Workin' Out and Thinkin' 'Bout the Green-Eyed Monster

Jackie and Kathy WORK IT. I'm soooo jealous.

I was supposed to go to Bainbridge Island with my mother today. Yes, the maternal visit is still in progress and it's going quite well, but it's Sunday and I needed a few hours to get my act together before returning to my bane-of-my-existence day job tomorrow and I thought mom could stand a few hours of quality time with my brother and the grandkiddies. So I opted out of the schlep on the ferry and worked out instead. And then I came home from the gym and watched the TIVOed episode of Work Out that had been burning a hole in my Now Playing list since Tuesday--far too long to have to wait to see Jackie and company. I swear, if I could watch them every day, I would. Seriously.

Seriously, I love this show. I mean I LOVE this show. I failed to post on the first episode because I claimed I wasn't feeling it (feigning obsession with Aaron Sorkin instead), which is an odd thing to feel about a show I claim to adore so much. As I was watching this week's episode, however, I realized that my problem wasn't that I wasn't feeling anything, as "not feeling it" might imply, but that I was feeling way too much. Yeah, I was troubled by the news of Doug's passing and yes, I was fuming over Jackie's ridiculous relationship with Mimi (amen to that break up!), but there was something else going on in that little overactive brain of mine.

I once went to an acupuncturist who said to me, "All your problems are one problem. You think too much!" Tell me about it. Again, today, I could barely figure out how to write this post even though I was thinking (always thinkingthinkingthinking) about the various things I could write about.

And then, I had a thought.

I was thinking about how this week, Jackie picked out her clients for Sky Lab, her new makeover/psychotherapy project. As we all know, I am a sucker for the Triumph of the Human Spirit and an even bigger sucker for those who want to triumph via major life changes. Projection anyone? As Jackie interviewed her life-changing hopefuls, I wept into the dishtowel I had been using to hold my lunch (A rather hot bowl of rice. I really love rice.) I was so happy for the peeps about to work their asses off to shed unwanted pounds and unwanted self-hatred. But when the new clients were assigned to their trainers, I was devastatingly jealous. I whined to the screen: I want Erika to train me cuz she's a recovered bulimic! Ooh--I want Zen cuz she's a comedian with body image issues! Nononono, I want Gregg cuz he's the hardcore new guy! Oh wait, I want Andre cuz he's military!

I want so many things. Trainers and otherwise. And every day, I carry around all of the things I want in my bag, my pockets, my hands, my head. They weigh me down with the heft of desire. And when I watch Work Out, more than any other show, all of those things that I want for myself but do not have become as heavy as whatever Brian Peeler can bench press. And my guess is, that's a lot.

And it's not just the bodies. Of course, I would love to look like Jackie, Erika, Zen, or Rebecca, or any of the models and actresses who pay upwards of $400 an hour to train with them. But it's more than that.

It's Jackie. And that's a lot.

We all know I'm totally hot for Jackie, but it's not just that I want her. It's that I want to be her (Maybe for starters, I should stop eating Newman-O's while I write...). With every muscle, blood vessel, bone, vein, organ, cell, and sinew in my body, I want my existence to be hers. Yes, I am aware that this sounds particularly psychotic and stalkerish, but it isn't. It's not anything more than thirty-seven years of dissatisfaction and disgruntlement over decisions made by cowardice.

I just typed and delted a list of all of the things of Jackie's I covet. The list ranged from owning her own gym to having a kick ass sporty wardrobe (You thought I was going to say "kick ass body," didn't you? Yeah, that's in there too, but Stu can tell you how badly I'd love to live my life in hoodies; low waisted, cropped cargo pants; and chunky sneakers.). But what I realized is this--while I often fantasize about becoming a personal trainer and owning a gym as much as I've fantasized about being a screenwriter and going to the Oscars, my obsession with Jackie and my seething envy of everything in her life from killer shoulders to a home in the Hollywood Hills comes down to wanting this one thing that she has in spades:

Drive and determination that is not hampered and hindered by fear and anxiety.

My guess is that my acupuncturist might tell Jackie that she thinks too much too. But Jackie acts as much as she thinks. Maybe if I watch the rest of this season, I can learn not only how to have the abs I want, but the life I want. Then I wouldn't need Jackie's.

And then maybe she'd sleep with me.