Comment: I am a klutz.

As I am a pretty energetic person (some may say “hyper”) and need to move every day, I exercise a lot. I didn’t start exercising in earnest until I was in my late 20s. I didn’t choose to, and i didn't have to, as I was skinny and drank instead and could eat whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. People probably hated watching me scarf down milkshakes and seabreezes and remain thin, but all I wanted was my friends’ fabulous curves, of which I never got any, even to this day.

But then I got older. And heavier. I spent two years teaching preschool and gained 20 pounds eating Goldfish © crackers and peanut butter with the rest of the kids. Oops.

So I started exercising. And I actually enjoyed it. But you should know this: I am a klutz. In gym class I was always the second to last person picked. I couldn’t kick or catch a ball and my eyes-on-the-prize gym teachers never let me try because I couldn’t do it, but how do you learn to do something if you never get to try, you dream-crushing fascists? (I have a few unresolved issues with P.E. And no, I don’t want to talk about it.)

Anyway, so I’m not athletic. But I like to ride exercise bikes and run on treadmills. Once I started doing it on a regular basis, I found my mood to be consistently elevated, my manners better, and my fat rolling off. So it was a win-win.

But that was many years ago. And doing the same exercise routine for years at a time can get dull. So I started buying DVDs. I ‘m a fan of Karen Voight, but sometimes I’m just not in the mood for her stuff. One of her workouts, if done in full, is 84 minutes long—who has that kind of time?!

As I exercise a lot, I get bored with things pretty easily so I like a variety to my workouts. My husband solves this problem not by varying his workout but by varying the TV he watches while he works out on the exercise bike. But as we don’t have TV, he’s actually watching on a laptop perched precariously on the handlebars. The time just flies by as he watches the latest “The Office.”

I, on the other hand, can’t do that, as it requires BALANCE, of which I have little. The one time I tried to have my laptop up on the handlebars of said bike, the computer was so tippy I had to hold on tight to it the whole time and ended the workout with a crick in my shoulders and one wobbly episode of "Lost" under my belt.

So I used to do a ton of Tae Bo. I was pretty zealous and really enjoyed it. But some of the herky-jerky motions just don’t sit as well with a person of my advancing age. Everyone on set in his videos is buffer than buff and nary a drop of fat is apparent. Meanwhile me and my little muffin top are trying to stay on top of things, and it’s a bit of a losing battle. Age, gravity, lack of coordination.

But he kept the variety coming. Every few months, Billy Blanks comes up with a new way to recycle the five or so basic moves he has invented/perfected. First, it was holding and flexing in the Flex workout series. Then it was resistance bands that anchored around your feet. They were awesome. The workouts were challenging and at times, fun.

Then Billy added a one pound weight to the bands and made them extreme and all that and it was even harder. What a workout!

Problem is, resistance tubing tends to…break. And snap off dramatically, knocking the user over and possibly causing a very nasty mark where the rubber hits the skin.

THEN he came up with this baton thing that weights 3 lbs and is used to hurl around like some sort of aerobic ninja. For a klutzy person, this is not necessarily a good idea.

See, there’s this section where you “play baseball” and swing the stick like a bat, and I’m forever afraid I’ll end up smashing the window when the stick leaves my hand and flies across the room. It’s only a matter of time.

In another signature move, where you’re basically whacking the shit out of the air in front of you, all I can think of is how it’s just like Michael Jackson in the “Black and White” video when he trashes a car for no good reason. (This should have told us something about his mental state.)

So my most recent foray is the stability ball. I bought this ecologically sound, literally green ball, and attempted to inflate it. Even at full inflation, it’s too small for me. I’m almost 5 feet 10, and my legs are practically over my ears when I sit on it. It’s ridiculous. The twist in all this is that there is resistance tubing you can use while you sit or lie on the ball.

I was just trying it out today to see what muscles I could beat into submission. Well. There’s a point at which you put the resistance tubing UNDER the ball, and then lie on TOP of the ball so you can do chest presses and such. I tried to do it and the tubing kept slipping out. Okay, try again. I thought I finally had it, but I shifted on the ball and the tubing came FLYING up over the ball, smacked me hard on the head and proceeded to get tangled in my hair.

I could not make this up if I tried.

I burst out laughing and was thankful there was no audience for this performance.

Some kind person I knew once told me that I’m not really a big klutzy person, but actually a small, graceful person trapped in a big body, resulting in my not knowing where the ends of my limbs are. That was charitable.

No more tubing for me today. Think I’ll get back on the exercise bike. But no laptops. I think if I practice, I might be able to hold a magazine without dropping it while I ride.