Raw Candy

As of late, my roommate Meredith and I have become the ultimate exercise guinea pigs. It all started in January. Now, I have always been a gym bunny—my release stress/get happy/solo time/after-work thing—at overpriced NYSC. Most of you know that. NYSC is decent; I’ve always gone there, people are young, hot, and ridiculously fit. Everyone’s serious. There’s an outrageously hot guy who is litereally there for hours every day, but I’m not really into cut/big guys or gym buffs. He has a cool tattoo though, one that makes him almost a carbon copy of someone from my  HS.  But anyway Mere got serious about working out and (easily) convinced me to join (Oh God, dare I say it?) Lucille Robert’s, the one down the street from us in our ghetto hood.  Welcome, classes! Something I rarely do at NYSC. It’s all classes, baby. I mean, yes, they have a few cardio & weight machines, but none worth using. Oh, and it’s all women. Wow.

So, our first teacher was Ronald. Now, I heart Ronald, who I mistakenly referred to as Raymond for the first month (more on that later), because he does a good amount of kick-boxing moves, he mixes it up a lot, his ab stuff rocks, and he’s fucking hilarious. He’s Jamaican, with really long dreadlocks and is always talking shit and joking around. Always the only male in an all-female gym. I like how he doesn’t overkill the sets but still kicks our butts half the time.

Maria, now Maria is interesting. Cute, young. Mere thinks she may even be (gasp!) younger than us. It’s about time I’ve mentioned I’m curious and have made up backstories about all of our trainers’ lives. I’ve personally walked up to each of them after class and introduced myself. I can’t help it. We didn’t know Maria’s name for the first two classes for whatever reason (me, slacking?) and that began the guessing/making up another’s life game. What name does she look like? We couldn’t decide what it could be, but Maria fits her. Maria teaches boot camp at 9:15 on Saturdays, and Mere and I became gym-bots about it, sometimes even doing her Butts & Guts class right after. Maria always says “Let’s go, ladies,” but her voice is like she’s talking to children. So I made up that Maria is definitely an elementary schoolteacher. I figured she prob. had some boyf. She is socially awkward/shy and she cannot connect personally, but I figure she does quite well with young people. One day, it turns out, she used to be a Lucille’s member, complete with a before and after picture, in which, by the way, we noticed that she is kind of more toned than she is now that she’s an instructor. Then she rocked this shirt that said “You can never have too many cats” which made me think she had already committed to living the life of a spinster. I’m a dog person myself so that made me feel even more sorry for Maria. She also frequently rocks Montclair T-shirts…we know where she’s been. One day, when I was at NYSC, Mere went to Maria’s class and overheard—Maria lives with her parents!

Which brings me back to Ronald. I eavesdropped as he was talking to a member and he mentioned that he has a daughter! So, where at first I thought he must be gay to teach in la gym femme, he is actually a single father and shares custody with his baby’s mama. (Still don’t know the rest of his story…)

Sandy: Now Sandy is the most hilarious. I almost never go to her classes because it’s really hard for me NOT to crack up all the time. She is hardcore 80’s aerobics: I always want to put a sweatband on my forehead and wear leggings or bike shorts under a leotard. EVERYTHING COLORFUL. Or pink, my favorite color. I digress.  So Sandy’s workouts are okay, but she is so very butch. (She’s probably straight for the very reason that she so obviously looks like a dyke.) Her music is right out of the 80’s too, but it’s not good fun 80’s; it’s like 80’s techno (not re-mixed or remastered). God, it’s just terrible. Her butchy haircut curly fro shakes above her head-sweatband. Again, yes, I can’t help but break into laughter if she’s not kicking my ass.

One night as a fill-in there was finally a normal-seeming woman. I introduced myself, but I didn’t understand her exotic name nor the accent she pronounced it in…I call her Joselina. Well, Joselina told me all about this hot yoga thing she goes to when she’s not teaching aerobics. Experiment #2.

