Classic Example #2

This past Saturday did NOT go according to plan. My entire morning was another hilarious example of a moment (or series of moments) where everything collapsed inward at a alarming (and hilarious) rate.

About a week ago, Hilary Rodham Clinton (my black 2006 Scion tC) reached 50,999 miles, signifying to her faithful driver (myself) that it was time for a tune-up. My mother doesn't believe in courtesy shuttles, meaning standard maintenance is always an ordeal involving more than one car and more than one trip. My mother is also a fan of making everything into exercise, so she concocted a brilliant plan: we would walk from the car place back home! And, since the appointment was at 9:00 am, I thought it'd be great to get a walk in with Mama (and my Aunt Edie) and also fit in my practice.

Well, I woke up a little late. Actually, correction: I set my alarm for 9:35, when I should have set it for like, 9:20. In any event, I was late. I didn't think it'd take too long to get ready, and I went to bed late, so I wanted to get every minute of sleep I could. I threw my things together, grabbed a quick breakfast, and met my mother and my aunt at their dead mother's house. Then, we rushed over to the yoga studio, dropped off my mom's car, and then headed to the Toyota Maintenance Center. Boom. Huge line. Which was odd, because this Toyota has never had a line. Ever. Well, at this rate I was never going to make it to yoga.

"Well, if you start walking now, you might make it," said my mom. "We'll wait here and turn your car in." Ugh. The only reason I agreed to walk in the first place was to spend some time with her! If I left now, I might not make it, AND I'd have to walk alone. I took a moment to consider. But I had already done so much preparation for yoga (including chugging 2 bottles of water for hydration)! And my mom's car was there! This was the only time I could go.

So, I walked by myself. Great, I thought. I have to rush to yoga and hope I can make it. Oh well, I still have like, 40 minutes. Let's see what time it is...

Fuck.

My cell phone was in my yoga bag. In my mom's trunk. I'd have to rush to the studio blindly and just hope I'd paced myself well enough. Well, fuck. How did people ever survive without their little digital clocks on their cell phones?

Onward I trudged. I whizzed along the sidewalk, determined, sporting my best soccer-mom power-walk. Already the day was off to a great start. Walking alone from Toyota to a Yoga Studio. Sweating a bunch just before I literally sweat a full gallon. And I didn't have a phone to guarantee the latter. As I crossed the street, and the man in the car I was passing had his window open. Well, maybe I can check my progress.

"Do you have the time?"

He shook his head and held up his bare wrist. "No, sorry." Asshole. It's not like your fucking BMW was built without a clock in it somewhere. Unless that's a chic, expensive feature of sports cars. When you have a BMW, you're too rich to care what time it is. Whatever. I kept marching.

At somewhere around the halfway point, my large intestine decided it was time to take a huge shit. HUGE. So there I was, trudging from Toyota to Bikram Yoga, alone, trying to stop myself from shitting. Somehow, by some stroke of magic, I made it to the studio five minutes before the class started. I was having frantic spasms, and quickly threw myself into the bathroom. I emerged, frazzled, and flopped myself into the hot yoga room just in time to start. Just in time to start SUFFERING.

It was the worst class in a long time. Probably because of a few things: my lack of sleep, my grumpiness, my lack of focus, the discombobulation that resulted from my near jog, and the fact that I had just taken a near jog. The point is, I spent a lot of the time on the floor, nearly in the fetal position, nearly crying. When the class finally ended, I basically crawled home, crawled up the stairs, and crawled into the bathroom for a shower. I turned on the shower, took a quick pee, and then stupidly flushed the toilet. The water immediately turned unbearably hot (unbeknownst to me), and then I proceeded to climb in, still half dead from yoga. I cringed and pressed myself against the glass shower door. Of course, I thought. Anything else?

Naturally, my sometimes fussy toilet took this moment to run forever. Sometimes this happens. Something happens wrong, and the toilet fills to a certain point, and continues to fill the toilet as the surplus water drains back out. Without any action, it would run forever. I groaned, slammed open the shower door, and jiggled the handle. It's the only thing that can really be done. Once you jiggle the handle, it takes a good two minutes for the toilet to finally stop. I crouched on the floor of the bathroom as the excruciatingly hot water heated the entire room to a gross humidity. Perfect. Bikram Yoga Part Two. Mere moments before my unfortunate death, the toilet finally stopped running, the shower water finally cooled off, and I finally rinsed off my misery. I turned the water colder and colder, trying to drown myself in subzero bliss. Then, I laughed and shook my head at my ridiculous day.

