Every* Muscle In My Body 2022

Dustin Mark
15 min readDec 20, 2022

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*A lot of the important ones

It’s December, which means it’s time to take stock of my body. For the internet to continue tracking my personal growth it’s important that I provide data that can be empirically judged: on its own, against someone else, against next year’s data, or against data from past years (the 2021, 2020, and 2019 reports are available here on medium).

Once is fun. Twice is easy. Thrice is cheap. Forthce is delusional and frankly a little sad. I, with all my hatred for predictability and lack of flare, sometimes think of myself as a pony with no tricks, strolling around the manger (?), trying to live my life and actualize my meager and questionable creative vision in this trick-obsessed world, until I one day fall and cannot get up and am perversely blessed with one final trick — the ability to have transformed a life of passion and newness and long-strived-for understanding into the opportunity for passersby to look over and for a moment see a lonely, maybe dead pony, pay it no mind, and keep walking without ever wondering what he was about. My final performance, unapplauded, hardly even noticed. If a dead pony gives a performance in a manger and no one is there to really get it, did it perform at all? Was it ever even there? I sometimes think of myself this way…that is, until the year comes to a close and I remember I do have one tiny, unpopular trick: my annual bodily review.

*If you have not read the previous years’ reviews then I STRONGLY suggest you do so before continuing. And if you haven’t read any others and found this and don’t think going back would make any difference, ask yourself why you’re here and what you’re hoping to get out of this.

The past three reviews were written in Southern California, where I lived for barely more than the elapsed time between the first and third reviews, which I have linked above, along with the second. I began 2022 in Southern California but I didn’t last long. In late January I moved to colder climes, specifically to a place that rhymes with ‘suburban Denver’ — do things rhyme with themselves? I’ve had this debate in my head several times this year (poetry, etc.). I think they do, for what it’s worth.

I arrived in Colorado in the dead of winter, which I’d been warned about, but I do really like the cold. Or at least I’d been away from it long enough to romanticize it. When I stop to think about the cold and my actual history living in it and its actual effect on my body, I am first reminded of my first job in New York. At the age of 20 I started working at a bike rental shop/tourist trap in midtown Manhattan. Being a well-mannered, adequately competent white guy I was almost instantly given more responsibility and tasked with running our downtown location for the winter/forever (being well-mannered to the point of being terrified of upsetting anyone or standing up for myself I didn’t raise issue with the fact that I was making…I think like $9/hour? I might be misremembering but I think that was the case). All that to say, for 8–10 hours a day I manned an old brick building on the East River with no heat, no insulation, and a six inch gap beneath the floor and where the front wall began. And with no money (or 9 x hours minus expenses or whatever) and nobody to cover me for lunch or bathroom breaks (we had no bathroom and it hadn’t occurred to me to bring my own lunch), each day I’d close the store, jog to the Mcdonald’s about a quarter mile away, and return to the store with a 20 piece nugget. I’d then spend the rest of the day sitting in the cold, eating junk food.

I’d also spend my time at home sitting in the cold, eating junk food (no heat in my bedroom and I love junk food). I say all of this because my first winter in actual cold weather was spent mostly sitting, guarding a quiet storefront, eating the most and worst food that I could afford, and freezing my ass off. I developed Chilblains, which I couldn’t describe to you in much detail, but my toes were predominantly numb or itchy while I was at work, and when I’d get home from work and was able to at least take a shower to warm up, my gut would hurt because I lived off fast food and got no exercise.

But the cold in Colorado was great and I began my time in it positively! When my first snow as a resident came I was thrilled to get up and shovel. I’d also relocated in part to ‘get healthy’ or at least ‘healthier’ than I’d been, which I think I somewhat outlined in the last review, though I can’t be sure (I don’t want to read it now, I remember it being sad though). So not long after my move I was already making progress: I was using the stationary bike daily, I was shoveling, which I found to be a great workout, I was exercising in other ways (pushups and the like…we don’t have weights but I have my dad’s old bowling ball and bag so I’d lift that as if that were its purpose), I was drinking healthy smoothies daily. Yes, “I have a smoothie daily” is the cheapest possible claim to making a good-faith effort towards taking care of yourself, but it was both true and nice.

My gym

And I started working at an indoor soccer facility (I try to stay away from jobs where there’s, like, a future for me). I love soccer and hadn’t played in years and really missed it. I was happy to not start playing immediately while I focused on the job and settling into my new home, and I wanted to be somewhat in shape so I wouldn’t embarrass myself when I did finally play. So I got kind of in shape, relatively. I actually think at a point in mid/late March my arms were maybe as big (muscle) as they’d ever been? I do recall a point in 2018, or maybe 2019, but I think 2018, when I’d been going to Planet Fitness regularly and for a moment I might have had my biggest arms to date then, but it truly might have been this time. Of course in 2018 or 2019 when I had maybe my biggest arms I then got the flu, or sick in some other way, and broke my gym streak and lost the arms.

