the first day

last night, i made it to the gym a few hours before it closed. i ran into my neighbor chad. he and i have an interesting history. i actually met him when i was waiting tables and his boyfriend paul recognized me from a reality tv show that i did called "the it factor" on bravo. we chatted. they were looking for a place to live. i wished them luck. the end -- or so i thought. a few days later, they're both coming out of my building as i'm coming in. turns out, there's a vacancy down the hall from me -- and they took it! i guess we were meant to be friends.

that was a few years ago. i must admit, it's been fun having them around. they invite me over when they throw dinner parties. i housesit for them occasionally when they're out of town, which is great because they've got a huge apartment and a huge tv with a huge dvd collection. and i can always come over to hang out or whatever. somehow, they always know how many more white people have moved into the building and whether they're gay or not -- and they're the first ones to complain about it. two gay white guys whining about the the gay/white people in the mostly dominican/black west harlem neighborhood. ironic, right? hilarious, definitely. whatever.

chad had just come in to the gym, too. we both commiserated about how out of shape we were and how badly we'd been eating and all the other things you say when you're at the gym and you run into someone you know and you stand around talking when you're supposed to be working out. somewhere in there, a lightbulb goes off over chad's head and he asks me if i'd like to be his workout partner. we discuss it a little. the upshot of it all is, he's got somewhere to be from 9 to 5 so the only way that we can pull it off is if we go at 6:30am. the gym opens at 6am. can we pull it off? i say i'll do it if he will. and he says he will if i will. so we handshake -- and then, incredibly, we leave.

well, miracle of miracles. he called me at 6:20am and five minutes later, i step out into the hall and he's standing there, waiting. and we do it, we really do it: we go to the gym. i actually pushed myself somewhere in there and had a thorough little workout. we left by 7:30am and ran into donette, who was on her way there. what are you doing here, she squawked, you can't get anything done this early!

and she's right. but my commitment to myself is bigger than my inability to wake up before noon. and the end result -- a body that's even stronger and leaner and healthier than it is now -- will be even bigger than that.

we're giving ourselves until the first day of spring to get it together. that's only about five weeks away...