The Bestest Day Ever!
I was planning to spend my New Year’s Eve at Jivamukti yoga studio, where the schedule was the following:
5:00 – 7:00 2-hour class with the school’s celebrity yoga founders
7:00 – 8:00 Vegan dinner at their café
8:00 – 9:00 Music and dancing
9:00 – 12:00 Being in silence
12:00 – ? Chanting and words of wisdom from the founders
Of course this is commercial yoga and, from a girl I knew who worked at many yoga studios working the books, the only million-dollar yoga studio in New York, and so in order to receive their blessings one needed to part with $75 of cold hard cash. I hadn’t eaten in a week in order to be able to share in the experience of yoga with these compassionate businesspeople.
“Jesus, please save this poor man! He is dying of a crippling disease!”
“How many silver pieces do you have?” asks Jesus.
“We only have two silver pieces between us,” says the man seeking his help.
“Sorry Charlie. I don’t do any miracles for less than 30.”
I thought I’d write a piece before I left, being the auspicious New Year’s Eve and all, and I sat down on my computer and got into flow. When I got to the point where the piece was essentially done and just needed a quick skim-through to make sure that I spelled “douchebag” and “anal” correctly [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wOQavljEi8], I glanced over at the VCR clock and it said the time was 4:45. I knew it was a couple of minutes fast but I still let out a, “Weak!” as well as a little gas, and hussled my ass to get out of there.
Now barring a miracle of the magnitude of a small can of oil lasting eight days so the Jews could have something to put up on the calendar against Christmas, it would be next to impossible to get down to Union Square in only 15-minutes. I had to first get to the train station, which would take about 5-minutes at a mild sprint, and then maybe wait for a few minutes on the platform and then… it didn’t look good.
I ran my ass to the station and because it was New Year’s Eve and Times Square is apparently a big happening here, the cops had blocked off the area to where I needed to go to catch the subway I needed. So now I had to add in a transfer to this debacle.
I took a C-train downtown and raced in the maze of the Times Squares subway system to catch an N/R/Q to Union Square. It had to be the farthest train from where I got out and after running for what seemed an interminable time, I felt like a mouse who had enough and finally said, “Keep the cheese—just get me the fuck out of here!” But I didn’t. And a Q train arrived right then and I thought my repeated mantra to Babaji, the fountainhead of not only pens but kriya yoga, was paying off.
Once when I was praying to Babaji to help me get somewhere on time, he popped into my head and said, “Listen, I’m happy to try and help you catch a subway here and there but, seriously, don’t you think you could use your connection to me for something more useful like, I don’t know, enlightenment?” I told him I’d call on him then next time I needed some train assistance and in the meantime for him to shut his pie hole.
I got to Jivamukti at 5:05, which was seriously a miracle of the proportion of when Chelme the moyle performed 300 circumcisions in a single day, with only 75 resulting in serious deformity. Breathless, I made it to the desk where in the $10,000 P.A. system I could hear the Jivamukti founder talking on his hi-tech wireless mic system.
One of the desk people asked if I had made a reservation. I was thinking of pulling the old make-up-a-name trick and then if he said anything remotely similar I would say, “Yeah, that’s it!”
“Did you make a reservation?”
“Uh, yes. Yes, I did.”
“What’s your name?”
“Uh, Al Frankenpenisschmidt.”
(scanning list) “I’m looking here and all I see that’s remotely close to that is Alex Friedman.”
“Yes, that’s me! Uh, Frankenpenisschmidt is my yoga name.”
Instead I just said no.
“Would you like me to put you on the Waiting List?”
“The waiting list,” I parroted as I looked over to my right and saw some yogis, obviously on the Waiting List, lined up against the wall. One girl smiled at me and I felt somehow dirtier for the experience. “What for?”
“This is if anyone doesn’t show up.”
“If anyone doesn’t show up for the class that is already going on?” I queried.
“Yes,” he answered.
“I don’t really get it. If someone doesn’t show up—for the class that is already going on?”
“That’s right,” he said. I didn’t fully get the system of logic, thinking that if the class was currently going on and they weren’t there that, in all likelihood, they didn’t show up. But I remembered how Einstein said that time was relative and so I figured this desk guy was just an astrophysicist trying to make a few bucks on the side extorting yogis and I was probably the moron in this relationship. So I turned and left.
I was disappointed for about 10-seconds and then all was heaven. Besides the fact that I avoided having to listen to the founders giving their cheesy midnight speech about, “Let all sentient beings in the New Year be treated with compassion,” followed by me groaning loudly, which would create an all-out brawl among the non-violent yoga posers—I had also just “saved” $75! The night was young, I was in a somewhat hip area and the Beasty Boys were playing in my head: “You gotta fight, for your right, to paaarty!”
I realized I hadn’t brought my cell phone with me and since I have not committed any of my acquaintances or even family’s numbers to heart, I wasn’t going to be calling anyone from my own Waiting List. But I was feeling good. “Seventy-five dollars,” I repeated proudly, like Chevy Chase’s character in European Vacation after his son said, “Wow Dad, you must have jumped (the car) a good 50 feet!” to which he responded, “That’s nothing to be proud about, son… (proudly mouthing to himself) Fifty feet.”
I went to this Indian or Nepalese or Tibetan store I had stopped into in the past and looked at these cool shirts that were discounted for only $10 each. “This is the best store ever!” I thought as I entered. I recognized the woman behind the counter from last time and gleefully said, “I’m back! And this time I may just spend some money!” But soon I noticed my shirt was nowhere to be seen. “Where’s the shirts that were $10 last time I was here?” I asked.
