Girl enters roller rink, turns 90

If you’ve been following my home blog for a while, you might remember a while back when NBC Universal offered me my own video series. They called it “Big Life,” but we never shot any episodes beyond the pilot.

I was supposed to be scripting my own episodes for the show, but it didn’t take long for NBCU to start nudging me in the direction of things that didn’t ring true for me. When it came time to talk about Episode 2, I was encouraged to write a script that took me into a Crunch gym for a workout with one of the network’s preferred fitness experts — a personal trainer.

I wanted nothing to do with the idea, because there was nothing about it that felt organic or true to me. I never did enjoy going to a gym. Historically, I’ve found gyms mind-numbingly boring. I’m much more interested in finding engaging activities — like biking and swimming and fencing and tennis – that make fitness feel more like fun than drudgery.

In fact, one physical activity I’ve loved since childhood is roller-skating. As a teenager I frequented roller rinks the way oily hustlers flocked to discos. Rinks were underage nightclubs with cardboard pizza and flat soda, where controversial romances took wing during “slow skates” and where New Wave girls like Dina Adams and me begged Flock of Seagulls requests at the DJ booth. (more…)

HIV and Exercise

People with HIV can slow down their HIV infections and improve their health by doing four things: eating a healthy diet, managing stress levels effectively, getting sufficient sleep and getting some regular exercise.