Cell Phone Snap, Summer 2010

Point & Shoot (S95) snap, Winter 2012

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Jpeg is back Monday, thank god. I missed him, but in a nice way. He’s classy enough to call regularly, not use the “ah, oh, yeah, there’s no internet here” line on days we don’t speak, and didn’t need to pick up a Russian prostitute to keep him company on his travels. Respect, gentlemen. That’s all we ask.

Danchik likes to analyze why I stop speaking to people, just cut them out completely. It’s not that I’m angry or upset. It’s that I’m done being angry and upset. After I’ve explained that certain behaviors aren’t acceptable (e.g. lies and inconsistency), not once but ad nauseam, and it’s clear he’s incapable of basic civility, I lose all respect. A line is crossed and I am done. I never really know where this line is or when it will appear, which is perhaps what causes confusion (“she put up with it before. What’s the problem now?”). Sooner or later, clarity descends and the person’s little world seems both toxic and boring. I’m no longer able to look past the trite and unnecessary excuses and lies, justifying them because of the person’s obvious pain. I finally see my own behavior as aiding and abetting, and I’m done. Danchik doesn’t get the respect thing, and he doesn’t get why I haven’t cut him off, a self-proclaimed asshole.

“You’ve always been good to me. Well, maybe there was a short time you weren’t, but you were a baby and I let it go.” Behavior that is understandable at 19 is not acceptable at 25, and definitely not at 49. And that’s the issue. The bottom line is that Danchik is good to me. We have a history. As Bij would say, “He’s family.” I can’t say that for those I can no longer be bothered with. (No, I’m not talking specifically about you. You are typical. You are one of many. And that is, actually, the bottom line. It’s not all about you).

There was some time to think about this with Jpeg out of town. I say it because I’m relieved I broke a 5-year string of bad luck (disingenuous, selfish men) but also because bad behavior seems to be a dating trend in both women and men. I own my misery—it wasn’t bad luck. I let poor behavior continue, and chose to ignore the reality for what I’d hoped was there. Or put up with bad behavior because I felt sorry for the guy. It’s fucking hard to be close to someone, and I’m sure I will always fear it. But I will no longer choose men with whom closeness is impossible—for recreation or relationship. It causes dreadful problems and more pain than simply facing my fear of intimacy and the hurt behind it. But it’s familiar. And easier. Easier to look outward to solve problems than within. Not just for me, but for many.

Take this depressing blog, “Uptown-Lowdown,” about a young woman’s adventures on the dating site OkCupid. My gawd. She started off genuine and endearing, but then somehow got wrapped up in the need to exude freedom and cool, and she lost her voice in the process. It reads now as if having deep feelings for someone and risking vulnerability is wildly unhip for either gender. “Women can be douchebags, too!” Wow. I think most of us got that awhile ago. The need for young women to flaunt it seems to indicate just how far we haven’t come. Or just how scared we all are. Better to justify excitement about a guy in his FULLYPAID invite to Jamaica than to admit vulnerability and excitement the person himself. Sad times. Sad times.

Further, it is amazing how poorly behaved people are willing to be, in writing, in an age that such behavior can be published at large on the internet (and I’m not talking about a dating blog). It’s especially shocking when such people have PR as their first and only concern. But then, in an age of narcissism, nothing should come as a surprise.

That’s all I have to say this week. Mesmerizing.

August 14, 2008. Happy Birthday, my love!

I smiled. Very auspicious. My word, those shirts are about twenty years old now. When I got off, I said to the guy, “I like your shirt.”

He said, “What?” then, “Thanks,” with a smile. His accent was francophone West African, which made me smile back.

George told me the other day that Z is Nadia’s (his niece) favorite basketball player. Or was when she was two, and still lived in Cleveland. “She would say on the phone, ‘I am sad because Z is sad. The Cavs lost.’ Where is he from, anyway?” George asked.

“Žydrūnas Ilgauskas? Georgie!! He’s Lithuanian!” George has listened to my mother telling him how closely related Lithuanian and Hindi are since we were 10.

“Ohhhh. Well, I don’t think I even knew his whole name. I just knew Z.”

I see. Still, that Nadia has good taste in ball players.

