A Day in the Life of the Unemployed

I woke up early to my cellphone ringing. Instantly the lion I had been talking to was replaced with a tangled seafoam green duvet. I couldn’t get my cell phone open and accidently hung up on Aja. After a few more attempts we reached each other. My voice was groggy to her vibrant one.
“Yoga this morning?”
“Yeah. Fine. Okay.”
“I’ll be there in a few.”
I sank back down into the pillow, anxious to find the lion again and reassure his sad, elegant face that I wasn’t giving him away. The alarm on my phone went off and I resigned myself to waking up.
Julia was already gone when I went into her room. I thought she might be late for work but it seems she woke up and got dressed so silently I didn’t even hear the usual hairdryer that rips me from sleep with its angry whirrs. The shoes we bought yesterday to share for work were in the middle of the floor in the hallway. I tripped over them and wondered why she didn’t bother wearing them. It was a mystery that I wanted answers to but one that couldn’t be solved at such an early hour. My brain isn’t into cognitive thinking at that hour. I got dressed in some clothes I stole from Julia’s room, finding my old powder blue sports bra on the floor, some mesh black pants in her closet and a long, bright green tank. I admired my color scheme as I pulled the green tank top over my head and it came to rest on the blue bra. A crescent of the bra showed and complimented the green tank. I always work out better if I know I’m well dressed.
I stood outside eating a plum, and as the juices ran down my fingers I called Aja to tell her I’d meet her at the gym and afterwards we could take my car to get an oil change. For the past couple of days the oil light blinked on at every sharp turn. Low oil gets me nervous. I destroyed my first car like that.
At yoga I took my place beside Aja on my mat and focused on my breathing as we went through the motions. I always forget to breath consistently and end up with a headache. The yoga room is a large studio on the top floor of the Y and it has a wall of windows that looks out onto the parking lot and across the street to the Target. I watched the cars drive past, and the people in the Target lot, and felt superior to them because I was doing something good for my health and my spirit, while they were polluting the air and consuming cheap commercial goods. The view is great for thinking like that. I could hear the aerobics class in the next room and the instructor barking out her chipper orders. I felt better than them too. They were just getting a cardio work out. I was concentrating on my breathing and slow movement to relax and strengthen my body. This wasn’t just about losing weight. It was about losing the tension of daily life too.
I wondered about the moves as we eased into them. I wondered if yogis really had stood with one foot on their thigh, their hands in the prayer position over their heart, balancing on one foot on a mountain for days, like I remember hearing at a temple. Or maybe it was one of their many gods. I don’t think ordinary yogis could ever do anything quite like that.
The guy next to me was struggling with his breathing and when we faced left I watched his hairy legs bulging out of his shorts. At the end of class he walked out with his shorts pinched between his ass cheeks. Gym goers like that gross me out. Extra hairy or sweaty men who go to gyms and exhale their breath in short little bursts and execute their moves with a certain flair that they think gives them finesse in the art of yoga. He was probably a very good person but he was ruining my peaceful yoga mindset. I had to get it back before the end of class. I watched a pregnant woman in the back of class. Whenever we did twisting moves she meditated. I wondered if too much twisting would wrench the baby loose. There are so many things about pregnancy that I don’t know.
After class Aja and I drove my car to the auto shop and then went to get coffee only to find that our local Starbucks was closed for renovations. We couldn’t get our coffees and read magazines like we wanted. We went to Einstein Bagels instead, which was fine with me since I was hungry for something other than a pastry. Even my everything bagel with plain cream cheese didn’t kill my healthy yoga buzz. I went to the bank and deposited cash and checks that added up quickly to an amount that makes me happy.
When Aja dropped me off she came in for a cup of tea and we looked at apartments in New York on craigslist and suddenly that amount of money seemed like nothing. I tried to hide the nervous sense of panic that I got from the thought of paying $600 a month for rent and needing money left over for food and other things and not yet having a job but it wasn't easy. Aja had to talk me down from a figurative tree.
Money is the quickest way for me to lose a good health vibe. I start feeling grabby, like I want to snatch any loose money or coins that might be around and hug it to my chest for safe keeping. I get a little short of breath and start plotting how to get more, like a modern day Rockefeller. I imagine myself as a shriveled old man, shrewdly calculating how to squeeze a few extra pennies out of my workers’ wages while sitting in my high wingback chair in a massive, shadowy office. Or, I imgaine myself as one of the children of Rockefeller’s workers who goes around collecting coal from the gutter and wearing a ratty dress that is grey from wear. I shouldn’t have read ‘The Jungle’. It gives me too much fodder for my imagination.
I just finished doing my writing for the day, and am about to commence making grown up phone calls so I can begin earning money that will just go to renting an apartment in New York City where I hopefully will get a real job and blow this popsicle stand.