Copied from my journal:

It's funny how much I love being the "lifting chick" at my gym. I think I'm starting to get strong to the point where guys take me seriously and are even a little impressed. I mean two sessions ago I spent a while "working in" with this very nice, built guy in the squat cage. And turned out, he had been neglecting his squat due to injuries and never learned it properly, so I was much better! So, we talked shop a lot. I'm usually hesitant to offer advice unless someone asks, but he was cool with it. Mostly I hold back because I know I'm just an amateur who learned it all from a BOOK, and, also, everyone has a opinion. You have to choose well who to listen to, and who's to say where I learned it from? Well, Mark Rippetoe's great book Starting Strength, in fact, but if I get to this point I can just recommend reading it.

And yesterday I had to wait for these two... guys (I'd like to use another word, actually) who took up BOTH benches in our very small gym that only has two, and spotted each other, so one bench was standing tantalizingly unused all the time and then they switched off. I do understand not WANTING to change the plates every time, but that was a bit much. And then they stood around just CHATTING for several minutes in between... Grrrrrr! -Hulk SMASH!!!

I felt much better when I realized that the weight the smaller guy was struggling to lift for reps was just nine kilos heavier than my own... I may never catch up, but he's not much stronger right now! If he gets stuck, I may even beat him at bench pressing, even for a couple sessions... That would be neat.

Although I adore lifting heavy and succeeding, my most badass moment of every session is leaving the gym wearing my nice coat and putting on my high heels and tripping out of there every bit a lady... Now that, to me, feels very badass. I'm not an imitation man, in fact I'm not an imitation anything!