The Lost Weekend

I had to make myself go, seriously, take myself by the ear and March! to yoga today.

I'm "cat-sitting" at Mouse (my BFF)’s house, which is really just an opportunity for me to indulge deeply in every sensual vice I can perform in solitary -- there are more than you might think, I've been fully wanton. No joke, I'm really doing a Lost Weekend style bender. So I feel lousy today, totally slothargetic and fuzzy-headed, as well as a fair portion of shame and self-loathing for my bad behavior.

This is very Starla. My meaning of "relax" has more to do with the type and amount of intoxicants I can consume (including food and T.V.) than with the gentle stretching/read a good book/take a hot bath model. And I do feel powerfully guilty afterward – that’s why I’m happiest to do this level of sobliteration when I can be unobserved. If I found out that this computer (the witness to my wicked binge) had a nanny-cam in it, I would curl up into a shame spiral and implode. My health is not really so good that I can abuse my body for several days without consequence any more. And it's totally lonely, this brand of decadent self-destruction. Also, honestly, I'm too old for this.

The guilt of getting what I wanted despite the fact that it doesn’t serve me reminds me of the first lover I had, a boy who was on the downlow from his official girlfriend (with me and the three other women he was seeing on the side). We’d have sex, and it was big fun, and then he’d go fetal and I’d spend an hour talking him through how guilty he felt for having fucked me.

I always wished he could just give over to the pleasure of it. If you’re going to do it -- and you know you are, you’re kinda built that way – at least have a good time while you’re in it. If you need to think about the choices you make in your life, so be it. Do some soul searching when you’re sober/have your clothes on. In the meantime, don’t fuck up the fun you’re having in the moment.

This shame, while completely warranted in my case, is a deeply WASP reaction.

But today I made myself go to yoga. Because ultimately I really do love myself. And I’m proud because I’ve missed a bunch of classes and it was hard to go. I find the yoga physically enjoyable, even, but I couldn’t face being in my body this morning. I used every trick I could to get myself motivated – I already paid for the class, the teacher (my friend Yogi) will be disappointed, Princess (my wife) will be worried about me, my blood sugar is high and I ate crazy shit for a few days so I’m going to lose my eyesight and my feet if I don’t go to yoga today, TO-DAY!!!!, on and on..I still almost said Fuck It and drove on past.

I told Yogi I was hungover. The other students and she were also pretty chill or tired, so she tailored the class to suit. Very slow, gentle, easy to stomach. I feel so much better.

Let that be a lesson to ye, young one!