Reading: Margaret George, Mary Queen of Scots and the Isles

Moving: 8' on a treadmill at a 10% incline, 3.2 mph, with two 2-lb. handweights, about 125 bpm, and 22' on the elliptical, fat-burner level 15, heartrate 153 bpm; 100 crunches; plus back extensions and abdominal presses or whatever those are called.

Viewing: a really annoying woman in the gym

Learning: that Koko the Gorilla thinks that Mr. Rogers's cufflink looks like a flower.

8 February 2000: Sunflowers

Bruce Springsteen is giving two concerts in Denver at the end of March and oh how I wish it were April already. KBCO has restrained itself mostly, but today in the gym the radio was tuned instead to a station calling itself "The Fox" ("classic" rock, one of the presets in Cassidy but whose call letters and FM number I still don't know) and its deejays were beside themselves. I have got to the point I'm nostalgic about Led Zeppelin now, not because I liked them in middle or high school but vicariously because RDC did, and does, but I hope I'm never nostalgic about Bruce Springsteen. I admit dancing to "Glory Days" at RRP's wedding and that in my mullet-ier moods I might once in a blue moon like "Born to Run" but today, right at the end of my workout, I put up with "Pink Cadillac," and then when a second Springsteen song in a row began I was outta there.

Plus there was a woman for whom I guess the lockers weren't Good Enough because she carried her knapsack with her from one weight machine to the next. It was red. Her t-shirt was red. Her socks were red. Her shorts were knee-length denim shorts. The markings on her white sneakers were red. Her hair scrunchie was--wait for it--not red but pale blue, to match the shorts. I wanted to smack her.

A man who clearly doesn't understand that the elliptical trainer in the weight room is Mine, not his, was using it when I made my entrance, which is why the first eight minutes of my work-out happened on the tread mill. I like it less than the elliptical for one good reason: I cannot get my heart rate over 130 on it, even at a steep incline and using hand weights, unless I hike the mph up to a jog, at which point my knees hurt. I like the elliptical because it doesn't stress my knees. And another reason: the placement of the console. I just learned I don't have to wear a shirt at the Y, Christian or not, which makes my aerobic work better: the shirt doesn't get in the way, I stay cooler, and I can see my shoulders and upper arms, which are quite a motivation for me. The latter is true only on the elliptical. The treadmill's console is higher and blocks my view of my getting-buffer shoulders but lets me see my thick waist, while the elliptical shows what I want to see and blocks what I don't.

After the man finished I jumped on the elliptical. There's one thing neither machine hides that I would desperately like not to see: the cellulite rolling on my thighs--on the fronts of my thighs, which makes me remember a compliment I got a long long time ago. A friend was walking behind me and asked, "Do you have any fat on your legs? You can see it on most women." And even though I know he probably was comparing me primarily to his girlfriend and mother, neither of whom was noticeably slender, I was glad to hear I had no visible cellulite.

OMFB, those days are long gone but will be remet.

Back in the locker room afterward, I saw a magazine, no surprise, that I seized, somewhat surprising, because of one article mentioned on the cover, which cracked me up: Fitness Swimmer promised to explain how to manage a flip turn. I cannot flip; I can only do an open turn. It had step-by-step photographs, but I need to be physically guided through it, preferably while wearing an oxygen tank. Anyway, I cracked up because I felt like Calvin subscribing to Chewing Gum magazine. Any activity has its freaky adherents.

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This morning I channel-hopped through and paused on "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood" because Mr. Rogers was visiting Koko. She untied his sneakers and pried them off, and tried to peel off his socks except the heel got in the way, and then they compared the sizes of their feet. Meanwhile, a human translated her comments. She loved Mr. Rogers. She took his hands and pulled them toward her, asking for a hug, but stopped when she saw one of his cufflinks. "Flower," she signed. "It's a sun," Mr. Rogers said. "Sun," the other human signed for Koko. "Flower," repeated Koko. She knew what she meant, and if the gold cufflink was embossed with a sun pattern, still that link looked like a flower--decorative and pretty--to her.

I cried when Allball died.