About three weeks ago, I broke the little toe on my right foot while playing around with my kids.  I think it’s broken, anyway.  It turned purple and swelled to half its size.  I never bothered going to the doctor because common wisdom is there is nothing you can do about a broken toe.

Three weeks later it still hurts.  I try to let it heal, but I can’t protect it. 

All my life I’ve had a tendency to stub my toes on things.  Maybe it’s my California background that makes me think I should be able to handle bare-footed-ness better, but I should probably be required to wear shoes 24/7.  My tiny outer toes frequently snag on door frames.  My big toe always hits one of the bed posts in my room.

There is nothing cool about stubbing your toe.  It never happens to action heroes in the movies.  Even in the first Die Hard movie where Bruce Willis was barefoot through the whole movie—he stepped on glass and got bloody, but here never jabbed his toe into a door frame while knocking off all the bad guys.

The strange thing about stubbing your toe is that no one realizes you’ve done it.  One second, you’re walking and talking and the next second you’re limping very fast—making a sucking sound with your mouth—and swearing.  

Bruce Willis I am not.

I’ve always hated going to the gym.  It’s not that I don’t like working out—I just prefer something like running.  Running is easy.  It’s solitary.  You can listen to music and not have to worry about being watched or criticized or anything.

Most of my experience with gyms goes back to my time in the Army.  Every post I was stationed at had a gym that soldiers could freely use in addition to our mandatory physical training.  I would occasionally go for periods of up to a week of regularly gym usage.

photo credit: d_vdm

My memories of the gym are of bulky guys having lengthy conversations about their pecks, their lats, their gloots, whatever.  We shared the gym with soldiers from the infantry divisions.  As a linguist, it was a little unnerving (“Sure, they can kill a guy in a few seconds, but let’s see how quickly they can translate the People’s Daily.”). Just by standing in a gym, you were in danger of one these bulky, self-obsessed, guys tapping you on the should and saying “Spot me?”  So, not wanting to look like I didn’t know what I was doing, I would just grunt “Yeah, okay” and pray that the guys could actually bench press the amounts they were trying to lift.

I can remember working in one of the small controlled machines in the corner of the gym and listening to one guy spotting another on the bench press in the centre of the room—“Yeah Man!  You can do it!  Come on! Come On!  Yeah!  Yeah!”  My sarcasm made me want to mock them, but I wouldn’t dare.  However, if he had said “Eye of the Tiger, man!”, I would not have been able to control myself.

I pretty much stayed away from the gym after that.  I’ve run several 10ks, half-marathons, and marathons—but have stayed out of the gym.

As I get older, though, running is not enough to keep me fit.  I fear myself losing out to the obesity epidemic.  Either I have to exercise more or change my diet.  So, last week I joined the gym.

Joining the gym at 37 is not as easy as I thought it would be.  I wish I could have filled out an online form and just showed up at a time I thought it was empty.  Instead, I had to apply in person.  My big fear was that when I approached the reception desk at the local leisure centre and told them I wanted to join the gym, they would start laughing and say “I should think so!”  But, it was easy.

Once I filled in the paperwork, I had to book a meeting with a trainer to discuss my goals and set up a training plan.  I was nervous about this meeting.  I tried to think of a good answer to the question “So, what do you want to achieve by working out?”  I feel uncomfortable answering this question.  I don’t like bringing attention to areas of my body I’m unhappy with—especially to fit guy in his early twenties.  So my rehearsed answer was “You know, I want to do a little toning and work a little bit on upper body strength.”  But I really wanted to say “I want six-pack abs and I want people to gasp for the right reasons when I take my shirt off at the beach.” The answer I gave seemed to work and I am now set-up with a training plan.

The gym at the leisure centre is nothing like the gyms I used on Army bases.  So far, I’ve been going in the middle of the day and there seem to be mostly older people (older than myself) and no body builders.  I am now set-up with a direct-debit scheme that should keep me motivated to keep using it.  So far, so good.

Eye of the Tiger, man.  Eye of the Tiger!

I can vividly remember the bus ride from St. Louis to Fort Leonard Wood Army base in Missouri. There must have been 50 people on that bus. We had only left St. Louis at around 8pm after a full day of travelling from Massachusetts. The bus was dark. We left the city and drove through blackness. I sat on an aisle seat half-way down the bus, but several other men (it felt strange to refer to ourselves as men) sat on the floor in the aisle. There was no radio and no one talked. All we could hear was the occasional cough and the sounds of the bus.

I was 18 and scared.

