Four degrees of DC theater

Got to sleep in, though I don't feel rested. Never took a nap yesterday, nor did I drink enough water. And I had wine with dinner last night. You get so used to having 2 classes a day, you forget how vulnerable your body is to anything vaguely toxic.

Last night, Chris arranged a little reunion dinner for DC-to-LA transplants. We met at Buca di Beppo in Santa Monica. Santa Monica is a cute, cute, cute neighborhood of shiny shops and restaurants. I passed the Lululemon yogawear shop and heard choirs of angels. Maybe normal things just seem sparkly to me because I'm used to living in sweat and grime.

Why, oh why did no one tell me that evenings here are freezing? Why didn't I think to check the weather before I packed? All I brought was hot weather clothes. I would sell my right arm for some jeans and a sweater. Tonight I borrowed some layers from Chasity. I have exactly 10 minutes before I have to be at the restaurant, so I duck into the Santa Monica Goodwill. I buy a Paul Frank t-shirt, a long denim skirt, and a sweater, and change right in the aisle of the Goodwill because they have no dressing room.

The gathering was Chris, me, Jon Cohn, Kevin Price, Richard Dorton & girlfriend, David Levine, and Beth. I'd never met David or Beth, which is sort of amazing, given the number of intersections at the table. Everyone at that table had done at least one show together, though not with any other person. I've done separate shows with Chris, Jon, Kevin & Richard. Kevin & Richard did Winter's Tale together. Beth & Chris: Cherry Red. Chris & Kevin: I Love Robot -- also featuring Lara Rubin, before we ever met and became friends. David, KP, Jon & Lara were all National Players. The cross-currents of rehashing were insane. The next generation of DC actors will have six fingers.

Jon has the same triple-effusive energy. You respond to it, try to keep up with it, but somehow feel dirty afterwards. KP had the most interesting stories of the evening. I thought he came out here to act, but he's actually screenwriting. It was a glimpse into The Business. One of his screenplays was optioned for a year, but never got made. Apparently there is financial benefit from optioning, whether or not anything comes of it. He also works as a private math tutor, sometimes for Hollywood offspring. Without spoiling any of KP's future employment prospects, suffice it to say that he's one of those people that have a lot more under the surface than he lets on.

Meetings of DC theater folk are always surreal. But from the Bikram bubble to this, in LA. I'm not really sure which feels more like the real world. It's probably healthy for me to get out in the unhealthy outside world on a regular basis.

I have to give up this vain idea of cooking every weekend to prepare lunch for the week. Class, grocery store, laundry, nap, pedicure, a meal or two and the weekend's done.

My favorite profanity

Songs stuck in my head today:
Beastie Boys -- Root Down
Mary Poppins -- A Spoonful of Sugar (spit spot!)

I was trying to get something, a bottle of shampoo maybe, out of the depths of my backpack, crammed in a locker. I hate running back and forth to my backpack and the locker for every third thing. The bottle, or whatever it was, was being difficult. As it is my custom to talk to inanimate objects, I mumbled, "Come out, motherfucker!"

I realized it was the first time I'd said "motherfucker" in over 2 weeks. Before I came here, it was part of my hourly vocabulary.

What is happening to me?

The five-year-old speaks once more

9:30 AM class: Rajashree

I know I drink between poses, when I don't really need to. I know it's an emotional crutch. I don't care. I'll nurse that frozen water bottle like a baby if I want to.

Nyaah.

Never so weary, never so in woe

Every day it's harder to wake up.

Today I gave up any pretense of paying attention in anatomy, and napped instead.

Put my head down, slouched in the backjack and slept.
We also got a glorious 15-30 minute break before posture clinic. Chasity, Nalini & I all slept on the beach mat.

Everyone sleeps every chance they get. If there are five spare minutes, they are spent on the floor. It's barely a choice.
I have never ever ever ever been so tired in my entire life.

Breakdown #1

9:30 AM class: Emmy
Today's mantra: It doesn't have to be perfect.

After last night's standing-bow-podium incident, my hamstring is so tight that I can barely get into any posture that requires bending forward. I used to lock out both knees, no problem, in most of these poses. Now it kills to try hands-to-feet, standing head-to-knee, triangle. It's worse than my very first class.

The hamstring, combined with how tight my hips are in the morning, and how difficult the standing series is anyway... okay, I'm just miserable. This is hard, it hurts, and I'm miserable. I want to cry, but there aren't any tears, just dry sobs, anxious hyperventilation. I'm next to Crying Yogi and when we lay down for the first savasana, she says, "Just let it go." I rarely give myself permission to cry, but she just did.