In 2022 when I had my biggest arms I finally, after a years long absence, stepped back on the soccer field, and after about 15 minutes pulled my hamstring. It hurt a lot! I had to wait for that to heal before my mobility was back to normal, then I tried getting back into the shape I’d just been in, then I tried playing again and pulled my groin, then the same thing about waiting and getting back into it, then I think I pulled something else but this time very minor. It was all very frustrating to see all that (like 6 weeks, w/e) progress washed away and to feel like my body was breaking down. I was also beginning to feel a pain in my foot that I worried was gout but found out months later (months later) was the product of wearing shoes I’d been wearing too long that didn’t have the support I needed.

Thus sort of end-eth my return to the fitness-sphere. I’ve run a handful of times since and it’s been rough. I stepped back not out of cynical self-hatred but out of recognition that my body truly isn’t prepared to handle certain loads anymore, and unless I’m ready to prep my body for those loads I shouldn’t take them on. At this moment in time I’m not willing to prep my body for those loads and I’d love not to pull another muscle. One day. Not ruling it out.

It occurs to me that in previous reviews I’ve also brought sex into the fitness equation. I feel like I referred to myself in one review as a ‘furious fucker’ but a) maybe I didn’t, and b) I’m not. Regardless, yes sex can be great cardio or weightlifting or whatever, I don’t know how people do it, but I no longer wish to comment publicly on my sexual activity. Have I been celibate? Have I had furious sex three times a day since March? I’d rather not say. (At the same time I recognize the hypocrisy of this and will surely have to recant this when I invariably release the too-long piece, “Every Orgasm I’ve Ever Had (or at least the ones I can remember)” or something insane like that. But for now I’d rather not talk about it.)

Ah, a couple more things (yes, I know the intro is longer than usual…I cannot stress how much I can’t help myself). First is that as noted I’m now residing in the suburbs. Previously I’d lived in major metropolitan cities with gluttons and heathens like me. Now I’m living around families and sad white people, also like me but with fundamental differences. Fast food hours here are abysmal. My Taco Bell in LA (I miss you, baby) was open until 2 am on weeknights. My McDonald’s was 24-hours. In New York my beautiful Chinese options (I miss you, babies) were open until 1-ish, depending on their moods, but fast food was open late and I could always get Halal or a big juicy sandwich at any hour. Here I can’t do that and that sucks, even though it’s irrefutably better for my body. It’s worse for my soul.

The last health factor to bring up — and no, I haven’t hiked or any of that nonsense since I’ve been here — is that I began my time in Colorado sober. Again, I was trying to be healthy and I was also living with my parents (who are sober) and not trying to make them sad by showing them how I really am (this is both a fault of mine and of theirs). My body was feeling pretty good (big arms, smoothies, etc.) and my head was pretty clear (relatively). But then I began “production” on “Dustin Mark: Canceled Massage Therapist (Looking out for Number One)” (at least I think that’s what it’s called, there have been so many) and things changed. This series called for a drunk asshole and I’m not nearly a good enough actor (read: not an actor at all) to pass for one so I had to be one naturally. So I made that happen and started drinking again, reigniting the flame between myself and beer, which I’ve just re-read in my head and I hate that I said it. The rest, or whatever, is history (Daddy’s, got to sleep, you know, and nights are tough).

All of that redundant dreck considered — the shoveling, the chilblains, the pulled hamstring, the sexual mystery — I now submit photos of my body at this, the end of the year of our long-deceased lord, 2022. May whatever happens to my body in 2023 be more interesting than this.

Not just yet!

The University of Texas at Austin

What good would I be doing if I didn’t include pictures of me with clothes on? Now you can be sure it’s actually me, as I am, to most of you, more recognizable with clothes on than not. This is how I was when I woke up this morning.

Medium t-shirt

Harlem’s Happy Hounds

Here I am in a medium t-shirt. I usually wear a medium but I’m beginning to think maybe a large would be best for me. These mediums can often be too limiting in how I move, i.e. if I bend over my whole back is exposed. I don’t like my shirts baggy, but as you can see in all of these pictures, my belly is becoming more pronounced and I might be setting myself up to fill up a large.

Chest and tummy

Shirtless

The first thing you’ll notice is that I look pretty much the same. The order of your following observations depends on a lot and actually says a lot about you, but they consist of: my belly’s a little bigger, my pecs look a little plumper, I am using a new phone case, I’m utilizing multi-mirror technology, etc.. I think it’s fair to say my “obliques” look a little more there as well, but I’m pretty sure that’s just a function of them carrying more weight. All in all I think my body is looking a little more dad-ish.

