International Affairs

Ladies,

I have attempted to write a suitable post before, but for various reasons have been unsuccessful. One, there is no internet connection at my gran's where I am staying, and I cannot find a viable wireless signal. Two, for a town with anywhere from 220,000 to 250,000 university students (about 30% of the population), there is a paucity of places to sit and tapatapatapa in relative peace and comfort, so I've been parking my ass in the main square on cold stone benches to find intermittent wireless signals. Finally, the reason for my being here (ancient gran on last legs) is playing like a black comedy. What I write invariably stretches into many pages, of grim humour concerning senility, decrepitude and desperation. In short, a better play or short story in the style of Gogol or Ibsen. For the blog format, let's keep things relatively light and frothy.

It's not all darkness. Tonight, for example, I was taken to an E.L.O. Concert. Yes, Electric Light Orchestra, ye olde makers of hits like “Evil Woman”, “Strange Magic”, and “Don't Bring Me Down”. (I'm sensing a theme of disappointed love here.) It was pleasing to see so many boomers having such a gay ole time.

My cousin's ex took my mother and I, and will be escorting to us to quite another concert tomorrow; namely, Canadian punk/death metal group Fucked Up. C'mon, they are this year's Polaris Prize winners! Gotta support that Canadian music, even though none of us have ever heard the band before.

It should be a good scene: my 64-year old mum wearing her Vancouver 2010 t-shirt in support of the Cancon, my elegant 41-year old cousin's ex, his 16-year old son, and yours truly. From what I understand, there will be a half-naked, howling bear man, likely some blood and definitely a deafening roar. I'm interested to see how it is received by all parties.

It has been a week of lovely moments, if not transcendent ones. There has been a two-day sex+friend tryst in the bleak environs surrounding Toronto airport (more on that soon); there have been numerous trips to Polish galleries and films and concerts, all under surprisingly sunny skies. I have walked the cobblestone streets of the old town of Krakow and wondered what it would be like to live here again after so many years, and felt pangs of Euro-wistfulness listening to a Chopin piano recital or drinking hot spiced wine in an ancient square. Yes, yes, very sophisticated little creature am I.

Let me speak about the visceral pleasures now, enough with the Eurochic pretensions. Namely, the food. I do love this time of year, when vendors set up open grills in the main square. Imagine enormous sausages, so plump and juicy that hot pork fat ejaculates out the end with every bite, and frying pans the size of steel drums filled with three kinds of pierogies and steaming piles of seasoned cabbage and the best potatoes in the world. There's no better time to come to Poland to eat than now, I've decided.

For example, as a national defence against the encroaching cold, doughnuts are now in season. These doughnuts are only made in winter, yeasty bombs with a slight heart of plum jam and a glaze of icing sugar, sometimes a few chunks of candied orange peel. When I was a child, my gran used to make them and I would help her. In this respect, my childhood was an epicurean's fairytale: plopping rounds of sweet dough into bubbling fat and turning them once at the perfect moment; scooping them out deftly to cool on a platter; sifting icing sugar in a soft drift over them. Oh heaven. Homemade Polish doughnuts are traditionally filled with rose petal jam, a delicious strange sweet substance made from the blowsy heads of flowers past their first prime. I have a jar of it at home, but it is so old I am afraid to use it for fear of botulism.

The food can be so simple and good here it makes me a bit sad to think about home, where we have so much and yet the butter, the flour, the bread, the potatoes do not taste of much compared to here. If I could smuggle a sack of potatoes into Vancouver, I would. My mother is incredulous that I plan on bringing back a bag of flour and a jar of beets with horseradish, among other treats, but who knows the next time I will be here?

On a completely different note, my tryst was lovely as I spent time with the person I desire the most, who is perhaps, also my favourite person in the world. Much different from the last time, which was also the first time, which will always be the best. This time we were both en route to international destinations, both somewhat preoccupied with travel details and petty concerns, and we stayed close to the airport. Grey skies, the far reaches of suburban strip malls, eating generic food in generic restaurants where large people looked at us with flat expressions. At one such “grill” I was eye-fucked in a most unpleasant manner by several patrons as I made my way to the door. Nothing wrong with an appreciative eye-fuck, but this was downright unwholesome. I'd venture the GTA burbs are sleazy and soulless. Despite the environs, it was still pretty damn GOOD.

