Last weekend I went to the Bodyrock Expo in Fairfax, Virginia, as I suggested I might. I met TomNine for the first time, who’s likable and was clearly very excited to be there - kid in a candy shop. I also had nice conversations with Tre Scott and Dina Al-Sabah, both of whom I’ve known online for years, and had met in person before. Dina’s brain has a clock speed about 50% faster than most people’s, and she’s a lateral thinker, so talking to her is a little like playing chess - you’re always trying to anticipate what she’s going to say next for fear that you’ll be caught unawares.

When I first ran into Tre, he was talking with Laura Sutter, and I joined in. Laura’s very pleasant and smart, and while she’s not a physically large person, she has arms that are so amazingly muscled it took an act of will to keep my eyes focused on her eyes when we were speaking. I was afraid that if I didn’t work at it, she’d notice and say “My eyes are up HERE, pal.” (Laura mentioned that she has a new Web site, but I can’t find it.)

Anyway, I sometimes feel a little out of place at those events, because I lack a perma-tan and physically I more or less conform to normal human proportions. It’s true that most of the people attending the expo are normal-sized, but every now and then someone who’s as wide as he (or she!) is tall strides through and reminds you that you’re in a different kind of place. There’s also the phenomenon of the post-competition bodybuilder - these people are covered in red-brown fake tan goop, and wearing raggedy old workout clothes because they don’t want the tan-tar to rub off on their good gym gear. They look awful - like exhausted, hypermuscular panhandlers or migrant workers. Nevertheless, you’re supposed to tell them that they look “great!” because they’ve tortured themselves so they can resemble an anatomy illustration. It’s very strange.

Probably my favorite part of events like these are “muscle mom” sightings. I’ve long been a MILF fan, I have to admit - there’s just something very appealing about attractive young mothers with small kids trailing behind them. I really like kids, and I like that pert domesticity that so many women settle into once they’re no longer “on the market”. At these expos, you see a good number of suburban housewives who apparently while away the hours when the kids are at school by pumping some serious iron.

I was really impressed by one woman in her mid-30s who had an overall slender build, but with a very full musculature. She was bare-sleeved (of course), and trailing two towheaded kids in the three-to-five range. She seemed to be enjoying herself pretty well, and appreciated the attention she garnered. Another woman was much more thickly built - she was 40ish - and was accompanied by a daughter who was probably 12 or 13. The daughter seemed to be dazzled by her surroundings, but the mother looked very comfortable. There were others, too - quite a few, actually.

There was another girl that Tre wanted to photograph, but who left before he could schedule a shoot. She was beautiful, probably about 5′9″, with an athletic sort of super-model build, like a volleyball player, maybe. Normally not a good target for someone like Tre, except she had absolutely massively muscled calves. She had Popeye calves. I could not believe my eyes - they were probably 16 inches around, and her only explanation for them was “my parents both have muscular calves.” It remains a mystery.

Related Items:

• Dina Al-Sabah's blog
• Dina Al-Sabah's MySpace
• Dina H8s Asparagus
• Dina on Bubba
• Dina pics - NSFW