Hello, ab machine. Hello, long-dormant abs.

Hello, dawning realization that I do indeed have a weird haircut.

Things that get you beaten up at the gym:

• Rainbows
• Stars
• Pastels
• Failure
• Cutsie-poo shirts
• Saying cutsie-poo
• Stealth selfies
• Calling them stealthfies

In my decapitating-headache haze this morning, I still managed to pack for the gym. Just in case. My mind wasn’t really in the game (as the sportsie-poo dudes say) after work, but a big shaker full of Blue Raspberry C4 Sport Pre-Workout magic re-lit my pilot light quite nicely, and I must say I now have the chest and triceps of a 25-year-old competitive bodybuilder. They’re buried in a shallow grave under the porch, but still.

Speaking of (my workouts, not murder), do you want to know the difference between a pre-50 workout and a post-50 workout? Of course you do: It’s abs. Before I was 50, if I accidentally sneezed I counted it as a week’s worth of abs workouts. Now that I’m 50 (as rumor has it), I have an unhealthy obsession with my waistline and I won’t leave the gym without going all Geneva Convention on my abdominals. Which, coincidentally, makes sneezing extra-super-fun.

But pain is weakness leaving the body. I saw that on a T-shirt once. And it wasn’t pastel.

Stealth gym selfie! (Gym stealthfie? Could that become a thing? Could it make me rich?)

I still really love my new gym: good vibe, lots of equipment, headbanger-lite music, chlorine smell (for authentic gymminess), just enough people to keep me motivated and focused without everyone getting in each other’s way. There’s an unusually large stand-around-and-brotalk contingent here today, but the populations seem to be migratory as they take turns using all the equipment improperly, so nobody’s bottleneckimg anywhere.

Also: I just did a 60-second plank (with 0:02:39 for starting and stopping the stopwatch)!

Back, biceps, shoulders and maybe abs day! I’ll have countless ways to humiliate myself.