Arm (right)

Pics 1 and 2 are NOT the same. I am flaccid on the left and flexed in the middle. I am blurred on the right.

I’ve traveled a lot this year (none of it for pleasure) and each time I’ve toned up my arm from the luggage-lifting and that. In fact I feel like I was doing something last week that really engaged my triceps but I’m not sure. You’d never know it from these. As mentioned I used to lift a bowling ball in its bag but all that progress is gone.

Arm (left)

Eagle-eyed readers will notice the sweatshirt I was just wearing on the towel rack behind me.

As I’ve mentioned, my left arm is close to useless. If I ever found myself hanging from a window sill or rope or something with just my left arm I’d consider myself fallen. I will say, the left picture has that bicep thing where it kind of creases where it starts and it makes me look like one of those really skinny basketball players who has muscle but not tons and tons of muscle. To the lowest possible degree.

The forearms

2 pictures.

Well, here they are, I guess. I’ve given you almost every angle and yet there’s almost little to glean.

(My) back

It’s all very much the same. I see a little loose skin but generally I just see an unremarkable back with hints of past muscles etched into the it, glazed over by the winds of time. My neck is often red as well, which I can’t explain.

Shoulders

This could be a movie poster!

I tried to shrug my shoulders up — the traps and the delts and those things — but the camera angles were prohibitive and I’m not sure I have those muscles this year?

Leg (left)

@Listerinemouthwash I am open to sponsorship deals.

There we are. Far and away the weaker of my two legs. From time to time this year I’ve worked this leg and put on a little definition but it fades so quickly. Actually, I’ll tell you a thing that I warn you is a little blue but it’s related to all of this. I often find I get a great leg workout in restrooms with toilets with the automatic flush function. I hate that function, to be clear, and hate the thing flushing when I’m not ready for it/just because there’s a little movement. In these situations I’ll try to find the perfect angle of crouch while wiping (I told you, blue!) so as not to trigger the flush. It’s not supposed to be a thing that leaves you sore. And yet it is.

Leg (right)

Perhaps two other movie posters?!

Historically the bellcow of my body. Maybe that’s still the case, which is sad. The under-angle on the right I actually like. I’d not mind portraits of people like that.

Calves (left and right)

Would you see this movie? I probably would not.

As mentioned above, I was a little more fit at the beginning of the year and there was a brief promise that I’d turn this body into something drastically stronger-looking by the time I was to write this thing. That didn’t happen, but mid-year there came another promise for me to turn specifically my calves into stronger-looking calves, and I briefly took that chance. Long-time readers know I’ve always wanted nice calves. I was wearing shorts to work during the summer and I was tired of apologizing for my calves. I also, you know, hate working out, but standing behind a desk at work I found it was easy to compulsively do calf raises. I kinda had a regular routine going, actually, and put on some noticeable muscle. Then I kinda hurt my knee and my foot was kinda messed up and I got out of the habit. They have returned to their original size.

Aux muscles?

Way more likely to see this movie than the calf movie.

I was hoping that on the left I’d lift my arm and be reminded of other muscle groups but that wasn’t really the case. Instead you get to look straight down the barrel of my pit, which is famously freckled. Makes me wonder what freckles might be hiding on my scalp that I’ve never been able to see. On the right I was hoping to show you all the mark from my recently-received flu shot but it’s not there. I’ve been getting really into flu health and think it’s important that we all get inoculated.

Hand muscles

I’m far less veiny than I used to be but I can always count on my hands (hahaha not a pun) to remind me of the veiny days.

I sure do use my hands. They’re far, far off from the strongest they’ve been, but I’ve got a little under-thumb plumpness, a little muscle bulge to remind everyone that I can squeeze.

Tushy and full body w/tushy

Now THAT could be a movie poster.

For all of the deposits going to my stomach and the atrophy of my extremities, my little tushy remains cute and firm. I tried to showcase it in the middle but I don’t know how to do that. The right picture might well be the worst possible angle of me, but it is nonetheless how I bid you farewell.

That was harmless, wasn’t it? Now we know what I look like now. I’d be lying if at various points this year I didn’t think to myself ‘hmm, I wonder if this will reflect in my 2022 muscle report,’ which is a great indicator that I could use a hobby or a better doctor. No, I kid. I will never apologize for awareness.

Before I go…of course I always welcome feedback, I say that all the time. But am I forgetting muscles? Are there muscles you’d like to see on me? That you’d like me to grow or showcase? How is my skin looking? The body report thing has not yet caught on as a trend. That’s ok. For now it’s just for us. *smiley face* :)

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Dustin Mark
Dustin Mark

Written by Dustin Mark

Dustin Mark writes and performs comedy when asked to. Mailing list here: http://eepurl.com/ggVkAf. Massage Therapist podcasts can be googled.

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