Mainly we stayed in our hotel room, where amongst other pastimes we ate perfectly ripe, fresh pineapples. My lover has a predilection for fruit bordering on the fetishistic. I watched, curious, as he pulled from a knapsack two perfect pineapples, a knife, a cutting board and a large plate. He is a master of cutting and peeling, so I left preparation to him and was suitably impressed. We ate sunny slices for two days in bed and in the tub and in the shower, in the morning and in the middle of the night. It was the best I'd ever tasted, tender and sweet with none of that acidic stringiness one finds so often. Each one of our encounters is paired with at least one fruit: first honeydew and blueberries, then pineapples. I'm guessing mangoes will be Miami in the spring.

On a tangent, in the last week, I've had the opportunity to make a few observations of men and seduction. Perhaps I can take the opportunity now to offer some prosaic advice to the gentlemen.

One, it is not recommended to eat pungent things before contact. My lover, perhaps preoccupied with imminent travel and moving preparations, had eaten a Vietnamese sub at some point in the day. I am a woman fastidious enough to dose herself with boric acid lest she be a mite fishy in the snatch department, so yes, I may be a little hypersensitive to smell. But could he not have chosen a plainer sandwich, a less potent snack? A sigh here, of both chagrin and admiration, for a singular adherence to his desires is part of what I find appealing about him. I got over the sandwich smell (I'm nothing if not staunch in pursuit of great sex), but still, my preference would have been for a less aromatic reintroduction to my lover.

Two, with regard to an evening recently spent with a different gentleman, in conversation. My cousin and her husband divorced two years ago, and he is still awash in nostalgia. So it was not so great a surprise for him to confess to a little crush on me, and to express a desire to kiss me. Now, am I alone in finding it off-putting when a man tells me he wishes to kiss me, and then looks at me expectantly? Is it perhaps old-fashioned or demure to wish for no words to be spoken, only for action? I don't mean being thrown down and kissed (which can also be nice), but eye contact held, the move closer, a hand on the face, the slow approach? So I didn't kiss him, and laughed it off, and deflected a later clumsy attempt on his behalf to get me, ONCE AGAIN, to kiss him. No dude. You want a kiss, it's not a topic for conversation. Come and get it, see if I'll play. Risk it.

He is pleasant and interesting and I am fond of him, but not enough to forgive this faux pas. But we did hang out till the wee hours and I had a pleasant evening drinking whiskey and answering questions about why relationships end, etc. I am glad I didn't kiss him—just say it was terrible? We have so many fun plans for the rest of the week, what would happen to them if the kiss was wretched? Or even if it was good, what then? I have no desire to bed him, being freshly sated from my lover. (I tell myself it's not because I am in love, it's because I am curious to see what happens. The truth is I am indifferent to other men, though I am not sure of the logic in this given my situation. But all shall be illuminated with time.)

Back to a final piece of advice for the gents. If you see a woman you would like to talk to, first ask yourself, would any sane woman not find it creepy to be approached while she is eating a messy, squirty sausage? I was enjoying such a treat on a picnic bench one evening in the square when a man came and sat next at the table next to me. I ignored him and continued to eat, but could see him with my peripheral vision leaning in, ever closer, like he was in a state of gradual collapse. Thinking he may just be drunk, I concentrated on the delight of my sausage until I felt a slight pressure on my toe. Lo and behold, the dude was pressing my foot with his; when I finally looked at him I saw a weaselly looking little man in his 20s smiling at me, looking quite silly and possibly high. High guys love me, it's kinda my thing.

“Where are you from?”, he asked in slurry English. I looked at him with likely a cool expression, chewed sausage and said in Polish, “Hiszpanii” (Spain). “Ah...” he said, and looked like he was trying to think of something in Spanish when I wished him good evening (again in Polish) and took the rest of my sausage on the road. Dude, what were you possibly hoping to achieve? Okay, but does this ever work for ugly guys? All you did was irritate and amuse me, and make me finish my delicious meat snack while walking.

