Messy Thursdays

I hated every second of it, the yoga class I took this morning at the Hollywood YMCA.  It was only my second of the entire year, and the last one, nearly eight months ago, was all rest and relaxation.  The instructor of this morning's class, however, didn't seem profess to anything that could be called easy.  The room was filled well over-capacity, and the collective body heat created a rather unpleasant hotbox.  The man next to me was much too close, and he dripped sweat to the rhythm of Hetch Hetchy.  The intensity of the hatha flow had my every muscle trembling within the first fifteen minutes, and it didn't let up for the next sixty.

I had been unprepared to shower at the gym, because I hadn't expected to sweat as much as I did.  My hair was dripping, and my clothes were spotted with wet patches.  I only had ten minutes to get to work, so I quickly dowsed myself under a shower head, and got dressed.  I have spent the day at my fashion and beauty network production job with my face completely un-made up, and my nappy half-wet hair tied back into a pony tail.  I have done my best to appear vibrant and wakeful to all of my fashionista co-workers, despite knowing that my visage today is not up to snuff.

It's just something that I - and they - are going to have to get used to, because I do believe I will put myself through the same suffering each and every Thursday: rising early to claim a sliver of space in an over-crowded sweat-box so that my every muscle may tremble for ninety minutes, and then rushing to work wearing a basic, easy-to-throw on outfit, with my hair still wet and every blemish on my face visible to the world.  This is, after all, what I look like sometimes, and everyone may as well know it.