That night, walking across 17th Street, we ducked into the Rubin to avoid a crazy storm. When it passed, we headed on toward Curry Hill for dosa. By the time we reached Sixth Ave, a gorgeous rainbow spread across the sky.

So many colors, morning til night. What a lovely town.

Last week while leaving the studio, our instructor, Evan, told us that YogaWorks plans to cut the Tuesday and Thursday Mysore session. Something about wanting 30 people in the room. At 6am? Evan has between 10-20 people daily, and most of us are studio members. What YogaWorks class would fill a room to 30 at 6am every day? Or even twice a week? Certainly nothing they currently offer.

Nevermind that there are two other empty practice rooms at that hour.

We were miffed. We need our practice, we need Evan, and we need them daily. There’s a possibility that YogaWorks will start to charge for Tuesday and Thursday, above the membership fees. The price of a class? $20? (I’m really not sure, and no one has clarified.) You want $40 more from each of us every week? That’s $2,080 more per person a year, which is almost twice what most of us pay for our current memberships. How strange. If anything, the room has gotten more crowded in the last year.

To lose two days a week (three if there’s a moon day), is to lose your practice, as well as two days of your membership, as we don’t take other classes at YogaWorks. This change will mean most of us will leave the studio for somewhere we can practice daily. Why is YogaWorks so willing to see us go?

We wrote letters. We sent them to the manager at our Westside studio, the regional manager, and the teacher manager. Within hours of the announcement, messages poured in from our group of ashtangis to the management. Not only are they are inspiring, they define what being a community is all about. Over the next few days, I will post them here, and on the yoga blog.

The first, from Rey:

Dear Jackie,

I’m one of the morning Mysore students that attends Evan’s classes on average 5x/wk. I’m currently out of town for work, but as you can see from my attendance when I am in town, I attend Evan’s and only Evan’s classes, like many of his students.

I recently heard from some of the other students that you will be cutting our Tuesday and Thursday classes. Respectfully, I am writing to ask that you reconsider. The whole point of Mysore practice is that it is almost daily—at the very least 4x/wk, and hopefully 6. To make it only 3x/wk basically means NOT having an ashtanga practice.

The grapevine says that it’s a measure to cut costs, but I’m not sure what savings you gain. When I first started attending Evan’s classes, there was no staff in the studio. Evan and his trusted regular students opened up. Evan took care of the towels. Whoever got in the room first would deal with the lights, the altar, and telling new students to sign up at the desk and observe the other students until Evan arrived to instruct and adjust them. Since that time it has felt like YogaWorks has been intent on destroying our community—taking away Guruji’s picture, then the altar altogether, then even a single candle; repeatedly locking us out in the morning; and now this.

It seems like such an odd move to make against such a devoted group of students. As long as Evan teaches daily, our unlimited monthly memberships will continue. And, to be frank, we kind of liked it more when you weren’t paying a staff member (who didn’t want to get up at 5 AM) to be there. We never got locked out back then. If you let him go back to running the place like a typical ashtanga shala (just from 6 – 8:30 AM), altar, student helpers, and all, we could probably get some of our friends who practice at The Shala or YogaSutra or Ashtanga Yoga Upper Westside to opt for YogaWorks in the AM. Especially with a little push from YogaWorks advertising their traditional morning ashtanga classes.

I love Evan; right now, I love him enough to go well out of my way to study with him (I live in Jackson Heights, Queens and work in the East Village—the UWS is nowhere near my day-to-day life). But ultimately I am committed to the practice. Without the ability to practice and grow daily, it doesn’t make sense for me to stay with YogaWorks. It would make more sense for me to study with Guy Donahaye or Eddie Stern, both of whom are closer to a neighborhood I go to daily, or to help Evan find a space that will let him teach with less encumbrances.

