Hyper-chondriac (10 page)

Eileen was right. My mind always raced over to the negative, not even stopping along the way to rest in the gray area. It was all part of my mother's pattern of teaching people a lesson by punishing those who wronged her. Since she was largely immobile, she relished picking up the phone and threatening legal action against insensitive doctors who had allegedly misdiagnosed or mistreated her or mail-order companies that had yet to refund her credit card for a returned purchase. And my mother would settle for a hollow victory, even if she knew the lawyer would cost her more than she'd recover. It was always the principle of the matter. It was probably also a way for her to avoid feeling helpless. Somehow I doubt that she would have wasted all this energy on trivial things if she wasn't trapped in her bedroom twenty-three hours a day.

7. Feeling out of control or victimized.

I thought about how often I considered myself a victim and would then use my anger to transform the other party into one. The collie/dogpark fiasco; the time a comedy booker in Vermont told me an anti-Semitic joke and I leaped over his desk and threatened him; the semester I sued Emerson College because the TV Performance professor gave everyone the exact same critique; the night some Nets fans at the Meadowlands refused to move their coats from empty seats which prevented my father and me from moving down from our obstructed views, resulting in me erupting at the five of them and actually assigning my dad to “deal with the guy with the red beard.”

8. Needing to be right.

Before Eileen had finished crossing the
t
in
right,
BluBlocker spoke up.

“My girlfriend always needs to be right.”

Eileen ignored BluBlocker's latest comment and went on to explain that one of the mental exercises she uses before employing anger is the “one-year rule.”

“Will you remember the inciting incident one year from now? Chances are 99.9 percent that you won't. You won't remember a friend being twenty minutes late, you won't remember a waiter bringing you the wrong meal, and you won't remember when your morning newspaper's been stolen. And if you do, you've got quite a memory.”

I liked Eileen's one-year rule.

My mother hasn't been wrong since the day she got MS. It's as if she's the '72 Miami Dolphins. Undefeated. And I can't even remember her saying the word “sorry” in a sentence. I fear that I've become just as competitive. I had to win even the most mundane and minuscule of battles. And if I didn't go for the jugular, I felt like a doormat.

“Remember that being right is the booby prize. Someone else is wrong. You're right all alone,” Eileen concluded.

Nancy constantly reminds me of this when I find fault with friends. I'll whine to her about people who served us nothing but bread products for dinner or others who just talk about themselves, never asking us a single question, or that couple who canceled on us at the last minute on a Saturday night. As good as our relationship is, Nancy doesn't want us to end up old, friendless and alone. Which is always a possibility when you're married to me.

9. Displaced responsibility.

“Own your behavior,” said Eileen.

The gist of this is not to blame stuff on other people or inanimate objects. If your toast is burned, don't yell at the toaster. If you park too close to a pole and scrape it when backing out, don't be angry at the pole. I agree. Be angry at the people who put the pole so close to the wall! What do they think? Everyone drives M.G.s?

10. Faulty belief system (perception).

“The other day I was driving back to my condo complex,” Eileen said about an event that probably happened to her last century. “And there was a car going five miles per hour.
Five!
Right in front of me on this one-lane road where I couldn't pass her. I was angry! It took me ten extra minutes and the only reason I didn't honk and yell is because she lived in my development. Well, guess what? When she finally pulled over to her building, it turns out that she had been balancing a huge bouquet of flowers on her lap that someone had given her as a birthday present. It was her birthday! And all along I thought she was just driving slowly to annoy me.”

This just made me angrier. I don't give a shit if it's
her
birthday
and
her car's birthday. Put the flowers in the backseat, in the trunk, put 'em in the passenger seat and seat-belt 'em in; I don't care what you do with your flowers but don't go one-seventh of the speed limit!!! That
is
modifiable behavior. You don't have to carry your gifts on your lap, idiot!

11. Not forgiving yourself and others.

“When you don't forgive, it's like taking poison and waiting for someone else to die.”

