Jump Rope

November 12, 2005

Brian tells me that the people in his advanced yoga teacher training class are surprised to learn that he's never had any previous yoga instruction.

“Why should that surprise anyone?” I asked.

"They don't take me seriously," he said. "They think everything they're doing is so fucking hard to understand. They want to believe that they live in an elite world of specialized knowledge. Whenever I say something, they look surprised. 'How do you know that?'. Give me a break. I've been around. I read books."

His fellow future-teachers were also surprised to see him put on his tool belt, get on a ladder, and do some electrical work around the studio.

"These yoga chicks aren't used to a real guy being in their classes," he said.

It's not just the women in his class who are finding him hard to figure out. The gay studio manager was surprised to hear that Brian's ex-girlfriend is a well-respected accessories designer for one of the most luxurious fashion houses in Paris. "Oh my god," he said, "why aren't you still with her?"

I told Brian the same thing people often tell me: “You’re complicated.”

"Ha, yeah. One chick said, 'Every time you open you're mouth, you say something totally unexpected. I can't figure you out.'"

No one can.

I met Brian on Sixth Street for some Indian food. Sixth Street used to be exclusively Indian restaurants, but a few other choices have started to crop up recently. We stopped to look in the window of an Italian place. "What the fuck is happening to this street?" Brian asked.

There are still plenty of Indian restaurants, though, so we just eenie-meenie-miney-moe'd one off the strip, and took a seat.

After we ordered, our food seemed to take an unusually long time to arrive. Eventually, the waiter brought out Brian's appetizer, but he carried it to the wrong table."The waiter just brought my food to those two chicks over there," said Brian.

I turned to look."That's not two chicks," I said. "It's a guy and a girl."

"Whatever they are, they're eating my food."

The couple at the table picked and nibbled, trying to figure out what was on the plate and whether or not it was what they ordered. After pawing it for a few minutes, they realized it wasn't and sent it back. The waiter brought the plate back into the kitchen. "Fuck, I'm starving," said Brian.

I was hungry too, and frustrated.

A little while later, the waiter brought out Brian's appetizer. "Yeah," Brian said to the waiter. "I saw you take it to the wrong table over there."

The waiter got embarrassed and mumbled his defense. We couldn't understand what he was saying, but it was obvious that the appetizers were the very same ones that the couple had picked over. "You realize that's the same food, right?" I asked, as Brian began to eat.

"Oh, for sure. They just heated it a little. Want some?"

I was too hungry to resist.

After dinner, we went to our old standby coffee shop to have some dessert, and people-watched out the window.

"I am so sore," Brian complained as we sat down. "I've been doing about 40 hours of Yoga a week. It's killing me."

"I'm looking forward to your class," I said. One of the last things Brian will need to do in order to get his Yoga instructor certification is teach a class of his own. Last time I saw him, he asked if I'd be willing to attend. "Sure,’ I said.. “I mean, I really need to do something. And it's better to be sore from Yoga than be sore from doing nothing, which is how I feel. I'm really stiff. My shoulders ache constantly. I keep telling myself I need to exercise. In fact, I came this close to buying myself a jump rope today."

Brian spat out his tea, "A jump rope? Ha!"

"I know, right?"

"Dude," he said, "It's time for you to take a good, hard look at yourself."

Likewise, I'm sure.