Day 59 and it’s about time I go to something fitness-fad related – I’m in the city for it. So in the morning I go off to Barry’s Boot Camp. Lyndon has got me a VIP pass. Which is just their way of saying “free class”. Everyone’s a VIP at Barry’s!
The class takes place in a dark room with an orange glow – a clear nod to the agonising fires of hell. My class is run by Eric, who is definitely straight. First we run on treadmills to pumping music, with nothing to look at but our own eyes in the mirror and the flickering orange glow of the terrible fires behind us. Eric spouts instructions and numbers through a radio mic. He knows my name. There is no escape. No Exit. I run. I run and run but I am going nowhere, just running into my own face, running into my own eyes. Sometimes I push buttons and make it harder. I am doing this to myself, I discover. In this inferno, I am the instrument of my own torment. Eric is just the facilitator.
Eventually we move. Now we are squatting with weights. Our ankles are manacled. We put the manacles on ourselves. We are rolling around in the orange fire. Eric is telling us we should squat like the girls at Spearmint Rhino. “Oh ha whoops, I shouldn’t mention that. Now you all know too much about what I like.” Eric definitely likes the girls at Spearmint rhino. He is definitely straight. We are bent now, contorting our bodies into more and more unimaginable positions, before it is back to the treadmill and harder and faster and more more and then back to the floor and howling, howling, and Eric is still barking instructions and telling us his hetero manbro stories because he is not gay, those are just dreams.
At one point I think my heart is going to explode out of my chest like the thing from Alien. But finally it’s over and we sluggishly high five one another at Eric’s behest before lying on our backs to stretch out. And he puts on Fix You. And then he starts making a motivational lecture that is unutterably, mawkishly earnest. To his captive audience. “Sometimes you might … find out your friends are not your friends, and you need to just … just tell them to fuck off… and that’s ok… that’s ok…” All the while leading to the bit where the guitar drops. I’m so pumped with endorphins I am howling at the start, but this time with laughter. I get it together before he comes back to my side of the room. It’s not at him so much as at the absurdity of the whole thing. And Fix You, of all songs! It’s horribly earnest. When I leave the class, he man hi fives me because he is a bro. I worry that he is sitting hard on something. Maybe one day he’ll let himself. Meanwhile I wasn’t sick which is more than I expected. In fact, I would go back.
The second half of the day is spent in a Spa. I had a couple of free passes left over from my Toscars nomination and now is a good time for it. Cold Room, Himalayan Salt Room, Korean Clay Room, Steam Room. That done I feel exercised and chilled, ready to take on the world. As we leave the spa I spy a flyer for one of their treatments. Anal Steam Treatment. The A-Steam. Here is Janey modelling the flier.
You sit on a decorative throne for 20 minutes while fifty bucks worth of steam goes up your bum. The perfect Hollywood treatment, although over here you really shouldn’t have to pay to have hot air blown up your arse. It’s free!
AlBarclay 