Choosing My Himbo Era

Patreon Plug

Friends, my Patreon has passed its first anniversary, and I'm so thrilled by the support. Every month I drop bonus content for bonus content patrons, and sometimes little extras for everyone else - plus everyone at the $5 level and above gets e-ARCs of everything I publish!

I'm noting this especially today, because we are so close to the $250/month milestone goal where I write a chapter of serial cozy-ish fantasy Death Magic and Dahlias every month, and I'm so freaking excited. First chapter is free here!

If you like my work, and you're not yet a Patreon member, I encourage you to check it out, especially since there's now a large backlog of exclusive bonus content to read. The economics of being a writer in a world increasingly hostile to human creativity are not fun, but the good part is that the more support I have, the faster I can write things for you!

Himbo Era

I have started going to the gym.

Previous to now, the only time I had ever joined a gym was in the misty before times of my twenties, for one of those predatory "join us for a year, pay upfront, super cheap!" January deals where they count on a lot of new members paying and then not attending.

Friends, I paid and went twice. The first time I got a tour by a dude who could not have been less interested in explaining how to use the machines or putting together a program that suited me. The second time I felt ignorant and self-conscious, but I didn't want to ask questions because the last dude had been so obviously bored by the whole thing.

Where I should have thrown this man. Probably a better workout tbh.

I did not go back a third time.

However, I turned 45 in August, and my own understanding of my body plus tactful comments from my doctor re: the desirability of increased bone density and muscle mass, made me grimly resolved to UGH do a gym again. I'm not in my twenties now! Stupid gym bros can't intimidate me!

I did some vague research, by which I mean I complained to everyone within reach, and settled on signing up for the Christchurch City Council gyms, on the basis of them being cheap and basic and thus unattractive to performative gym types.

"You'll love it!" everyone enthused at me. "You'll feel great! It's so good for you."

And then I was forced to explain that I know that! Exercise is good for you and also feels great after you've done it. The benefits are real and I don't need to be sold on them. The problem is that during the process:

  • Exercise is painful
  • Exercise is boring

CALL ME CRAZY1, but I am not a person who enjoys pain or boredom. Especially boredom! I like to think basically all the time. I cannot be unthinkingly present in the moment. I read while I eat and listen to podcasts while I sew and come up with plots while I wash the dishes. The shower is not merely for singing or rehearsing arguments I will never have; it is for planning my outfit for the next day and revising my shopping list. My major form of exercise in winter is riding my reclining bike–while I play video games.

Oh, here's an illustrative story from the distant past! I went to a Catholic primary school, and we had one school camp activity where we were put in a secluded place outside (in full view of adults, this wasn't dangerous) and we were supposed to sit there in silence and basically meditate on the wonders of creation for an hour. I did about five minutes of prayer, and then I got bored. When the hour was up and we all went back to talk about it, it turned out that literally none of the other students had constructed a small kingdom out of pebbles and sticks and created a funeral ceremony for a dead bee. Like, really? What were they doing with their time??

Anyway, that's why I have been dragging my heels on a weights programme. Painful, boring repetitive action with no narrative at all! No, thank you!

Fortunately, it took me about five minutes of induction conversation with my new trainer to know he was absolutely the right guy for me. He agreed that exercise is boring, and designed a programme that would see me in the gym for short time periods. He advised audiobooks. We got enthusiastic about archeology and our hominid ancestors. He was dismissive of the so-called "Paleo Diet". I didn't mention weight loss as a goal and he didn't bring it up. I liked him a lot.

So for a couple of weeks, a couple of times a week, I did various forms of exercise (push heavy thing, pull heavy thing, pick up heavy thing, go for a walk with heavy thing) and then I decided I wasn't scared of gym people anymore and went to a Zumba class. I clustered at the back with three other newbies, and we all flailed around enthusiastically. I think at one point I caught on to roughly a third of the choreography on one number, and that was my best effort2.

I went back yesterday and by concentrating very hard on one bouncy bit and not doing the arms at all, I got most of the footwork down. I'm going to be at the back of the class for a while.

But I'm definitely not bored.

I might even add a pools membership.

Book Stuff:

  • It is the last day for the Spicy Curvy Romance Reads sale, and if you like my Olympus books, I must encourage you so much to pick up Carina Walsh's Rules of the Spotlight. I finished it yesterday and then immediately read the second in the series–they're funny, feminist romcoms with an awesome found family of women and the doofuses who love them. Also, Persephone in Bloom and Ask Cassandra are both in this sale for .99, because I'm nice (and love my curvy gals).
  • A freebie promo! These newsletter promos are getting annoyingly full of AI-cover garbage, which I hate. However, this one, entitled Hearts, Heat and Happy Endings, includes Evie Kady's 5 Boys In The Band, a delightfully trope-ridden why-choose (just suspend your disbelief on the realistic power dynamics), Amy Blythe's What's French for Oops? (I have previously sung Amy's praises here) and fellow Kiwi author Stephanie Ruth's Mako Bay, which I just grabbed and am ready to dive into! Also, naturally, my Penelope Pops the Question.
  • In my haphazard attempts to do marketing better, I threw $30 at Instagram to see if it could sell more copies of Gods of Fashion. IT COULD NOT. But that collection of four spicy Greek-mythology inspired romcoms is now $2.99, so feel free to grab it at 60% off before I put the price back to normal.

That Healey Girl is the weeklyish newsletter of Kate (or Karen) Healey, a romance and speculative fiction author who lives in Ōtautahi, New Zealand and shakes plots loose by wandering along the river. Feel free to share the newsletter with anyone you think would like it.

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1 Accurately.

2 Also, this was not pain-free - my knees let me know about it from like ten minutes on. But interesting enough that I didn't care.