High Tide in Tucson by Barbara Kingsolver Page A

importance in our culture. “Who is better?” she writes. “One inch, one point, or one-hundredth of a second can differentiate winner from loser.” Nelson lists at least six sports in which women and men now compete together at the elite level (dog-sled racing, horse racing, marathon swimming, equestrian events, rifle shooting, and auto racing), and many more recreationalsports in which a wife and husband can typically find themselves evenly matched. And yet, she says, many people continue to rely hard on five games that showcase upper-body strength (football, baseball, basketball, boxing, and hockey) as reassurance of a certain order, gender-wise, in the universe.
    Me, I bear in mind that women live seven years longer than men, on average, and figure that’s the sport I’ll sign up for.
    So pick the rules that suit you, but just remember a game is no more than the sum of its parts: a stick, a ball, half an inch, two hundredths of a second. A cubic millimeter of muscle, or skull. A point of IQ. Come to think of it, things not much bigger than ants running into their hole.
    All right, then. Back in your den, the game is winding down. Here is what you do: remind yourself that what you’ve been watching is a rigged arena. It’s vastly popular simply because people flopped supine on furniture get to be muscular and sweaty by proxy and, for a short time, contrive their own rules about what makes who the best . Every day will dawn on a different “best,” so the proxy contestants get to hitch their wagon to a new set of stars each time around. This says worlds about human nature, and nothing about real life. Game over, the river flows downhill again, and all the blue-eared pupfish go home to their mates.
    You can give him a test, to make sure. “If I weren’t around,” you ask casually, “would you go out with my cousin Gloria? We’re related—members of the same conference, you might say.”
    Your cousin Gloria is a blue-eyed version of Sonia Braga. Your sweetheart, though, is no fool. He gives you a hug and answers, “Don’t be ridiculous. She’s bowlegged.”
    Those are the rules. So what if there is no joy in Mudville, if at your house there’s a place for everything, and every tentacle in its place.

THE MUSCLE MYSTIQUE
    The baby-sitter surely thought I was having an affair. Years ago, for a period of three whole months, I would dash in to pick up my daughter after “work” with my cheeks flushed, my heart pounding, my hair damp from a quick shower. I’m loath to admit where I’d really been for that last hour of the afternoon. But it’s time to come clean.
    I joined a health club.
    I went downtown and sweated with the masses. I rode a bike that goes nowhere at the rate of five hundred calories per hour. I even pumped a little iron. I can’t deny the place was a lekking ground: guys stalking around the weight room like prairie chickens, nervously eying each other’s pectorals. Over by the abdominal machines I heard some of the frankest pickup lines since eighth grade (“You’ve got real defined deltoids for a girl”). A truck perpetually parked out front had vanity platesthat read: LFT WTS . Another one, PRSS 250, I didn’t recognize as a vanity plate until I understood the prestige of bench pressing 250 pounds.
    I personally couldn’t bench press a fully loaded steam iron. I didn’t join the health club to lose weight, or to meet the young Adonis who admired my (dubiously defined) deltoids. I am content with my lot in life, save for one irksome affliction: I am what’s known in comic-book jargon as the ninety-eight-pound weakling. I finally tipped the scales into three digits my last year of high school, but “weakling” I’ve remained, pretty much since birth. In polite terminology I’m cerebral; the muscles between my ears are what I get by on. The last great body in