Gay Spiderman

We are a bunch of gym sociophobes, really, me and my workout partners. As a result, we never really meet anyone at the gym and so instead of our knowing people's real names, people get nicknames (usually bestowed by the brilliant giver of nicknames, Kelly Workout). There's Screamy McScreamster of course, and there's Gym Boyfriend (who, come to think about it, I haven't seen in awhile). There's another guy who Kelly Workout called something like Mr. Potato Head. And then there's Gay Spiderman.

Ah, Gay Spiderman.

Gay Spiderman is in his late '30's or early '40's, about 5'8" with dark--probably dyed--hair that he styles in this kind of swept-back 50's gangster look. He always always always wears his sunglasses when he works out, and most of the time he wears tight, painfully short shorts (I mean, you can tell he's circumcised tight and proctology-exam short shorts) and a skintight black t-shirt, sometimes with a spider logo on it. And of course he shaves his legs.

Kelly Workout thinks he's six different kinds of homo-awesome but I've always found him to be borderline annoying, what with all of his posing and preening and strutting around surrounded by his cadre of anorexic, bored housewives. Kelly First became equally annoyed by him after he once took the stationary reclining bike next to hers and put his cell phone on speaker setting and proceeded to make a bunch of phone calls. Mostly she was annoyed because the phone calls weren't very interesting. If he had been calling the other gay superheroes, fine. That's some prime eavesdropping opportunity right there. But he was doing stuff like calling to leave a message for his auntie about Sunday dinner or something. Nothing interesting.

Anyway, while I was visiting my mom, I got a text from Lu that said:

I found out gay spider mans name. Wanna know or will it break the spell?

I was, like, hell yes I want to know! So she texted back:

Conrad. Even his name is gay

and a moment later, she added:

he soaks in hot oil for two hours after he works out

And I was, like, I just threw up a little.

Lu found out Gay Spiderman's name at a dinner at a friend's house. There, she ran into Dorine the fabulous trainer who gave her the lowdown on the gym crowd. (We love Dorine even more now.) The trainers, it turns out, also give people nicknames. One of the awesome ones was given to this skinny guy who spends most of his time at the gym dressed in a white wife-beater, posing in front of the mirrors. The trainers call him "Mr. Puny-verse." I find that hilarious.

Movie Night

So I've been netflixing again. Yesterday I watched Eastern Promises, the David Cronenberg film about the Russian mafia in London. Viggo Mortensen was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance. You remember, right? And he is pretty awesome in it, though the movie itself is kind of meh. It's totally ABC Afterschool Special-quality writing and directing, with, like, a Shakespearean actor in the lead role. Totally Alec Guinness in My Dad Lives In A Downtown Hotel. The female lead is Naomi Watts, who I guess I've never seen onscreen before. She has a collection of emotive facial tics that pass for acting skills. (I was not, in other words, impressed by her performance.) Still, it's worth seeing. I'd even watch it again under the right circumstances. (Those circumstances being Viggo himself feeding me popcorn during the slow parts of the movie.)