Dance & Drink & Screw

I've got a date this afternoon with a girl; we are going to have ice cream and coffee. My boyfriend doesn't want to take me to My Bloody Valentine 3D. He's in Essex right now picking up a coffee maker machine. Now I'm off to the gym with my best gay friend.

A few questions for anyone reading this that exercises regularly (whether at a gym or outdoors): do you take any supplements? If yes, which ones and why? If not, then why not?

And what do you think about creatine, whey protein shakes, etc?

I received in the mail yesterday my first iPod. It's tiny and green like a bettle, a 1GB iPod shuffle. It looks like this. It was part of a deal where if I signed up with Sofa Cinema, after fourth months of membership they'd give me one for free.

I always thought London was better experienced with your ears completely attuned to it, but there's something to be said about walking down Regent's Canal, the sun about to set, a Britney Spears vs Sisters of Mercy mashup playing in your head.

I'm now thinking of building a soundtrack for the gym. Have you got any recommendations?

* Kevin got a viral infection at the start of the week and now, just as he got better, a cold settled in his chest. It's freezin' and 'orrible outside and we have no money. The apartment is a tip and there's no getting away from the fact I'll have to clean it today, by myself. I very much expect this guy to show up Monday night.

* I got all tarted up for the gym this morning, only to arrive and discover they are shut down for a training day. So I went to Woolworths instead.

* I've worked for the last five weeks in a prestigious university's press office. It was one of my best working experiences: everyone was kind and friendly, the work was interesting and yesterday's goodbyes were genuinely full of good wishes. I have a job interview in the new year for a job I really, really want, with a small charity that works with gays, lesbians and transexuals. And they pay good. And I have a few days off during the week which I can use for my writing or temp work. Fingers crossed I don't fuck up.

* Russell Brand is going to be in Morrissey's next music video. I hope Morrissey gets his thugs band to hold him down and shave that awful hair of his.

* I love crazy cults, in particular American ones. They always seem to twist the Bible into something a lot worse than it is. Don't you just love their brain-washed stares? The old leaders who sleep with pre-pubescent virgins in the name of the Lord? Channel 4's documentary The End of World Cult was an unmissable, terrifying and sad story of people with no education, in the middle of nowhere, who make me all the more thankful I'm not a religious person.

* My last meal in death row will consist of freshly-baked bread, salty butter and a cup of coffee with milk and two sugars.

The lonely muscle boys were at the gym this morning. I shouldn't be surprised: they are always there. At night, when the gym shuts down, they press a button near the mirrors surrounding the bicycles and mattresses fall from the ceiling. They shower in the locker room, making sure they never make eye contact. They pop coins into the isotonic drinks machine for a late night apperitif (if they have run out of protein powder for their shakes). They have much to talk about: are you using the 20kg dumbell? Can I use the bench press after you? Do you want to spot me? Your arms are looking awesome today...

I leave the lonely muscle boys around noon, buy some food at Budgens (which is not a supermarket name meant to imply "budget"), come home to my boy then realize that the b.o. stink hovering in the gym originated from my armpits. After throwing my clothes in the incinerator, taking a shower and eating, we rendez-vous at Brick Lane with a couple of Finnish friends.

London's dreary rain destroys our umbrellas. Everybody looks young and messy to perfection in Brick Lane. Vintage clothes carry pricier tags than downtown fashion labels. Cappuccinos in hand, we find Anu and Osmo in the Up Market. At a deserted nearby bar, we talk about The Science of Sleep, jobs and moving to Canada while Anu flicks through a Tuscan cookbook she bought at Borders. Next to our table, a girl crawls all over empty sofas and licks her hand as if she's a cat.

They no longer make films like The French Connection (which is what we just watched). The director, I learned in the book Easy Riders, Raging Bulls (an exposé of Hollywood in the 70s) went on to direct The Exorcist, then crash & burn like most people that decade. New York City looked terrible in the early 70s. Brooklyn was practically a bomb site. During the film, I imagine the New York Dolls wandering just beyond the cameras, in the same freezing cold, degenerate megalopolis where the film is set; boys in drag, in their late teens, performing for the first time at the homeless shelter Endicott Hotel that Christmas, while Gene Hackman, blocks away, races against a french sniper or beats up drug dealers in leather coats and bell-bottoms.

I look out for the World Trade Center's Twin Towers, but it doesn't feature in any of the film's scenes. Gene Hackman's character mentions a visit to the Empire State Building, but nada on the Twin Towers. It's as if the Twin Towers were too remote and monolithic to feature in such a gritty and grimy film.

Who goes to the gym on Valentine's Day? The Desperate, the Dateless, the Valentine Haters... and me. Of all the people who regularly lift weights, 10% do it for health reasons. Everyone else is trying to get laid, or keep their partners (which might include the mirror) interested. I left work today with a crank in my back and a thousand excuses not to exercise. But, as the tube train reached my neighbourhood, I mustered some will and headed for the Mile End Leisure Centre.

The place was so empty, I jokingly asked the receptionist if they were shutting down. The treadmills were empty, the free weights area had only one or two teenagers and the bench press wasn't swarming with peacocks strutting guys. The regulars, unsurprisingly, arrived and went through their routine. It doesn't matter which day I go, rain or shine, I always see the same faces. The day will come when we'll nod at each other in recognition, small talk just around the corner.