So the place is not officially allowed to call it Bikram because it doesn’t strictly follow the practice, but basically it’s yoga in 100+degree rooms. We did a trial week. The first night was 75 minutes and lots of poses, and the second was 60 minutes p. cuz it was flowing yoga so there was a lot of movement. I thought both classes were really cool, but WoW. I have never experienced anything like it. Your body takes a shower from the inside out. I needed a bath towel and a normal gym-size towel. And once you’re done, there’s no “I need to stop here.” It is directly home to the shower. At 25 as an active person, I’ve never sweat that intensely in my life. But like I said, it feels great afterwards. The heat allows you to do insanely deep stretches/poses that you wouldn’t normally be able to do, so you definitely feel it. On our first night, we were leaving as the second class was coming in, and we noticed a fairly hot guy in the crowd. The next night, I walked in to wait and he was the only other one already there. So we started talking… but hot yoga is NOT the place to meet people because it’s so gross. Anyway, we chatted, did class. As we were leaving, I’m waiting for Mere outside of the hot room, hoping she gets her ass out so I don’t have to talk to that boy (man?) in all of my soaking wet glory, and then of course he walks through the door at the same time as she does. We all end up walking outside together and talking about class. Then he gets in his car across the street—a silver porsche—and then waves goodbye again as he’s pulling away. I swear that was the third “Bye.” I speculated that he may just go to yoga to meet girls, but Mere did have some truth in her “He was really good in class, you can tell he’s serious about it” comment. Anyway, I don’t know when I’ll be going to that class again, but I need to not be nice to him, because besides the fact that I think yoga people are weird—and guys more so—I hate that he drives a porsche. My parents both have them, but I think their reasons for owning/driving them are different than those would be of someone in my generation. I think yoga boy’s car is supposed to fill other voids, make up for other things that are lacking. Oh, and I also need to avoid him because I believe his name is Matt, and I need to stay away from that name!

Now, back at Lucille’s, we recently discovered the black woman instructor. She is my new favorite!!! She has the best music—almost completely what I work out to when I do on my own, Jay-Z and Beyonce mixes. She’s funny without being loony (like Ron) and she kicks our asses, makes us scream and count, is super-positive and is energetic! She said it herself: She will get me my bikini body!

Now that the weather is warm, I bought new Nike’s and started using the Nike + that my brother Will bought for me two years ago. I’m addicted! I go to my running park, which I showed Mere too on a walking trip, and she’s finally taken up some running/jogging on her own!

We also have a track by our house that we frequent. There, there’s a pool. Mere, new exercise fanatic, bought us kickboards: purple for her, pink (of course!) for me, and then I figured I should get a one-piece to not fuss with my suit so much when swimming. I was able to get a modern one-piece that does not resemble a speedo! BTW, Mere is a champ at swimming. I’m dead after one lap! I suck! But we are inspiring each other. So maybe, as she gets better at running, I will get better at swimming. We’ve been making exercise a habit, every day, like brushing teeth. Not only that, but I convinced (with M’s help) the girls upstairs to join Lucille’s and to do the thing. It’s a lifestyle! That, my friends, is the Gia revolution.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFVM5pVTwkM&mode=related&search=

Tuesday: Wake up around 7 to the baby beagles (Omar & Daisy) running around on the floor above me/my ceiling after having already endured the alarm clock that continually rings from 5-6am in the apartment below. Shower. Put on makeup. Listen to some Led Zeppelin. Try on all of my lingerie. Eventually decide to go to work around 8:30. Wait for bus forever; work on my tan. Commute takes forever; read a really great book. Get to city. Go to store where lady charges me double for my energy drinks; I’m actually aware enough to catch this and call her out on it. Thank you for giving me my own money back. Walking down the street, I get whacked in the face by a woman trying to hail a cab. Outside of my building, almost get killed by a bicyclist. He instead runs into the guy behind me, and, as we all walk into the building, they quarrel for a really long time, saying the stupidist shit while our 15 security guards (who always give me shit about my building ID and using certain elevators) idly stand there in silence. Oh, another Tuesday.

