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Yesterday, a 23-year-old troglomuscle inducted me at my local gym. Treadmills and bicycles now have television fitted into them, where you can plug in your earpiece and choose a channel for your workout. More ways of going deaf. And if not that, then it's a straight-core diet of dance music piped into the B.O. scented room. Some soreness this morning in my abs, legs and shoulders. Troglomuscle instructor -- tanned as if he'd just returned from a stint as a Club 18-30 holiday rep -- said I should do Pilates if I want to build support for my lower back: "athletes and ballet dancers take Pilates. I'm a Pilates instructor myself and I might give classes here if they don't offer them yet." As he sat on the machines, showing how to build muscles, I could imagine him shit-faced on a Greek resort, making lewd gestures at girls desperate to get laid.
In the afternoon, Kevin and I visited the London Buddhist Centre in Bethnal Green, for their open day. We arrived in time to join a free meditation class. The room had wooden floors, round cushions, cloth mats, candles, jars with flowers and a podium with a tall buddha in standing position. The teacher, a white woman with curly hair and an indian name, talked us through the basic meditative practice of paying attention to one's breath. I struggled because my hunger kept going back to the table in the entrace area with ginger cakes and tea. Once the hour was done, we made a bee-line for tea break in a room full of the earnest, the thin and the sexily poor. It's too bad you can't just drop by the centre and meditate; you need to pay up and take one of their courses. My quest continues for a Buddhist temple my queer (and peniless) genes are welcome.
At night, we brought cheese cake and a bottle of red wine (Campo Viejo - highly recommend it) to our landlady/friend's house, for dinner and conversations about Big Brother, comedy, books, postmodernism and children who look like Luke Skywalker. We got home just as Battle Royale was starting on Film 4, but Kevin didn't let me watch it because it was "gory" and "crap". I tuned the radio to BBC3, timed it to go off in 30 minutes, and slid into my bed.
In the afternoon, Kevin and I visited the London Buddhist Centre in Bethnal Green, for their open day. We arrived in time to join a free meditation class. The room had wooden floors, round cushions, cloth mats, candles, jars with flowers and a podium with a tall buddha in standing position. The teacher, a white woman with curly hair and an indian name, talked us through the basic meditative practice of paying attention to one's breath. I struggled because my hunger kept going back to the table in the entrace area with ginger cakes and tea. Once the hour was done, we made a bee-line for tea break in a room full of the earnest, the thin and the sexily poor. It's too bad you can't just drop by the centre and meditate; you need to pay up and take one of their courses. My quest continues for a Buddhist temple my queer (and peniless) genes are welcome.
At night, we brought cheese cake and a bottle of red wine (Campo Viejo - highly recommend it) to our landlady/friend's house, for dinner and conversations about Big Brother, comedy, books, postmodernism and children who look like Luke Skywalker. We got home just as Battle Royale was starting on Film 4, but Kevin didn't let me watch it because it was "gory" and "crap". I tuned the radio to BBC3, timed it to go off in 30 minutes, and slid into my bed.
