March 19, 2010

In 2003 I went to an adult industry tradeshow on the island of Curacao. (pics here) It’s about 40 miles north of Venezuela and is a beautiful quaint island with a strong Dutch influence. Interestingly enough (I forgot to mention this yesterday) that was the one and only time that I had ever attempted to SCUBA. One of the big sponsoring companies was offering a day trip full of activities which included feeding sea turtles and sharks and swimming with dolphins and manta rays. Swimming with dolphins was amazing! It was a really neat experience and I highly recommend it if you ever have a chance to do it. The water is shallow enough, they are not aggressive at all and they love to swim beside you. (obvi) They looped around the pool over and over and nudged us to keep swimming. If you got tired you moved to the edge of the pool and they go nudge someone else.  It was peaceful and made you feel like Jacque fucking Cousteau. However, the rest our days activities included a stinky wetsuit, breathing apparatus, tanks, fins, mask and a basket full of dead fish. I was hungover, wasn’t paying attention to the instructor during the 20 minute SCUBA lesson and once we got into the water I realized the sea turtles were trying to bite my damn fingers off if I put them near the top of the chain link fence separating us. Coupled with the instructor warning me to be careful and not step on the surface of the ocean because of the fish that like to bite and the giant grouper heading towards me the size of Moby Dick… well… needless to say….  I didn’t last very long out there. 2 other girls flipped out and we all frantically swam back to the shore.

Sooooo, prior to me leaving on that trip, boss-man made me promise to do one Bikram yoga class. (If you are unaware of this type of yoga and are too lazy to click that link, I will tell you that it’s conducted in a room heated to 120 degrees and consists of 26 poses that are repeated twice. They look pretty simple, but I can assure you that the human body doesn’t do most of that naturally and without a lot of practice. Oh, and people who do Bikram regularly are like cultists.) I went to the school in Old Town and had a very mean and very strict lady as my teacher. She even went so far as to follow this one dude out to the bathroom when he ran out to vomit. I could hear her talking through her microphone in the studio while she was calling out to him in the men’s bathroom to come back to the class and stick it out. There was another guy who was recovering from knee surgery and she was riding his ass about a pose that he was doing wrong. It was an awkward experience and I never went back.

It’s funny that 7 years later I am attempting to conquer both of these “fears” (for lack of a better word.) I am ready to take on new challenges in life and ready to get past the mental obstacles stopping me from whatever it is that intimidates me. I can no longer use the excuse that I don’t have time to do Bikram.

I attended the 6:30 am class and the teacher was very nice and helpful and of course singled me out so that she could assist me with any confusion I might have about proper posture or posing. She even warned me in the first pose not to strain too hard. This woman was great and I had a great experience. I didn’t even think about wearing my contact lenses and my glasses got hot and were steamed up pretty quickly. I actually had to take them off for many of the poses and as you know, I am fucking blind. I never really got the nauseas feeling that I had last time, perhaps because I was in the first class of the day and maybe the room isn’t quite as hot as a 4:30 pm class mid-summer. It’s quiet, stinky and you can hear the sweat droplets hitting the mat of the people next to you. It is an intense workout for not moving very much and one that burns approximately 1000 calories for someone of my weight. 90 minutes of pure hell, but goddamn it 1000 calories is a long time at the gym doing tedious cardio that I hate.  Even though I have never gone through labor I like to describe Bikram as if it’s like those women who scream in pain and curse their husbands and boyfriends and swear up and down they will never go through anything like that ever again… and then miraculously, when the baby comes out and it’s all over, they say that they will do it again in a heartbeat. Bikram heated yoga is the same thing to me. I wanted to die. My head was throbbing and I felt like I couldn’t go on another minute without fainting and yet, when it was done… I felt amazing and wanted to do it again 4 hours late. (As I write this the next day my leg and neck muscles are getting more sore and tighter by the minute. Ouch.)

I took the train to LA and met my friend Ben for lunch at a French place called Church and State. The food was fucking amazing and several times we caught ourselves saying “That was the best ______ that I have ever had.” The steak tartare was great. I actually added a little bit of salt to mine, but it was pretty damn good on it’s own.

Ben had the sea-bass (Loup de Mer a la Grenobloise) with small cauliflower bits. I made the waiter ask the chef what was in it so I could share it with you all: butter, lemon, capers, parsley, chicken stock and the secret twist was reconstituted raisins in a muscat. I would totally have licked the plate but it wasn’t mine and I didn’t want to freak Ben or the waiter out too bad.

I had the roasted chicken (Poulet Roti) with Brussel Sprouts, small diced ham chunks in a red wine sauce. It was delicious, but did not compare to the sauce of the sea-bass dish.

The cappuccino was out of this world also. Go check this place out for sure. It is super loud if you go during the lunch rush, so if you are looking to do some chitchatting I would hit it after 2:30 pm. It was good to catch up with Ben. He is an amazing photographer who has been working in adult for years but is recently taking the time to work on some cool fine art projects to further his mainstream career. He does weddings, fashion and is working on a project now called Project1site.com where he forces himself to create at least one fine art image every single day for a year. He started on January 1^st and will end on December 31^st. Some days are tough… when you want to curl up in a ball and go to bed because you worked 12 hours and have a head cold, you still have to make that shot. I admire his determination.  I hope that someday we can work together again professionally, whatever that may be.

After lunch we went to Little Tokyo and walked around for a bit before 818 picked me up. Ben and I said our goodbyes and I promised to be in touch as soon as I got back from Australia. 818 and I headed back to his place and I made a reservation for dinner at a placed I had been wanting to try called Lucques on Melrose. I took a quick nap before we were supposed to meet up with Puma Swede and Keiran Lee. At approximately 8:22 as we were walking out the door to meet them for an 8:30 dinner reservation the door slammed shut and 818 realized that he had locked his keys in the apartment. AND his roommate was all the way in Torrance on her way to San Diego for the weekend. Oh that is just awesome. (sound of record scratching) Call the restaurant and cancel the table, Puma and Keiran pick me up while he waits for roommate to come back. We then drive to Katsu-ya to put our name in at 9:10 for a 45 minute to one hour wait. No biggie, that is another place in LA I wanted to try. I kept hearing how it’s the best sushi in the Valley. So we go over to Fox and Hounds for a beer and then head back to the sushi bar in about 45 minutes. ANOTHER FORTY FIVE MINUTES LATER we finally get seated. The food was decent but was definitely not worth an hour and a half wait. The only interesting looking thing we ordered was this soft shell crab thingy with a creamy spicy sauce and it was still pretty average.

Puma was very well behaved and didn’t try to grope me or molest me at all. Now I am beginning to think that it is all Nikki Benz. Hmmmm. Or she read my blog from last time and saw how annoyed I was.

They are such a loving couple.

HA! They are actually both certifiably insane. But I love ‘em!

We thought we would play switcheroo tonight and maybe mix things up a bit. Umm, just kidding.

On a side note, while 818 and I were sitting in the lobby of his building waiting for the key debacle to be resolved I asked him if he cared to know the itinerary for our trip next week. He said “Nah.” I love that he is just going with the flow and trusting me. The only thing he knows is that we are flying to Sydney first and ending in Auckland NZ and driving around in a motorhome for 4 days. We are both a little bit of control freaks so I am amazed that he is not even concerned about this. It is teaching me a valuable lesson in letting go.