boo, hiss, suck

I did not have a red-letter day yesterday (until the end).

I woke up, I went to the studio. One student came, a woman I’ve mentioned who had had surgery years ago to remove lymph nodes in her arm and hence could not put any weight on it. (Sidebar: ever? I don’t know very much about medicine, I admit, but it seems unlikely that she would be incapable of putting weight on her arm for the rest of her life, more that she would have to work up to it. Seems fishy to me.) She had come to class on a Thursday a fortnight prior, and I felt helpless about modifying my class for her. You cannot do many of the the pieces of the sun salutation without putting weight on both arms, unless you’re a bodybuilder who frequently does one-armed pushups. I couldn’t just ask her to sit out during the sun salutes; I teach vinyasa, so sun salutes are the foundation of my teaching. And yet she returned for my Sunday class.

By 8:30 she was the only person there, so I threw out my class plan and decided to teach a class completely free of sun salutes. (Another student came in 10 minutes late, but she was late, so it’s her problem that the class was tailored to the student who was on time.) I thought I would be struggling, but I was wrong; aside from one point where I asked her to hang out in child’s pose for another half-minute while I figured out what to do next, I taught the class without major hiccups. I thought it would be much more difficult, but it was actually kind of freeing, not to feel bound by the blueprint that I usually use to build a class. I’ve been teaching for long enough now that I need my cheat sheets a lot less often and am much more capable of going with the flow, and that’s certainly what I did in this class. It was good to have a student teach me something again. Thing is, I don’t know what I’ll do if she keeps coming to class. I can’t continue to accommodate only her, and I like teaching sun salutations (and I’m good at it).

Unfortunately, I had the same problem as last week – a woman who was attending the class after mine, which is much more popular, came right on into the studio and started taking her shoes off before we were done with savasana. SO. RUDE. Nothing pisses me off so quickly as lack of respect, and I definitely did not feel the breeziness that I put into my voice to wake up my students from savasana when it was time. Next class I’m bringing in a sign: I WILL OPEN THE DOOR WHEN CLASS IS OVER. Well, maybe not so abrupt. Either way, it put me in a bad mood, and then I went home and BF and I went to the grocery store.

I felt guilty that grocery shopping took so long, because BF had to go to work, but I’m tired of going on Sunday night and getting the left over vegetables or sometimes none at all, and having 2 flavors of yogurt to choose from. What we really should do is get in the habit of going on Saturday morning, but that unequivocally sucks.

Then we came home and BF left for work. I read my email and found an exchange between my mother and MM, one which told me that my mother had contacted not just two photographers in Florida, but a photographer in Chautauqua, without telling me. I thought it had been pretty clear that I was captaining the vessel of the wedding planning, but I believe that going on all the appointments with me two weeks ago went to my mother’s head and she presumed that we were all doing it together. I guess I should have been clearer that them tagging along was strictly a courtesy on my part, a gesture of magnanimousness, but that’s kind of an asshole thing to imply or state. I wrote back very firmly that I did not want her making any calls to any vendors without asking me first, because I wanted to be the first point of contact for all vendors. My reasoning (which I did not share) is that both mothers have an idea of what they think I want, and they are both dead wrong, and I don’t want the vendors’ first impression to be of the weddings in their heads rather than the one in mine. I said I appreciated that she was trying to help, but that I’d tell her how she could do so.

Her email in reply was very short and saying that she’d butt out. I don’t really care if I hurt her feelings. I’m the captain, dammit.

I chatted with BF, forwarding him the emails, to ask him if I was being Bridezilla-y. (He said no.) That is my worst fear, and I’m constantly asking myself and occasionally asking him for confirmation that I’m not doing it. I want to compromise, but I want it to be my wedding, but I want to be reasonable. Thankfully about half of the planning is behind me, and I hope I can get most of the rest done before the holidays. I still want someone to have written a book about this specific thing, the problem of being a ping-pong ball between mothers and potentially other family during the wedding process.

