The Year of the Klingon

In today's modern world, there's not a whole lot you can get for a mere five dollars. For example, Arby's Five-For-Five is really five dollars and ninety-five cents in Alaska and rumored to have gone up to a whopping six ninety-five. Even a shrewdly bargained-for Easy Rider at a garage sale goes for no less than six dollars. And so it is a real delight when you can get something quality in exchange for an Abraham Lincoln.

This morning, I took my Abraham Lincoln to my former gym, Pete's City Gym, also known by old-timers as "10th and E," its cross streets. For five dollars, I can get a day pass to use the gym or I can pay $25 for the month. There is no start-up fee, no year membership, no strings, nothing complicated. In fact, if there were anything complicated about the gym, Pete's is not the kind of place that would know what to do with it.


A lot of people, members of Alaska Club or Powerhouse Gym, the so-called normal gyms in town, like to talk smack about Pete's, but much of it is undeserved. There is a cardio room with 2-3 treadmills, 2-3 elliptical machines, maybe a bike or two, and a whole bunch of nautilus machines for the lower body. The other main room is mirrored, well-lit, and clean and has free weights as well as nautilus machines for the upper body. You don't have to travel very far to find a can of Lysol, and there are saunas (albeit small and rather drawer-like) in the locker rooms. In other words, Pete's offers many of the amenities you'd expect from a normal gym.

A while back, there was a lot of talk about "The Fungus" at Pete's. The Fungus was apparently some kind of mold, probably a variant of athlete's foot, that was rumored to be lurking in the showers at Pete's, ready to strike. Those who went barefoot reported contracting The Fungus. But anyone who goes into a public gym without proper flip flops is asking for trouble, and if you ask me, just begging for The Fungus. The management can't be held accountable for individual poor judgment.


Equipment and Fungus aside, it is the people and the attitude that make Pete's my preferred gym. When you walk into Pete's, you are greeted first by a scantily clad Governor Arnold Schwarzenagger. This poster in the front hallway is an homage to hard bodies like his and reminds you why you are there. In fact, throughout the gym, the walls are plastered with posters of bodybuilders, past and present.


There are a few men who seem to run the gym, but the main guy in charge, as far as I can tell, is Pete's Pete Number One. His name isn't actually Pete (and in fact I can't remember what his real name is) but for ease of memory, we've always called him Pete Number One. Pete Number One is timeless; in the four years I've known him, I don't think he has changed a bit. His look is quite literally frozen in time - around the 1950s I'd say. Pete Number One has a handlebar mustache and a head of puffy helmet hair. He wears all black, everyday, and wears his weight belt twenty-four seven, whether he's behind the front desk, lifting weights in the upper body room, or sitting in his truck reading the paper with the engine running (which he often does). If I had to sum it up, Peter Number One looks a bit like a Hulk Hogan wannabe of yesteryear who maybe never gave the dream up.

Peter Number One takes the early morning shift, and hence, he is the Pete I see the most often. There is also Peter Number Two and Peter Junior (the younger man who takes the evening shift), but neither is as crazy nor as interesting as Peter Number One who easily is my favorite Pete by far.

I've had a wide range of exquisite experiences as Pete's, which include having an older Eastern European woman instruct me on how to use free weights to "make my butt hard," getting asked out by Pete Junior (whose suave pick-up line was, "So, you gotta a man?"), and having some of the best workouts ever. But last week, for a mere five dollars, I heard the words that I thought I'd never hear in my life:

"Have you ever thought of entering a bodybuilding contest? I think you should do it."

Let me explain. I am thirty-one years old, five two and three quarters inches tall, and the closest I've ever been to doing a pull-up was that one time I was sleeping and actually had a dream in which I did a pull-up. I play racquetball like Woody Allen, and when I run, people smile out of pity. In middle school, I was a straight A student... except for P.E.. I failed each and every Presidential Fitness test except for flexibility and was always the last to be chosen when it was time to pick teams. So I am not what I'd say a natural candidate for body-building.

Suffice it to say, in fact I am not an athlete of any sort. I play a decent ping pong game, but otherwise lack any sport-like agility. I am, however, strangely agile in other ways. I guess a few years of childhood ballet can really pay off in your thirties. To this day, I remain very flexible and have a good sense of balance ... and secretly think that I was destined to be a kung fu master. But that is another blog entry....

Ironically, I had actually thought about bodybuilding before because I always suspected it would be really neat to go to one of my high school reunions as a bodybuilder. It is the predictable fantasy of someone who has always considered herself always a bit too small and too weak. More than anything, it would surely freak out my former classmates.

I mean, wouldn't it be a riot to be five two and three quarters inches of PURE ROCK-HARD STEEL? I thought so.

But I never got beyond entertaining this idea in the abstract, so when the two hundred fifty pound black man lifting weights told me I should join a bodybuilding contest, my interest was piqued.

One might suspect that his comment was simply a pick-up line, but the man who uttered these words, Chris, is a gentle giant who doesn't seem like the womanizing type. He suffered a stroke a few years ago and while still massive, he has a slow and deliberate way about him that made me think he wasn't just being a jerk or joking around. So either he is a really nice guy, or it's just the stroke talking.

In response to Chris' suggestion, I pointed to places where my muscles should be and said, "Oh I don't think so. I don't have any muscles, and I'm plenty fat."

"Where you fat? On the bottom of your feet? Show me the bottom of your feet."