Wednesday: Wake up to alarm clock below. Listen to iPod for an hour. Unload dryer; fold and put away laundry. Try on Hooter’s work uniform shorts my friend gave me about 5 years ago. Will I ever wear these, even as part of a Halloween costume? Shower. Dress in high heels (I think this is the second time I’ve worn heels to work in the past two years.) Eat brekkie, for once. Walk to bus. Forget great book. Walk back; get book. Bus & path are way fast. Not nearly as hot as yesterday, mmmm. Want iced chai, but need espresso so must go to Starbucks to place my trillion word order. They don’t screw it up! I don’t like how Starbucks has cheapened the quality of coffee or how they effectively raised the price of a regular cup of joe from other vendors, but—and I guess I deserve this even—the cashier screws up the buttons and the total comes to $1.76 for my $5+ concoction. ? I ask. “Don’t worry about it; we’ll just keep this between us. It’s $1.76.” Well thanks, hottie! Another day, another dollar.

Today is day one of waking up in prison. My window used to face a wall of ivy that was about 30 feet away. Now it faces sheetrock or something, 3 feet away. They have been doing construction for quite some time on the house next door, I just didn’t realize it would be a few stories.  I didn’t realize they would rob me of my space, my light. Sun is my life, my happiness, and that has been taken away from me—quickly, simply, cleanly. I am never sleeping in my room again, indeed.

However, prison aside, I was immediately  reminded of this amateur poem when I woke up.

 

I wake up refreshed

A princess

on my 600 thread-count cotton/silk sheets

luxurious down pillow

My eyes open

to the sun beaming in from the window

I roll on my side toward the other pillow

rest my hand on its smooth surface, immediately saddened

by the absence of your presence

You are missed

in that white never-ending space

where I had expected

You forever.

 

I’m pretty good at editing people out of my life.

On my walk to the office this morning, I recognized my associate was about 10 paces ahead of me. And she was wearing yesterday’s outfit. Hmmm. With a hoodie. She was in a hurry, and she whipped out her cell phone and I had this feeling it was to call me. Sure enough, when I got to the office, the message light on my phone was blinking. She was going with her roommate to the hospital, or so she said.

Now, to give her credit, her hair was wet so she probably showered. And, the message was from 8:27 or something, so she wasn’t calling me when I saw her, and she was at least clean and up and doing something…But oh wouldn’t it be lovely if the details fit my version? I may be her boss but I’m young and hey, I’ve done the walk of shame myself a few times. But who goes anywhere in the vicinity of her office in last night’s getup if she’s just going to go home and change and come back?!? I would avoid all blocks surrounding this place after 8:30am. So maybe she was going to the hospital…

We’ll see if the outfit changes.

While contemplating H.O.V.A., I came across this amusing “breakdown” of Naughty By Nature’s “O.P.P.”

http://www.music-critic.com/breakdown/naughtybynature_opp.htm

It fascinates me that a lot of the stories that I publish are true or based on true stories. There are a lot of this-has-to-be-fiction too-good-to-be-true true stories. Thinking about my stress lately, I thought of a college friend, a girl, who said, “I need a wife.” Meaning: someone to take care of all of the little things so she could concentrate on the big projects. A personal assistant, so to speak.

When I was a freshman in college, I admired and respected two senior girls. They were best friends and roommates. I hoped I’d be like them when I was older. Perhaps they sensed this in me and wanted to make me in their image, because they took me under their wing and I took the bait.

What I found most fabulous about them (whether this makes me shallow or crazy or a poor judge of character with eskew morals is for you to decide) was this story. I think I actually told them they were my idols during the time this was happening…

Both of them were avid readers of Craigslist. I guess they originally used it for apartments, then got into entertaining themselves with “rants & raves,” and then eventually started posting stuff themselves when they were lonely and bored. So I don’t get in trouble, I’ll change their names (as I do in my magazines, haha) to Eva and Emma.

Eva, the one who said the comment about needing a wife, posted under the “platonic w for m” section one day seeking a man who wanted to work for “two beautiful females” as an “assistant.” Someone to run their errands—the grocery store, the pharmacy, FedEx/Kinkos, perhaps clean—so they could focus on the “more important things in life.” Which would be, who knows, getting good grades or looking for post-college jobs… I mean, really it seems ridiculous now, but maybe that’s what I loved about them.

