Stop Going to the Gym

So I've been hitting the gym a lot lately.

I'm taking this new class that's supposed to be the "next big thing" in fitness. It kicks your butt. You lift logs and stuff.

And in the three weeks of taking the class and upping my protein and caloric intake, my body has undergone a nice little change that makes me glad I bought a couple of muscle shirts the last time I was at the Gap.

Or...I WAS glad.

I'm in a staged reading of Henry V at Well Ain't We Fancy Shakespeare Company. There are lots of fun, goofy, clowny roles in the show.

But I'm not playing any of them. No, they put me in the role that, if Kenneth made the movie version today, he would have probably given to Orlando Bloom.

It's the first time in a VERY long time I've played a Shakespearean character who wasn't a loveable misfit full of quirks and gags. I find myself puffing my chest out more. I glower through furrowed brows. I breathe heavily so as to appear earnest and worried.

Meanwhile, the five guys playing the clowns get all the laughs. And I have to yuk it up as Henry's whiny cousin.

And it's all because I just HAD to wear one of those Gap muscle shirts to the friggin' audition.

So let this be a lesson to all of you. If you want to have fun in this life, stop working out. Enjoy your skinny arms, your flabby gut, your saggy bottom. Because it is those things that will make you quirky. And you'll get cast in the flashy comic roles. And the audience will love you.

Meanwhile, those of us with shirt-straining pecs and biceps are stuck playing lame-ass soldiers.