“I think my girlfriend cheated on me, but I can't prove it,” BluBlocker piped up again. I wondered how many other people were there for relationship problems. For all my ills and troubles, at least I've always had good relationships with women and kept my anger with them to a minimum—perhaps because that's the one sacred part of my life in which I won't allow things to get fucked up. It wasn't pleasant watching my parents interact. I wanted that part of their lives to skip a generation.

“If I forgive her, do you think I'll be less angry?” he continued.

“I really don't know enough about your relationship—which,
like I said
—I'd be glad to discuss with you
after
class.”

Now the anger teacher was getting angry.

“Y'know,” the man wearing sunglasses indoors continued, “I'm on my fourth read of
Mind Over Mood
and it
still
hasn't sunk in.”

“Among other things,” Eileen muttered. I half expected the class to make “Oooh” and “Ahhh” sounds like the Sweathogs when someone said something outrageous on
Welcome Back, Kotter.
At least this was taking my mind off the adjacent man with the hyperactive pen and world's oldest piece of gum still rummaging around in his tongue house like a gym sock in an endless dryer.

12. Excuse for avoidance behavior.

Eileen scribbled the final entry on her gigantic flip pad. Underneath that little pink kitty sweater, she was seething. Her adrenal glands were releasing cortisol, epinephrine and other stress hormones; her heart rate was accelerating, blood pressure was rising and her digestive and immune systems were shutting down.

Our assignment for the week was to write down each thing we got angry at and then decide into which of the twelve categories it fit. I was hoping to have my first anger-free week so I'd have nothing to share with the class.

 

“I'm not going to get angry this week,” I assured Nancy, who was propped up in front of the television watching
American Idol.

“Okay.”

“No, I'm serious. It's going to be my first anger-free week.”

“I'm proud of you already,” she said while hitting pause on the TiVo. “Can we discuss it after this is over?”

American Idol
was her favorite show in the world and my least favorite thing on the planet to hear or see. Just glancing at Ryan Seacrest in my living room was making me angry. I nodded to Nancy and went upstairs.

 

“I'd like to know what your week was like,” asked Eileen, now wearing a pink sweater with a white cat on it. As she addressed the class, she didn't even look at the side of the room where BluBlocker was sitting.

This time the class had quite a few empty chairs. I had chosen to arrive early rather than my customary really early so that I could pick somewhere that didn't have two consecutive available seats next to it. This would ensure some distance from Taft, who would probably be humming as he smashed tiny cymbals together for the next two hours. I sat one seat away from an older Russian man who was preparing to record the class with a cassette tape recorder half the size of his head.

A woman in front of me told the class that she didn't have anger issues of her own. She was only concerned with reacting to the anger of others. As Eileen explained that the anger of others is equally important to manage, I rehearsed what I would say about the week if I suddenly had the urge to share.

Two days prior, I got enraged in a supermarket. I went inside and bought one item, a prepackaged salad, and was livid when there was only one register open and nine of us wanting to exchange our money for food. Why were all the other registers closed in the middle of the day? This was bullshit! This was both number 5 (Disappointment Based on Expectations) AND number 6 (Indignation in Response to Perceived Injustice)!!! Eight-fifty for some lettuce and lettuce sauce! You'd think they'd have enough cash to hire a second cashier!!!

I removed my laminated card from my wallet while in line and selected this for perspective.

 

Take the “me” out of the equation; it's not “happening to me”; things are just happening.

 

Nonetheless, I remained angry until the automatic doors allowed my salad and me outside.

 

“My chemotherapy really drained me today,” Eileen casually interjected, while I continued my inner rant about my salad. “Do I feel great? No. But moving on with my life is important.” Jesus fuck! She had cancer! This went totally unmentioned last week. She was teaching the anger class with cancer! I knew that technically cancer wasn't contagious, but anger is and anger leads to cancer. And she knew so much about anger because she
was
angry! That was probably one of the first five ingredients in her body. I added “cancer” to the short list of things that would kill me if I didn't manage my stress better. Then Eileen nonchalantly segued back into the anger syllabus. But my mind was stuck on her cancer.

All of a sudden the supermarket incident seemed pointless. Everything did. So what if I had to wait in line an extra five minutes? Wasn't standing around calmly for five minutes a lot better than having my body pounded by radiation week after week and throwing up a lot? And would my health insurance even cover cancer treatments?