From what I understand, they posted a lot of over-the-top stuff on the site when they were bored or tipsy, so they may have been only half-serious. But after this post they got a proliferation of responses (who knew?) They weeded through them and then “interviewed” the several men who seemed to fit the bill (”serious and not creepy”). I wish I knew what kind of crazies they interviewed, because those tidbits could probably make a story on their own. And what kind of maniacal young women meet face-to-face with strangers from cyberspace so they can “interview” them to be their bitch?

But anyway, I digress. I know that Emma had a serious boyfriend at the time and I think Eva was sleeping with Em’s boyfriend’s roommate, but she had a lot of guys that she kept around so I can’t be sure. What I am sure of is that the girls wanted to be absolutely positive (as much as they could be anyway) that this guy wasn’t a sick f—. So again, it would be entertaining to know all the freaks and geeks, but I don’t know. All I know is that they did actually find their guy. His name was Charlie.

Charlie was in his mid-forties, a Brooklynite, Jewish, Republican, and an AA spokesperson having spent more than half his life being an addict. (I have to interject again, sorry, but—grown men who use little boy nicknames, have conflicting views of the world, and have a history of drug addiction are probably the type of person you would meet online and therefore the type you would never want to actually meet.)

I never met Charlie (I obvi don’t think he sounds good on paper, either), but I do remember visiting E & E’s apt. one day, right after he had stopped by delievering their groceries for the week. Apparently, they would give him weekly lists of errands and he would do them. He was not paid. He did not get any love. In addition, he also gave them weekly “allowances” of cash, usually $50-$100, he took them clothes shopping, and he treated them to restaurant dinners on a fairly regular basis. I was stunned and amazed. A sugar daddy that gets nothing in return except the company of two college-age girls?

I was suspicious one day when Eva modeled her latest shopping spree loot to me. Who knows, maybe something did happen. Although she did say he pretty much repulsed her and Em beyond the confines of “normal” conversation, and besides he was their assistant, not their friend—it wasn’t like that. They only met with him in public places; he was not allowed upstairs in their apartment. So she said.

Maybe he was just a lonely old man. Maybe he was gay. Or maybe he was really just a sick f—. The girls ended up firing him sometime before graduation. I think it was winter. I asked Emma why and she said that they “just didn’t need him anymore.”

I’ve known many people and heard many unbelievable stories in my life. I usually forget as I don’t have much time to reminisce, and I have to read everyone else’s “fiction” on a daily basis. But this story sticks with me, maybe because I wished I could be them and tried to emulate them in every way, and the assistant thing only made me think they were cooler.

It really wasn’t that long ago, but that was more sick than cool. Now I think they were probably a little nutty, and I certainly had something backwards upstairs. Or maybe I was just a lemming. When you’re younger you trust older people, whether your parents, your teachers, your priest, or the senior girls. You think they know better.

But maybe why I’m thinking about it now is that they had this power over a man twice their age with no strings attached. No sex, and they got all the benefits. Maybe they needed a father figure. I know at least Emma had a deadbeat dad. Maybe at the time, I needed a parent figure. More importantly, a mother figure. My own mother was—and is—wonderful, but I needed female role models who were powerful. Powerful to me at the time meant power over men; the weaker sex, we are. They exuded that power. How cool they are, I thought. But they also proved to me that, really, the world is your oyster if you make it so. You really, truly, can have it all.

Today I have to discuss time with my new underling. Mainly, that the working day is 9am-5pm. Therefore, she must be here by 9:30am or call me with a sufficient excuse saying that she is on her way. This will be the third time I speak with her, and she’s only been here two months.

I think I am a fair and nice boss. And I hate having to keep tabs on people. Becoming a boss is a strange thing. There is a huge ego boost, for one. But it’s hard being a boss, because I have the duty of both disciplining someone else and protecting them from the real money & power. I am the liason. I became a boss just over a year into my first post-college job. I have to tell people older than me what to do. I am an EOC, and I only answer to the publisher.

The problem is that most people in my office work on their own schedules, so she sees everyone else come in at 10am or later, and so she assumes that she can vary her 8 hours and work 10-6, or something along the lines of everyone else. Which is still rather audacious considering this is her first job out of college and she’s only two months in. 