Suddenly I'm five years old again and crying. I don't know why it's always five years old. I don't remember anything particularly traumatic from when I was five -- as opposed to seven, or nine. But the five-year-old me is apparently more miserable than the current me, and I lie there and think, aren't you done yet? How much more of this is there? When we turn around for cobra, Crying Yogi touches my arm. She lays out a couple poses to deal with her own shit, and I touch her arm, though I get the feeling she wants to be left alone. Later that evening I thank her. She responds nonchalantly -- "Hey, it's just normal for me." I'm a little envious.

I have also reconsidered my savasana-shower policy. Fuck that. I can't move, let alone fight the crowds and noise in the changing room. Five minutes won't hurt.

Conversations with Bikram, Part II

5:00 pm class: Bikram

I'm dragging, wondering how much longer I have to take class. And it's only week two.

Out of some death wish, I put my mat in the center of the room, close to Bikram's podium. I've been fearing pain all week, and it just gets in my way during class. It's time to bust through it. The teachers will not get any more merciful as the weeks progress. I want my pain now.

I bust my ass during class, so Bikram won't have any reason to pick on me. But during standing bow -- which I've had a love-hate relationship with from day one -- he points at me.

"Your feet aren't even in REMOTELY in one line! Get up here!"

The class stops as I get up on the podium and get into standing bow, in the eight-inch space in front of Bikram's chair. Bikram grabs my right arm (which stretches forward) and left leg (which kicks over my head). He looks at my left foot and announces to the class:

"She needs a pedicure." He pulls my arm forward and my leg up towards the ceiling.
"Stretch forward. Kick more. Stretch more. Stretch more!"

He keeps pulling. It feels like I'm going to rip in half. I have no balance of my own; if he lets go I will probably lurch off the podium. Then he yanks on my left leg. I hear a horrific double pop in my right hip and feel a huge rip in my right hamstring. While he holds me in this ungodly stretch:

"Who paid for the training? Whose money is it?"
Dear god, just let me go. Okay, my mother lent me the money, but he made fun of the last woman who fessed up to that: "Your mother wasted her money!" I'm not going to fall prey to that. "Me!"

"And who got the money?"
Holy shit. This is bad. "You!"

"And who ate the money?"
What if he really damaged my leg and doesn't know it? "You!"

"So who's the idiot here?"
Why did I sign that waiver releasing him from all responsibility of injury? "Me!"

He lets go and I stumble off the podium. My right leg is still freaking out and there's about an hour of class left. It still hurts to walk. Why did I fall asleep in Emmy's lecture on pain?

Thank god my roommate is a massage therapist. When we get home, I sit in an epsom salt bath, then Nalini works on my leg for about an hour.

Well, I wanted my pain now. That's what Bikram sells. And does he deliver.

The yoga truck

Craig warned us about the yoga truck. Sometimes it just hits you, leaving you dazed and wobbly. Other times it runs you over, leaving you twisted, broken, and squashed into the pavement. And sometimes after that, it backs up again and drives back and forth over your whimpering carcass a few times, for good measure.

I'm not there yet, but I've definitely been brushed in passing on a 4-lane highway. I have never been so tired in my life.

I keep falling asleep in anatomy class, which is unwisely scheduled at 12:15. Kathy, our substitute anatomy teacher, has an uphill climb, no matter how many jokes she tells or photos of her dogs she shows. I feel sorry for her. It's not personal. Right after morning class and lunch, we are expected to sit in a dark room and stay awake for slides of the skeletal system. Yeah.

It's even a struggle to stay awake during Emmy's lecture on pain, which is very relevant. Emmy is the principal of the school; she's in her 70s and can still stand on her knees in half lotus. She's one of the few people that lead the advanced Bikram class (84 postures, only open to certified teachers). She's also perhaps the only person that could kick Bikram out of class, which legend says she did once. For disrupting class too much.

I desperately want to hear this lecture, but keep waking up to find my notes trailing off the page.

The 2-popsicle lunch

My body has become very particular about what it wants and doesn't want. Some people lose their appetite altogether at training. Many people spent the first week throwing up, so they aren't eating much. All I wanted last week was lemonade and cold pasta.

And these are not just cravings, especially with the lemonade. I start thinking about lemonade halfway through class. I must have it. It is the only thing to live for. Dear god, when will the angels descend from heaven with lemonade and save us all? Once I make it to lunch and get that lemonade, it is the. Best. Lemonade. Ever. Actually, it's the best thing I've ever drunk. I don't know how I lived without it, or why I would want anything else.

Except maybe popsicles. There is a very smart popsicle man who brings his cart to the parking lot at lunchtime. And we are ever so grateful. Because he sells the best. Popsicles. Ever.

I think they're Mexican -- they come in lemon-lime, strawberry, mango, coconut, tamarind, watermelon, hibiscus and pineapple. There are usually chunks of fruit in them. The lemon-lime ones are basically the crack form of lemonade. Today I started lunch with a lemon-lime popsicle. Then I decided I needed a pineapple one too, and whatever real food I had just seemed unnecessary.