Fellows, a piece of advice. If you wish to approach a woman, ensure she is a) age-appropriate (though thank you) b) not snarfing a sausage (though I can see the appeal in hindsight) and c) that you have a realistic target. To be blunt, if you're ugly and I am not, chances are you will not win me over with sparkling conversation (“Ah!”). Oh yeah, and don't be high.

Now I am going to thaw my ass and suss out a doughnut.

-Gretchen Rutte

On the road again...

I've travelled more in the last two months than I have in the previous 6 years. This time, my gran is sick, and as she's 96.5 years old it necessitates a trip to the old country. I am fond of the granbag, maybe because we are so different. I admire her stubborn ways, like her refusing to use the bedside commode and insisting that she be led to the bathroom to go like a human being. Needless to say, I am hoping to avoid any bum-wiping duties while visiting.

Anyhoo, a few things.

One, I will be an international correspondent for a week or two, which is very exciting. I've been promoted! I haven't been to visit my gran since her 90th shindig, so look forward to seeing how the former Eastern bloc is coming along. Last I heard, one cousin was doing capoeira, the other was bustin' a move in hip hop dance class, and everyone was divorcing. I love global culture. I get to mangle the language and walk cobblestone streets and reminisce about the kinda-good-times I had when I lived there in 1995. Good sausage, too. When it gets cold enough, they fire up open grills in the central square. It's what broke my virtue as a vegetarian then, and it gets me every time.

Two, I feel very lucky. Luckylucky. My trip requires a change of planes in an eastern city, where I visited a special friend several weeks ago. (C'mon girls, think: Yes! That friend! Sex Week 2009). He was not supposed to be there, but found himself back there killing time between his travels; I was not supposed to be there, but a granddaughter's duty calls...but she's doing better, so yes, in true Gretchie spirit I'm stopping over for a couple of days to ahem, break up the journey. Get rested. Acclimatize to at least a partial time change. Get rogered properly for the last time in 2009. You know, all the usual reasons one checks into an airport hotel for two days.

So this trip was not planned far ahead, so this week has been a blur of booking tickets and hotel and finishing painting the damn walls beige (oh, pardon me: Brown Bread) and begging a friend to check in on the cat and impromptu lingerie shopping (shit, I hope those thongs are bearable to wear) and "staging" the house, i.e. rearranging the furniture to try and make it look like someone else lives there whose furniture collection does not consist almost entirely of desks. I have several, which apparently is unusual. I am becoming the eccentric I always dreamed of, perhaps I'll get a jaguar and turn into Auntie Mame.

Between logistics, I had the fleeting thought about preparing myself, you know, down there. It had been a while since my last waxing, and upon visiting the zoo I discovered my cute little beav had blossomed into a right grizz. So off to the aesthetician, the same one who said the first time I met her, "Mow it and they will come."

I also had one of those ridiculous pangs we all get when we're about to get it on, i.e. how do I smell these days, anyway? Crap, what the heck is this goo? Ladies, why does no one ever tell us about these random discharges? They appear mysteriously at times (am I ovulating? what's this mucusy stuff? whadafuh?). Then it's like, oh jeez, maybe I stink, maybe I have a low-grade yeast infection and don't even know it, perhaps I smell like day-old herring, what am I going to do, oh no, oh no...I never have smelled another woman's puss, so don't know what I'm supposed to smell like.

And it's not exactly a question I want to spring on my lover: "So, hey! Question. What's the air like down there? Mountain fresh or on the docks?" Jeez. Luckily, I have a dear friend who swears by boric acid capsules. I know the word "acid" doesn't necessarily cojoin naturally to vagina, but it restores pH and leaves one nice and balanced. So let's just say Gretch has been proactively taking her vitamins.

Anyway, I'm coming to the end of leg 1 of my journey. I will write in coming days and am hoping to interview a series of strangers on planes. It's been my experience people really open up on planes and ski lifts.

Cheers, Gretchen

Gretchie is having a bitchfest for one

Women, is it our generation's destiny to renovate constantly? Nothing ever gets DONE, it's always a goddamn Tolstoy work in progress. Goddamn domestic entropy.

