On the night she discovered she wasn’t going to fight, the Meandering Athlete ate two slices of mediocre pizza and half a pint of chocolate ice cream. The next day, after quite possibly her best sparring session ever, the Gladiator said to her, “It was the pizza.”
“It’s genetic,” she stated as though relaying a prime time news report. “It’s what we lived on as a kid, right? It’s like our bodies are programmed to need those foods. So when we deprive ourselves of them, our bodies become depressed and we’re less likely to operate at peak levels.” That pizza, she claimed, was a performance enhancer.
The last page of my USA Boxing fight book states that, “athletes who dope ruin the integrity of sport,” but maybe it’s not the steroids those officials up in Denver need to worry about. If two sub-par slices of New York pie and a mug full of Ben and Jerry’s in a flavor I’m not even particularly fond of are enough to finally get me going in the ring, why would I ever consider bending over and taking a needle full of juice in the ass? I wouldn’t. But then I’m an honest, hard-working individual who appreciates a good sweat just as much as a good sweet.
So, it would seem that I have discovered (OK, rediscovered), the food lover’s holy grail: a method of staying in pristine physical condition while indulging a dangerous obsession with cheese and chocolate. It’s called I.L.P.A., or Intense Levels of Physical Activity, and it affords culinary hobbyists, such as myself, the ability to eat whatever, and whenever, they please. Fancy a veal-burger stuffed with truffles and foie gras? That’s fine, you’ll work it all off on your five mile run. Want to make a pan of Marcy Goldman’s Shabbas brownies and eat at least half of it yourself? Throw it down before sparring and you’re good to go. Interested in taking your out-of-town guest to Pio Pio for six pitchers of sangria and three plates of maduros? That’s cool. Just make sure to tack on an extra couple of rounds to your rope routine tomorrow morning. You may not lose any weight, but you definitely won’t gain any and if you do, it’ll come in the form of muscle, which is the food-lover’s best friend since it enables her to pack even more calories into a 24-hour period.
This is how I was living my life two years ago: boxing for fun and fitness a couple times a week in a group environment at Kingsway Gym on 28th street. I was eating whatever the hell I wanted and had still managed to slim down a bit. I was learning to love the burn, my arms were in pretty decent shape and I was half way to a nice “four pack.” I’d progressed to the extent that Coach Lee was putting me in for sparring with some of the more experienced girls but I was still, first and foremost, a playwright. I had a far more important life outside of the gym. Said life included a lot of writing and producing, drinking in excess and sitting on my ass smoking the more than occasional cigarette and/or joint. There was also some whining that needed taking care of. Mainly about work, love (or the lack thereof) and all the other emotional sewage that an average 20-something female artiste must wade through in order to achieve creative clarity.
Through it all, boxing remained an outlet for various frustrations, and a good way of justifying my emotionally and physically borderline existence. It soothed my anxiety, boosted my self-image and made me feel like a rock-star, even though I had no intention of ever competing. Then something happened: I got “busy.” I stopped going to the gym. A January hiatus turned into a winter hiatus and before long, I hadn’t paid my gym dues in months. I arrived at Kingsway to settle the debt mere moments before Miss Kaye, the owner’s wife, was set to clip my lock.
I emailed Lee a few times to assure him that I hadn’t quit for good. Life, I explained, real life had gotten hectic. I was broke. My work schedule had changed. I would still be working out but not boxing for a while and blah blah blah, I promised that I’d be back when everything was squared away. In hindsight, it was more a promise to myself than to Lee--surely, whether or not I continued was no skin off his teeth. He had actual champions to attend to and plenty of white-collar clients paying his bills.
A few weeks later, while out drinking with friends, someone asked if I was still boxing. “No,” I responded, “not really my thing anymore.” They questioned why. “Guess I didn’t like getting hit in the face.” Laughter. Do you think you’ll go back? “Nope. That phase in my life is over. I don’t have anything to prove to anyone.” I found myself uttering similar phrases every time a friend would ask if I wanted to go back and I was too spineless to answer “Yes, more than anything.” Had I been honest, the inevitable follow up question would be posed, “Then why don’t you?” That was one question I was not prepared to answer truthfully.