My boyfriend wasn't very happy when I got home. Apparently, we had agreed to go to a bar tonight in Stoke Newington, where an acquaintance of ours arranges folky gigs. I thought I was going to cut his hair tonight (the trade off for him hanging my wet clothes from this morning's washing machine.) Saint Valentine didn't aim his arrows at our apartment today.

I re-heated some pasta sauce from the weekend for the dinner and we're going to watch some feel good romantic comedy on Channel 5 (with Clive Owen and Helen Mirren).

When I lived in Canada, whenever a topic of conversation went serious - frakenstein food, globalization, destruction of the planet - some of my friends would interrupt by saying "oh, Amazon forest conversation." It was their way of saying the topic was another highly serious one which shouldn't/couldn't affect their lives; or that it was a cliche to talk about something so heavy, overly played out in the media. They would rather think about the latest fashion trend then the consequences of drinking coffee ground by exploited workers.

I wonder if the current bandwagon-jumping on global warming fears is a little too similar to the one two decades ago when people became worried about the Amazon forest disappearing. At the time, Sting went to Brasil and visited the natives in the forest; millions proclaimed that Brasil should stop destroying the world's lung; but then something else went on the front pages and the story slowly disappeared out of view. I would like to believe that the current warnings on global warming will change the world, but who can say how oh-so-predictably-crap-at-hearing-warnings human beings will react? Will the papers be interested in this story by next year?

My feelings tend to go from extreme negativity to positivity. This morning, looking at the weekend newspapers, I'd swear on the Bible that we were heading for deep shit. How could we not? We as a species refuse to memorize our history lessons. In doubt, read Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. Many human civilizations have been destroyed before and it wouldn't be impossible for ours to go the same route. If you add up all the stories in the papers - collapsing fisheries, escalating civil wars, disappearing water resourses, etc - it's enough to make you wish Virgin would hurry up with their space flights so you could book yourself on the next one to the Moon. And the majority of news editors and journalists don't help matters by scarying the public with twisted stories on the government's upcoming green taxes.

But this evening, on my gym's treadmill, with The Kooks on the stereo, and all these different people sweating beside me, it became obvious that in some aspects we are no longer like our ancestors, and perhaps we won't commit the same errors they committed. Sure, there's a vast majority of people who don't give a crap and will continue leaving their lights on when they leave their home, but the percentage of people who are not like that is higher than ever before. In the past, civilizations collapsed sometimes due to factors beyond their control (e.g. enemies or viruses) but the vast majority of them suffered because they didn't understand how important their environment was to them. We are no longer like that.

That the shit is going to hit the fan is obvious. Rich countries are going to have to deal with masses of refugees in the future, and probably the rise of extreme right-wing politics as a consequence; but there will also be places where environmentalism will show definite improvements in people's lives, and this will in turn encourage other communities to follow suit. I have to believe things will turn out OK, otherwise I might as well not get out of bed.

The streets by Mile End tube were crowded with cars tonight, most of them filled with young Muslim boys. They shouted from open windows, bleated horns and played loud music, celebrating the end of Ramadan.

During the weekend, while walking around my neighbourhood, I saw young Muslim guys lined up outside barbers. They looked cute, these 20-something-year-olds, sitting in neat rows, escorted by their moms in some cases, awaiting their turn on the barber's chair. The end of Ramadan also means my gym will be once again busy, and I'll spend a good amount of time waiting for machines to be vacated. I might use the pool during the week and save my weightlifting for the weekend.

I would like, one day, to eat a typical Muslim meal during the month of Ramadan. I bet they prepare delicious dishes to be eaten when the night sets in. I wonder if there is a great variety of dishes, depending on the culture the Muslim family comes from.

If you wish to join a gym, do it with a friend or partner. The act of exercising in a room layered with mirrors and dance music is excrutiating at best; to successfully survive it you need that person to chat with, joke around, encourage and be encouraged by, who can distract you from the absurdity of it all. I've been a wannabe gym bunny since I was 17, but my attempts have always failed because the boredom of working out alone eventually outdid my desire to be fit. The longest I've been a gym member was in King's College, when Megan (my current landlady) was my gym buddy. As luck would have it, we have partnered again and become gung-ho about joining Body Pump classes, brainwashing our boyfriends into joining us, and determined to be fit by December. Be prepared for many horryfing posts about Step classes and neon lycra. :-P

The gym was empty this morning. I felt free and easy as I went from treadmills to machines, then weights. On the stretching mat, I was assailed by a strong whiff of shit. I checked everywhere until I finally spotted the distinct, packed, grassy, brown turd stuck to my right foot. I quickly retreated to the disabled stall in the boys room and picked it off with my locker key. After washing my hands and the key, I switched my belongings to a new locker and returned to the workout room (I couldn't bear the thought of that used key in my pocket).

Kevin is cooking lunch. The plan is to take The Guardian and some coffee to Victoria park, walk by the canal, buy some earth and pots for plants, and clean the apartment. I want to glide through the day. At night, we might watch a movie (we watched Capote last night, which was very good -- I hear there's another recent movie on him which is equally well-made.)