I hate that I have to speak with her again. She’s efficient and she works hard. But if I walk over to her desk at 9:45, needing something, and she’s not there, we have a problem.

In the editor’s world, normal hours vary office to office. Often they are 10-6, sometimes even 11-7. For Editors-in-Chief, they are longer or shorter depending on outside office work. But EOCs also have seniority, the privilege of arriving when we damn well please and not leaving until the work is done. Now, the man who does the artwork for our mag works the hours of 8:30am-3:30pm. So I don’t care if a person on my team is staying here until 7 or 8pm. I need my entire team here when I’m here, when our artist is here.

Now, I am not the typical ”the world revolves around me” EOC. Many here are busy with their own lives and stroll in at whatever time suits their fancy. That is their MO, and that is fine. They do their jobs in their own hours. Time is not an issue with them & theirs, because by 11am, their workers are certainly here or else out for the day. (They also have different artists and production teams.)

But TIME is everything to me. I live a very structured life. I am here more or less at 9am every day, ready to work. I drink a coffee and an energy drink every morning at work. I go to the gym directly after work Monday-Thursday. Monday & Tuesday are cardio; Wednesday is weights; Thursday is usually cardio or a class. My roommates have me watching TV now, so it’s “A.I.” on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and “The Office” and ”Grey’s Anatomy” on Thursdays. Friday is my favorite day. On Friday, I arrive at the office at 9:30, I check all of my recreational email, and I mainly focus on creative projects at work. Whenever I have to take a day off for a doc appt or some other affair, I always try to make it a Friday. Fridays I have drinks with co-workers or friends after work and then meet up with my boyfriend, or I go to the Hamptons for the weekend (boyfriend). Fridays I also treat myself to lunch or dinner out and–my favorite–chocolate milk. I do my laundry on Thursdays—Friday if I don’t want to go out; Wednesday if I am going away for the weekend and stressed out. I self-tan on Tuesdays and Fridays. Same goes for bleaching my teeth. (All of this unnecessary detailing of my life is only to ennunciate my love of structure. It could go on forever, but I believe I’ve beat the dead horse.)

I have always been this way. I remember on Sundays as an adolescent watching “60 minutes” with my parents and then “Murder, She Wrote,” and then declaring that it was my bedtime. I knew if I didn’t go to bed then that I wouldn’t have as productive of a Monday as I would’ve liked.

Now some may say that I live a ridiculously rigid life. That I am not spontaneous, not fun. There is some truth in that. However, this overall structure provides merely comfort, security, and it’s often modified for the unexpected matters that arise. Additionally, I do whatever I feel inspired to do on Saturday and Sunday, even if that’s only sleeping (which lately, it often is).

I’ve learned that structure not only lends itself to productivity, but, for me at least, to creativity. It enables me to be actively creative and aware in everyday life. The background is always the same, always expected. There is no unnecessary chaos, so I look for novelty. I must create “new.” Last weekend was the first warm weather weekend since I’ve moved, so I explored my neighborhood, finally settling on a grassy knoll in a small, nearby park. From that high point, down and in the distance, I could see downtown Jersey City to the right, Hoboken right in front, and New York City further to the front and left, the Hudson of course in between. It was glorious. I lay down under a dying cherry tree, admiring its last luscious pink blossoms and studying the intricate way the bare branches laced in the foreground of clear blue sky. The world was mine, or rather, my world was mine. This is the life. This is what I want to tell my entry-level girl: Follow my example, and you will own it; you will own your own life.

What I want to convey to my new hire is that if she lives by my example, she will do very well for herself. I have a great life; I really can’t complain.

She has the working hard part down. By following my lead, over time and with experience, she can be great. Not as great as me,  but great nonetheless.

Welcome to my manifestation of solipsism. (I just learned that gem of a word yesterday. I love learning new words, though I use few.)

I moved into my first post-college apartment this weekend. Woo-hoo! So this project must be put on hold until I have a new home computer, so as not to take away from my boss’ time. Ta-ta for now!