the gym

Wow, almost another month has passed without a post. I have really been meaning to write more, and I still have a fair deal to recount about my July and August vacations to Seoul and Busan. But, those take a long time to write about, mostly because I want to give a more or less exhaustive account of what happened. And of course, doing that is more or less exhausting. Surprise.

So here are a few short vignettes just to get me in the mood to blog. They may also make you appreciate some of the people at my gym and my Korean skills.

Since my Korean has become better over the past months, I've become much more capable of interacting with the various dudes around the gym. Before, it was almost exclusively the women that I talked with, since, not having full-time jobs, a lot of them tried to study English during the day, so I could communicate with a few. But now that my Korean allows me to interact more with the men (that is, when they're trying to include me. Sometimes we just order some fried chicken and beer and sit around the gym after closing time, and when that happens, their conversation is totally beyond me), I've become more friendly with a few, especially with the coach. The result, along with more normal conversations and me teasing him about his lack of ab definition, is more locker-room horseplay. Today I told him he'd never achieve his six-pack-by-december goal, and then he threw a wet and, I assume, used towel at me. A few weeks ago, while in the shower, perhaps prompted by something I did or said, he came over and started sculpting my shampooey hair, while muttering "Beckham, Beckham, Beckham" at me. A bit frightening and awkward, but also pretty funny and absurd. Also, the mohawk he formed was pretty nice.

One more. Today, after a long absence from the gym, I returned, and was obviously greeted with much fanfare. By which I mean, one dude, Jae-Dong, with whom I always play squash and kid around, came up to me and shook my hand. I was taken by surprise because I didn't think he would have already played a game, and yet he was incredibly sweaty. So, I double-took and told him that he was dirty and sweaty, at which point he told me that it wasn't sweat, but love that he was exuding towards me.

What a great place.