an excerpt

from the Fucked Up Files

There was an incident last night.

James, the tai chi instructor from work, came over. We were going to go to some shindig populated with *wiggling fingers in the air* do do doo do people. You know, some kind of meditation group or some such, with people who are spiritually minded, like moi. (please note, I'm not one of those spiritual people. You wouldn't even know I'm spiritual. I don't wear crushed velvet, don't eat granola, don't talk about messages from the other side or anything like that. I'm more into energy and the mind/body connection and the universe and self connnection. You know, the regular kind of spiritual shit, not the spaz kind of spiritual shit)

Bit of background: James is nice but he really likes the sound of his own voice. So I sit and listen and he has a conversations with himself mostly. I contribute a bit but he barely listens and picks up where he wants to. It's cool with me cuz it's nice to not be the entertainment officer all the time. He's very flighty and has the attention span of a gnat. He also thinks I'm totally hot so waddaryagonnado? Not listen?

So anyway, James and I were talking about tai chi. Or rather, he was talking and I was making encouraging cooing noises at the appropriate times. My contribution was that I'd done one class and felt like a total fuck up. What happens is, James is teaching several teachers in each class, so assigns one of them to new people in the class for some one on one. He assigned Bonnie to teach me and Bonnie is not conversant with the shit sandwich (aka the 'you've picked up the bla bla bla really well, your thingydoover could do with some work but all in all, you're getting the idea' way of giving constructive criticism as opposed to the 'you suck' variety), so I was all uppercase person (that is, being a human exclamation mark) after the class and thinking I sucked at tai chi, and not liking feeling like I was crap at something I wanted to be not crap at. Punctuate as you see fit. I made it clear that it was about me and how I respond to new situations and criticism and such, not about James or his class or his mignons or how his class is delivered.

James cut in and blabbed on about 'of course you're an aerobics instructor (I'm not) and you like it all fast and hard (ooh, rude?) and tai chi isn't your thing'. I held up my hand (as is necessary when dealing with a verbal diarrheaist) and said 'may I finish what I was saying?', and he let me. I thought. I told him that I come from a weight training background. That's been my thing, not aerobics, because it's methodical, it's a union between my mind and body, that weight training, for me, is not about frantic lifting and lowering of weights. With that mindest, I'd like to complement what I do with something more gentle, and maybe tai chi is my thing, but I don't know from that one class...and I think that's when it went down hill. At this point, I was still under the impression that we were having an intelligent conversation, but then he butted in asked me if I'd heard of some song called 'Mystique'. I shook my head and said maybe I have but no, I don't know recognise the name. He said asked me why I was shaking my head and I reinterated that I may have heard it but no, the name of the song isn't familiar. He recited the lyrics, 'we tried to talk but the words got in the way' and said that's what was happening here and that I have entirely too much to say but don't listen and if he never speaks to me again it will be too soon and

what

the

fuck?!