I should be happy every minute of the day. Just being able to walk down the aisle of a supermarket should make me joyful. I was an educated white guy born to middle-class parents in America who had all the components of a healthy body and I was throwing it all away. How much easier could my life really be? What the fuck did I really have to complain about?

I looked around the room to see others' reactions to the chemo news. Nobody showed any emotion, except for a fortysomething guy on the opposite side who must've been at least 90 percent American Indian. I'm surprised there weren't more of them in the anger class. At least
they
have a right to be angry. We stole their country and practically injected whiskey into their bloodstreams and in return gave them a bunch of blackjack tables. That's fair, right?

I couldn't think about anything but cancer for the remainder of the class. I should just be thankful I could run errands. I should just shut up.

3350 Math, 200 Verbal, totally spaced on the Essay section.

For the next few weeks I was noticeably less agitated, sedated almost. I didn't want my fate to be a bitter guy in radiation who was given
x
percent chance to live. I also didn't want anyone feeling sorry for me, especially since if I did get cancer, it would only be because the tension I created in my body was like a telepathic Evite for bad cells.

But after a month, thoughts of Eileen in her pink and white cat sweaters faded, as most “I swear I'll change my life immediately if I can be assured of not getting cancer” affirmations do. I was again on the verge of threatening the next stranger who forgot to hold a door open for me with Orange Juice Carton Face. Despite the influx of added Zoloft, my brain remained a swirling mass of frantic synapses, as if my head were a pinball machine—but instead of a single ball getting flipped around off bumpers, dozens of shiny silver spheres remained bouncing about in the game known as “My Skull.”

Not only were magazine deadlines stressing me out, but sitting in one position for long periods was starting to compress my spine. My joints were so tight that when I twisted my back, every vertebra cracked so loudly it sounded as if someone were shooting off fireworks in my chair.

Nancy suggested yoga.

“It'll change your life,” she proclaimed.

“I'm sure it will change my life.
Anything
you do technically changes your life,” I said, showering her with reason.

“C'mon, it keeps you present and loose! It's like ballet without the mirrors!”

“Ballet without mirrors? Is that supposed to make me want to go?”

“You get to wear baggy clothes…” Her voice drifted off.

“I've already tried yoga and I hated it.”

“Bikram isn't
real
yoga.”

Years ago I'd heard people discussing the magic of Bikram at a barbecue. Bikram is the first name of an egotistical litigious maniac. In his yoga routine one practices the same twenty-six poses in the same exact sequence class after class while some idiot wearing one of those hands-free microphones on his or her head sits condescendingly on top of a small wooden throne. Not only has Bikram trademarked this sequence of poses that have existed for thousands of years, but he sues anyone who attempts to replicate the sequence without a franchise fee. Oh, one more thing: the room is heated to 105 degrees. So basically, one works up a totally artificial sweat that could be acquired by sitting in a car in rush hour in August with the air-conditioning off. Bikram is a dick. And I hope he sues me. Then I'll countersue him for stealing my patented walk and ending each spoken sentence with a brief pause. I'm surprised this Bikram assfuck allows anyone to even use the temperature of 105 degrees without winding up in court.
⁴
I sometimes reheat my chicken at home at that exact temperature, just to annoy him.

So after one class I knew Bikram wasn't for me. But my back and I were getting desperate. As of my fortieth birthday, I estimated that I had lifted weights for a total of 13,000 hours. Here's the breakdown: between ages fifteen and thirty-one I moved barbells and dumbbells into the air six days a week for a minimum of two hours a session; between thirty-two and thirty-six, I had tapered off to four days of ninety-minute workouts; between thirty-seven and forty I was down to approximately four hours a week. So not surprisingly, for the last twenty years my body has been stiff and in considerable pain. Weight lifting became a convenient scapegoat for much of my hyperactive, destructive, stressful, disease-activating behavior. Hopefully a daily stretching regimen would help me escape the grip of barbells so I could stop blaming them for everything. I decided to try loosening up my body to take some of the pressure off my mind.

