Among my many noteworthy accomplishments today:

I finally got rid of that hideous Monster MalachiteTM square plate and replaced it with a delicately fluted saucer that matches Bitch Kitty’s elegant Velvety VerdigrisTM food bowl.

Now her basement café is just downright fucking classy.

Getting all the waiters together for a photo on the Hello, Dolly! Harmonia Gardens staircase has to happen at intermission when the staircase is assembled and we’re all in our waiter uniforms at the same time

But the “getting all the waiters together” part is insanely complicated given the fact that all the other waiters (but not me!) are distracted LSD-vaping kittens chasing hallucinatory laser dots all over the theater (allegedly) and impossible to get all in one place at one time if there isn’t a downbeat involved.

BUT LAST NIGHT I DID IT!

Unfortunately, the stage curtain prevented our photographer from backing up far enough to get the actual staircase in the photo and the intermission lighting left the back rows in increasingly gradient shadows.

BUT I DID IT!

Maybe I’ll try tonight to get everyone lined up for a shot from one side of the staircase à la the Brady Bunch kids (HINT! HINT!). Or maybe I’ll vape LSD with everyone (allegedly) and demonstrate my super-kitten powers at finally catching the elusive red dot instead.

Note to future historians: The second-to-top row of waiters here is standing on the staircase’s official Jake StepTM. We left an engraved bronze plaque on it to mark the location and commemorate the dedication. Please see that our estate keeps it burnished and respectfully lit in perpetuity.

I can go the distance

So I usually try to push myself to three miles on my first run of the season—both to set the standard that I can do it and to see what chronic running injuries are on the Season’s Stupid Summer FlareupsTM menu.

My body actually felt up to running three miles when I woke up. My head felt like it might explode before I got to the corner of our block. But it didn’t. And the weather was just the right amount of cool and just the right amount of humid ... AND I JUST RAN THREE FREAKING MILES WITHOUT STOPPING.

Granted, I ran it at the pace I ran the New York Marathon. So I have some speeding up to do to achieve any kind of 8K dignity. And my ears that were screaming EEEEEEE at me when I started are now death-shrieking E!E!E!E!E!E! at me as I sit on our front stoop trying to cool down. But my head doesn’t seem to hurt any worse than when I started. Though it most definitely still hurts. Because why get completely back to normal all at once? That would just be selfish.

Private message for Rob and Scott so don't you other bitches read it: The big orange DEAD END signs are gone at our three-mile turnaround and it looks like the trail keeps going off to parts unknown. We must explore this mysterious new frontier like the urban pioneers we are. And I spent my entire run fantasizing about caulking my baseboards and priming my walls—so PLEASE come talk show tunes with me on our runs again like real men.

There’s a social-media story currently making the rounds about three people laughing at an obese person at a gym

and the narrator of the story heroically stepping in to boost the sobbing victim’s self-esteem plus get the three people banned from the gym. The narrative in this particular story is too clumsily and implausibly detailed for it to be remotely true, but the message behind it is certainly something that haunts the minds of everyone new to working out at a gym.

Allow me to offer my personal insights:

I’ve worked out almost daily for 30 years, in that time belonging to nine gyms and using guest passes at countless more. The gyms ranged from high-end fitness clubs to trendy name-brand gyms to grungy, metal-banger gyms. I’ve worked out with trainers, I’ve had lifting buddies and I’ve worked out on my own among a crowd of regulars I’ve gotten to know. I’ve observed the full continuum of gym members from hardcore bodybuilders to stand-and-model stereotypes to the out-of-shape first-timers from the social-media story … and I have never once seen or heard anyone making fun of a gym member for showing up and trying to get fit. Ever.

I know that my experience does not represent the entirety of gym experiences everywhere--and I also know that some people in any setting are just truly horrible and judgmental and cruel--but if you’re reading this and feeling afraid to join a gym to improve your fitness and health and even your personal vanity because you want to be hotter (and I’m saying this as someone who very openly works out for all three of these reasons), please know that you are way--WAY!--more likely to encounter people who will applaud and encourage and respect you than make fun of you.

Caveat: If they even notice you at all. Many people who go to gyms are there to focus on their own workouts or to socialize with their friends as they work out together, and you--like the rest of the people in the gym--will barely even register on their radar.

So please. If you’re wanting to join a gym, do it!

Some unsolicited DO pointers from me:
* Pick a gym that’s geographically convenient--near your house or work or on your daily route through town.
* Talk to the staff to tell them what you’re interested in doing and accomplishing when you join. Usually there are tiered membership packages so you won’t have to pay for facilities and services--like pool access and group classes--you don’t have any interest in using.
* If there are showers and you plan on using them, ask if there is towel service. It’s best to find this out up-front than when you’re standing naked and wet in the locker room wondering how you’re going to dry off.
* Ask for instructions and help using the equipment if you don’t know how. Gyms are VERY interested in you not injuring yourself, and the staff will usually be very helpful in making sure you know what you’re doing--and that you’re doing it correctly and safely.
* Within reason, ask other members if they can help you figure out how to use unfamiliar equipment. Remember that other members are not employees there to do your bidding, but usually people will be happy--and non-judgmental--about showing you how something works.
* If you have the money, hire a trainer. I had one (a big, hot, mean bodybuilder hell-bent on making me weep for mercy) for five years in Chicago. It cost a zillion dollars, but I budgeted for it and I let him beat the living hell out of me three times a week … and I got results I wanted and I never once regretted the expense. Plus he taught me correct form and showed me how to lift and use everything properly, and now that I don’t have him I know how to kick my own ass at the gym.
* When you get more experienced and start lifting higher weights, ask me now to navigate the social hierarchy of the Dudebro Spotters Network(R) for assistance.
* Actually, you may have to show ME how to do this; I break out in cold flopsweat whenever I have to ask someone to spot me.