I patted my belly and thighs. "Here's the fat, really!" Chris seemed unaware of all the clever places I was hiding my fat. My less than perfectly taut back. My stomach rolls. My fatty cutlets right next to where my pecs should be.

Despite these shortcomings, I have to admit I was still intrigued and curious by the prospect of becoming a bona fide bodybuilder. I asked questions about how long it might take to train and how my diet would change. Chris said he thought I could do it, that he knew exactly what I'd need to do to get there, and that he could even train me if it weren't for his frequent medical appointments. According to him, the key was wanting It.

"That thick steak? That milkshake? You've got to WANT IT. You've got to WANT that trophy like you want that steak."

Well, that sounded pretty straightforward. I regularly WANT a thick steak or WANT a milkshake. This bodybuilding was going to be no problem at all.

"You have the look, the right facial features."

What facial features was he seeing? The clenched teeth during my workouts? The biting of my lip when I pushed myself harder? Or was this yet another unfortunate case of the "exotic Asian features?" It is undeniable that being Chinese, I have Asian facial features and for some reason, some people have tagged this as "exotic." Or was Chris saying that I already had man-like facial features, the seemingly inevitable destiny of most female bodybuilders?

Strangely, while chatting about what it would take to become a bodybuilder, what was flying through my mind was not whether or not I could do this (become a bodybuilder at age 31 having failed every physical fitness test ever put to me) but whether or not my bodybuilding would mess up my body in some kind of permanent way. In my youth, I was a bottomless pit and could eat almost anything with little negative effect on my body. It was not until college when I started sporadically working out that my metabolism started slowing down. I've often rued the day I started to exercise as the beginning of the end, the moment I messed with my body's natural balance. Would bodybuilding give my body a confused metabolic message and cause more harm? Did I really want to turn into a short, rippling man-like creature? For example, it would undoubtedly rob me of what little boobs I currently have. Would it all be worth the sacrifice?

Chris would say yes. He later came over and further explained, wholly unsolicited of course, "There's nothing like the sound of the applause. All of those people -- clapping, cheering, appreciating you."

He repeated rather dreamily, with a faraway look, "There's nothing like it."

For a moment, I stood in his dream. I tried to imagine hordes of people cheering me on, clapping wildly for the absence of my boobs, the fakeness of my tan, the grossness of my veins popping out of my muscles. Was it so unheard of? After all, wasn't this what I've always wanted, simply to be appreciated? Perhaps bodybuilding was the path to the Holy Grail I've been looking for all my life.

The truth is I may have attracted attention at Pete's by doing what will likely become my signature moves in future bodybuilding contests. As I mentioned before, the Presidential Fitness test for flexibility was the only one I passed, and boy, did I pass with flying colors. Sometimes in between sets, I like to stretch my legs or do yoga-like squats to loosen up and relax. I like to plug in my headphones, grab my leg until my ankle is close to my ears, and then hold that pose, sometimes striking a flamenco flourish. Perhaps it was this "posing" that caught Chris' attention.

It also caught Al's attention. Al is a trainer who uses Pete's as his facility. More relevantly, he is a former bodybuilder, as I soon found out in listening to his rather long self-introduction. Apparently he has won, as he put it, "Everything," including contests in New York, California, the names of which made my eyes gloss over. He was dressed somewhat fashionably for the gym and was a bit blinged out. He was wearing sunglasses indoors even though it was grey and rainy outside. Al also had very fancy and shiny black and white velcro shoes. (It takes a lot for a grown man to pull off that look.)

Al motioned for me to unplug my headphones and then noted he had not seen me around before. He marveled at my flexibility and guessed that I must be some kind of athlete. He also instantly gave me a new, perhaps unfortunate, nickname.

"Human Rubberband. This here's the Human Rubberband, Tio!"

Tio was his large friend or perhaps client trainee. Standing next to Tio, helping spot him, was Glen, a white-haired man between sixty or seventy or eighty who had skinny pink bird legs. I often see Glen in various positions curling tiny 10-pound weights clutched tightly in his blue-veined hands. The three of them made a rather odd workout group, the only thing weirder would be if I had joined them.

But there is some inexplicable appeal in joining these men in shaping our bodies. I have to admit that when I'm plugged into music and sweating at Pete's, I do feel kind of wonderfully macho. I swagger and strut on the way to the water cooler. I wipe sweat from my brow like a tough guy, and if I have a runny nose, I swear that I even snort a little. Sadly, this is the image I have of what boys do.

And deep down inside, Little People like me have always wanted to be tough more than anything else. We want people to be scared of us, not to treat us like butterflies. I am the person that Big People like to pick up off the ground first. I am the first person who has to sit on someone else's lap when too many people try to cram into the car. Friends who have heard me discuss the prospect of bodybuilding are almost all universally disgusted by the idea of my transformation into a muscled monster. But these friends are Normal-Sized and don't quite understand that it would give me great joy to freak people out finally.

Suffice it to say, if I were a bodybuilder, nobody would put this butterfly on someone else's lap.

Still, becoming a bodybuilder would mean entering a world of fake tans, body oils, and string bikinis, three things that are wholly absent in my current life. As for wanting that trophy as much as wanting that steak, I find it hard to imagine that a Presidential Fitness Test flunkie could win such a contest, unless there are special categories for Most Outstanding Flexibility, Best Runt, or Most Improved.

But one thing is for sure: if this is the year for bodybuilding, this is definitely also the year to finally go to the Las Vegas Star Trek Convention as the don't-fuck-with-me Klingon I've always wanted to be.

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