I am peevish. The last two weeks has been a quiet epic of preparing the house for realtors and prospective buyers. Luckily, thanks to the miracles of refinancing, I am able to pay men of all shapes and sizes to do most of the work. Tradesmen trooping through and over my house, repairing and powerwashing and chimneysweeping and ripping out the hideous salmon carpet that had been molting upstairs since we moved in and that we'd never got around to replacing. It is now festering in a dumpster, and I pray it does not come home to spawn.

Everything is insanely neutral now, which should appeal to People. It all looks quite nice and is functional and makes me ponder why I never fixed things before, such as the dishwasher. I have not had an operational dishwasher for eight years, and forgot how convenient they are. There is a metaphor in there, about passing one's on needs over (Could you please fix the dishwasher?) in pursuit of the greater good (Oh, okay, if you're busy tuning up your dirtbike I'll just continue to wash by hand...). I'm reminded of Shelley Duvall in The Shining, trying to keep things together while Jackie-boy goes off the rails. She was so good at forced cheerfullness, I think we all learned from her.

The question that really remains is why on earth I just didn't go ahead and get all this stuff fixed without the help of my ex. Well, the best I can come up with is paralysis.

There's also the fair factor, i.e. HE SAID HE WOULD, but this is fairly minor. I wanted to believe him. It's like the people who see the image of Jesus on burnt toast or fridge mold; you want so hard to believe. Jeez. But minor point.

Paralysis is more likely. The rationale, if I can recall, is if I got that one small thing fixed, it would be logical to also get this other small thing fixed, which would necessitate the big thing getting fixed, which we can't afford. Hence a passive acceptance of The Way Things Are.

It's been good to git'erdone, though I am very tired. I have managed not to kill myself, balanced on an adaptable stepladder 16ft up in my ridiculously impractical foyer with a laden paint roller at 2:30am while classic rock played tinnily on my cheap clock radio. I did not fall off the roof, where I dragged my handyman to help me scrape moss of the tired shingles. And I have managed to restrain myself from throwing all the ex's stuff into a giant dumpster as he has not made the time to come and pack and move it himself.

This last one has me pissed. Righteously pissed, which is hard for me to find the humour in. I am not going for sainthood anytime soon, and it makes me seethe to wait and wait for him to come back and collect his many many things.

"I work," he says, "I work all the time and work is crazy. You don't understand how crazy my work is. I wish I had the time to come over and get it all and figure out a better living situation so I can take the dog, but I can't. You don't understand just how intense my work is."

No, I do not. It is no longer my job to understand. I receive no money from him and have been covering all the house expenses for the last several months on an income which, incidentally, is less stable and smaller than his. Where his money goes, I don't know. I do not understand, he is right. But as I receive no benefit from his crazy, intense work it really doesn't matter to me what he is doing with his time.

To explain this to someone who, for some reason--when I'm feeling generous, I ascribe it to a physiological malfunction of his brain--is incapable of empathy is to risk unleashing a fury so great it may cause me to do bodily harm to him. This may be excrutiatingly satisfying on one level, but ultimately is not a good thing.

I am mere days away from getting a legal separation agreement in my hands, my hobbit of a lawyer is working on it right now. Once I get sign off from the ex and feel legally protected financially, it may be harder to restrain myself. The frustration may devour me, of packing up someone else's shit that they've never bothered to sort through themselves, of discovering stacks of high-end clothing and sports gear with price tags still on while I was wearing sports bras held together (I kid you not) with binder clips, of surveying garage and workshop filled to the rafters and coolly estimating a value of about $40,000 for toys amassed while I was scrabbling to pay bills and going deeper into debt and generally enjoying the view while my head was up my ass.

Aha! There's the rub, that prevents me from wallowing too deep in the outrage. It was my choice to wear blinders and enable the bad behaviour; it was my choice to pass myself over and place someone else's desires above my own needs. Me, me, me. So yeah, focusing on gittin'erdone is safer for everyone, and I'm almost there. Once I'm done, there will be no need to dwell on my ex's imperfections or my own sorry role in the matter, and I can congratulate myself for having learned an important life lesson and to be so, so much wiser for the experience.

