Not too long ago, my sister and I were discussing her workout habits via e-mail. She confessed to having fainted once from dehydration, while I admonished her about drinking more water, and then somehow the discussion turned to perspiration. Every time she comes out of the gym all sweaty glowing with perspiration, she thinks back to the time we took ballet class together.

Now see here. When I was eight years old, my mother asked me if I wanted to take ballet. I turned it down and took piano lessons instead. So at 16, when I finally did take a ballet class, my body was simply not prepared for such torture. Here’s a clue: It’s best to start contorting your body at an early age if you want to be insane and contort your body some more.

So there I was, with no turnout whatsoever, no focus, no balance, and no body control. It took a tremendous amount of concentration and effort just to stand in first position. Was my butt tight? Was my tummy tucked in? Were my shoulders down and back? I swear to God, the teacher was forever correcting my stance and my movements.

On top of that, the class was held in a second-story room where the summer sun never failed to stream in even as it beat at the walls outside. The room was practically a sauna, it was so hot. And silly me, I always forgot to bring a towel.

So there I’d sweat—only girls don’t sweat; we glow. To do any more than glow daintily with perspiration is unfeminine and unattractive. So I glowed.

I dripped glow from my forehead, down past my eyebrows and into my eyes. I dripped glow from my collarbones, down between my breasts and along my tummy. I dripped glow down the valley line of my back to my butt. I glowed so much, I could wipe it off my brow and let it drip from my fingers to the floor. At one point, I tried to wipe the glow onto my socks, but my socks got so soaked with glow that I had to stop.

I frickin’ glowed like a pig.

Throughout all this, my sister would look at me with wonder. She was only 11 years old at the time—a mere kid to my 16. And kids, for some reason, never sweat. Sweat is a foreign concept to them because even when they’re running circles around you, they never break into it.

“Why are you sweating so much?” she’d ask, and I’d shake my head and mutter under my breath.

“I’m not sweating. I’m glowing.” Then I’d divert her attention away from me and point out one of the older adult students, a male whose light green shirt was by that time a soaking dark green. Now certainly he was sweating like a pig, and my sister had to giggle.

These days, though, it takes a lot more to make me sweat glow that much. I’m more apt to be cold than hot, and any exercise I do merely keeps me nice and toasty.

That must mean one of two things: I’ve become more feminine with age, or I’m regressing to a sweatless childhood.

Truth be told, either one is fine by me.

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