Clean and jerk

Patience, child of Gor. Someday they’ll all get their comeuppance. – Serek II

My building has a little gym. Hardly anyone ever goes there, but someone thoughtfully installed a glass wall so that you can still experience the joy of being judged while curling those five-pound weights.

I felt better for real today. Well enough to work. So I put on some tight yoga pants, let myself into the gym, and pretended to do some hip abductions while I waited. Sure enough, before long the beefcake who had been loudly heaving dumbbells over his head paused to chat me up.

I learned nothing interesting, to be honest. The man – named Kanadaga, because life’s like that sometimes – was a native Neakitan accountant who had been sentenced to New York for a year for his sins. He hated almost everything about it and hadn’t made many friends here yet. Kanadaga definitely didn’t have a girlfriend, a point he stressed quite a few times. I almost rolled my eyes when he invited me to “dinner sometime.” Beards and tattoos aren’t really my thing and this guy was boring to an accountant degree. But then I remembered that beards and tattoos are definitely Yvette’s thing, and Yvette is the most interesting human being I know.

With a chubby old guy with brown paper bag to his chest on the other side of the glass looking on, I stupidly asked Kanadaga if he’d like to join Yvette and me for dinner tomorrow.