In the meantime, I do take savage comfort in The Shining. For if you recall, dear cheery wifey Wendy does end up bashing crazy Jack in the head with a baseball bat, and locking him in the cold storage room. He later freezes to death in the topiary maze. Fuckin' A.

Snarlingly,
G

The Burning Ship

No room for regret or self-doubt in art;
doubt but not self-doubt. The ship hauls anchor,
the kerosene lamp flickers and goes out,
voices in the pitch black swell with anger

as shipmates mistake each other for enemies.
The lantern spills, the pilot drops a lit cigar.
Tragedy ensues and engenders more tragedy.
If only the moon could see, if only the stars

had been granted the power of speech.
But the blind remain blind, the voiceless mute.
The burning ship threads its way between reefs
in the darkness. Doubt, but not self-doubt.

-The Burning Ship, Campbell McGrath 

The 100-mile (sexual) fast

Greetings, idle thoughts on a Saturday morning.

I'm allowing myself a quick posting pre-run to reward myself for getting out of bed at a decent hour this morning, though I was up late at a trivia night fundraiser for the local art gallery. Hot Friday night: "up late" means the event went to 11pm and that the room was full of mostly late/middle lifers buzzed on cheap wine and trivia. It is what I do when in my hometown. Last night leads to think of the effect of place on one's behaviour.

For me, there's a clear divide betwen behaviour at home and how I act when away. Let me explain. I currently live in a smaller town, fairly tight-knit. I enjoy many aspects of this, as for the most part, people here are beyond "nice" and genuinely pleasant, enjoyably eccentric. it's a very accepting place.

That being said, it is still a small place. Even those of us who don't particularly want to know each others' business cannot help stumbling upon it on a daily basis. As it is largely an older community, the pool of "young" people my age (30s) is relatively small. Men I could potentially date have been recycled through the community already, many times, and for some reason this fills me with yes, distaste.

There's a scene in bodice-ripper "Elizabeth" where Cate Blanchett is being danced around by Joseph Fiennes, and he whispers to her that she is his Elizabeth. She break frees, assumes the pose of a tigress, and snarls at him and the court "I am no man's Elizabeth!". I'm like, right on sister! I get it. Not quite ready to do that crazy pancake make-up and no-eyebrow look, but I get it.

I don't want anyone to try and infiltrate me or make me a public conquest. I will not date anyone in my town. I am not so in demand, but am becoming skilled at deflecting the odd parry. No one here is tempting in the slightest, and it offends my sensibilities to think of someone gaining access to my inner life for casual sport.

Delicacy surrounding privacy may sound strange coming from a gal who writes about how constipated she got during SexWeek 2009 (woohoo!). But I don't like acquaintances to know details about my personal life beyond what I choose to tell; let them speculate if they like, but I usually remain fairly tight-lipped on what I poetically term The Important Stuff. It may be too late in life for me to cultivate an aura of mystery, but to assume a bit of Queenishness, one must do one's best.

The Important Stuff is not the fact, it's the feeling. I have no problems reporting I am single, etc. I am amicable with my ex, and focused on the logistics of "wrapping this one up".

It's the defending against assumptions, spoken or implied, that causes me to retreat. You ladies who have clawed their way out of suffocating long relationships, be they friendships or romantic, will understand the grim effort it takes to keep on clawing when someone's clutching your ankle. It is tough. Not the stuff of idle chatter.

The assumptions are along the lines of "you must be emotionally battered, lonely, looking for a replacement plug for your heart, looking to get back out there, etc." All of these things, at least in my case, are untrue.

Pointing this out is usually met with a politely incredulous smile, quickly replaced by an expression of concerted curiosity and a "Really, tell me about that...". Okay.

Point one: emotionally battered

I'm learning to skip rope better because every time I misstep, I lash the tops of my feet. This inevitably causes me to mutter "...motherfucker..." and pay attention. It works. Also, the tops of my feet are building an expectation of lashing, and are made of tougher stuff than a mere few months ago.

