Do you work out?

I have a playgroup that Munchkin and I are involved with. She has a wonderful time every so often, getting together with other pint-sized people, and wrecking havoc on all toys in sight. I enjoy getting together with people whose conversation does not consist of "Mommy, you help me, please?" We benefit all around.

Now my trouble with the playgroup is that while pretty much any two year old can sit and play with pretty much any other two year old, and there is very little difference, that is not necessarily true of moms. Some of the moms are really my type of people, but some of the moms are more the Mary Kay consultant type. Do you know what I mean? Not just the make up, although that is certainly part of it, but the "cute" brand-name clothing, the "I care more about my appearance than I do about anything else" approach, the... well whatever it is. It's something I have yet to be able to accurately pinpoint, but whatever it is, I don't have it. I like the women well enough, but they have very different priorities to me.

So we were sitting, talking over lunch a few weeks ago, and someone started a discussion of whether or not we all worked out. Everyone (except me) started bemoaning how hard it is to find time to work out, how they try to "tone" every day, and how they can spend a year "toning" and "working out" every day, and still not look as good as their husbands if they tone every day for a week. Then they got into a discussion of how their husbands all prefer to play sports and do active things instead of "work out", and they could not understand this at all. Finally, they touched briefly on whether or not pilates and yoga were good for making them look "toned" and how hard it was to find good programs that actually were effective.

In all this, my only comment was "I do karate." I care more about being strong than looking strong. My version of lifting weights is lifting my Munchkin, tossing her around, letting her "jungle gym" on me, and make me be the tree to her monkey. I can be a horsey, I can be a camel, I can be a doggie. I prefer to play sports, play games, have fun. I go to a martial arts class a few times a week. I spend time practicing, teaching, and usually once a week, wiping up the floor with everyone in my class usually without breaking a sweat. Only in my worst nightmares would I so much as dream of spending time every day "toning" or "working out".

So what? The trouble is, this is indicative of a much larger chasm between our approaches to life. What my upper arms look like only comes into consideration when someone else brings it up. Otherwise, I could go years without considering the state of my upper arms. Granted, I might notice if I started looking particularly flabby, but I don't, so I don't notice. Even if, for some reason, I REALLY cared what my upper arms looked like, considering pilates and yoga would not be my top choices for solutions. They wouldn't even be on my list. It would be a coincidence if they were in the same universe as my list. In fact, I probably wouldn't even have a list.

The same thing goes for my approach to clothing, makeup, general presentation of myself, my house, my child, and my life. Perhaps I am insufficiently vain. Perhaps I am insufficiently self-conscious. Perhaps I am insufficiently socially adept. Take your choice. But whichever it is, it seems to me that a good half hour discussion of "toning" represents a chasm the which I have no idea how to cross. If I had an idea, would I want to cross it? I doubt it.