Friday night I did something that made me feel a little bit uncomfortable.
Friday night I went to a Pilates studio.
It was strictly for the purposes of trying to find something, anything, that might make me well again, and I didn't wear a leotard or a tutu or those special grippy socks with the toes cut off, but I still had a hard time shaking the feeling that I was doing something very wrong just by being there.
The session itself made me feel even more uncomfortable.
I'm admittedly a bit oversensitive about my physical condition these days, but 50 minutes of straining and sweating and gasping at dumbed-down versions of what so many soccer moms and schoolgirl ballerinas were prancing their way through all around me didn't do much for my self esteem.
To be sure, it was a wonderful thing to have a new kind of therapy to try. To be surer, I've never been overly concerned about getting too in touch with my feminine side. Still, something about going to a Pilates studio, voluntarily and unrelated to any romantic endeavors, and gaining nothing but a polite, perfectly-postured beatdown, was too much for me to take.
I had to do something manly. Something really manly.
So, on the drive home from the studio, I did what really manly men do when they're driving and they have to pee but they're simply too manly to stop and find a restroom.
I peed in a bottle. While talking on the phone and changing lanes.
And this made me feel most uncomfortable of all.
Because, you see, as so often happens in the undertaking of really manly activities, things went horribly wrong and the bottle spilled all over my lap.
I won't go into the horrifying details, or at least I won't go any further into them, but suffice it to say that my masculine self-worth was most definitely not restored. Sore, shamed, frustrated, I turned to the only option I had left to salvage the evening and regain some measure of dignity.
I bought myself a pair of those amazing socks.









