Rain, rain: go away. Apparently if it was cold out, we’d be getting four feet of snow tonight. I was just about to snuggle up with a movie but received a request to update this blog. So, here goes. Happy March everyone; wow, it’s been a while. It’s New York and sometimes it’s cold outside. Sometimes it’s 20° outside when I wake up at 5:45am to teach class. Good thing the studio is generally 90° hotter than that. Can you imagine the utility bills? Yikes. But the cold doesn’t bother me that much. I usually tough it out by taking a nice, long bike ride over the Brooklyn Bridge and taking a class at the Brooklyn Heights studio or just by sitting in my apartment with some Trader Joe’s Chai Tea. I’m not going to lie; January was difficult at times. It’s been hard to come back to the city that I love with a lot less money than before. It’s hard having nothing to do all day and on top of that…no money to spend. So that was most of January. I only taught eleven classes and spent most of my time trying to break-in my apartment. But when I do actually have classes to teach I’m generally able to tell my friends that, before 8:30am, I’ve already folded between 150 – 200 towels. See, I get the early classes because I’m new and nobody else wants to teach them. It’s stressful to have to wake up that early but I’m appreciative of what I can get.
So in an act of financial desperation, I committed to teaching a week of classes in Baltimore. There may be a surplus of teachers in NYC but there is still a huge demand elsewhere. I was already planning to be down for Alice’s first birthday so why not stay the week and make some money? I ended up teaching 13 classes in four days. Kinda crazy. There were some days that I was in the hot room for 7.5 hours. That’s a long time to be immersed in the 105° heat. My brain was a little bit mushy toward the end. My boss had to hold back convulsions of laughter while taking my class on Thursday morning because it took me four tries in order to get “internal intercostal muscles” out of my mouth.
I somehow didn’t realize that I had completely over-booked myself after returning from Baltimore. In my despair, I had reached out to several different studios. One in Danbury, Connecticut…Westchester, NY…Hoboken, New Jersey. So I’ve been traveling a lot and over the course of the past ten days, taught 27 classes. That’s almost 55 hours in the 105° heat. “Kids,” as they say, “don’t try this at home.” But my mirage in the desert has been these next few days. For Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, I teach ZERO classes. I’m thrilled to be busy and happy to finally be making up for the lack of income in January. February was monumentally better than January and it looks like March might be even a little bit better than February.
I’ve been having difficulty with one particular studio owner who thinks that I’m not up to the level of standards to teach at his studio. When he actually lets me teach at his studio, he pays me half of what a brand new teacher makes and he revoked the regular class that he gave me because he feels that I'm not ready to teach a class without him sitting in the corner. It was a recurring Thursday morning class and he actually took it away from me before I even had a chance to teach the first one. When I'm teaching class with the changes that he's asked me to make, it just feels so uncomfortable and not like me at all. I love feedback and I enjoy the challenge of working to improve my class but the things that he wants me to do just don't feel right.
I also had a crazy interaction with a studio owner persuading me to teach at a Hot Yoga studio in Queens which, by the way, it completely illegal according to Bikram Law. Certified Bikram Yoga instructors are only permitted to teach Bikram Yoga at Certified Bikram Yoga studios. I don’t think I’m quite ready to break the rules yet. Other than that, I seem to be doing well. I just got an email from the Danbury studio owner who told me that I’m the best teacher that she has.
When I do actually get the chance to teach, I love it. Some of the practitioners in New York are hilarious. Last week, a student told me that she wasn't sure how class was going to go because she had already taken a class at noon (so this was her second class of the day) and all she had eaten all day was ice cream. She told me afterward that she felt kinda gassy. I wonder why. Another woman was complaining about how cold it was by the door. Well, guess what? Move. It's really hot on the other side of the room. This one is the best though: there are a number of postures where we advise students to look up toward the ceiling in order to get the maximum arch in the spine. Last week, one woman refused to look toward the ceiling. After I asked her about it, she said (in her thick French accent,) that she didn't want to get wrinkles on her forehead. I swear; these people crack me up.
There’s a Whole Foods opening directly across the street from my apartment. I would die if all I had to do to get to work was walk out my door and cross the street. So I’m hoping that nothing will stop be from getting a job there in order to supplement my yoga income. But of course there are obstacles. I applied online several weeks ago and finally received a response with an interview date. Great. But not great because I’m in Baltimore during the scheduled interview. I immediately respond to the email requesting a re-schedule. After no response I write again on the morning of the interview, explaining in detail that I’m out of town and unable to attend an interview until that Friday. The guy finally writes back telling me to just stop in anytime tomorrow…which is Thursday. Can’t the guy read? I’m not back in town until Friday. So I go all the way down to the interview location (which is so much further than just across the street,) early on both Friday and Monday morning. The problem is that there’s nobody there from Whole Foods. Amid all of my frustration, I go to another Whole Foods location in attempt to explain the situation. The customer service rep calls someone who calls someone who calls someone who finally gets in touch with the guy who’s administering the interviews. He told me that I missed the pre-screening process (all because I was out of town, teaching classes!) I’m still working on getting my foot in the door.
Shows that I’ve seen since I moved back: GUTENBERG! The Musical, The Vertical Hour, Follies (Encores Concert,) At Least It’s Pink, Chicago, 6969 (one of Jordan’s plays.) While seeing Follies, in a theatre which holds 2,750 people, I ended up sitting directly next to Jordan’s new boyfriend. How do things like that happen? And of course, I looked completely disheveled. I had come straight from yoga in such a rush. I usually have my bag with me so that I can thoroughly shower and throw in some hair product in order to be presentable. That particular day was different because I had to go to Park Slope (to pick up a pay check) and I didn't want to lug my sweaty bag and mat to City Center so I half-assed it. Oh well, I told Jordan that he had to tell his boyfriend that I'm usually cuter than that.
Oh, and there’s someone who’s trying to fix the hole in my couch: fhew! I called Jennifer Convertibles and crossed my fingers. After two weeks, they decided that they'd come out and fix it although it was estimated to take about a million business days. Eh.
First step was to receive the piece of upholstery in the mail. Then I was to call to have the technician appointment scheduled. When I received the package I was very excited that it didn't take nearly as long as they had suggested it would. The only problem is that the fabric that they sent is nothing like the fabric on my couch. My couch is brown leather and the stuff in the box is some sort of tan micro-fiber. At first I thought that perhaps this was just the inside element...like the underwear for my couch...and that I would receive the exterior in a separate shipment. Nope; I don't think that's the case.
I talked to Jennifer again. She said that she would send an upholstery technician out to look at what I received in the mail. I would hear from the technician within five business days. I sad "..........OK."
Then I picked up the phone and called back. I said "Jennifer, it does not take an expert to determine that I received the wrong thing. My couch is brown leather and there is no brown leather anywhere in that box." Now she's going to send me a new box. Hopefully it will contain the right thing. That Jennifer and her crazy convertibles!