Sweat Monkey

When I work out, every pore of my skin becomes a sweat factory and by the end of, say, a run I am literally dripping sweat. I use a little towel to dab myself down when I'm at the gym, but my shirt always gets soaked, my sports bra is saturated, my shorts are all sticking (and thus, riding up), even my ears are sweaty and my ear buds have a hard time staying in -- particularly my left one -- why is that?

When I get home, I have to peal my clothes off before getting in the shower, and I wonder about balling them up and throwing them in the hamper (will they sprout some sort of fungus?), but I do it anyway and pray that the washer will cure them of any grossness. But the reward for all this sweatiness is a nice, hot shower. There's really hardly any better feeling, except well, you know that, and a really satisfying sneeze. Personally one of my favortie things is to take a really hot shower -- I mean hot, where the water stings your skin and you turn a little red from the heat -- but then at the end of the shower, when you're rinsing off the conditioner and body wash, you turn it to cold water. It's so refreshing! And the contrast feels really good and is, actually, supposed to be good for skin (probably not the really hot part, but rinsing yourself in cool water is good).

I love to shower; there's something about the whole process (maybe because it's so formulaic, always the exact same steps, and routine comforts and soothes me) that feels as if I not only accomplished something but that I've also relaxed in the process. There have been times in my life when I suspected myself of EGD (excessive grooming disorder -- you know, where cats clean themselves so much they actually lick off patches of hair). When I waitressed, especially days when I pulled a double, I would shower three or four times a day: once in the morning before work, once in the afternoon between shifts because that's often when I went running or else just so I would be fresh when I started the evening, and once either when I got home or once I got home from the bars. Often I would shower before I went to the bars and once I got home.

In Minnesota, where there's still smoking in bars, going out means you sacrifice your clothes, your skin, and your hair to cigarette smoke, so when I got home I almost always showered because I didn't want to roll around in my sheets and get them all dirty and smelly. This often resulted in falling down in the shower because it's hard to manuever in there when you're drunk, but I always have mysterious bruises anyway (I bump into many things even when I'm sober). It's also very difficult to remember whether or not you've shampooed when you're drunk, so I went through a lot of shampoo in that time, aside from the excessive showers.

Now I stick to a basic one, sometimes two, showers a day. It depends on my schedule, but I always, always, always have to shower after I work out. I am way to gross to not shower, I mean, I have ear sweat! Ewww!