Fight Class + the New Gym

My back is KILLING ME, I have this painful knot right in the center-right section. I have no idea why, other than that Nicholas kicked my ass yesterday in fight class. We worked out for three hours with knives, learning moves and then a whole staged fight sequence. It was exhausting (I had to crash for a nap afterward) but it felt great to be taking steps forward and learning something new although my fight partner felt a leetle unsafe (he was going a little too whole hog with the moves, and whacked me several times). And I gotta say, Nicholas is a good teacher. He's patient and explains things well--it's clear he enjoys teaching.

On my way to the class, I stopped by the new gym that's going up at the end of our block, to look into a membership. It's not expensive at all--there are two dirt-cheap options, one is $10/month + a $39 one-time only "start up" fee and and an annual $29 "rate guarantee" fee. The other is a pre-paid $99 year-long package, which is only available the first year, I think. And the gym will be open virtually 24 hours! (Except for the weekends) And it is so close! Literally a minute's walk away.

Annoying Mailman

Had an annoying experience Saturday morning. Preparatory to leaving for rehearsal, I was walking downstairs with a bag of recyclables in my hand, to leave in the trash alley next to the building. I had my iPod shuffle on, although it was not very loud. As I approached the front doors, I passed by the mailman who was facing the wall at one of the panels with the apartments listed. I heard him say something but didn't pay attention, assuming he was trying to buzz someone. I'm almost at the door and I hear a noise behind me--finally I turn around and the mailman is facing me, saying something. I take my earphones out and he's saying "Hel-lo-o? Como es-ta?" in, frankly, an inappropriate tone, as though he were annoyed. I kind of shook my head, and say "Sorry? What's going on? Do you have a package for me?" Once he saw that I'd had the earphones on he said "Ah, ok-kay--what, you don't want to say hello to your mailman?" Again, I shook my head, like "Huh? What is this?" He saw that I wasn't playing along and tried again, saying "what apartment do you live in? Are you home during the day?" I paused and said "sometimes...?" He was trying to sound more important, saying "see, sometimes I might have a package and if I can't reach you, then you have to pick it up at the post office." WhatEVER--what a loser! Who cares? Unless I'm expecting someone, I do not answer the door--there's always someone who wants to be buzzed in and I don't feel like dealing with it so I guess any packages we get, we'll have to pick up at the post office which is a whole three minutes away!

First off, the guy was facing away from me--I had no idea he was talking to me in the first place, and I could hardly hear him in any case. Second, if you say hello to someone and for whatever reason they don't want to say hello back or don't respond, the polite thing to do is smile, or not, and MOVE ON. You don't track them down and start dishing attitude with "hel-lo, como es-ta?" How pathetic are you, running after a woman who's listening to her iPod and getting all pissy because she didn't hear you say hello? And even if she did, she has a right not to respond. This is the city, people have different levels of comfortable social interaction. You do not try to FORCE someone to say hello, you cannot force someone to be sociable. What a loser! There is a certain kind of self-important guy that really does think he can force a hello out of you--I run into that with the building where my dentist is, one of the doormen gets very pissy if you don't chitchat with him. I'm not your girlfriend, or your friend. I don't know you, and I don't owe you friendliness. And I think it's likely that if I were 80 years old, there would be a lot less attitude from you about whether or not I say hello. So this isn't about neighborliness--it's about the blonde who you think is ignoring you, and your ego can't take that.

I exited the building, putting my earphones back in and dumped the recyclables and when I came back up out of the alley, Annoying Mailman was there on the sidewalk, asking me something again. Again, I took out my earphones and he repeated "do you think the fire station is open?" (We have a firehouse next to us.) Again, I gave him this "What the hell?" look and said "uh, I guess so...?" He said "see, you got to know that I joke around like that--I'm always joking with my customers, the firehouse is always open..." I paused and gave him this very baffled expression, kind of shook my head, and moved away. Stop trying to force me to engage with you! Just let me go on about my day, for God's sake.

If I see him again, the earphones stay on, and I'll just pretend I don't see him.