Real Me vs. Imaginary Me (Project 190, Day Five)

 
Today, I stationary biked, and as I biked and tried to ignore the guy next to me huffing and puffing away (he was a really really loud breather and I could hear him even over the sound of Plants vs. Zombies, which I was playing on my Kindle as I biked) I noticed a few things, number one of which was that if I was not careful with how I held my Kindle, I would be able to see my reflection as I biked, which is horrible.

I hate my reflection, because it doesn't look like me, and I especially hate my reflection as I look down at my Kindle because instead of me staring back what I see is this bloaty, sweaty, downward-looking double-chinned tired-seeming guy, and I don't want to look like that.

I carry this image of me around in my head, an image that is always about 50 pounds lighter and five (at least) years earlier in time than the actual me that is carrying the image around, and as a result of that, I am continuously shocked and surprised when I see me, the real me, staring back out at me from a picture or a mirror or my reflection in the Kindle Fire, because Real Me,  the guy that exists in this world, doesn't in any way look like me, the guy I imagine you all are seeing.

Real Me has sort of googly eyes with bags under them, puffy eyes that are sort of tired-looking and, I have to be honest, kind of weird looking.  That's not how I picture my eyes; when I think of my eyes, I imagine they are sort of glinting eyes, like the kind of eyes that James Bond would have if James Bond were playing Plants vs. Zombies while riding a stationary bike, but with a bit of a smile to them -- so the kind of eyes James Bond would have if he were riding an Exercycle and playing a video game and someone had just told him that joke about the potato and the egg.*

Then there is the matter of hair:  In my mind, I have at least a reasonable head of hair with a normal-seeming haircut.  But in real life, my hair does not know that and so when I look into a mirror, as I did last night, I am as apt to see what appears to be a frazzled rooster's crow made out of thinning hair as I am to see what I remembered wanting to look like. 

And let us not forget the chin, which is the bane of my existence and is the reason I honestly considered getting liposuction and also why I did chin exercises for a while.  My God I Hate My Chin, which is getting flabbier by the day and drooping lower and lower from my jaw, practically erasing my neck and starting to work on the shoulders.

I noticed how flabby my chin was getting about a year ago, and I have not stopped fretting about it, sincc.  I cannot even wear certain shirts because of my chin, in that when I put on some shirts -- regular old t-shirts that are indistinguishable from other shirts -- I swear I can feel my chin touching the collar and so I hate them and hate myself and have to change shirts.

Forget turtlenecks.  I shudder just to think about them, which is a shame because in my skinner days I would wear what I thought of as my "Poet Outfit," a black turtleneck and some dark pants and I looked pretty dashing, I imagine.

This is all to say that I was going to bike for just 20 minutes today and then call it a day, but periodically as I biked and played Zombies, etc. and watched Louis I would catch a glimpse of Real Me reflected in the shiny surface of the Kindle Fire or the mirrors at the club,  and so I kept on going, biking for a solid hour.  At the end of that hour, I still looked like Real Me but there is hope that with continued biking, Real Me will someday match Imaginary Me, except for the hair, which I suppose that no amount of exercise could bring back.

When he was done biking, which was about 20 minutes before I finished, Mr Hufflepuff next to me sat on his bike, just sitting there.  He didn't keep pedaling lightly.  He didn't get up and wipe down the bike.  He just sat there, on the bike, motionless but huffing still (and kind of smelling like wet sweat, which is a different smell than just sweat -- wet sweat smells like how it would feel if a stranger dripped sweat on you, and the smell is disgusting) and generally being annoying, because why?  Why just go on sitting there?  There's no reason for it.   He was done working out.  Was he going to watch the movie (that Dick and Jane movie starring Jim Carrey)?  If so, was he going to watch it until the end, just sitting there on his exercycle, not moving, annoying me, being all covered in wet sweat?  Because that's weird: you don't just sit around on a stationary bike watching a movie.  And if he wasn't going to finish watching the movie, why was he still there?  Just to annoy me?

I tried to ignore Mr Hufflepuff but I have to say, it was hard to do.  Between that and seeing my reflection, I really feel like I put in a hard day, here, and hence I have earned this afternoon's trip to Chuck E. Cheese, with Mr F and Mr Bunches and Sweetie.

Today's workout:  Stationary bike, level 1, 1 hour.
Latest Weight:  254.

Today's Song To Help Keep You From Focusing On How Gross Other People's Sweat Is:

It's Time, by Imagine Dragons

 


*The joke is the funniest joke I know and it goes like this:

A potato and an egg are dropped into a pot of boiling water.

The potato says "It sure is hot in here!"

And the egg screams "Ahhh, that potato can talk!"