The tanned-to-pemmican analogy can be applied to the emotional state as well. Years of enabling shitty behaviour led me (eventually) to measure input to output, and decide it was no longer an acceptable ratio. Rather than the experience making me weaker, however, it has left me terrifyingly fit, if steadfast and specific are suitable descriptors for emotional fitness.

I got out in time to preserve some of my original affection for my former mate/sparring partner, too, and am happy to bump gloves and call it a draw. But the next guy who steps into that ring had better be prepared to punch above his weight.

Point two: lonely, you must be, says Yoda

No, when you consider the alternatives. Despite many good qualities, my ex is an emotional vampire and a demanding man-child. I ended it mainly because I was just so fucking tired. I don't mean physically, though my health was suffering as an unintended consequence. I was just exhausted, running on auto-pilot after nine years of endeavouring to anticipate and meet the wants of someone else. It takes its toll. (I am obviously not cut out for motherhood, but reckon I could at least beat or oppress a small child into submission. A full-grown man is much harder to control.)

There is no lonelier feeling than keeping company with those who do not understand you. After 6 or 7 months of official break-up and more than two years of living mainly by myself, I still gloat that I have vast chunks of time to myself.

As for sex, the ex and I didn't really do that too much, and when we did it was high marks for technical execution, demerits for artistry. Much more satisfying for me is the occasional dalliance and my own imagination. The novelty of an innocent hotel slumber party with a hot 29-year old Greek economist is still very satisfying to me; that shit can keep me going for months.

Point three: replacement/getting back out there

Ha! What is "out there"? The Colosseum, are we gladiators? (If so, I'd like to request a tussle with Russell Crowe, please.)

This assumption is the one which amuses me most. It's along the lines of say, I notice you weren't quite drained dry by your last experience. Have I got a thirsty friend for you!

Um, no. There is no replacement. In my correspondence with a doppelganger penpal not long ago, we concluded that next for us is either friendly series of sexyepisodes or a sweep off the feet sweetheart, or some pleasant combination of both.

Myself, I am optimistic about the year ahead. I have an object of affection in my life, albeit a faraway one I will see very little of for at least another year or so (and no, not the cutie-pie El Greco, sweet but too too young). While it may not eventually work out logistically or emotionally, for now it is enough to have an ideal. To know that a compatible man exists for me is a grand reassurance.

Until things emerge from the murk, my goals are to sell my current abode and plunge into a city. It really isn't much more defined than that, but I'm excited at the prospect of being debt-free and being in a noisy crowded arty problematic alive city and culling my possessions to a small roomfull. The prospect of buying a new bed thrills me. My current bed is symbolically and literally stained with past experience, and I cannot wait to tip it into the dumpster. Hell, I may have to have a winter futon bonfire where my girlfriends and I can get drunk and dance around my flaming past. Until then, I will keep on keeping on. Now I must run run run.

Stay sane,
Gretchen

Work it girl

Greetings, Ruttites.

I do not why my spacing is off tonight, sentence and paragraphs all jammed together. I apologize.

I am late, I am pleasantly tired and full after ingesting a huge plate of healthy food post-workout. For those of you who do not know, I am one of those people who must exercise nearly every day to remain sane. Mainly it saves me from growing anxious, or from becoming so rested that I can dwell on my perpetual horniness. But I also like it.

Let me paint a picture of a typical workout. Not long ago, after a week grappling with recent work changes and post-coital melancholy, I spent an evening grappling with several young lads at the boxing gym. The class had been divided into the tall and not so tall, and I was the only female in the tall group.

We are beginners in fight class, sometime boxing, at times kickboxing or MMA. As beginners, our main job is to get in good enough shape to learn how to fight so we can survive three-minute rounds in the ring, three times. We also have to get used to close physical contact with others that does not involve affection.

We were practising the clinch. This is two hands locked around the back of the other’s head and elbows in tight, pulling them into your shoulder to throw them off balance. The clinch frees you to throw knees into their exposed side, knocking the wind out of them and bruising their kidneys. In short: you control your opponent’s head, you control the fight.

