ismo

My payoff for five days of walking in a row was to sleep poorly due to lots of leg pain. Or maybe it was the rain returning, with a drop in the barometer. I prefer to blame it on that. Tis the damp--it brings on me rheumatiz! I had a highly amusing dream, though. I was taking an exercise class from a (female) yoga instructor, who was ALL drama ALL the time. As class began, she announced dramatically that the exercise balls had all vanished, and someone was to blame.
"Someone failed to put them away properly and now they are nowhere to be found!"
"Or possibly they are in that closet, right over there," I said, pointing helpfully. But my suggestion failed to motivate anyone. The instructor raised her eyes to heaven, while the rest of the class draped themselves about in languid postures. I marched over to the closet and yanked the door open. This made the whole unit detach from the wall.
"Oh dear, I fear I've been over-enthusiastic," I said. I carefully put the closet back where it belonged, reached inside and pulled out a whole tray of exercise balls. I started flinging them out into the class.
The instructor shrieked. "My balls! MY BALLS!" she screamed. "You are handling my balls! Show some consideration!" I found this quite hilarious, even in my sleep.

Then she decided she would host a survival class. She took me and a few other students to tour some possible venues. We were at a working ranch out in the desert. She was discussing the subject of which cocktails and hors d'oeuvres to serve at the opening reception for the weekend. There were some ridiculously handsome and cinematic cowboys, who were at the same time real working cowboys, and were completely baffled by her vision. They'd been expecting to teach us to rope, ride, and possibly castrate some calves, not to discuss the finer points of which premium gin to use for the martinis. The instructor had ordered some beds set up near the cattle tank, to see how it would work for participants to sleep under the stars. The beds were luxuriously appointed. I was trying one out. I couldn't actually get up, because the cowboys were present and I wasn't exactly dressed. So I just waved one arm at her and called out, "I don't know why you're calling this a Survival Weekend! I mean, I'm lying on my back swathed in fake fur. It's not exactly difficult!"

Perhaps this was my dream-self's attempt to make me feel better about my place in this moment of history. It's true--I mean, here I am, swathed in fake fur. It's NOT all that difficult.