go on, freaky girlfriend

I don't usually think of myself as odd. But I got some interesting looks tonight at the gym.

Le contexte
First of all, I should say that

1. My gym is in Hillcrest, an area of town that's predominately gay
2. I typically ignore everyone else when I'm getting my sweat on
3. I am typically ignored because I'm a woman in what is essentially a gay male cruising zone
4. I was wearing the new Mamma Mia shirt that Scott and Monika bought me in Vegas

You do the math: gay clientele + ABBA musical shirt = street cred in a very live-and-let-live gym environment. I stretched that credibility about as far I could though, because of my multitasking.

Pourquoi? et la raison d'être ...

• Aleyda and Aaron are 39 weeks pregnant today and I'm still not done making their baby blanket.
• The item in question looked more like a baby placemat than a baby blanket at 7 p.m.
• I typically read my Org Behavior book at the gym (but the class is now over).

La mise en scène
I grabbed my crochet bag and "The Partly Cloudy Patriot" by Sarah Vowel, figuring that if the yarn experiment failed, I'd read.

To my surprise, I was able to get about three more inches done all around the granny square as I jogged on the elliptical trainer.

As if counting stitches and keeping my balance wasn't enough to keep me busy, I found myself playing along with Jeopardy (closed captioned on the TVs in front of me) and humming along with the mix of alternative/ top 40 music being piped in.

Le dénouement
No wonder the lovely gay boy next to me said this to me when he was done using the elliptical trainer: "Honey, that's beautiful. Ignore the looks from that bitch over there. Go on, freaky girlfriend." Predictably, he walked away with another beauuuuuutiful man.