I think food is overrated. I know they just want to keep us from passing out. But food made me feel sluggish. After the 2-popsicle lunch, I felt great. Perhaps one day you will find me strung out on these crack popsicles in the gutter, clutching a 40-oz. of lemonade. I cannot promise you I will want rehab.

P.S. It's my mother's birthday today. I called on the way to the studio and made the van sing happy birthday to her. Happy Birthday again, mom.

Week 2: Standards redefined

Gone are the days of the 20-minute final savasana, where I drift off after class until I'm completely relaxed and cooled down. Are you kidding me? Class typically runs over by at least 10 minutes. 11:15. Anatomy begins at 12:15. Approximately 1 hour to wait in the shower line, rinse out yoga clothes, change, hang the wet clothes up in the parking lot, eat lunch, and set up for anatomy. Between traffic jams and the slow motion imposed on my body by the yoga truck, this takes much longer than usual. So I bolt out of the room as soon as the teacher officially dismisses us, and lurch to the showers before the line reaches out the door. My head feels like a bowling ball, and sometimes I have to prop myself up on the wall in the shower line, or grab onto the clothing hooks. But I will have time for lunch and two seconds of rest before anatomy.

We're not dead yet

After the 5pm class Friday night, Jason Winn announced that we had the night off. It was like winning the lottery. On the van ride home, Nalini & I decided sushi was necesary, and our van-mate Mike knew a place down the street from the apartments. We spent a couple of hours recovering a sense of humanity and finding out about each other's lives. Mike is very secretive about his personal life, other than he works for Apple. This week has been years long.

All I managed to do Saturday was laundry and nap. We went to Trader Joe's after class at 7:30 am (yes folks, 7:30 am on a Saturday), then came home. It was all we could do to put our food away and start a load of laundry. We all fell asleep for a good couple of hours. The couch in our living room is more comfortable than the beds. I've barely been able to check my messages this week, let alone return calls. And right now, that seems like an awful lot of effort.

The Oakwood apartments resemble a nice little hotel close to the beach. The paths between buildings are landscaped with flowers, benches, trees, and climbing vines on the balcony rails.

There's a heated pool & hot tub surrounded by deck chairs, palm trees and a couple of grills. After rousing from naps, which seemed to take another hour, we grilled some food and hung out in the pool -- along with the rest of the teacher trainees. We basically rule the complex right now.

Suddenly, it felt like a vacation. Heated pool, palm trees, perfect weather, nothing else to do. Perhaps the apartments are meant to be a compensation for how grueling the week is. We're isolated from the outside world -- during the week, we barely have time to think. And on the weekend, all we want to do is recover. Right now, there's something nice about being removed from the rest of your life. No routine to enslave you. No trappings of your former daily life, no phone calls to return, errands to run, or social obligations. The only decision to make is what we need from Trader Joe's. Life is stripped down to immediate, simple demands. Sleep, food, laundry.

Today Nalini, Chasity, Lilly, Mike & I walked the Venice boardwalk, which is a five-minute walk from the beach in Marina del Rey. It's just like the opening credits for Three's Company. There are houses and apartments all along the boardwalk. Some people actually live on the beach. With warm weather, all year round. It's damn appealing.

We passed Muscle Beach, which I didn't realize was a specific, tangible location. I always thought it was fictional, or metaphorical. Perhaps in former days, Muscle Beach was sandy strip of sun-kissed beach boys, perfecting Adonis physiques between waves and clambakes with girls in gingham bikinis. In present-day real life, it's more of a steroid freak farm that resembles a prison yard on the sand.

We saw a street performer balance a young girl, seated in a metal folding chair, IN HIS TEETH. His stage presence was more Three Card Monty than magician. He had this aggressive way of pressing the crowd for donations to the hat that made you wonder if a passerby would get clocked for trying to steal a free show. But none of us feared for the girl in the chair. Somehow, you knew he was okay with the kids.

Vacation brain set in when it came to the boarkdwalk vendors. We bought necklaces, clothing, bikinis. I, sadly, still have not found a cute hot tub bikini. But it was great to get Nalini, who formerly had a very simple one-piece, into a hot mama black bikini. There's a hot mama inside of Nalini just dying to get out. She's just not comfortable with it yet.

When I stay in one place for a long time, I forget how easy it is to change your world in a minute. It's changed completely at least three or four times in the last week. You just pick up and go. You adapt. It takes nothing, just simple, immediate demands. The decision to do it. Anything is possible. I want the world to keep changing, instead of returning to the regular schedule of the college. I want a new city, a new country, new things to see, new people, new lives.

Or maybe I just want another day of vacation.