Hey, at least it made a good story right? So much misfortune. It was hilarious. I got out of the shower, dried off, and finally proceeded to put on my underwear, ready to turn my day around. Oh, and then my foot got caught, I lost my balance, and I fell backwards into the bathroom door.

This is why I love my life.

Why I Do Hot Yoga

"Sometimes you can even have flashbacks," she says. The class is almost over at this point. We're all on the ground, heaving; regurgitating our hot, sweaty breath, perpetuating the heat in the hot sweaty room. It's actually the work of our lungs that makes the room a giant convection oven, not the central heating. We're all on the floor on our soaked beach towels, trying to slow our heart rates. I've already leaked out of every single pore in my body. Nothing remains dry.

"This is a very intense yoga practice, and a lot of emotions get pushed to the surface as a result. Sometimes you might cry, or get extremely angry. Sometimes you can awaken old injuries from a long time ago, or discover new ones that you've always had but were never aware of. Sometimes you can even have flashbacks."

Mahnaz is the owner of the Bikram Yoga Studio in Westlake Village. She is a tiny woman, just over five feet, and she is made from rock. Every single part of her body is completely lean muscle. Mahnaz is a fantastic woman. She looks like she's in her late thirties, but talks as though she's in her seventies. She talks as though she's has already felt the world. She's kind of magic, in a way. I never really see her sweat all that much. Her hair falls perfectly straight over her olive shoulders. One time I saw her drinking a smoothie from Jamba Juice. It was the only time that I've witnessed her doing something normal.

Mahnaz likes to talk a lot during yoga, especially during the second half of class. I think it's because we're all burning out, and she's trying to take our mind off the suffering. Even though lately it doesn't even feel like I'm suffering that much anymore. Mahnaz is also the only teacher who walks us through our final relaxation. I guess it's the only way she can guarantee that we're all letting our bodies recharge a little.

As soon as Mahnaz said the word, "flashback," it vaporized and condensed right into my skin. I knew exactly what she was talking about.

Bikram Yoga is a painstaking experience. Every day, I try to prove to myself that I am strong. The practice is incredibly draining. Painful. Exhausting. Depleting. When I practice Bikram Yoga, I have these flashbacks. Suddenly, I'm sick again. I'm weak and bloated and miserable. In the class, I feel dizzy, I lose my sense of self, and I feel like collapsing into the floor. When I was sick, I couldn't walk more than fifty feet without having to sit down. Something would happen inside me. To call it weakness is to inaccurately describe it. I would become overwhelmed by the weight of my body. Suddenly, I couldn't support my own weight. My spine was cumbersome. My paper bones could barely support my lead skin. I had no choice but to submit and crumble to the ground, ashamed of my own illness.

Something similar happens in yoga. I know there's a strength inside me, but I occasionally become overwhelmed by the task at hand. The pose becomes too much, my body shakes, and I have no choice but to recoil and collapse into myself. My body is panting. It's not only my breath that I can't catch. I can't catch my organs, I can't find my muscles, I lose my strength. I have to internalize myself and find it again. I have to push through and continue the practice. Whenever I feel so overwhelmed, I see it as an opportunity to face my demons. I witness my own insecurities, I see my shortcomings, the previous failures of my body. And I have to conquer them. I have to stand up, brush myself off, and push harder than before.

Every yoga class, I face the End Stage Renal Failure. Every yoga class, I do everything in my power to conquer it. And every class, I feel my body get a little bit stronger.

Some days, I collapse halfway through and can't pull myself out of the overload. Some days, I never falter once. I've learned that my body will never be perfect. I must be patient with it, and push it hard, but let it grow by itself.

"Sometimes you can even have flashbacks," Mahnaz said.

For the rest of the yoga class, I shattered Wegener's Granulomatosis into a million pieces. It's days like this that make me feel like I can conquer anything. First my Bikram Yoga class, then the world.

Tigerheat Etiquette

Dance clubs are one of the most complicated and dramatic subsections of gay culture. There is a secret language that's spoken on the dance floor. It's a special dialect, a derivative of body language that's more complex and harder to understand. As gay men, we've made the dance floor a world of politics for the vain. If you don't know the language, you have to pick it up fast, or you'll learn things the hard way. This is my experience on the floors of Tigerheat, a gay club in West Hollywood.

