It's unclear in retrospect precisely why I was in such a hurry; the night stretched out before me as hours and hours of alone time with which I could do as I pleased. But there I was in the shower, exfoliating madly and rinsing it off with a careless scrape of the hands. And my left took a mad swipe at the air and caught the edge of a shaving cream can that was already leaning tenuously against the wire shower rack. Off it tumbled, landing squarely on my left big toe. I looked down and saw blood, felt pain.
And it was then that I started to think, and it was then that realized something pretty huge about my life.
... Okay, that's a total fabrication. Well, not the first part; I really did clock the bejeesus out of my big toe with a Skintimate metal missile. But the only real thought I had was, "Oh, %$*$, that $*%!ing HURTS -- did I just BREAK MY TOE while I'm home ALONE? INSERT EXTREMELY INAPPROPRIATELY TAKEN-IN-VAIN NAME OF THE DEITY OF YOUR M-F'ING CHOICE HERE."
But, for a second there, wasn't that a deliciously pretentious beginning to an entry?
There is no meaning to be taken from my foot wound. Also, there is no tragedy. It's fine. So far, anyway. It bears three cuts, one of which is of the "some of my skin is suspiciously missing; where did it go?" variety, and it immediately looked bruised and swelled up, and so after I finished cursing I wrapped my hair in a towel and lay down on the bathmat, propping my foot up on the sink so that blood wouldn't rush to it and it'd stop oozing faster. That did the trick, but it was a really fun ten minutes of lying on my back naked and thinking, "Did I break my toe? Is this a deep cut? Am I going to pass out from blood loss? Is having a glass of wine going to be a really bad idea?" It really is fine by now, except for when it stings. Don't think I haven't already imagined myself on my deathbed with a fatal infection, and of course, I'm going to look up whether a strain of staph is likely marching on toward my wound. I'm plenty hypohondriac enough to do all that.
Today was a very busy one for me. It began at 7:30 a.m., which is when I got up to watch my TiVoed copy of England's first World Cup match. The lads played pretty badly except for the first 20 minutes, where they seemed uncharacteristically aggressive, and Beckham's early cross was so baffling it led to an own-goal header by the Paraguayan captain. That unfortunately relaxed the team enough that it only barely scraped through for 1-0 to be the final score, but a win's a win. I'll take it. But Michael Owen came out, which I hope was just caution and not evidence that his foot injury is flaring up, and Wayne Rooney hasn't come on yet because of his semi-catastrophic April injury that's sort of okay now, so that'll be interesting to see -- he's so good, but SO headstrong and, well, I fear, kind of an asshat. But, he's 20. He'll learn. And I just want to see him and Michael Owen on the field together.
At any rate, I finished the game just before strip in the morning, which today was what we call "pole class." Every class starts out with 45-60 minutes of warming up, then we practice a trick or three for a bit (or learn a new one), and then we turn the lights back off and rotate through the poles to do individual dances. Except for pole class, which is, logically, just the warmup and then an hour-long review of all the pole tricks we've learned. It kicks my ass. I've made my way up to Level 5, so we were doing everything from climbing up the pole and trying to flip upside-down in relative midair, to the basic Firefly, the first trick you learn. It's my favorite class, as much as I love the dancing, because it really tests my strength -- and, I get a wicked fly-high when I get a trick right. For instance, there's this trick called the Flying Body Spiral that I couldn't do. It looks so fluid when my instructor does it -- she runs around the pole with one hand on it, she "flies" -- kicks out, feet off the ground -- and she whips her body around the pole, and her free left hand finds it behind her back, and she spins around it and lands gracefully. Doesn't sound so bad, right? But for some reason, I couldn't get it just from watching it once. I overthought it. I was just so far in my head, trying to push it and getting nervous when I couldn't, and it never made sense to me. That made me fed up, so when I watched Sheila do the non-flying version of it on Conan the other night, I watched it in slow-mo, and that totally flipped the switch in my head. The natural movement for the Flying Body Spiral made sudden sense, and during my next class I did it right on my first try. It's been getting better and better and now it's one of my favorite tricks. In fact, I did a great one today at the end of class and cruised out of there on a cloud. That is bar-none my favorite kind of problem-solving.
At any rate: Pole class takes a lot out of a girl, so when I got home all glowy with my post-stripper high, I looked forward to an idle afternoon of reading and watching World Cup Soccer. But then I got restless.
"We could play golf," Kevin suggested.
Good enough for me. We'd been talking about going; I hit a few 4-iron shots in PE in Grade 10 and have torn up a mini-golf course or five in my time, so we decided to go and get me acclimated to something closer to proper golf. There's a nine-hole par 3 pitch-and-putt course (really short holes -- 78 yards to 135 yards) up in Studio City, so off we went. We warmed up at the driving range, where my shots got better but largely cut left, and then hit the first tee with a random guy as our third.
"It's her first game," Kevin said, by way of apologizing for any slowness.
I stepped up to the tee and smacked a 7-iron straight toward the green. Dead-on; my ball landed in the fringe just in front of the green, with a nice lie and not too far from the pin. I turned around and Kevin and our partner were sort of gobsmacked.
"First time, eh?" the guy laughed.
It was great. I like watching golf, and yes, I like playing Mario Golf on my GameCube -- I am a sucker for those stupid characters -- so I was relieved that I enjoyed the actual game. Of course, that was a lucky first shot. Still, I did okay on the course -- they give you a six-stroke max on each hole, so that things keep moving, and I did hit the max a few times, but it was always an earned six rather than an "Oh, hell, I give UP" six. And I got several fours, which was an awesome feeling. I can't wait to go back and practice. Suddenly those 18 holes of golf on my 101 list seem a lot more attainable.