 

One Friday evening I made the pilgrimage across town with Nancy to Billy Wolf's yoga class. Since I'm an even tenser passenger than driver, I drove. The only trouble was, unlike lifting weights, where one can just show up pretty much whenever one feels like it, yoga takes place at a preordained time. Battling rush-hour traffic and a deadline, I was more coated in sweat from the drive to class than from Bikram's thermostat.

When we arrived at the top floor of an old warehouse-type building, I was shocked at the number of svelte women lying flat in the cavernous basketball-court-sized studio. It looked like a really healthy cemetery. In the back, several students were stuffing money into a large plastic box which had a handwritten sign that read “Suggested Donation: $15.” So technically, I could have just dropped a paper clip in there and I wouldn't have been breaking any rules. Instead, I stuffed three tens into the slot and secured two of the handful of non-mat-occupied spaces near the middle of the room.

The class was 5 percent straight men, 15 percent gay men and 80 percent women (100 percent of whom were gorgeous). Had I been single, I would've immediately dropped all career aspirations and started studying for my yoga teaching certificate. The room began to fill up even more and the nearby mats, which were already too close to me, got even closer. I now had people no more than a pen-length away on all four sides. Despite being surrounded by beautiful women in spandex, I was still claustrophobic. Plus, I didn't know what the hell I was doing and now it would be impossible for the svelties not to notice.

Then “he” walked in and you could practically hear the gasps of delight. Billy Wolf looked like Peter Frampton if Frampton had dyed his hair black and worn a tight tank top to highlight his stupendous core strength. The women's eyes followed him as he zigzagged his way down to the front of the studio.

“That's Billy,” Nancy whispered to me.

“I figured it was either him or some guy who prefers doing yoga wandering around the room instead of on a mat.”

“Shhhh!”

“You're the one who started this conversation.”

“Okay, let's begin!” Wolf spoke with authority in every syllable.

We started with a series of warm-ups called “sun salutations,” which resembled calisthenics from gym class.

“Downward dog!” he barked.

Wolf instructed us to keep our movements slow and to hold each pose for five breaths while he pranced around the room and never demonstrated a thing—other than fifteen different ways to sneak up on attractive ladies and legally touch their asses. How did we even know he was any better than we were at yoga if we never saw him do even the simplest of poses? Maybe he was just a horny surfer with some business acumen. If he had corrected anything I was doing (which didn't happen, since I wasn't equipped with a vagina), I was planning to say, “First let's see
you
do something, Mr. Know-It-All Stretchy Guy!” But predictably, he never came anywhere near me.

“Remember,” Wolf boomed, “the space
in between
breaths is what's really important.” It's hard to believe that after forty-plus years on the planet, I still had to be reminded how to breathe, but, just as I'm an awful chewer, I was thankful for any advice I could get on how to use my lungs and diaphragm.

The poses evolved from the top of a push-up (plank pose) to the middle of a push-up (chataranga) to pulling and scooping your body forward at the bottom of a push-up (upward dog) and then back to turning your body into a giant V (downward dog) with your palms flat and your heels on the ground—at least in theory. I could've been wearing stilettos and the back of my heels still wouldn't have been anywhere near the floor.

I was consistently out of sync with Nancy and the rest of the class, lucky to be just one pose behind. It was usually more like two or three. As beads of sweat jumped off my body, many of them landed on nearby mats. Being the considerate yogi I was, I continuously attempted to wipe up my perspiration while simultaneously dodging the flailing legs of those in front of me, and elongated arms behind me.

My muscles didn't know what was going on. They had grown up exclusively contracting and had no idea what it felt like to stretch. Every square inch of my body was so tight I could barely get my hands past my knees on the forward bends while limber ladies around me all effortlessly put their palms flat on the ground, and a few bendy freaks, their elbows.

We then did some poses where one hand goes over a shoulder while the other one loops behind the waist and they're supposed to meet in the center of your back. Yeah, right.

“For those of you less flexible, you may need to use a towel to bridge the gap,” said Wolf as he managed to inappropriately touch nineteen attractive women within the course of that sentence. Even with a beach towel I would've been unable to have my hands meet. In fact, if there were anything dangerous placed on the middle of my back, like a grenade, I'd have zero chance of reaching it. It was yet another price to pay for all my heavy lifting—I didn't even have access to half the areas on my body.

