Monthly recap: Things are going pretty well. After two weeks of a preposterously crazy schedule, I decided that I had to take my week, teaching in Baltimore, as an opportunity to gain some perspective and to try to remember what life was like before Trader Joe’s. After the respite, I determined that quitting was inevitable. I returned to New York on Sunday, May 13th (Mother’s Day,) and attempted to quit on my first shift back at the grocery store on Monday. That didn’t work. Beyond the fact that my superiors were pissed to see me go, they also wanted to work with me so that I’d stick around. We came to an agreement that they’d reduce my schedule from four to three times per week. I decided that it might work out. When I got home and looked more closely at my schedule, I determined that I’d still be exhausted and that it wasn’t worth it. In the meantime, I acquired four additional weekly yoga classes: big news. I tried to quit again on Thursday. The First Mate (yes, that’s what we call the second highest-ranking position in the store…like we’re on a boat or something) instructed me to come back the next day with a proposed schedule that would work for me.
Now all of this comes as a surprise to me because when I was hired, I was told that my availability, which I submitted on the original job application, was basically written in stone (and signed with blood) for the first ninety days of employment. Seeing as how they want to work with me, it’s now apparent to me that they want me around. After formulating a schedule that I though I could handle, I came to the conclusion that it’s all still too much for me and that I have to quit the next day. Friday comes. I tried to quit again; they won’t let me. Do you see a pattern? I love working there; it’s true. Every time that I’m at home, looking at my schedule, I decide that it’s too much. Every time I’m at the store, I see more and more reasons to stick around. They must think that I’m completely bipolar.
Finally realizing that neither I nor my superiors want me to leave, I decided to stay. In order to make a little bit of breathing room in my schedule, I decided (and with the help and advice of my good friend, Doodle…after listening to Angela Lansbury and Marian Seldes talk about getting old,) that I would eliminate something that I didn’t like to do: teach in Hoboken. First of all, the PATH train sucks. Unless it’s raining, every other studio is accessible via bicycle. I ride eighty-two blocks to the studio on the Upper East Side; I ride three and a half miles to get to the studios in Brooklyn. But spending three dollars to hoist my bike up and down the stairs, being a slave to the crappy schedule, and never getting a seat on the train is truly frustrating. There’s no bridge to New Jersey so there’s simply no method, other than the stupid PATH, for the commute.
So, starting June 1, I’m no longer teaching in New Jerseay. That reduces my class load from 57 classes in June, to only 45. I’ll teach about eleven classes per week and sell groceries for 21 hours. Hopefully that will be a manageable balance. NO MORE PATH TRAIN!!
What else happened? I saw Doodle's show and I saw DarlaDiva's show: they are both so good. Nothing beats a talented group of bloggers. I completely missed the opportunity to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, taught a whole bunch of classes and played with two very cute girls in Baltimore, decided that there might be a small glimmer of a chance that I’ll decide to participate in the International Yoga Asana Championship (previously, I would have told you that there was not a chance in hell, but people have been trying to talk me into it), and completed a full sixty days of uninterrupted daily yoga classes. I want this to be the summer of sangria (…perhaps even white sangria,) but I simply haven’t had the space for it yet.

That’s enough for a month, isn’t it?
Oh, and I also met a boy on a train. I was on the downtown 6 train on May 2nd after teaching two classes uptown and before going to Brooklyn for a haircut. There was a gorgeous boy sitting across from me. I wanted to talk to him but fumbled and was egregiously awkward instead. I wrote a witty posting and published it on craigslist. He replied. Halleluiah to Missed Connections. Despite the fact that there was not a single word uttered at the time, we have now had the ability to connect. Look how far we’ve come since the dawn of the Internet. Anyway, he’s from Trinidad and currently vacationing in Barcelona…and, so far, making several international phone calls in order to talk.