Bodily Metrics

In spinning class on Tuesday I felt kind of like the Princess and the Pea. I got to class 5 minutes before it started and began to adjust the bike I usually use. When I mounted, however, I realized that left pedal was not attached to the bike but lying on the ground. All the good bikes were taken, so I proceeded to spend the first 20 minutes of class moving from bike to bike. They all had problems:Bike #1: Made a grinding sound, like it needed some wd40, and was difficult to adjust the tension (a slight tap on the adjuster thingy led to an exponential increase in tension).

Bike #2: Wobbly

Bike #3: (purportedly new): Right pedal seemed to be attached incorrectly, so it was slanted, so when we did a standing climb my foot did whatever the opposite of pronation is.

Bike #4: Wobbly, but super easy tension wise, so I looked like a badass with the tension cranked all the way when actually I was working at an 8/10.

I ended up settling for Bike #4.

Ever since I took a spinning class at my old gym with this guy who is on the UNC cycling team, I have become very particular about adjustment. I don’t like it if I can’t lower the handlebars or if the seat doesn’t move back and forth. UNC Cycling Guy encouraged us to write down the exact measurements we had determined on an index card, which he kept on file, so we could check everything carefully before class: height of seat, position of seat, height of handlebars, distance form handlebars to seat, etc. They had a brand new fleet of yellow bikes that were easily adjustable.

At my new gym nobody seems to care too much about all these things, possibly because all the bikes are from 1972 and don’t easily adjust anyway. But isn’t that wrong? Or am I just too anal? There is something rather Foucauldian about the specific bodily metrics I learned at my old gym. Perhaps this is evidence that have become a docile body of the spinning institution, or something. But then again maybe I feel a lot comfortable if I can adjust everything appropriately and get annoyed when the above situation happens.

Then again, everyone at my old gym got really into spinning and started to emulate the instructor, who taught the class in fully spandex regalia replete with a UNC logo. First they started wearing the little shorts, then the shoes, and then people started showing up in the full outfit. Because wind resistance is a big problem with indoor spinning.

Rather than inculcating these forms of bodily discipline, my new gym has instead invested time and money into converting the spinning room into a “cosmic spinning” room. (My term, not theirs). This means that they have painted the walls and floors black, with a highway and buildings and palm trees in fluorescent colors. The class is conducted under black lights. The instructor’s teeth glow so I always think she is chewing fluorescent yellow gum. Of course this is completely pointless, but maybe it is a cheap way to distract us from the sub-par quality of the equipment.

Where Have All the Uniforms Gone? (Long Time Passing)

I'm working on an article... or chapter... or something about the body of the woman worker during World War II. I've been looking at books and pamphlets and newspaper stories about a) women's physical capabilities (as described by those seeking to constitute them as suitable for war work) and b) women's uniforms/clothing for war work. Part of getting women into the war effort, it seems, was giving them stylish uniforms to wear for such duties as driving a bus or acting as an Army Emergency Relief person. For example, the female bus driver got to wear the above ensemble, designed by couturier Helen Cookman. This entailed, according to a New York Times description, both a "slim, fly-front, flared skirt" and "matching knee-length shorts." You can't really tell from the picture, but I guess this means it was a skort. Kind of a fashion faux pas, if you ask me, but maybe it was functional for driving a bus.

The Army Emergency Relief uniform sounds a lot nicer: "a fawn-colored skirt topped by a cocoa-colored tailored jacket with double-breasted slanting pockets," along with "a crepe blouse in beige with a Peter Pan collar." Of course, this descriptive language masks the fact that you'd actually be clothed entirely in brown. Trust me, the effect is not that attractive, which you would know if, like me, your family was famous for a group portrait of all five children wearing identical bowl haircuts and brown outfits, on a brown backdrop. I'll post it if I get the chance to scan it in.

At any rate, reading these descriptions kind of makes me wish more people got to wear snappy skirt suited uniforms these days. Aside from flight attendants, it seems to me that most of the uniforms people wear today have been designed from a kind of unisex perspective. Think of the postal worker, for instance. Or the UPS driver. Every once in a while you'll hear about some fashion designer creating a line of uniforms for hospital workers or something. (Or for postal workers, which they did on Project Runway.) But these never get adopted. And the uniform has mostly become a marker of the service profession, so that many of us never get to wear one. Unless you count the ballet uniform I had to wear for exams (which in the early days was a pastel little dress, with white ankle socks, and later turned into a scratchy nylon v-neck leotard provided by my teacher) or the faux sailor-suit I wore for Canadian Girls In Training (yes, it's a real group), I've never had the honour of wearing one. I wouldn't mind if we had some kind of professor uniform to wear on occasion. Not the academic regalia, though, because that is a) horrifyingly fugorific and b) not very figure flattering. I'm thinking more of some kind of skirt suit, maybe in tweed, with a cool badge to indicate your area of expertise. Skort optional.