! And once she was down there, she couldn’t get back up. Ballet Boy helped her, but it was quite an adventure.