Page 155

The thing about planning is, you have to know where to start.

And since I'm gay, it seemed to make the most sense to start with my body. I thought about those weight-loss articles that tell you to strip down, stand in front of a mirror and do an honest assessment of how you look. Those articles are obviously written by mean, vindictive, very hungry people who have a huge axe to grind. They are apparently starving themselves on a daily diet of one lettuce leaf and 8 glasses of water so the rest of us feel bad about ourselves. I will not give in to their tyranny by standing naked in front of a mirror. Besides, being a homosexual, I don't have to do that in order to feel bad about my body.

I simply have to head to Chelsea and do, as my friend N calls it "the walk". Right up Eighth Avenue among the boys. And what you learn when you do this, is no one in Chelsea says hello anymore. Greetings used to be friendly as you walked by: "Hi, how are you?" or "It's good to see you." The accepted greeting now is "What gym do you belong to?" If you don't have an answer, you are ordered to vacate the neighborhood because you are single-handedly causing property values to decline. I am often terrified of walking in Chelsea. What if I'm stopped and caught not carrying a gym membership? What if someone asks to measure my biceps and the tape measure can actually go all the way around? What if someone notices my pecs don't arrive at the restaurant a full 20 minutes before the rest of me?

Yup, the body first. Truth be told, it's not too terrible, but there are changes that begin to happen as you get a bit older. There's a little more middle to my middle and sometimes things just, well, move. Other times, even after I've stopped moving, parts of my body continue to move and that's simply not good.

So, I went to the bookshelf to go through some workout books. And there it was: "Working Out" by Charles Hix, published in 1983. It was like re-discovering a jilted lover who shows up 20 years later looking all hot and gorgeous and wanting to do all kinds of nasty things with you again. (Note to my mother if she's reading this: by "nasty things" I mean go to church or perhaps do some volunteer work at the local soup kitchen). I used to love this book. It's filled with pictures of male models in full 1980's appearance. You know that look: blow-dried hair and too much make-up combined with hyper-masculine attitude like Jeff Stryker or Joan Collins.The guys in the pictures are lying in seductive poses with their hands caressing their swollen pecs, all of them wearing nothing more than skimpy shorts and a seductive smirk. While flipping pages I was transported back in time. And then, there he was....page 155.

Page 155 and I were in love at one time. I have no idea what any of the words on the page next to him said, but I could describe in detail his pouty lower lip, the white sweater carefully thrown over the shoulders of his shirtless torso, his carefully groomed chest hair and that perfect nose. Ours was a deep and meaningful relationship. And as I sat there and remembered the good times with Page 155, I decided I could think about my body another day. Today I was going to concentrate on his.