Trash and Black Leather Workouts

I've been spending a fair amount of time at the gym lately and I've discovered a new and fascinating creature that utterly perplexes me. (As many can attest, perplexing me really isn't all too hard. I live a fairly ordinary, logical, rational life, and things that don't fit into what I might consider ordinary, logical, rational behavior tend to make me cock my head in a not-entirely-unlike-a-cocker-spaniel way.) This creature, like me, pays a premium rate to belong to the gym and get certain extra amenities. In the "women's athletic center," the locker room to which access costs around 50 dollars more a month than the no-frills locker room, there is a large room with cardio eqipment, free weights, a bench, mats on the floor, exercise balls, a HUGE tv and a big, black, leather couch. All the machines I need for my cardio routine are in there: ellipticals, treadmills, and stationary bikes. I tend to listen to music on headphones when I work out in there, so the tv is just a distraction for my eyes so I don't stare at the time read out on the machines and die a little inside as each second creeps past. (The one time I dared to command the remote for the behemoth was to put on the Redskins game, and that was changed to QVC the second I got in the shower. QVC? C'mon ladies. I mean. Really.)
The creature I've discovered recently is trim, well-dressed (most recently and notably, baby blue terrycloth Adidas pants with white stripes and a black baby-doll teddy-like top), and nonplussed. She glides into the athletic center, hair and nails perfect, sneakers gleaming white, magazine in hand. No, not the New Yorker or even the Washingtonian. This creature is armed with Vogue, Self, Cosmopolitan, or some other truly inspiring, self-affirming rag. She saunters with her girlmag to the leather couch, changes the tv channel from CNN to FoxNews or The Dating Game, and flips through pages blithely with her feet on the table in front of her. She'll engage in this intense aerobic activity for several minutes - sometimes as long as an hour! - before heaving a sigh and hitting the shower.
Now if this were a one-time sighting, I'd write it off as an all-too-typical DC girl with too much funding and too much time, who just likes to be able to say to her friends/boyfriend/family/whomever "I'm going to the gym." Unfortunately, I have seen this on almost every single visit. (Excepting the early morning workouts - I imagine there's far too much laying about and recovering from the previous night's outing to be done at home in the wee hours.) What I can't fathom is why these women (or their parents/husbands/benefactors) are paying so much money every month to sit on a couch in a locker room with fat, sweaty girls (okay girl: that would be me) panting a mere few feet away. Is there some secret cult I'm missing? Is there a magical combination of trashy reading and trashy television and cheap black leather that induces killer abs, toned triceps, or cardio fitness? Is there a maximum weight? When I get down to, say, 120 pounds (HA!), will I be issued the next month's Vogue and the keys to the kingdom of waifish loafing?
I guess, for at least the next 120 pounds, anyway, it'll have to remain a mystery.
Stay tuned for the mystery of the coffee drinker on the elliptical. (Takes "burning" to a new level. Yuk yuk.)

Iraq Update

Although the end of all major combat operations was declared well over a year ago and, according to our dear friend Dick, it's irresponsible, reprehensible, and immoral to try to re-write history by calling the Administration on their many fumbles, foibles, distractions, and deceptions, the war continues.

I came across some figures on Wikipedia that I wanted to share.

Summary of casulaties as of November 25, 2005:

Iraqis:
Counts of civilian deaths specifically documented range from 26,994 to 30,420.

U.S. armed forces:
2,105 total deaths. 15,804 combat wounded (7,397 evacuated) + unknown non-combat injuries

Armed forces of other coalition countries:
201 (98 British, 27 Italian, 18 Ukrainian, 17 Polish, 13 Bulgarian, 11 Spanish, 17 other)

Non-Iraqi civilians:
Unknown, but at least 278 contractors, 58 journalists, 20 media support workers, and 150 aid workers.