So I went to the meeting at BSC yesterday, despite the fact that it was a hundred fucking degrees outside and I’d lost my sunglasses in Maine. Once I got there, soles of feet charred to leather and retinas burned away, I was even less inclined to talk to a membership rep than before I left the office.

But then, I was suprised – everyone was friendly! The gym was empty! And it smelled… good! The smell of BSC makes me think of the hours spent relaxing in their sauna, and the dry heat, and the victory of the one day I finally sauna-ed naked like everyone else.

(really, I was like the only one in the gym, and when I finally worked up the courage to take off my towel (in front of, um, NOBODY,) I thought I heard something locker room and jumped five feet in the air, wrapping that square of terrycloth around me tight as a drum.)

Anyway.

After I got the fifty cent facility tour, we sat down to talk pricing, and HOLY MOLY that shit ain’t cheap. It wasn’t cheap when I joined two years ago, and it’s even less cheap now. In fact, it is currently significantly less cheap than two years ago, by, like, $20/month. So even though I was having sauna flashbacks and dreams of doing a quick 20 min on the treadmill on the old lunchbreak, in the end BSC turns out to be on the list of things that make me say “fuck that shit”.

Then, I started thinking about the Y. My friend in LA goes to the Y and likes it, maybe I could go to the Y and like it too! I looked up “YMCA” on trusty old Google, and lo! behold! there is a Y in East Boston!

okokok, I hear what you’re thinking. The Y in Eastie. Why don’t you just walk through Roxbury with a miniskirt and a pistol. But seriously, the Y was really niceish! Not as nice as the BSC in Fenway, but not as godawful expensive as the BSC in Fenway, either. So now, I’m thinking the Y.