Can I go outside and play instead?

I don't always like to go to the gym but I go; when I have to. And when I go I try to make the best of it. The gym is one of the two places I do most of my reading. I've read many a book on the elliptical machine there. In case you're wondering, the second place I do my reading is the bathtub. The bathtub is strictly for magazine reading though. No book reading in there. Lucky for me, Ann subscribes to Newsweek and although she was in San Diego the last year and is now in Hawaii, they still come here to Sunnyvale. And lucky for Ann, when I'm done reading her Newsweeks in the tub, I mail them off to her and she has the joy of receiving a parcel of crunchy magazines. Another way I make the best of my gym visits is to people watch. Not in a gawking kind of, I'm looking to try and pick someone up kind of way, but in a curious way. I look at the man with the tube socks pulled up past his knees and wonder if there's a medical reason for his socks being pulled up so high. I look at the older woman who's wearing shorts and pantyhose and wonder, "Are those therapeutic hose?" I look at the man on the elliptical machine next to me and wonder if that smell I keep smelling are his sneakers asking to be retired, or if he's gassy. I'm leaning towards gassy because I did see him one day with different sneakers on and yet the same smell seemed to periodically surround him, and unfortunately, me as well. I felt bad for him, thinking it must be tough having so much gas. I imagine he's pretty self conscious about it. I ponder the woman working out with an obscene amount of freshly applied makeup and wonder how much of a workout the gal on the stationary bike is getting while she's talking on her cell phone non-stop. Then there's the person who's gender I've been unable to discern. I do know I will never be as fast as s/he on the stairmaster but what I really want to know is if s/he's a man or a woman. I know it's really none of my business and it's of course not politically correct. Nonetheless, I fluctuate back and forth in my attempt to guess her/his gender. When I noticed a 5 o'clock shadow, I thought, man, but when I looked at her/his thighs, I thought, woman. When s/he was laying on the stretching mat next me, sweating through her/his white t-shirt and I saw breasts, I thought, woman. But when s/he was at the front counter talking to the attendant, the voice told me, man. I also wonder why there's a sign by the stretching mats that says, "Stretching and ab work not recommended here due to flying balls", and yet that is exactly where the gym owner has placed the stretching mats. They are located no other place in the gym. I will say I have never been hit by a flying racquetball ball while on the mats by the warning sign, but I have been hit in the head while on the elliptical machine and there are no warning signs there. In addition to the sights at the gym, there are the sounds. In particular, the sounds of grunting. I, in general, don't like to hear grunting in public, and especially at the gym. I think grunts are private sounds and they should be kept at home either in the bedroom or in the bathroom.