I go to one of those ladies' gyms where the median age is, like, sixty. There's a few college girls showing off their workout spandex on the treadmills, but The Rack is the university gym/pickup joint on campus where most students go. So I sweat among the older and softer females of my town. And other than the annoying scriptures posted on every machine and the occasional Christian workout CD, I kind of like the matronly air about the place. It's like exercising among a passel of kindly aunts.

Sometimes we talk, but it's generally limited to discussions about everyone's children and grandchildren. I can talk about my daughters all day long, so this is easy enough. Otherwise, I spend a half hour on the elliptical trainer, reading the guilty pleasure magazines like Self and Shape, and speculate about the level of photoshopping required before any abdominal muscles are published. When those are all read, I move on to Prevention and wonder why Dr. Andrew Weil apparently refuses to be photographed below the chin. Finally, I have recently succumbed to the gym's supply of Suzanne Somers books, which advocate her "Somersize!" program - that Suzanne seems to never run out of exclamation marks.

If you had sat beside me on a city bus back when I was a skinny nineteen year old college student and revealed my future - a little overweight, middle-aged and looking for guidance from a cast member of Three's Company - I would have moved immediately to another seat.

But here I am, seeking Miss Somers' advice about nutrition and hormones. Strange days indeed.

I was struggling with some sort of abdominal torture machine this morning while a neighboring woman flexed her calves on something I like to call the Singer sewing machine. I pride myself in renaming the equipment to suit myself - there's the sex machine, the birthing chair, the ass-master, the pretty hate machine (which I usually skip). So the ab torture device was hurting, and I hurried through it so as not to give up altogether. And Ms. Singer Calves smiled at me with what I perceived as abundant self-righteousness and stated flatly "You're doing that wrong". She proceeded to explain the problem of rushing through it, but without an ounce of compassion. She had just hula-hooped for five minutes, then gone around asking everyone how she looked, beaming. I decided that I hated her before she had even looked my way.

And look - the evil ab machine is not going to hurt my back or damage a tendon if I do it wrong. It just won't do as much good as the slow, painful, correct way. It's not like twirling a freeweight during your Downward Dog.

This is the way that I raised my children: I tended to watch them while they made mistakes and learned from their errors. And if Anna wasn't running out on the highway and Sarah wasn't hurting herself, I kind of sat back and watched. I never cared to discourage them by giving excessive directions and demanding proper procedures. Children don't seem to like that sort of invasive attention.

As for me, I'm pretty independent. Simply joining a gym and showing up several times a week is a Very Big Deal for me. And if I'm not in imminent danger, I don't want unsolicited advice from know-it-alls. I get my Chicken Soup for the Cellulite from Suzanne Somers, thank you very much.

NTD