Bikram Yoga is Hell on Earth in Midtown

Happy Hump Day! You know what I could really go for right now? A sexy massage. I’m going to have to start paying R for them at the rate I’m begging. Next week I have to face another Great Midtown Roommate Hunt and I may have to revisit my original roommate criteria. Anyway.

So on Monday I tried Bikram yoga with my friend DC, hence the sore lower back. She’s been doing it for like, six years or so, but it was my first yoga experience. Ever. And while I put a lot of faith in astrology (THE STARS KNOW THINGS!), I’m really not into the whole New Age-y, “this pose will cleanse your soul” baloney. I don’t even know what “namaste” means. (Okay, Wikipedia tells me it’s an Indian greeting and parting phrase that means literally, “I bow to you.”) DC has been inviting me to join her for a class for about two months now, and I kept finding excuses until now.

I hated it. Bikram is about as close to hell as I imagine it: they crank the heat up to about 105, you’re surrounded by ugly, mostly-naked people, and a wiry gray-haired lady who looks better suited for an artist colony in New Mexico than a studio in Midtown Manhattan forces your body into unnatural poses. Also, yoga makes me fart a lot, apparently, but the room smelled like sweat and ass so badly already that my contributions didn’t make a significant impact. Occasionally the instructor would totally call me out for not having my legs spread far enough apart (heh) or tell me to not look so sad/worried/about to fall over. Then I’d get all red and even HOTTER than I was before. Sweet. I mean, I tried hard to do everything right and get into it and make funny noises when I breathed, but really I just felt foolish and even more ungraceful than usual, if you can imagine. I’ll stick to running and cycling and being entirely unstretchy, thanks.

I’ll probably go back.

Here at Nice Hedge Fund, we have these nifty little portable phones that interact with our regular phones so you can walk around the building and not miss phone calls. It’s pretty useful, and I definitely wish I had one when I worked for ARM and felt chained to the desk. However. Invariably, the portable phone rings the second you plunk your butt down in the bathroom. I mean, every freaking time. My guys generally answer their phones themselves, but I cover when they step away from their desks, which they seem to do whenever I need the restroom. So there you are, sitting on the toilet with a ringing telephone and a great debate. Answer it? Ignore it? Take down a name and number on a piece of toilet paper?

Speaking of ARM, the Queen of Darkness emailed me this week. She was looking for last year’s list of how much money ARM gave each doorman as a holiday gift. I haven’t worked there for SEVEN MONTHS but do I know where a single piece of paper is? The assistant before me attempted sabotage by stealing documents, but I didn’t even have to make that much effort. That’s quite an operation they’ve got going over there.

Stay tuned, lovers! Tomorrow is the Nice Hedge Fund holiday party!