A blond girl directly to my right gave me a dirty look for what I thought was no reason. I had been continually mopping up my sweat for maximum karmic results and had no idea why I deserved her visual wrath. Until she whispered that I was breathing on her.

Another adjustment to be made. Unlike in weight lifting, where one breathes through the mouth, yoga breathing is supposed to be done exclusively through the nose, which contains tiny hairs to help filter the air. Plus, breathing through the nose, no matter how vigorous, wouldn't propel your air, and potential halitosis, onto a neighbor. I whispered “Sorry” back to blondie and employed my nostrils as I was told.

“Equaminity amongst the intensity,” said Wolf.

I always thought the word was “equanimity,” but maybe he knew an ancient Indian way of saying it. In any case, I didn't shout out my correction.

The purpose of holding these difficult poses for inordinate periods of time while breathing through them is to get one not to flee difficult situations. The rationale goes: if you can stay calmly balanced on one leg with both arms held in the air, then keeping a cool head when the bank messes up the address on your checks should be easy. Equanimity amongst the intensity. Or equaminity. Hey, it's his class.

Despite my limited yoga skills, this was exactly what my body needed. I was pumping blood to new areas and it felt great. From now on, no more lifting anything heavier than a blue piece of rubber I could do poses on. I would gradually reduce my free-weight intake and this would be my new, healthier addiction. I was looking forward to standing on my head and walking on my hands. Maybe I'd even show off and enter Quiznos on my palms. And I would never have to ask Nancy to scratch my back and go through that endless “a little over to the right…no, back toward the left…a little higher” sequence. I would be so fucking flexible I could drive with both of my legs behind my head and out the sunroof.

As we transitioned into one-legged poses with our upper bodies folded forward to produce a T-shape, Wolf gathered up his long curly black hair and stuck it into a ponytail. As if this was his way of saying, “Hey everyone…my flowing locks can produce many different looks!” He then “adjusted” a variety of swooning women into proper alignment.

“You want to twist your ribs toward the ceiling and shift your gaze to the front corner of the room…. Now you need to drop the shoulder blades down your back so they're not pinching each other…. Okay, you want to get your uterus a little closer to my dick…” Sorry—that last one is just me being jealous.

 

About an hour into class we had shifted from the one-legged T-pose to the identical position on the opposite leg. After holding the position for about five seconds, my body collapsed. I couldn't move. It felt like someone had crawled into my right hip and cut all my tendons and muscles with a hacksaw. At first I was hoping it was just a really bad cramp, but after a few minutes, when the pain didn't subside, I began to worry. Nancy glanced over and just assumed that I was tired and taking a break. And I guess I was taking a break—for another forty-five minutes until class ended.

At one point Nancy whispered to me, “Are you okay?” I was about to answer “Noooooooooooo!!!!!!” but then a redheaded sveltie shushed us.

As the class wound down to slower, more sedentary floor poses, Wolf blurted out words of inspiration which basically amounted to different ways of saying: “Take it slow and savor every moment of life but live in the here and now and keep your head free from a flurry of extraneous thoughts.” To be honest, I had no interest in living in the “here and now” right then. I wanted to live in the past—an hour and a half ago before my entire lower right side was throbbing as if my leg was playing really loud music through a really tiny speaker.

The group shifted into lying meditation (shavasana) and Wolf instructed us to close our eyes and let out a sigh. I let out a shrill moan while wincing.

Five minutes later, class was officially over. A throng of gals surrounded Wolf, none of whom was there to correct his pronunciation. If there had been a Sharpie around, they probably would have asked him to sign their mats.

Nancy looked concerned, but not for the same reason I was.

“Ready?”

“I don't think I can stand up or walk.”

“Really?”

“Yes! I'm in pain!”

“Oh God! I am
sooo
relieved! Oh, I didn't mean it that way. It's just you seemed so distracted during class. I thought you were checking out all the other women and were having doubts about marrying me.”