By the time I've worked up enthusiasm about going to the gym, I already feel overworked. Then I have to decide what to wear. Guys can look grungy. Girls have to look fashionable. Unfortunately, my outfits are often more coordinated than I am.

However, I can talk the talk - sets, repetitions, abs, biceps, triceps - and I'm getting better at walking the walk. I'm certainly better than body builders whose legs are so muscled they have to swing them to the side to walk up stairs. I try not to stare, but body builders want their bodies admired. Steroid should be spelled stareroid.

Then there are the female trainers - they all seem to have bust enlargements. Obviously, there aren't exercises that enlarge breasts naturally.

Lots of members have trainers. Not me. I can set my own weights and count my own repetitions. As far as providing motivation, the cost of a trainer supplies more motivation than a trainer does.

The age range of the gym members is from mid twenties to mid seventies - unless regular exercise has made the mid nineties the new mid seventies.

I listen to the radio when I work out. It helps relieve the BOREDOM. Occasionally the battery dies, but the radio still helps occupy my mind because those working out next to me don't know I can hear their conversation.

I work out with weight machines - not free weights. Free weights aren't so free when you pull a muscle. "No pain - no gain" - thankfully, the inventor of anesthesia didn't work out.

Thankfully, I've come up with a line that prevents people from asking to work in with me. I very quietly explain that exercise is a Zen experience for me and continue exercising.

In spite of having exercised for years, I'm not exactly muscle-bound and wouldn't make much of an impression if I tried to throw my weight around. However, increasing the weight when I'm through using a machine increases my image.

When I leave the gym, I have to walk through the store - protein drinks, energy bars and outfits I might look good in if I keep exercising. Nevertheless, I'm out of the gym and into my car in forty-five minutes.

Parking is very convenient these days because the New Year's resolutions to get in shape were forgotten long ago by people who decided to exercise their rights - instead of their bodies.