And of course, when we were done, we had to drive home RIGHT past the next-door Pinz bowling alley, and that's how we ended up bowling two games in the evening before we drove back to the apartment. We cannot pass a bowling alley and not go in if we have the time.
To close the night and bring it somewhat back around, Kevin went to a bachelor party. At a strip club. If only I'd thought to watch some soccer, it would have sewn up the circle.
I'm sore, but happy. Going to class in particular is always so very good for my mental state. I'm one of those people who can take a situation that's real but not so good, imagine an outcome or an effect, and then imagine fourteen different arguments that will take place once that imaginary thing happens. And that's exactly what I was doing when I went to bed last night, got up this morning, drove to class, and started the warm-up. I even thought to myself, "This is where I'm supposed to stop thinking about my week and get rid of all my stress, but that's totally not going to happen this week." But then I forgot to think about it, and suddenly class was over and I felt great. Yeah, it crept back up on me the rest of the day, and yeah, I'm sort of paralyzed with dread about going to work on Monday, but for those two hours everything really did just vanish. I need that. It's so hard for me to turn off my brain. And on those days it's often even harder for me to feel good about myself, because whatever's keeping my mind roiling is affecting my self-esteem. Strip class has become such an unlikely sanctuary for me, one I never imagined I'd find. Those women are my Saturday family. That is such a touchy-feely sentiment -- it's unusual for me to buy into something like that, but it's really true. We may never see each other again once Level 6 ends -- like if, once we make it through six, the last level, they redistribute that class time to a Level 1 and we have to pick different ones and they don't match -- but I love them even if I don't know much about them. We hate missing classes, we hate not getting to watch each other dance all the time (we always go two at a time, one on the front pole with her music, and one on the back warming up, so that person always misses the main event on that go-round), and we just have this weird bond -- I get the sense that it's not only my sanctuary. We all have a reason we're there and we all have a different confidence we're hoping to leave with, and... you know, I'm going to stop evangelizing, because I'm sure you've heard enough by now. Basically, for me, this has been a really wonderful development in my life and I hope I'm always able to continue.
And, yes, who'd have thought that my happiest and most confident moments as a woman would come in a fluffy skirt and six-inch stilettos while I slowly peeled off my shirt near a stripper pole?
Tonight was more melancholy. Not because of my toe tragedy; that was just an annoyance. When I'm by myself, my brain usually turns to work, and that becomes a full-fledged gnawing on all the recurring questions: Why am I so easily turned off of what I'm doing? Will I always be this way? Is it a genuine sign I should listen to, or am I just that obsessed with looking for greener grass somewhere else? I don't want to be that person. I want to be able to trust that whatever makes me unhappy really makes me unhappy. By which I mean, do I really hate my job, or do I just hate when it gets thorny? Do I really dislike what I do, or would I just rather be free to be my own boss? Is that even going to help?
Everybody wants more free time. I know that. But I do worry that I'm very suggestible. Like, I get the idea in my head that working from home on some project I have chosen would be the greatest possible thing, and that immediately taints the experience of going to work, and then all the usual work B.S. becomes even more insufferable. Am I really so gullible -- can I really so easily think myself out of enjoying what I do to pay the rent?
Think I'm an overthinker? I just want to do the right thing -- I don't want to dismiss something offhand just because it's more convenient or more fun-sounding or carefree-sounding to do it. If it were me on my own I don't think I would have the slightest confidence in the idea of creating my own work, but thanks to having started that goofy Web site with Jessica, I have a writing partner, and it's not so frightening a prospect. And indeed, it's tempting. Really tempting. Probably even right.
Kevin's been so supportive of that idea, it's ridiculous. I'm constantly saying, "No, I have to keep going, I shouldn't walk away from a job that pays well," and he points out that I've done with it what I want to do -- I've banked some safety money, I've had fun here and there, I did work that made me proud, I hung out with my awesome co-workers, and I fulfilled a promise. And that it's okay for me to take a leap, if that's what I really want.
And it is what I really want. I definitely, as I said, don't want to be someone who bails mentally the second things get hard. But I also think that if it were something that really had my heart, I wouldn't want to bail. God, I hope so, anyway. Take, for instance, this book proposal. It's been hard, because the nature of GFY is immediate, and that's not necessarily ideal for the slow-moving publishing world, which demands a decent shelf life and a book that won't be instantly dated to the point of losing consumer interest. But we kept at it and we finally got somewhere, and whatever happens with it, we didn't quit -- and we still like what we do. We still have fun with it. So I have to cling to that, because right now that's what separates that world, that dream, from my reality.
This wasn't meant to be a treatise about my job. But I guess... it's hard for me not to think about it. I've suddenly realized just how much I have riding on this book proposal, emotionally. It's an escape hatch for a world I'm tired of -- a world I did put myself into, and knowingly, but nonetheless a world that in a larger sense I've stopped enjoying. And I want Jess and I to succeed in monetizing this thing we stumbled upon that's been so good for us, and so thoroughly fun. Ergo, with all that Out There, if something little happens at work that's bad, I get more upset. It takes smaller things to push me over the edge. My complaints roll more easily off my tongue. I don't admire that about myself, but it's there. And I really want to be able to trust that it's all a sign that I'm headed in a better direction, rather than just that I'm a fickle freak.
I can't let myself think positively about the book because I don't think I could take the disappointment if it all goes pear-shaped. I'm kind of walking a tenuous line here as we wait and watch, because any second, my escape hatch could lock. And that's when I really have to figure out where that means I am, and where I go next.
This concludes today's broadcast.
I swear, I was kidding when I said my toe made me think about my life. It didn't. But apparently I found a way to take this entry from A to B to T anyway.