Ow...

I did not smile while using mine.

Over the weekend, I bought a 65 cm "balance ball." I used one in physical therapy to help strengthen my back and abdominal muscles, and it was pretty enjoyable. So my sainted mother bought me a ball (because, um, we couldn't find shoes I wanted), and I aired it up yesterday evening.

I used a hand-pump. That, in itself, is a fracking workout.

Oy.

I arrived at my apartment, all ready to start ballin' (I'm hip!) and realized I hadn't aired it up enough. Hmmm... I had to remove the plug - needle-nosed pliers were required - and then quickly insert the pump while the enormous thing spewed rubber-smelling air in my face.

I'm sure, at this point, you're already wondering where I'm going to keep my balance ball. Surely, seeing as I'm so decor-conscious, I can't possibly imagine keeping it in view all the time, can I?

Yes. Yes, I can.

I had hoped Target would have a nice metallic gold ball to go with my brass lamps, but they didn't come through for me, this time. No, it was either Kelly Green or Cerulean.

I went with the Kelly Green, because it was latex free, and I was afraid the Cerulean would create too much optic dissonance, it being orange's complementary color, and all.

Right.

So now, my apartment living room looks like an Architectural Digest shoot from about 1978, all bright and ready to leave disco behind, but not quite ready for New Wave.

I'm listening to New Order in honor of the burgeoning music scene about to take place in my apartment.

After the ball was aired up (on the - er - third try), I got to ballin'.

I made it halfway through the DVD that accompanies the ball, before I started hurling decidedly unladylike epithets at the eerily cheerily tan exercise leader and grabbed the remote. Tempted though I was to throw the remote at the screen, I decided I didn't have the energy for it, so I hit "STOP" and dropped the remote on the floor, where I also dropped, in a gasping heap.

I gave up, after that, and made myself dinner.

It wasn't the upper body workout that was so terrible (once I figured out how to stay on the ball for the ball-assisted push ups: FLAIL!), no, what did me in was the lower body workout. My legs aren't exactly strong... at all. It was one of the main sources of focus during therapy. And they once again showed their true colors, this evening, by threatening to collapse as I vainly attempted a half-lunge while sweeping the ball from side to side.

What are my legs' true colors? Post-workout, slightly purplish and trembling in anger at what I put them through.

They inherited my intolerance for insensitive treatment.

They only refrained from screaming obscenities at me because they can't talk, I'm sure.