After years and years of hemming, hawing and deferring, I have finally joined a gym. Or a club. No--a fitness center. It's a turning point, I guess. I've at last admitted that I will not stay a thin young man forever without a little help. Not that I'm in bad shape, but I'm not in shape--whatever that shape is supposed to be.

Before now, I relied on mountain hikes (that came along every month or so) and the occasional bike ride around the surrounding neighborhood. Most of the time these activities did a bit of good, but mostly reminded me that I wasn't the most active person in the world. Sitting in front of a computer for hours on end can't be really good on the body.

As a matter of fact, I was thinking that it would be really good to have a fitness video game. I wonder if the new Playstation 2 will have interactive weight training. Of course, that kind of thing would really defeat the purpose, but wouldn't it be great to have some hulking fitness trainer (who comes with a choice of sex, vocal tone and Speedo color) yelling, "C'mon you pussy, push it good! Push it real good!" while your nimble fingers manipulated the joystick or controls or mouse into a good old sweat?

Alas, virtual reality has not come far enough yet. And neither has hologram technology, which would allow us to bypass the gym altogether and just project the kind of beefcake body we'd like everybody to think we have.

So, after a couple of months of thinking about it, I joined the gym with another guy from work. The company I work at splits the costs 50/50, so we get to go to a really nice club (with swimming, racquetball and all those machines) for about $25 a month. So far, we've just been running around a little room chasing a rubber blue ball. It reminds me of high school in a way, but then again, everything reminds me of high school.

Eventually I'll try those stair steppers or bikes or treadmills and stare into the back of another fitness slave for a half an hour while my legs work. And maybe I'll even work myself into one of those futuristic crab-shaped contraptions and bust the abs and glutes or whatever the hip fitness speak calls my upper body (trapped Jello?). But everything takes time. The fact that I've already started to get into a habit of going somewhere other than home after work is a large step.

Besides, I've got the rest of my life to try to attain that perfect body. Whatever that perfect body is. Maybe I should check out that John Travolta/Jamie Lee Curtis movie that began the whole modern fitness phase in America--then again, maybe I won't. Major digression here, but I'm sure I don't have to watch Urban Cowboy to realize how dumb it is for a bunch of city-slickers dressed up like Texans on acid to do the Cotton-Eyed Joe, even though they wouldn't know which side of a horse to mount to save their life.

Nope, maybe I'll just take it all as it comes. Hit the ball, work the wall, get the rippling six-pack, pop the proverbial nut. I'm sure there's a lesson here somewhere, I'm just not looking hard enough. Oh yeah (puff puff), self improvement: it's all about the mirror, baby.

Matt Worley will be gleaming the cube semi-nightly for the foreseeable future.