The first step to any interaction with another guy on the dance floor is eye contact. On more than one instance. Anyone can look at you once. But when you've locked eyes a second time, it's a sign that both parties were interested enough for another look. You cannot dance with a guy until you make eye contact. Well, you can. But unless you're an absurdly attractive model, you won't get anywhere most of the time. Eye contact is usually accompanied by a smile. I'm shy though, so I usually look away nervously at the first sings of a smile. But the continued eye contact still serves as a pretty successful "come hither" device.

Things can diverge down several different paths at this point.

If both individuals are really confident in themselves and not shy, they usually make a beeline for each other and then make out instantaneously for about three hours.

If one is confident, but the other is not, the confident party will usually make gestures to lure the shy one over. Pretty unsuccessful. It usually results in the confident party retrieving the shy party himself and making the moves he needs to make to keep things going smoothly.

If neither one is that confident, the two individuals share a moment of mamihlapinatapai ( my new word of the week, which Im not actually going to define or elaborate on), and move on.

Of course, there are millions of tiny variations and levels of confidence, which usually play out in more interesting scenarios. One of the most common is the Girlfriend Wingman. This situation involves a third party; a girlfriend from either male's group that serves as a middle man. Said female dances with the male from the outside party, eventually incorporates dancing from her own homosexual, and then ejects herself from the situation, leaving the two original parties.

Then there's the Back to Back Dance Engagement. This is the one I'm most used to. Once both groups are right next to each other, the two gentlemen involved somehow end up back to back. The more they press into each other, the more interested they must be. Eventually one or both persons turn around to initiate the dancing.

Once the dancing begins, the process becomes a tango (for lack of a better word) of where the night will go. Usually the individuals involved switch off moving things a step forward. If one person does all the moving, there's a risk of overloading the other, and, in turn, causing a loss of interest.

I wish I could continue, but I feel like I'm getting boring and difficult to understand. There are so many things to consider though. When is the right time to ask for a number? Is it worth it?
What is this person looking for? All of that plays into every moment of interacting with someone on the dance floor. And frankly, it's exhausting. Everything has become such an ordeal.

It's hard to put such a succinct microcosm into words.

Classic Example #1

Alright, so I guess you must be pretty doubtful about my unfortunate encounters with Chance. Allow me to assure you, though, that Chance has a personal vendetta against me. Let's rewind about two weeks, the day I drove home from school.

I couldn't have been more excited to go home for summer. By some miracle, my manager gave me six weeks off, which meant six weeks with no obligation to anything. I rocked my finals, pushed through my final shifts at work, and it was finally time to head home.

I had reasons to be home. My father was recovering from brain surgery, my grandma was in the hospital, and it was rainy and cold in Berkeley. All I wanted was to be home in the sunshine, surrounded by love.

Monday, May 17th, 2010: Hannah Rae Wirsta's 8th Birthday

After spending the night in Santa Cruz, I woke up eagerly to a cloudy, gloomy day. After a cup of coffee and goo conversation with an old friend, it was time to depart. I didn't mind the clouds. I knew that in no time, the clouds would be clear, the sun would be strong, and summer would finally be here, in full force.

I called my mom to give her a quick update, and she let me know I'd be going to Hannah's birthday dinner as soon as I got home. She said, "Let's hope Nana holds out one more day. I'd hate to have her die on Hannah's birthday. She can hold out until midnight, right?" Red flag. Right there.

My drive home had very little traffic, and was very steady, much like the constant bank of clouds that seemed to follow me. As soon as I got to Santa Barbara, it started raining. What. And the rain only got heavier and heavier right there. It's moments like this where I can't help but think that life is a book, and God is an author; this is dark symbolism, dramatic and stormy foreshadowing of new plot points that would surface shortly. And oh, did they surface.

I finally got off the freeway to get home, and the rain was in full force. I called my cousin Cory to tell him I was dropping off my stuff, and then I'd head straight over for Hannah's birthday. "Okay, take your time. Did you hear Nana died?"

Pause.

"...No I didn't."

"Yeah, it just happened about an hour ago."

"Well..." Cory and I had been joking for the better part of a month about our Nana's death. Things with Joy Lees were... complicated, to say the least. She had lost her husband sometime in the late 70s, and raised six children on her own. The Joy Lees I met was bitter, angry, jaded. And for that reason, we shared a troubled misunderstanding that never quite mended itself. It's sad to have a grandmother you don't love, but there was nothing to do to change how I felt about her. I was angry for how she treated my own mother. I thought she was selfish. Cory and I had spent the past few weeks joking about an inevitability that had finally happened. There was nothing really to be said, no jokes to be made. "Well, okay then."