I realise now that all the other guys on the bus must have been scared too, but I felt like I was the only one to be realising the mistake he had made. They belonged here. I didn’t. I couldn’t see many of the other guys in the dark, but I assumed they were sleeping. How can they do that? Was this just another day for them? Did they have such good reasons for joining that this was actually the best option for them? Was there no doubt? Why didn’t they look scared? We were all going to become soldiers. I was going to be called Private Wroolie, and I hadn’t even gotten used to Mister Wroolie. I didn’t know if I would be handed a uniform upon leaving the bus or if they would make us go to bed first. When would the head shaving start? It was after mid-night. I should be sleeping, but I was too afraid. If only the bus would break down. Or if only someone would walk onto the bus and say “I’m from the Army. Thank you all for volunteering, but we don’t need anyone else. You can all go back home.”

But that was never going to happen. I had completely screwed up my life. I was sure of it. I volunteered, so I had no one to blame but myself. I was in for four years– and the bus ride alone felt like a month.

Only 24 hours earlier, I was saying goodbye to my girlfriend. She was just the latest girl I was seeing and I wasn’t sure how I felt about her. But in the four-hour ride, I had convinced myself that I should have asked her to marry me. Then, at least, I wouldn’t feel like I was throwing my previous life straight in the trash.

I wasn’t leaving much behind, but it felt like it at the time. As a teenager, my friends were the most important thing to me. But my family moved around a lot and the newest group of friends in the newest location hadn’t even known me a year. They liked me and made me feel like I fit in, but they would like someone else soon enough. Deep down, I could not imagine them sitting around the McDonald’s we all worked at saying, “If only Eric were here . . .”

I had finished high school a few months earlier. Most of the people I graduated with didn’t know who I was since I transferred into the school in November. But I had some really good friends who I could hang out with when I wasn’t working or at school. They all were going off to college– to University of Massachussets mostly. I wasn’t. A lot of the people working at the McDonald’s were still hanging around, but the smart ones were leaving. I had a problem with truancy which led to low grades and a lot of summer school back when I lived in San Diego. I didn’t think any college would take me. I didn’t even try. The only two options I saw at the time were continuing to work at McDonald’s– maybe sharing an apartment with someone one day– or joining one of the services. I had four armed services to chose from. The Air Force was for smart people (too smart for me, I thought), the Marines for hard-core fighters (Dad said “I didn’t raise my kids to be cannon fodder”), and there were so many Wroolies in the Navy that I didn’t want to be just another (and the uniform put me off too). So I decided on the Army.

When I first talked to the Army recruiter (“Come in, come in. Have a seat. Would you like anything to drink?”), I told him I wanted to be a police officer when I finished with the Army. He told me about the options available in security and military police. All these years later, I can’t imagine why I told him that’s what I wanted to do. I can’t ever remember seriously entertaining the idea of being a cop– before or since. My only real passion in school was journalism and writing for the high school newspaper. I think it just sounded good to say I wanted to be a police officer. He told me there was a language proficiency test he wanted me to take first. The Army really needed people good with languages and he had to put them all through the test. I told him I failed the only semester of French I took, but he still put me in for the test. It was called the DLAB (Defense Language Aptitude and Battery) which gave you a fake language that you needed to listen to, analyze, and then answer a bunch of questions about what was said. I did well.

The recruiter told me I should become a linguist. He told me I could get extra profiency pay for having a language (but money was the furthest thing from my mind). He told me about DLI in Monterey, California, and how it was more like a college than a base. He told me how people learn about the culture and even dress in cultural clothing while learning. Honestly, I don’t know where he got that! I was big into James Bond books at the time (John Gardner, not Ian Flemming, I’m ashamed to say.) and while still insisting on being an MP told him I would consider being a Russian linguist. That would be pretty cool and exciting. He couldn’t guarantee me a language, but “with scores like these, you’ll have no trouble getting Russian.” Basic training is tough (“I’m not gonna lie to you”) but the rest should be easy. This was in March. I was signed up to enlist in October. I wanted the Summer before giving up my freedom, and I would only just finish High School in June.

In August, Iraq invaded Kuwait and soldiers started massing up in Saudi Arabia. There was talk of war. The first war since Vietnam, which led me to think about Oliver Stone movies and the Deer Hunter. I checked with the recruiter. Everything would be fine, he said. It was.

So after the Summer, which involved a lot of time in Springfield, MA and about six weeks back in San Diego, I reported to the recruitment office in The Federal Building in Springfield, Massachussets. I wasn’t sure if I should even be there. How does the shy kid become a soldier? It was October 9^th.

Late that evening, I watched the lights of Ft. Leonard Wood approaching the windows of the bus. We drove through the gates which looked like every other base I had ever been on with a guard post, a concrete sign, and a few flags. Turn after turn after tun, we arrived at a building. The bus door opened and a drill sargeant stepped on. The wide brimmed hat is very intimidating. But at that moment, it was downright scary. He was short but stocky and he had a little mustache that made him look even more sinister than he already was. He stood there for about 30 seconds in silence– just looking us over. Would it be possible to quit now? Would I dare?