I was so furious at my mother. She actually claimed in the same email that she was writing in the spirit of helping and not interfering. How is that possible, when she independently asked Paula if Paula would meet with a photographer that I’ve never even spoken to, whose work I’d never seen? God, it pissed me off.

I was still angry as I drove to my second class of the day. Something happened to make me even angrier: about 10 motorcyclists, the ones with the little lawnmower Japanese motorcycles, sped by, weaving around and through cars, going 90-100 mph easily. I fucking hate those guys. They petrify me, because as they rush by, I am immediately convinced that their lives will not end well. Also because if they scare me enough to jerk the wheel accidentally, causing a crash, it’ll be my fault and my jail time, despite their recklessness.

Even knowing this, I nearly committed murder.

I saw one of them coming up behind me, and knew he would swerve between me and the car in the lane to my left. I realized that if I did make a sudden move with my car, even six inches or a foot to the left, he would either be bumped or have to turn or brake so severely that he would crash, and probably be transformed into human hamburger. I was so angry at him suddenly, him and his buddies, for terrifying citizens driving innocently on 50 East on a Sunday afternoon. He thought he was going to live forever, and he’d decided it would be a great idea to bet his life on a few inches between two several-ton vehicles moving 70 miles an hour. I had an almost uncontrollable urge to prove him wrong, to make him see how it felt to lose that bet.

I had to grip the steering wheel with all my might, and stare straight ahead, and close my ears to the whine of his engine, not to do it.

After I got over the major part of my rage, I felt awful for that urge. The motorcyclist was still a human being (presumably with child support to pay to his five baby mamas), and it’s not my call whether he deserved to die or lose a leg for his recklessness. I called BF to tell him about this on my way home, and he asked me how fast he was going. I said at least 90. He asked me how I knew, and I said I was going 75 and he blew past me. His response: “So you were speeding, ma’am?” I got frustrated and said that the guy was an ass and needed to learn his lesson. He pointed out that killing him wouldn’t teach him anything. Yeah, okay, but I said that it might make his buddies think twice. BF shrugged over the phone. “Maybe,” he said. I felt bad. Not horrible – because it’s the asshat on the bike who’s putting his life on the line, and some other person could be innocently reaching for the radio, swerve, and end his life just as effectively – but bad.

I got to the studio without causing any death or mayhem. The owner of the studio was there, and so was her young daughter, who is a sore point with me for reasons too petty and lengthy to go into. I waited for the half-hour before class started, and at 3:59 I was getting ready to be elated.

Then he pulled up.

That guy.

The one who seems to be my personal cross to bear as a yoga teacher.

No one else came, so I taught him. Thankfully the class went relatively well; he didn’t answer back like he has in the past, he listened to my directions, I threw out my class and taught one that he could actually do, and he said at the end that the time passed quickly.

I drove home, annoyed at all the small things that had gone wrong that day. I hadn’t done my chores. I had taught two financially unsatisfying classes (even if one had made me learn something). I had had cause to be extremely angry at my mother and to have to tell her off. I had almost willfully killed someone. I was not feeling particularly chipper.

When I got home, BF and I decided that our game plan for the evening was grilling the marinated beef skewers we’d picked up on impulse at the grocery store and then go to see Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. (I’m concerned it will be out of theaters by next weekend, and BF HAD TO SEE IT.) About then was when things turned around: dinner was delicious, no motorcyclists came to ruin our evening, and the movie was equally awesome the second time around – well worth staying out past our bedtime.

But today? Today I have to clean up very worrisome work messes left from Friday, I still haven’t written the second half of my Chautauqua adventure, and I’m sensing ominous happenings at both my day job and my yoga job, ones that make me want to seriously reevaluate my situation. Everything I’ve written here is a rich-kid problem, nothing like living hand to mouth, but I’m still frustrated, and it’s still not a brilliantly wonderful life I’m living right now.