On behalf of us all, please reconsider your decision and work something out. We actually are the community YogaWorks appears to want to promote. We practice regularly and are living examples of the benefits of yoga; we see each other almost every morning; we know each other’s names; we Facebook each other; we have brunch; encourage vegetarianism and veganism; we know who is having trouble in what pose, what each other’s injuries are, when people are getting married, or having plays performed, or are teaching yoga classes themselves, or visiting their daughters, sons, or parents. Right now YogaWorks is an integral part of our morning, almost every morning. In the long run, I don’t think any of us want to change that, but we are all confused and even angry that you do.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask. I’m back in town from Kentucky late Monday night, and you can bet I will be at Mysore early Tuesday morning—I’ve missed Evan and my fellow ashtangis. Despite being welcomed by the Yoga East ashtanga community here in Louisville, I’ve been anxious to come home. I only hope my home will still be there.

Respectfully submitted,

Rey P.

Lovely, right? I posted the whole story on the yoga blog.

I’m more than kind of stir crazy. Fourth day of being home sick. Well, First Day I was home not sick but avoiding crowds and simply enjoying home. That night sick arrived just before Santa. Now I’m talking to myself and wondering why big dogs are so cool and little dogs are so hideous (except Daschunds. They are so cute they would never bark. Being so attractive, they don’t need to cry for attention). For example, the neighbor’s little dog that barks at all hours. 11pm? 12am? 2am? 6:30am? Acceptable? They seem to think so. My God, it’s like India. I slept from 12a-6:30a because of that mongrel’s owners. Not so much sleep for a person recovering from massive cold about to have a birthday.

Thanks for the calls and emails and stuff. I appreciate the support. I used to sing made-up songs to myself, loudly, when I was little and sick for awhile. I am just not good at staying put and doing not so much, unless I’ve made a point of it. And hey, even if I did make a point of it (the xmas quiet time), the sick part just switches it up. This was not part of the bargain.

Just when she thought it was time to relocate to tropical island, it snows. Ooooooooooooh, snow.

Saturday: Xmas. West Side Market for the citrus and seltzer. No snow.

Sunday: Whole Foods for more seltzer and stuff, 4pm. Blizzard has started. Day after Christmas. My waterproof boots are at work, so I did what my mother did when I was little. She put bread bags over her socks to make her shoes water resistant—to her feet anyway. So I got out my sneaks and plastic shopping bags (yes, I ask for plastic. I use them for trash bags. What do you use? Do you, like, buy plastic bags for trash?), wrapped my feet up, stuffed the bags under my jeans, and headed out. Day after Christmas, but no one is out shopping. No one is out at all. The few who are seem kind of grumpy and look at me strangely. Then I realize it’s because I’m grinning from ear to ear. I don’t know why, other than I sure love snow. Do you know this smile? Unwitting and huge, your spirit feels light, and there you are, in the moment, enjoying life like mad even if your nose is running and you have plastic west side market bags tied around your ankles? (And it can’t be due to something epic or cliche, like sex or a sunset.) Snow has this effect on me.

In a smaller way, so does shopping in an empty Whole Foods, which is unheard of. Beautiful. I’m not sure where everyone was. It wasn’t really that that bad out and snow is gorgeous and fun. I filled my basket with smoked salmon (oooh, protein and smooth on the throat), green & blacks maya gold (addiction), some rice (they have Lundberg. Better quality than trader joe’s), and yogurt (ditto). Oh! They have my favorite yogurt: Redwood Hill Farms Goat Milk Yogurt. Hmm. At $7 it’s not my usual choice, handsome as the goat on the label may be. But, it’s my favorite week. And I’m a goat. (My ma’s a goat. LeBron’s a goat. You get it. Sea-goats.) Yes, I’ll take it.

I bought tissues, too. Unfortunately, recycled, which are not suitable for a cold (they’re good for kitchen clean-ups though). As a result my upper lip and under-nose are like leather.

While checking out (zero line—I picked the middle line with no one in it and was called before the people on each side of me, there before I was. Snow-lover’s luck), the woman asked me if it was still coming down. She didn’t look too pleased about it, so I put on a stern face for her and said, “Yes, I’m afraid so.” You have to do this for New Yorkers, myself included, to be polite. It’s not nice to revel in your love of thunderstorms or frigid wind-chill, or, yes, blizzards, when they make everyone else’s life hell.

And if you were (or are) stuck somewhere (God forbid on the A-train in the Rockaways all night), I do feel for you. I’m not gloating. I just love snow, that’s all. Since I was a small fry, it’s been true.

More about my little trek today, but thank heavens, I’m tired and off to bed.