“That sale is over,” she said. What the fu—?
“No, it can’t be. Can’t you see—I’m back!” She told me that because it was New Year’s Eve she would try and make me happy. I thought that this meant she was going to give me a handjob and you could imagine the embarrassment when I dropped my pants and she screamed. Awkward!
They found the shirt I wanted from the back and now it was marked $20 down from $30. She told me she would give it to me for $15. “Are you sure you’re not a Jew,” I inquired? She assured me she was not. I did my own Jewery acquired from years of working at the 47th Street Photo and negotiated her throwing in a couple of mala bracelets for another $5. I looked into the bag and thought, “This is the best shirt ever!” After some conversation on the abuse of sheep in New Zealand, I was off and ready to take on the world!
I stopped into LifeThyme, a healthfood store that has the best vegan and raw desserts made fresh every day. I saw some chestnuts near the door and, figuring I’d roast them up later, I bagged some as I said, “This is the best Christmas ever!” I realized it was New Year’s and not Christmas but somehow chestnuts roasting on an open fire sounded more Christmassy and so I forgave myself this little fopaux. I found out later, to my dismay, that most of them had mold spores inside of them. This didn’t stop me from eating them but it did leave a strange taste in my mouth, which reminded me of that night in college when I was making out with this really drunk girl and she puked in my mouth. I did make a note to myself then, that if a girl had eaten more than two tins of Spam before drinking an excessive amount of alcohol that I would make sure to do her from behind.
I bought some vegan banana cream square thing and a bag of vegan cheesy popcorn. I also picked up a few bags of mung beans for Abandon, knowing she’d be pissed if I went to LifeThyme and didn’t pick her up any mung beans. As I waited on the short line with my two snacks and three bags of mung beans I thought, “This is the best store ever!”
After I left LifeThyme, I saw a guy wearing what looked like a blue Hazmat suit, the kind that Homer Simpson wears working at the nuclear plant. I went up to him and said, “What’s with the outfit?” He handed me a flier for the nearby Army-Navy store and said this was just a gimmick. I thought, “That’s the best gimmick ever!”
Walking towards the subway, I stopped into a used DVD store and bought a few DVDs. I bought my favorite movie from 31 years ago, Heaven Can Wait with Warren Beatty, back when he was more into the craft of acting than fucking everything in site. I also picked up The Wedding Singer with Adam Sandler, what I felt was his break-out movie, not meaning this would have him taken more seriously as an actor but that the movie audiences would be filled with greasy teens who were breaking out with acne. I found three Planet of the Apes DVDs for only $3 each and picked them up. I figured I would knock one off to those sexy monkeys after I was overstuffed on decades old films and vegan junk food. As I left the DVD store I thought, “This is the best DVD store ever!”
I was only a half a block from my subway station and the floodgates had opened up. Looking into one store window I thought, “That’s the best ice scraper ever!” I passed another used DVD store and said, “That’s the best DVD store ever!” not even feeling guilty for two-timing on the other store.
As I was going into the subway, a drunken Mexican guy swiped his card and smashed into the locked gate. I watched him do this two more times. The last time he did this, I saw that the readout said, “Insufficient funds.” I told him this and he stumbled off. I thought, “You’re the best drunken guy ever!”
I had to get off at Columbus Circle instead of 50th Street because of the Times Square New Year’s security. But this didn’t matter, as it was the best day ever. I looked towards Central Park and saw the trees and the buildings and thought, “This is the best city ever!” I looked at the Time Warner Building and thought, “You’re the best Satan worshipping corporation ever!” I saw the trees outside of Satan’s lair all strung up with lights and thought, “You’re the prettiest lights ever!”
When I got to my block I saw a guy walking a little pug. I thought, “You’re the best dog ever!” As I entered my apartment I saw my sweet Abandon and said, “You’re the best dog ever—even with that bag on the floor which means you went into the garbage!”
She looked at me suspiciously and said, “I was listening at the window when you thought the same thing to that little pug.”
“I was just being nice,” I said in a desperate attempt to save what would otherwise be an unpleasant situation.
“Being nice? How would they know what you were thinking?” she said, destroying my story like Perry Mason would a lying witness.
I thought for a second, “How did she know what I was thinking?” but after my confusion at the Jivamukti desk I decided that I wasn’t going to let logic get in the way of this best night ever.
“You’re the best dog,” I said and in my best Forrest Gump, “And that’s all I have to say about that.”
“Did you get me any mung beans from LIfeThyme?” she asked.
“How the hell—? Yes, I did. Three bags,” I said.
“Alright. You’re the best human ever!” she said and it was at that point I knew she was on board to share in the best night ever.
We went for our nightly walk and we both looked at each other often and thought, “This is the best walk ever!” When we got home I fed her. In between lapping it up, she looked up at me and said, “This is the best meal ever!” I sat in front of the television and stuffed myself until my stomach hurt, all the time thinking, “This is the best dessert ever!” as I watched Heaven Can Wait. And although there were a few audio glitches on the DVD, by the time the movie ended, in between crying out in pain from my distended stomach, I said, “That was the best movie ever!”
I did some online stuff and I eventually heard some people blowing those silly horns that you blow on New Year’s and looked over at the VCR clock which said 12:02; it is a couple of minutes fast. I thought, “This was the best New Year’s ever!” and prayed to Allah that every day hereafter would be the best day ever. He told me that he would like to chat but he was running late for a business meeting and was in the middle of talking to Babaji in order to help him get there on time. I thought, “You’re the best god ever!” and thanked him for giving me the best life ever.