BH 3: My ideal self’s outline
A glimpse of this body's future
My eyes were like magnetized by the crease where my belly meets my loin. If that’s not visible to me in the mirror with no clothes on, everything else with my body will be cool. No back pain, not on this day, two after I last went to the gym. And definitely none of that intolerable hip pain.
In this mirror moment, the back pain was like a memory. A rumor of discomfort, which was cool. If I’m over 200 pounds and lax on my fitness regimen, my back can be so tender that a book in my backpack can cause me distress.
This is not that day. At 197 pounds I was 20 percent too soft for the aim of this whole trip. But there is less of me and, if it’s the morning after a good workout and even better choice of eating, there is available a glimpse of my new self’s outline. Eight pounds out from my July 30 birthday goal, I could do minimal stretching and get in a quick mile walk before catching the 4 bus to Vine.
The only pain discernible was The Good Hurt, the sweet agony of challenging one’s muscles.
A calling card for this editorial space would be that I’m exponentially more tolerant of the trans community than I am of man boobs. It’s not a point of pride, but I’m kind of a Nazi about man boobs.
I let the Dash buses pass as I strode down the Echo Park Boulevard hill. The other pain made a surprise appearance, just before the turn onto Sunset. A combo shot between my lower back, hip, and groin.
No matter how good I feel, stretching is not to be taken for granted.
The fave Florida gig that brought you Body High
Moli.com was an early social media site, from the days when MySpace was still ruling. It’s ownership roots were from E-Trade. The company was based in Palm Beach Florida. Being Moli’s Sports and Fitness columnist paid $500 for five pieces a week, due early on the East Coast weekday. And it’s one of my 10 favorite gigs ever.
Body High is inspired by the Moli gig, especially my fitness joints, which came out twice a week. Florida work trips were also my introduction to cannabis mixed with Adderall, but that’s another story, and probably not one about fitness.
I go to work on my physical self when the Santa Monica streetwalkers finish their shifts. We share buses sometimes. Las Vegas is like this as well, but the sex worker hang carries on into the gym. I would see a Vegas stripper trying to tighten up their triceps and wonder:
Do you have to pace yourself on the shift to have enough to go hard at six am?
On the Santa Monica Boulevard bus I was consuming a Men’s Health story about how to train the aging male body. Hypertrophy, the weightlifting source of the so-called Good Hurt, needed to be cut by half. Guys my age should do twice as much yoga as weight lifting. The news felt like a game change, but I missed my stop by a quarter mile. By the time I got to the top of the gym’s stairs, that discomfort at the three-way stop southwest of my navel was howling red.
From the top of the stairs, I walked to the studio, pulled up my yoga for abs video, and proceed to not only shut up that infernal hollering coming out of my undercarriage, but also do a warrior three pose that was my best since Jah knows when.
From grotesquely overestimating my fitness to personal best, that’s the power of stretching and yoga. The more we age, the more stretching matters. My musculature felt dialed in and my mind was excited. It wasn’t clear whether the recent switch from hybrid to sativa cannabis gummies had me so dialed in or if it was my temporary switch to a sketchy energy drink that I lovingly call The Stroke Maker. The long, slow workout—two-and-one-half hours with a sauna at the end—is my old man jam. As is to circuit train, alternating strength machines, briskly, and mixing in some cardio. The cardio work will stay modified at least until my body mass is lower. The Stroke Maker coursing through my body reminds me to do so.
And the last hypertrophy is savored.
A calling card for this editorial space would be that I’m exponentially more tolerant of the trans community than I am of man boobs. It’s not a point of pride, but I’m kind of a Nazi about man boobs.
Back in the 2010s I wrote for the late, great Jezebel about my struggle to pay for my children. Some of the best people I ever worked with helped me get the thing into the world and fathers I had not known sent me heartbreaking email. It’s work that I think I’m proud of? But I got pilloried in the comments section of Jezebel like I’ve never been ripped apart by readers. For real? I’ve only actually seen the tip of that particular comments iceberg. And that glimpse singed my eyebrows.
The readers were spot-on about so many things. (My brutal favorite: “Everyone should follow their dreams, except Donnell Alexander.” Perfect.) One place where I take issue with these people’s criticism of me is over keeping my gym membership.
I know the difference between how people treat the current version of me and the one who weighed 45 pounds more. The casual service person is nicer to me. At LA parties it’s a factor. And I imagine one day that it will buy me time when I get a little lost pitching my hit streaming series to a big Century City agent. That fitness has currency beyond the health benefits.
My muscles felt fantastic when I stepped to the sauna, mind still active off of gummies and that drink. My weight? 194 pounds.
Addressing my diet will be key.
Journalism used to pay amazingly
When I was a kid, journalism was the safe, honest writing choice. That was the 20th-century. After that, at least jobs like Moli existed. in 2009 the writing world went through hell with closures and layoffs. A lot of storytellers got shaken out of the game.
All of this is to say that I’m glad to have an audience for my work. If you’d like to leave a tip in support of what The Sojourn does, please follow that urge.