As I packed to move, I heard lots of great stuff on NPR (like astrophysicist Brian May’s Bohemian rhapsody interview) that I wanted to look up and listen to again, undistracted, but didn’t have the time. When I was writing the chrissie/lebron/akron bit, I remembered the Rita Dove piece I heard on Selected Shorts: Strong Men, Stronger Women and intended include her in post (yes, she’s from Akron), but forgot. When I unpacked American Smooth: Poems, I remembered. It demands a listen. (I listen to stuff when I clean. Makes it bearable.)

Dance is woven through American Smooth and it makes me wish, again, I had more time to dance and time to learn more. But I’ve barely time to do the things I’m committed to do well. It does make me sad that American culture has such little place for gathering to dance. One of the reasons, surely, why we are so fragmented.

Yesterday, I saw Barbara Ehrenreich on PBS. She mentioned her book: Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy. A nice change from her usual reportage about America becoming more and more like a third world country because of government favoritism of the wealthy and the insane wealth disparities that have resulted. (Did you know that “janitorial service” is the fastest growing job in the USA?) And because we don’t dance. My assertion, not hers. Maybe hers—I haven’t read the book yet.

My decision to finally get the internet at home so I could watch PBS (inspired, I admit, by the Circus! ads on the subway) was not misguided.

I just happened upon this line from Rita Dove, from an interview with Robert McDowell: “In African American culture, dance has always been a key element—a communal activity that soothed and united all levels.” From my travels, it seems to be that dance is something that brings people together in most cultures, save white, protestant countries. Though to be fair, some white, protestant ministers appreciated dance. Dance was a part of my Lithuanian family, though mostly in stories of days gone by. After my grandmother died, I went to a party at the Lithuanian-American club in NYC (not somewhere I generally frequent), and we danced and danced until the wee hours. At least, the older folks did. I went to a friend’s elaborate Indian wedding a few months ago, and everyone danced. What a joy!

_________________________________________

Bolero by Rita Dove

Not the ratcheting crescendo of Ravel’s bright winds
but an older,
crueler

passion: a woman with hips who knows when to move them,
who holds nothing back
but the hurt

she takes with her as she dips, grinds, then rises sweetly into his arms again.
Not

delicate. Not tame. Bessie Smith in a dream of younger,
(can’t you see?)
slimmer

days. Restrained in the way a debutante is not, the way a bride
pretends she
understands.

How everything hurts! Each upsurge onto a throbbing toe, the prolonged descent
to earth,

to him (what love & heartache done to me), her body ferocious,
a grim ululation
of flesh—

she adores him. And he savors that adoration, this man in love
_________________________________________with looking.

She feels his look,
his sigh

and she moves, moves with him to the music in the space
_________________________________________allotted them,

spot lit across
the hardwood floor.

Why does this matter? I find the psychology of the home fascinating. Settling in means I move the bed back and forth until it feels right. I unpack books, many boxed and unmissed for six months. I give them away. I go to the store, get a friend to take me to the store, and go to the store again. I rebuy a bookcase I sold on craigslist in March. I move the books around again. I get lectures from friends about installing blinds and keeping dirty laundry under the bed (the latter a chide about choosing such a small space. “So you are going to sleep over your dirty laundry? (This, from a non-feng shui/energy-feeling type guy, I might add.) What is this? You would pay $800 for this in south Brooklyn (read: российский Бруклин~rossiiskii Brooklyn).” “Yeah, and I’d spend three hours a day on the train. Is my time and sanity worth nothing?”

In my other spare time, when I am not in the mood to settle in, I archive. I’m on 2004, which like 2000, is a very full year because of travel. Tagging the photos can be both tedious and emotional. The other day I tagged August 8, 2004, which was one of the most amazing days of my life, one I’ve always wanted to write about, but again, never knew quite how. Tagging the 187 photos was kind of a drag, though. All all of it feels a bit removed and gone, though my epiphany that day involves a prominent theme in my life. I had dinner with a friend last night and she validated my feelings about it entirely. But for six years I’ve wondered how to explain it properly. Now that it’s pertinent, especially because I needed help with the move, that’s what I’ll tackle next. Happy weekend.