LWON is celebrating the holidays by re-running some of our favorite posts. This post originally appeared in January 2014.
Welcome to the New Year! The champagne is popped, the drunken kisses made and regretted. The only thing left to do is to go back to work and see what 2014 is all about. Oh, except that one little thing: The resolutions.
That’s right, sober or not, last night you made a few promises and now it’s time to get started. Mine was to lose weight. I need to trim my spare tire – not a lot mind you, more like the obnoxious kind you find in the back of rental cars that look like they were taken from a bike shop. Though a tire nonetheless.
As a former 20-something rock climbing teacher, I still think that I have a built-in Teflon spray that keeps pounds off me. But as a current 30-something writer, I am finding this is less than true. Furthermore I hate training. Sure, I’ll do it – run, bike, swim, Wii – but it irritates me that I have to do it at all (unlike Christie and her crazy friends).
So I needed a little inspiration to kick it off. I found it during a trip down near Cambria, halfway down the central coast of California. Standing one morning on that glorious coastline in the shade of a grand lighthouse, I found an odd sort of inspiration for my tire-shaving activities.
Flopping about on the beach were a cluster of elephant seals, crawling up to situate themselves for a morning of laying out and doing jack squat. Don’t believe the enabling propaganda that says blubber is there for thermoregulation in frigid water. These are lazy binge-eaters that can’t control themselves and sit around all day, popping sardines and bonbons. They don’t lay about all day to stay warm – they do it out of self-loathing.
Anyway, if you have lived in California you have probably seen these lethargic leviathans, giant sausages daring you to take their picture up close as they lounge about (really though, don’t do this – it’s bad for the sausage and it’s bad for you when it justifiably bites the crap out of you). But I’d never really sat and watched them during the annual series of fighting for male dominance.
Forget all those dramatic nature films that make it look like elephant seal Rocky VII (currently in post-production, with Stallone playing Big Daddy Seal). Just like the Rocky series, those films ignore the fact that these are massive blubbery creatures who can’t possibly keep up a decent fight for more than a few rounds.
But it doesn’t stop them from trying. Every few minutes one of the contenders rears up against the nearest male and starts honking his dominance. Then he whaps himself against whatever body part is closest and lets out a deep bellow. After that, he unceremoniously flops to the ground and closes his eyes for a second. Elephant seal beat-downs, it seems, are exhausting.
They’re a hilarious bunch, sporadically thumping against each other and then collapsing back on the beach. Even one of the pups got in the game, thoroughly dominating a sandpiper walking along the waterline. After a few minutes, I singled one of them out and named him Jimmy. Jimmy became my boy.
Imagine for a moment the serene picture as it stood that morning. The sun peeking over the horizon, auburn hues lit by eastern golden daggers. The waves, rhythmically crashing on an unending rocky shoreline. And a lunatic jumping up and down screaming in a Burgess Meredith voice at a cluster of marine mammals.
“C’mon, Jimmy, winners don’t quit! Keep the focus!”
“What have we talked about? Dodge and weave!”
“Whose beach is this, Jimmy?? That’s right, it’s your beach. It’s. Your. BEACH!”
“Jesus, man, don’t just stand there, whacking your head against him!! Move! Work the body!”
“Aw, Jimmy, don’t hump him while he goes up the beach! You’re better than that!”
“How do you spell champion, Jimmy!?! H. A. R. D. W. O. R. K!”
“Fight, yes! Yes! YES!! No! NO! Don’t pass out now! He’s on the ropes!!”
No, Jimmy will never be the slim, trim fighting machine of a bottle-nose dolphin or even a sea lion. Yes, he is an obese flabby slab of mammal, literally the shape of a couch potato. And no, clearly he’s not going to win this year. That big Shamu-looking one near the rocks – the one with the massive wobbly nose – he’s definitely going to kick everyone’s ass once he gets off his own.
But Jimmy’s out there, every day, doing what he can with what he’s got. And if he can get up of his massive butt every day to put in the training, well, I can too.
Happy New Year, everyone!
Photos courtesy of Shutterstock and Steve Spiker of Stealing Beauty Photography
Final Note 2015: Thanks to inspiration from Jimmy, a personal trainer named Xavier, and the Christie Aschwandens of the world, I’ve since dropped 9 lbs of fat, gained 7 more of muscle, and dropped my blubber ratio from 18% to 14.7%. Jimmy, I’m told, is still a bit of a lard ball.
awesome story.same resolution here.
tough to stick to it.
How did Jimmy end up making out? You sound like an overzealous father (read: an out-of-shape pops reliving his glory days)at his son’s wrestling match. Hope your thinking like an elephant seal help you attain your 2014 New Year’s resolution.