Disgusting.
It was actually written immediately following the incident.
'Incident' seems like an appropriate adjective.
So, here we go. Written Friday, February 22 (freshly showered):
Forget that it's Friday and fail to pick up your kid from daycare.
It's Friday.
I weigh less than I did this morning.
This is because I shed pounds today by losing great quantities of sweat and dignity.
Like most really engrossing stories, it all began with Wingo
This is bingo, but you can win chicken wings to eat.
Hosted on Wednesdays (probably) at the SMU student bar, their wing night involved free bingo cards.
You dab 'em, you get the Wingo, you yell it out, you get the wings.
Or so we thought.
Andie and I decided that we might as well play, since we could only afford one basket between us.
As we dipped and dabbed, ingrates all around us were winning all the Wingo wings.
Until I won!
"Wingo," I bellowed, drunk on protein.
Swaggering confidently to the DJ booth, I wondered how I'd manage to screw this up.
It's rare that I win when I really want to win.
But I really won. I weally won wingo.
My prize was a free week of hot yoga.
So, donning my Bill Wood (he's a pro), I swung by the local yoga hut this afternoon.
If you look even closer than that, you will recognize that there is much more to Bill than this.
After filling out a form I paid no attention to, I put on my hot yoga outfit.
This consisted of a pair of Andie's booty shorts, and that is all.
"Wear as little as you're comfortable with," they suggested on the phone.
Done.
While I enjoy dressing up
It was full of sexy people lying on yoga mats covered with towels.
I wasn't uncomfortable immediately, necessarily, but I'm certainly warm.
No one is speaking as I wade through the zen to find a spot at the back.
I lie down and wait with everyone else as I try to acclimatize.
Before I continue, it's important to understand what hot yoga is.
Hot yoga is taking normal stretches, complicating them, and then performing these in a sauna for an hour and a half.
I thought I understood this before going, but I guess I didn't.
Our taut instructor soon entered and the lesson began.
Hot yoga is hard for many reasons*:
Hot Reason #1: Instruction comes quickly.
She didn't speak as quickly as an auctioneer, but she did speak as quickly as an aging preacher who has long since lost the faith.
"Bring your arms straight up, interlock your fingers, release your index fingers, cross your thumbs.
Now, you're going to extend all the way forward, arms pointing straight, leg outstretched, foot planted, parallel with the floor, now you're going to lean forward, hands on the floor..."
And so on.
I'm a visual learner with no spatial reasoning.
Physical instruction is tricky for me at room temperature.
I found myself wanting to say, "Grab my elbows with what? Can we slow down, I can't concentrate. It's 40 Jesus degrees in here."
But I didn't because this seemed to be preventing only myself from doing anything.
During one of my (frequent) breaks, I looked over to see how Bill was doing with a very yoga-esque pose.
Flawless. Balanced on one foot, sinking to the floor while remaining poised. Staring straight ahead.
I was entranced and annoyed to see it.
But I was trying to keep up.
I knew I was doing things incorrectly because I always do things incorrectly in a mirrored room with sexy people, for one.
Two, I knew I was doing it wrong because I heard the name "Paul" at some point.
I guess she was giving me specific instruction, but I was beyond absorbing new information.
By now, sweat was running from the shorts of the guy near me in tendrils and it was disgusting.
I gave up trying to listen and instead tried to watch everyone else.
But I couln't even do that because I was the only one not exercising.
So, I'd just be a dude hanging out in short shorts watching chicks do yoga.
None of this mattered a great deal because, obviously, I was going to give up entirely before the session was over.
If I'm being honest with myself, I knew this ten minutes after the lesson began.
Approaching an hour, the only questions were "When?" and
"How discreet could I be leaving the back of a room?"
After days we were allowed to drink water.
The bottle cap was warm to the touch.
Eventually, we were balancing on one leg and I kept stumbling and I was losing resolve quickly.
Quickly even for me.
She was telling us to focus on our planted leg in the mirror to aid balance.
But for me all this does is remind myself that I hate looking in mirrors.
It also helped me realize that I was paler than everyone else.
My body was now glistening and hideous.
I began taking long "breathing breaks" during which I lay down and tried not to whimper.
Class continued.
The instructor would sometimes cross to the back of the room.
Initially, I assumed she was making her way to me in order to quietly ask me, "Are you okay?"
No such compassion.
Instead, she would adjust the thermostat.
Which cut out the middle man, really, because had she asked "Are you okay," I would have croaked, "Turn the goddamn heat down."
It took her crossing the room a few times to realize she was turning the heat up.
I think. It was sort of impossible to tell by then.
Regardless, I was ready to check out and begin writing this blog post in the change room.
I had stopped yogaing entirely.
Instead, I lay still and drank my water occasionally.
Even that provided no relief because the water was now piss-warm.
"Now, interlock your fingers beneath your heels, chin to chest, pull up and up, and slowly bring your head to your knees."
"Do what? I'm gripping what?!"
I suddenly noticed that a box of tissues could be found at each wall of the room and I assumed they were for nosebleeds.
Eventually, and long after I should have, I gave up.
I gathered my yoga gear and subtly pointed at the door.
Kristen (Christen?) tells me "No no, you're okay. Stay here. You're my prisoner."
Prostrate and panting, I was forced to agree.
By this point the room stinks like sex between two orangutans in the hull of some sort of boat.
I just basked, reptile-like, and waited for her to say that we were allowed to go.
As she concluded, she reminded us to not be embarrassed if we couldn't do the exercises (I'm the only person in this category, really).
She finished by saying, "Just being here is better for you than not being here."
Once again, I had to agree.
Afterwards, there was tea (tea!) and uncomfortable showering.
*Maybe it's just hard for the one reason.
