joenobody

I lift weights because I like the pain. I'm a masochist. I like the burn. I like how it feels when you're doing curls with a barbell and it hurts in your biceps as you're bringing it up for that one last repetition. Not thinking of anyone....or of anything...you're just purely isolated in your own body and you're mentally focused on this fight between yourself and a hunk of dead weight. I like knowing that this pain will make me stronger afterwards..... as they say...."whatever doesn't kill me..."

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I used to be really scrawny. bony. sickly thin. i don't know why exactly. maybe it was because i did alot of drugs and i lost my appetite. maybe because i never had any money, so i would skip lunch at school and save my $2. maybe it was all of this combined with the fact that i'm just the type of person who can eat and eat and never gain weight (you should see me at a buffet).

when i was 19 or 20 i was 6'5" and about 150 lbs. then i started working out when i was 20. now i'm about 185 lbs. I'm still thin but I've got a wirey build.

I normally don't even think about it like this, but that was one hell of a transition to make. Going from a jobless wastoid who didn't take life seriously to someone who occasionally drinks, and works out and is putting energy into a full time career. thinking to myself all the time...someday i'll buy a house....maybe i'll settle down in 6 or 7 years..... i could handle it if i ever got a girl knocked up..... Of all the people out there who say they're gonna start working out and be healthy, how many people actually do it? i never thought it would be me. weird.

i like change. i like to keep things moving. things get boring when they stay the same for too long. you always hear punks, and artists, and activists, and all these subculture kids complaining "oh, so-and-so changed, he's not the same anymore. he's a sellout." well fuck that. if i'm curious about something, i'll try it. if i don't like it, i'll move on. how do you know you like something or not if you don't try it out? and some things, you simply just can't do forever.

from the time i was 15 to the time i was 19, 3 of my friends died from drug related deaths. it was time for a change.

when i started working out my girlfriend at the time used to say to me, "i don't want you to work out and get all muscley and bumpy. i like skinny feminine boys."

i didn't like the sound of that. i am perfectly comfortable with my masculinity, and I don't care if people think i'm gay because i tell them i've fucked 2 guys before, or because i'm singing motown diva songs with the gayest guy at the party. but i do not want to be sickly thin for the rest of my life because it's trendy for punks or because it's more acceptable to feminists who reject the "macho" concept.

i don't want to give someone another excuse to pick a fight with me. i don't want people to look at me and say "he's a scrawny little wuss, i can beat him up." i don't want to have to run and hide from bullies and i don't want to depend on other people to fight my battles for me.

fuck this. fuck being a victim. fuck this obsession with self destructive habits like suicide and depression and drugs..... and fuck dying because i'm still here. I am still fucking here.

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after i had been working out for a little while i put on some muscle really fast. i think my body compensated for all those years i hadn't been putting on any muscle. i went with some of my friends to protest a neo-nazi gathering at a library in wallingford, CT. some kids from boston started to circle around one of the nazis and beat him down right next to where i was. a nazi came up and punched me from behind, and i turned around and clocked the kid and just started beating on him until he was hunched over trying to cover his head. i grabbed him and was gonna start kneeing him in the face but somebody pulled me away.

that was the first fight i had been in since 5 years before, when i was 15 and i let myself get beat up by a kid who didn't even know how to fight.