Looking Good Naked

During a rather lovely date on Sunday, my very easy-on-the-eye strolling companion quoted from American Beauty (and not, as I originally wrote, American Pie), specifically the bit where Kevin Spacey says he wants to get fit so he can look good naked.

(For future reference, this is me, not making a lurid comment about Kevin Spacey there. He's good at what he does, and that's all I ask of actors. What he does on his dog-walks is his own business. Although I hear he pays someone to walk his dogs... so, um....)

So, firstly, I'm thinking to myself 'My strolling companion has me well sussed out within about an hour of meeting me.' I'm also thinking 'Should this be the point where I make a point along the lines of "I bet you look great naked"?' Being the absolute shit-house I am, I refrained from saying that. I tihnk I'm learning.

Thanks to - how can I put this without giving the game away - thanks to Someone I Know pissing a lot of people off by never knowing when to shut the f**k up, I'm becoming a little more aware of those moments when, panicking at the thought of dead air, I begin to waffle. Like that fine John Cusack film Say Anything, I have a habit of rabbiting well past the point where even I know what I'm on about, and where 'share' has often become 'scare'. Although thankfully, I've never pulled out S&M gear at a work's night out... like Someone I Know.

Aaaanyway, I keep trying to do this exercise malarkey. I did a fair bit of it in 2006, walking mainly, although that wasn't so much about 'wanting to look good naked' as 'wanting to not cry in anger and frustration over work'. But that's another story. I didn't get rid of the tum - I suspect it's got squatter's rights by now - but I did slim down a little, notably in the face.

I'm trying to exercise a little every day now. As part of my brand new, all-new clique, I have a friend (a very sharp lad who says of one of my Scottish chums "ees vary bahd ingleesh", which always makes me love them both all the more). He persuaded me to buy a set of weights from Argos. Embarrassingly, I had to order a cab to get them home, and I took three journeys getting the bloody things into the boot. Once home and assembled, I could barely lift the things.

Fast forward two months and I can now do about 20 reps of the dumbbells and have in the last week managed about ten reps of the barbell. I'm sure seasoned gym-bunnies would laugh at that, but I've never really exercised. Even at school I'd more often be the goalpost than a player. One time, I scored a goal by accident - the ball bounced off my face - while another time, I told my mum I'd had a great game of football: 'The ball didn't come near me once.'

So, it's not much, but the very fact that I now feel guilty if I don't do at least something every day is surely a good thing. Even better if I end up looking good naked... and have someone to tell me so.