my new best friend, the yogi judge

So last week I'm walking in the park when out of the blue I become rather keenly aware of the fat on the back of my arms. Just like that. Just there, where my triceps should be. Triceps missing. Uncomfortable amount of arm fat in full effect.

I don't look. I try to ignore it -- as I don't believe in rewarding bad behavior -- to focus on how cute Fred is with his tail held high, bobbing ahead of me up the path, on the gorgeous weather, on the beauty of my inner self, but all I can think about is the fat. The fat on the back of my arms. It's so pervasive that even my inner beautiful self is complaining about it.

"For God's sake," she's saying, "go back to yoga."

* * *

I recognize the woman on the mat next to mine from before my "hiatus" two years ago. She's about fifty, but she's got the body of a hot twenty-year-old. A hot twenty-year-old or, you know, Madonna. Actually more Madonna than hot twenty-year old. Which is worse. Or better, depending on your perspective. In the mirror next to her long-longness and lean-leanness I am the puffy "before" picture with slumped shoulders and sallow skin. I try to be inspired instead of depressed as I pull my shorts a little higher over my belly fat. (Matches arm fat!)

It's hard though, because in addition to having a body many a Hollywood ingénue would eat Kleenex for, she's a judge, which seems not only incongruous to our shared environment but also supremely unfair. They should have special classes for the exceptional so the rest of us poor directionless slobs don't have to deal with our inferiority in our off-work hours, too.

That said, I have a difficult time picturing the woman stretching next to me in the black robes of her office. It's hard to imagine her giving thoughtful, distinguished rulings when I've seen her naked in the locker room. It feels somehow inappropriate to have seen a judge naked, I think. Almost every time I see her my first thought is, You're a judge and I've seen you naked! I wonder if I ever got a ticket, if she could fix it for me. I think I shouldn't have quit yoga when I did, if for no other reason than ensuring for myself a high-powered friend in the judicial system should I ever inexplicably turn to a life of crime. What kind of crime would I commit, I wonder. Nothing violent, I hope. Maybe some sort of inadvertant theft. I worry that one day I'll commit an accidental crime. I really should be more careful, I think. You know, in general.

I think I am so not focused. I decide it's a good thing that I'm back in yoga.

"Do you know who's teaching tonight," I ask the judge, establishing the groundwork for my future criminal trial. She shifts from doing pre-class push-ups to pre-class sit-ups before she answers. (I want to do push-ups and sit-ups, too, but I'm afraid she'll think I'm copying her. Which I would be. So I don't.)

She sighs a bit at my question. "It's Lena," she says, her tone not quite neutral.

I don't quite grimace.

She doesn't quite laugh.

And I feel justified in detesting Lena. I mean, if a judge dislikes her. . . .


* * *

As Lena begins class, I find myself slacking off in small ways. I don't feel like tightening my abdominal muscles. I'll look anywhere in the room I darn well please, rather than in the mirror, into our own eyes as we're instructed. I'm half a second behind her count. I exhale when I should be inhaling. I don't quite point my toe. I drop the poses just a second early. Somehow in my mind, this all hurts Lena.

I watch the judge out of the corner of my eye. She dislikes Lena, too. And like me, she's kind of doing her own thing. But unlike me, she's working harder -- the first into the pose, the last one out and always holding a breath or so past Lena's uneven count.

And it occurs to me that even given the promising scores on that pre-LSAT diagnostic test I took in college, this is why I'm not on my way to becoming a judge.

Or Madonna.

And why my portfolio is thin, while my arm fat most decidedly isn't.