Stupid Stuff Girls Do at the Gym

I love biddies.  I may not have made this obvious, but it's true.  

With that being said, there is one place that I absolutely do not love biddies: the gym.  This is because they are all dumb and also because I hate everyone at the gym.

Biddies do only one thing at the gym: waste time and space.  I think this is largely due to a lack of education.  As much as it pains me to admit it, I used to be one of them.

First things first though.  I'm not really sure what the theory is behind "gym buddies."  Working out is not fun.  This is not a social event.  Maybe it's okay for four of you to be holding hands when, say, you're playing Red Rover or crossing the street, but not on the track ladies.  What part of working out is a group activity?  Oh, that's right, NONE.

Secondly, I see biddies do the most pointless stuff at the gym.  I'll start with the obvious: talking about how sore you'll be after yoga.  NO.  NEIN.  QUIT THAT.  Stop inhaling all your own bullshit, and be hardcore for once.  Yoga is not a work out.  It's an exercise in stretching and breathing.  Don't get me wrong, I'm all for yoga.  All the times I've ever done it I felt high the rest of the day: a good, floating-on-a-cloud high, not an I-accidentally-ate-my-older-brother's-weed-brownies-ohGodwhenwillthisbeover kind of high.  

And the ab exercises.  What YouTube videos are you getting these moves off of!?  What is that even doing for you?  Straining your neck?  Good, keep up the good work.  Also, like pennies, hip-flexing/all the other pointless circuit machines need to be melted down and used as metal for actual things that produce real results.  But I mean, if you want to work one muscle group at a time, that's all you...

But my biggest complaint of all is the amount of cardio that biddies are doing.  Excuse me for sounding like I'm on a Bowflex commercial, but this is important so listen up: I used to be a cardio junky, doing 50 minutes every day with no results.  LOW-INTENSITY CARDIO IS POINTLESS.  I'm not saying all the biddies need to hop off the ellipticals and treadmills, because quite frankly it keeps them out of the way from the other real parts of the gym.  But don't expect anything to change.  

If you think running for 30 minutes a day is going to get you toned by spring break, I have something to tell you: that's not how it works.  Your muscles get toned by being stressed; cardio produces no systemic stress, thus no improved endurance.  If you're not sore the day after you work out, then nothing is happening to your muscles.  Yeah, sweating might make you feel like you're doing something, but really the only thing you're doing is pounding your joints into the ground.  Lifting weights produces a hormonal response that reduces body fat; moving your legs produces a terrible mood that makes you miserable and isolated.  (You may still be in denial of this, but believe me...it'll happen one day.)

And lastly, to all you hussies wearing make-up and sports bras as your top:  YOU'RE NOT FOOLING ANYONE.

Art Major Problems

When I tell people I'm studying art in college, I always get a variety of answers:

That's so cool!  I mean, I guess.

I bet that's so much fun!  Not as much as you'd think.

Or, my favorite, the condescending, sarcastic reaction...Oh, so your classes are really hard.  Actually they are, asshat.  I sit in class for twice the amount of time as other students, getting the same amount of credit, and most of that time is spent listening to stupid idiots talking about color schemes and figure-ground relationships.  I consume about 200 grams of bullshit a day, well above the recommended average.

Starving, angsty artist stereotype aside (which is a very real truth), there are a lot of challenges that come along with being an artist.  (The first one of course is that no one understands me.)

For example, last night I had to draw six stylized animals and color them black with a Sharpie.  Now I know 10th grade boys do that kind of stuff for fun all the time when they're not drinking bottles of NyQuil and huffing spray paint, but this was for an actual assignment.  Everything was going fine until I STARTED HALLUCINATING.  I thought my shoes were opossums crawling across the floor (I also have a fear of wild animals in my house for which I'm undergoing psychoanalysis, so as you can imagine this terrified me).  Whatever, I got up and got some fresh air, made some tea, and listened to some Sean Paul.  Next thing I know I'm reabsorbed into my work and my thoughts start wandering to things like "Lines are just so beautiful.  People don't appreciate lines.  Lines, man.  Lines..."  I texted people I don't remember texting.  All night I dreamed of crying hysterically as I rode around campus on a horse made of Sharpies.

My other current assignment is to create a brand identity for a company.  It's a good project because it's applicable to the real world: business cards, envelopes, letterheads, the whole nine yards.  But do you know how expensive color ink is?  The reason artists are all starving is two-fold: they make no money, and they spend all their money on stupid stuff like $30 punch cutters.  Anyway, I busted my butt all weekend to come up with a million versions of various stationeries to impress my extremely Asian and extremely demanding professor, who I understand about ten percent of the time.  I think I've done a kick-ass job and I show him my hard work.  His response? Too large, too busy, you need to design two more logos and then apply them in four different ways across five different medium of material.  MAN, I DON'T KNOW NUMBERS, WHY DO YOU THINK I'M HERE?!  But alas, the same thing will happen on Thursday.  It's no wonder art students have self-esteem problems, because what they do is never good enough.

Furthermore, I know Michael's better than anyone should ever know Michael's.  I look like I'm going fishing every time I go to class because I have to carry around a tackle box to hold my all my scissors and glue sticks.  The fact that I have glue sticks is a problem in itself.

Just another day in class.

People carry things like drills through the art building and it's normal.  Last night as I was leaving class, my friend was dropping off a grandfather clock (A LARGE, ENORMOUS GRANDFATHER CLOCK) to use in his fiber class.  If I had to guess, he'll probably spend 36 hours covering it in yarn, because that's the kind of thing professors eat up.  The grade you get on a project is directly correlated with your sleep levels: the less you sleep, the higher your grade.

People in science classes complain about spending $150 on a textbook.  I spent $150 on a package of paper this semester.  At least your pages have words and pictures on them.  Mine was just a package of paper.  I stopped wearing decent clothes to class around sophomore year, a) because everyone in my class looks like they slept in a dumpster the night before (which they probably did), and b) because I'm always covered in some unidentifiable material.  I don't throw away scraps of paper because I'll probably have to use it in a project that I will title "Pile of Trash."  I've seen the documentary about Helvetica (yes, the font) probably four times.

The biggest problem of all?  I WILL NEVER GET A JOB.  After four years of critiques, studios, and portfolio reviews, getting married right out of college is starting to sound real appealing.  Support me, please.