The task was to break the clinch by snaking one arm at a time through the inside of your opponent’s arms and thus gaining position. The boys were apprehensive, in varying degrees of adolescent shyness. Being old enough to have technically birthed most of them, I felt it incumbent upon me to precipitate the clinch.

They were adorable, and did not manhandle me as much as they could have, and let me have pleasant little victories. It was nice to see gallantry not dead. They were likely terrified of a) hurting me inadvertently or b) grabbing a handful of Gretchenboob while trying to break the clinch. I almost wanted to line them up and make them grab a boob, so they could get over it. I realized this action would mortify them into banishment and so was not a wise option. I should just take the victories they were allowing me. You control the head, you control the fight—who cares how you got there?

If there’s one thing fighting teaches you, it’s to pay attention. Those in yoga call it “being present” or in even more spiritual terms, “being mindful”. These kinds of words speak to a sense of sanctimonious smugness that has driven me away from yoga and pilates, time and time again. Ladies, you are stretching. You are building core strength. You are not praying to a many-armed goddess or saving street urchins in the streets of Mumbai. Wake the fuck up. Any place where broads encased in head-to-toe Lululemon bop out the door cooing how amaaaaaaazing they feel is not for me.

At my boxing club, we scrabble for our shoes at the door, dripping with sweat. We file out panting. It smells like balls. A windowless basement, with a ring on one side and punching bags hanging from beams. Unfurled hand-wraps are stored inside a tire hanging off a beam, skipping ropes dangle off a nail. The walls are adorned with pictures of past local fighters and ugly-sexy UFA fighters with improbable stripper names like Randy Couture. There are usually no paper towels in the bathroom. It’s barebones. It’s not a place where you hang out to chat, or come in to use the bathroom in a pinch. It’s a place you come to work and be humbled.

A typical session starts with skipping rope. Yes, it is daunting to come into a gym where everyone is blank-faced, skipping with relentless rhythm and no discernible effort. It is not something you can ask for instructions on, you just do it until you get better. And you do get better, as the rope bites into the tops of your bare feet when you miss, so by the end of each warm-up it looks like a hobbit has taken a cat o’nine tails to them.

(Prior to boxing. my last skipping experience involved chanting “Cin-de-rel-la! Dressed in yella! Went upstairs to kiss a fella! Made a mistake and kissed a snake, how many doctors did it take? One, two, three…: etc. Perhaps you played this game too. That little song takes maybe 15, 16 seconds. Try skipping rope, albeit silently, for a straight minute and see how you feel.)

After the skipping, the workout begins. Sprints, lunges, backwards running, burpees—are you familiar with the evil of the burpee? It was invented by a humorous sadist. Burpee: sounds so innocuous, the fifth Teletubby. It is a push-up you spring up from into a standing leap. Try doing five of them. They are vomit-inducing.

Standing jumps onto boxes in sequence. Push-ups with a partner, slapping opposite hands on the uprise. Abdominal crunches, leg lifts, neck strengthening exercises which cause my upper vertebrae to click annoyingly. Stretching. More push-ups, ab work. Take a drink of water. Get on your hand-wraps. More push-ups, more crunches. Put on your gloves. Now punch the bag for a full minute—jabs, hooks, uppercuts, repeat—and switch with a partner.

Go, go, go, yells the guy. At this point you are so soaked with sweat you don’t even notice. Your hair is wet right to the bands holding your pigtails, your sports bra and underwear are drenched, great droplets of sweat are dripping off you and puddling onto the floor. This means you are working. You regularly pack a bath towel to mop up after yourself.

In the summer, you cross the bridge and plunge into the river immediately after each workout, and bob along with the seals. It is bliss.

Go, go, go. Left jab, right cross, left hook, again and again. Most times we don’t even punch, as the beginners’ class is for the most part in woeful physical conditioning and the gym owner is mean, training to go to Thailand to work out with the masters. No cheeseburgers and hardcore training for him equals no mercy for schoolboys with fat chests and piss-poor cardio. I’ll fix that, he says with a smile. Go, go, go.

Clock ticks time. Good job! Before you go, give me 50 pushups, 50 crunches, 50 jumping jacks and 50 lunges.

I love this man.