If you spend time with me now, you would know that I don’t look anything like the picture on the side panel of this site anymore. That picture was taken two years ago– in the summer of 2006 while standing next to my brother on a beach in San Diego. My appearance has changed since then and people who knew me then don’t always recognize me in public.

Like a lot of people, I’m not comfortable with pictures of myself and rarely like how they look. So, I keep that one up until a better one comes along.

On the train the other day, I took a picture of myself to post on Facebook. Here’s a comparison of two pictures two years apart:

2006 Me	2008 Me

I’ve had a beard for about a year and a half now. The weight I put on is concerning (and I’m seriously trying to get rid of it). The gray in the beard is a surprise too. I wear my hair longer and, for now, I like it that way.

When I posted this picture on Facebook, one of my friends said “What have you done to yourself?” Well, that’s it.

When I find a picture I like for the side of this site, I’ll update it– but for now, 2006 Eric stays there.

So I get on the train this morning and all available seats are window seats. I walked the length of the train but there were no seats on the aisle.

This is something commuters do. They see a couple of empty seats on the train and sit in the aisle seats so no one sits on the inside next to the window. They know people prefer not to ask you to get up so they can get the vacant seat next to them, so they sit on the outside and guard their luxurious space. Who really wants an aisle seat on the train anyway? It’s not like a plane where you can get up and walk around- the minute you get up, you’re seat is taken by someone else. So the only motive is to prevent someone sitting next to them. If they had their way, they’d prefer you just stood for the entire journey.

This morning, everyone was doing that.

So I went up to an elderly lady and asked if the seat next to her was free. She was obviously annoyed as she moved her purse off the seat and stood up so I could shuffle in and sit down. I moved in to the seat and put a cup of coffee and my ipod down on the fold down tray and sat down. She sat back down.

I was still wearing my jacket. My big, heavy, padded motorcycle jacket. And I was hot.

So I did a half-stand (so as not to knock over the tray above my lap) and carefully slipped my arms out of my jacket and slid it off- very careful not to let the arms of the jacket whack the lady as I did. I lifted the jacket up to put it in the overhead storage by lifting it sideways- hooking it into the storage.

I lifted the jacket. The jacket knocked the coffee cup over. The spill-proof lid caused a steam or latte to douse the woman next to me. It got over her skirt and the purse which is now sitting on her lap.

I apologised. I truly feel bad about it. But her cold reaction stopped me from apologizing too much.

I am writing this on my phone while sitting on the train. She is still sitting next to me and I am so uncomfortable. I keep thinking about what she is going to say when she gets to work: “Some idiot on the train spilled his coffee all over me . . .”

The worse part is- this isn’t the first time I’ve done this. It happened last month with a guy in a tan suit. I gotta give up coffee. I offered to pay a cleaning bill– that’s what people say in the movies– but he was very nice about it.

I am quickly becoming an unpopular guy on this train, I think.

I’ve been riding the motorcycle into the new contract for a month now. The last contract was great–I could work in my boots and jeans and didn’t have to worry about bringing a change of clothes. Now, I’m back to the compulsory uniform (meaning suit and tie). I’m wearing jeans or wet weather trousers into work and keep my suit shoes and trousers under my desk. I get into work, grab my suit and change in the toilet stalls.

There’s an art to changing in the toilet stalls. I’m still getting to grips with it.

First, you have to find a clean stall (no drops on the floor) with a hook.

Second, you have to find a quiet time of the day to do it.

I had a very embarrassing situation last week where I tried to change in a toilet at a busy time of day. I went into my stall and pulled off my boots, took off my trouser and was just folding them up to put into my bag. A queue was forming outside the stalls. This is when all of the change fell out of my pockets and onto the floor. It all rolled out of the stall and into the growing queue of people waiting. Since I was in my underwear and socks, I didn’t really want to walk out and start picking up my change, so I put my hand under the stall and started feeling around for the coins. I knew I had some £2 coins and I was going to need those for lunch later–otherwise I would have taken the hit and avoided the embarrassment. Eventually, everyone started kicking the coins back under the stall door. I deepened my voice and tried to say something masculine like “Yeah, nice one. Cheers mate.” I waited until all of the other stalls emptied and the queue was gone before I left.

It’s not easy changing in the toilets. Luckily, at the bank I’m working at now, the stalls are pretty clean.

When I told a colleague how difficult I was finding it changing in the toilets, he commented that it worked for Superman. But Superman didn’t change in the toilets– he used a phone booth or a broom closet. I couldn’t see Clark Kent sneak into the bathroom and check all of the stalls for the cleanest one to change in. “This looks like a job for Superman. Let’s see . . . this one? No, too smelly. This one? No, someone didn’t flush. This one? Skidmarks,” he would say before resigning to the first smelly one.

My point? Brink back the phone booth.