I hung up the phone. Great, I thought. Leave it to Nana to ruin my first day home. And Hannah's birthday. There was nothing else I could do except go home, change, and be with my family. I pulled into the driveway, stepped out into the rain, and grabbed my five or six bags of luggage. I managed to get them all and drag them to the front door in one trip. I put the bags down to unlock the door. The dead bolt slipped out of its socket, but the door was still locked. Fuck.

The thing about or front door is that the bottom lock is broken. It doesn't open from the outside with a key anymore. So normally, we just use the deadbolt as the lock. It's safe enough. It is Oak Park after all. I should have known. If the door was unlocked, it would have made my day the slightest bit convenient. I climbed the gate, scrambled unto the roof of the garage, and slipped into the second story window. My brother and I always kept the window in our bathroom unlocked. It made it easy to sneak out.

I finally made it to Hannah's birthday part for some pizza, and then went to Cedars Sinai Medical Center to see my parents. There was nothing worse than seeing my crestfallen mother and disabled father on this night. My father had already digressed to the point of a little brother a long time ago because of his tumor; this, however, was much worse. He couldn't even get a word out, and my mother was unraveling at the seams. I drove home alone, solemnly in the rain, back to our empty house, and went to sleep.

Like I said, most people chalk this up to a bad day. But how did this all happen? What are the chances of rain in Southern California in the middle of May? The chances of getting locked out of my house? The chances of losing a Nana? The chances of seeing a mother cry? These occurrences alone aren't enough to be comically unfortunate, but as a collective, it's just too much at once to be true. Things like this are normal to me, though. They're part of my life. And when Coincidence gives you a swift kick in the balls, sometimes you just have to laugh. Even if it hurts like fucking hell.

Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)

Do you ever feel like a song speaks to your soul? I totally had a moment like that the other day. I guess I've been thinking a lot about what I've gone through lately. I was driving along, listening to Florence + the Machine, and suddenly these lyrics started piercing my brain:

"Here I am, a rabbit-hearted girl,

Frozen in headlights,

It seems I've made the final sacrifice.

...

This is a gift, it comes at a price,

Who is the lamb, and who is the knife?

Midas is king and he holds me so tight

And turns me to gold in the sunlight.

...

I must become a lion-hearted girl,

Ready for a fight,

Before I've made the final sacrifice."

Isn't that bizarre? It just seemed so relevant, at that moment. It seemed like the song and I were having a dialogue. And the song knew me. I was rabbit-hearted, and I did have to make sacrifices. I had to find that lion heart, and I had to clutch it hard and keep going. I wasn't a strong person.

I had to find my strength.

And when I did, when I pushed through to the end, my brother gave me the ultimate gift. And it came at a price. What did I sacrifice compared to him? Was I his knife? Or was I already the lamb? I know, though, I was ready for a fight. And I'm ready to fight again. And every time I feel the sun, I feel the gold shimmering inside.

Prologue

Everyone has that moment in a terrible day where they relinquish any hope of revival and yield to its gruesome events. The day becomes an unfortunate manifestation of Murphy’s Law, and you just chalk it up to bad luck and move on. You go to sleep, and you hope your day won’t be as horrifying tomorrow. Everyone has those days. Everyone gets raped by coincidence at some point or another. Including me. I’m a special case though. I’m a victim of misfortune’s fancy. I’m a target for that sort of thing. I’m a misfortune magnet.

I’ve coined a new term for myself. I call myself a cynical optimist. It might be an oxymoron, but it’s definitely not impossible. I see the potential for a day to shine. I have fantasies about executing perfect days; the kind where there’s a happy upbeat song, the sun is shining, and everyone on the street joins you in a joyful, well choreographed dance number. But I’ve felt the realness of life. I’ve felt the cold, damp, wet blanket that flops on the world sometimes. And because I’ve felt that, I prepare for the worst. But the thing it, it doesn’t stop me from hoping that everything will turn out okay. It doesn’t stop me from smiling and embodying the sunshine, and infecting as many other people with happiness as I can.

This is a blog about my life, my story. My life has been a ridiculous collision of so much disaster, but somehow I’ve managed to crawl from the wreckage and stand tall. I’m one of those people that tends to be the butt of life’s jokes. And in the end, I just had to learn to laugh at myself with everyone else. Even when I’m the punch line. This isn’t going to be a blog about how much I hate my miserable life, it’s going to be a amusing, optimistic, outlook on the suckery of life. This isn’t just a blog. This is research. This is an experiment. Am I a victim of the most perfectly timed bad luck? Maybe it’s all coincidence. Either way, get ready.