Some unsolicited DON’T pointers from me:
* Don’t sit around on the equipment playing on your phone or chatting with your friends. Do that somewhere else where you won’t be in people’s way and impeding their workouts and frankly pissing them off.
* Don’t pick up your dumbbells and then use them right in front of the dumbbell rack so you’re blocking access to the other dumbbells. If I see you doing this, I *will* elbow my way in front of you in the middle of your workout to get whatever dumbbells you’re blocking even if I don’t need them. I will also give you a withering stare.
* Don’t FOR THE LOVE OF GOD wear heavy perfume or cologne--or, on the other end of the spectrum, show up stinking like sour ass--when you work out. The more you sweat, the more your stink spreads throughout the gym, and it can cause a legitimate safety issue if it makes people cough when they’re breathing hard and lifting heavy weights.
* Don’t leave your gross sweat all over everything. If your gym doesn’t have spray bottles and paper towels--and I’ve never seen a gym that doesn’t--bring a towel of your own to wipe up after yourself if you know you’re a chronic sweater.
* Don’t stand and pose and admire yourself in the mirrors. You’ll look like an idiot, you’ll no doubt be in someone’s way … and this is the one exception where people WILL mock you behind your back. Mercilessly.

If you heed only one of my unsolicited pointers, make it be this:
* If you have any doubt how to use a piece of equipment or if you think you might need help managing some heavy weights, ASK SOMEONE. Putting yourself in danger is not only a danger to you, but it forces everyone around you to have to keep an eye on you in case they have to jump in and save you if a barbell drops on your chest or a cable might rip your shoulder out of its socket. What’s more, you’re potentially putting everyone around you at a legal risk for not helping you or for inadvertently injuring you if they do help you.

SO GO! Make a commitment. Find a gym. Ask a friend to join you. Wear clothes that you feel comfortable and not self-conscious in (but that aren’t so loose that they could get caught in the equipment). SHOW UP. THEN KEEP SHOWING UP. Talk about it on social media to keep yourself accountable.

Everyone around you at every level of fitness has walked into a gym for the first time not knowing what to do. So you’re always among friends.

When you have no fireplace but you have a long banister and a clever gay who got the spacing counted out correctly on ONLY THE SECOND TRY

Plus when you have a Bitch Kitty WHO PLOPPED HER BITCH ASS RIGHT IN THE PERFECT SPOT JUST AS I WAS LINING UP THE PHOTO.

Since I was doing all the counting and hanging and decorating, I naturally put my stocking closest to the front door so I’ll get the most Sparkle Unicorn Rainbow Dream Kitten Pillow Glitter Sequin Diamond Pudding Smooches(R) Barbies before Santa runs out. Because it’s only fair.

I swear I’m just getting amazinger and amazinger at photography—especially artistic portraiture

To wit: the exquisite composition and compelling narrative of this group selfie that I took just this morning after our run:

I call it The Beatitude of St. Rob, and it truly rivals the Renaissance masters in the way it frames Rob—representing the Cedar Rapidian god Guy With The Newest Running Shoes—between the verdant fecundity of the trees as he’s flanked by his noble warrior Me and his also-noble-but-in-the-background-so-as-not-to-pull-focus-from-me warrior Scott as we depict the noble warrior mementos mori of Oh My God I’m Dying Because It’s So Muggy and Oh My God I’m Dying Because I’m So Sweaty. The rooftop in the background is, of course, a metaphor for the ethereal certitude that there’s a house behind us and it has a roof, while the three figures in the foreground are mathematically equivalent to the three miles we just finished running. Renaissance masters dig representational stuff like that.

Please do not reproduce and sell this image, as its copyrighted and I’ll make snide comments about your wardrobe choices on Facebook if you do. And watch for the next in my series of Renaissance Masters Artistic Portraiture By Jake(R) on Wednesday, where we’re going to force Scott to be in the foreground for once.

Little tush, meet catwalk

I just found some long-buried comp cards from my early ‘90s Quest To Be A Supermodel(R). 

According to the stats under my Flipped Up Jeans Jacket Collar Equals Total Membership In A Biker Gang(R) headshot, I had a 32” waist. 

According to my three editorial shots, I had still-hopefully-trendy Jake From Sixteen Candles(R) sideburns. 

And a tie with a PERFECT DIMPLE, thank you very much. 

And pegged jeans. And a bit of a saucy frayed spot in my crotch. And bulky Classic Boot Socks(R) that I know for a fact I ordered from International Male(R).

#BraveConfessions

Well, shit. Again.

We made it a whopping 1.42 miles this morning before SEARING pain set in. I’m so frustrated ... but not yet defeated. Rob wasn’t feeling well and stayed home, so I didn’t waste his time. But Scott joined me for our nice little walk—again in freaking PERFECT running weather. We’ve been running—excuse me, “running”—on a nice paved trail near my house and I took our Daily Commemorative Not Running Very Far Before My Hip Injury Ruins Everything Selfie(R) there to show how Very Relentlessly Straight But At Least Shady(R) it is. And because we were walking by that point anyway So Why Not(R)?

Now onward with my optimistic hope that my hip will be all healed Next Time!(R)

#HowToTurn50 #WellShit