Hyper-chondriac (21 page)

“All right! That's good. It means the stress is leaving your body.”

When I woke up, it was the first time I felt relaxed since being poked. I was finally in a state of bliss. As I ran my fingers across my face, my hands didn't even recognize the skin. My entire body felt cleansed and energized. The herbs had produced the identical result that ingesting them accomplished. This was good. I couldn't wait to tell Nancy.

“Now, just sit here and relax. I'll be back in ten minutes.”

When Todd returned, he was holding up a clear plastic bag filled with dark green oily fluids, as if he had just caught a large trout.

“All right, I have an enema for you now.”

Uh-oh.

“An enema?”

“Yes. Have you ever had one before?”

“It's been a while.”

“Well, it's really good for your colon. Now, just roll over on your side, straighten the bottom leg and bend the top one and let me just slip it in there for you.”

No fucking way this guy was gonna put something up my ass. I rolled back over onto my spine. I was in charge of my own ass.

“I…I'll do it,” I stammered.

I then pretended that I was four years old and taking my temperature with a rectal thermometer and I stuck the plastic tube in as Todd jiggered with the bag so there'd be a constant stream of liquids flowing. There was a parade of silence while all of the green mineral-y stuff moved from the plastic, down the tube and into my colon. When the bag was empty, Todd spoke.

“All right, now lie flat on your back and see if you can hold all the fluids inside you for fifteen or twenty minutes. You think you can do that?”

I had no idea. It's not like I'd been training for the big enema competition.

“Sure.”

“All right! Then you can shower off and get dressed.” Todd was all business now. “All right. You did great!”

It seemed that this ordeal was wrapping up.

“We advise everyone to affix a panty shield to their underwear. You're gonna drip out of there for at least the next couple hours.”

“Panty shields?”

“We have some in the bathroom. Just peel back the wings and stick it to the inside of your boxers…or briefs…or whatever.”

Then Todd and I shook hands and he left me alone.

After showering and dressing, I took a deep breath, walked out of the building with a winged panty shield stuck to my boxers and had green mineral-y stuff dripping out of my ass for the next five hours, three of which were during rush hour. Other than that, I felt pretty damn good.

“That mud bath I had yesterday was unbelievable!” I said, eating a piece of asparagus with some mung beans.

“Good for you!” Nancy snapped resentfully. As a magazine writer I should have been jealous of her network sitcom job; instead she was jealous of my quest for calm.

I barely saw Nancy anymore thanks to her demanding work schedule. And between my taking 75 percent of the maximum recommended dose of Zoloft and her never being home, sex was starting to feel nostalgic. Even masturbation for healthy prostate care wasn't happening.

“How come we're not having sex anymore?” she queried.

“Because on the rare occasion I'm horny, you're either at work, home doing work for work, or asleep having nightmares about work.”

“But you still find me attractive?”

“Of course! I just find 150 mg of Zoloft more attractive. But the Ayurveda is really working, so I'll drop back down to 100 mg and we can start having sex again.”

“Good! Did you make an appointment with Dr. Tamm?”

“No, but I know what I'm doing. And if my hands start to itch again he'll be the first guy I call,” I defiantly replied, as I accidentally ate some of Nancy's barley, which I promptly spit out into a napkin since it was forbidden under my Ayurvedic manifesto.

“But don't you need a new prescription?”

“Nah. I've got all kinds of samples I've been storing up. All it takes is some simple math and my pill cutter.”

Then our smoke detector went off and Nancy jumped to attention, realizing she'd forgotten about her mana bread.

“Dammit! Our toaster sucks!”

“Then we'll get a new one. It's not worth getting upset over.”

“Yes, it is! What's going on? You're the calm one now!”

“Well,” I said, noticing that the microwave clock read 5:53. “I should get going or I'm gonna be late.” Plus, in two minutes I'd be forced to stare at the clock for another minute.

When Nancy's friend Paula heard about my commitment to calming down, she suggested I try knitting. It had helped her deal with a new baby, a divorce and an ill sister. She took her knitting needles on airplanes, to restaurants, meetings, waiting rooms, everywhere. I was torn. “A guy doesn't knit!” I yelled internally at myself. “But I've never seen a tense knitter,” another part of me yelled back so only I could hear it. I rationalized that if this didn't help me calm down, I'd at least have some leg warmers or a pot holder to show for my trouble.

When I was in high school and had to choose electives, all the other kids were taking metal shop and auto repair, but my mother suggested I take home economics so I could learn important day-to-day things, like sewing. That Nancy's really a lucky duck. Whenever one of her shirts needs a button, I sew the shit out of it. By hand, mind you. Over the course of our marriage, I've probably saved us nearly twenty dollars in sewing costs. Sewing and knitting seemed like close cousins.

Paula told me about a local beginners' class and I eagerly signed up. I assumed knitting would de-stress me in much the same way as Tai Chi, in that the monotonous repetitiveness would take my concentration away from the remainder of life. For $49, I'd be entitled to a pair of two-hour sessions, yarn, knitting needles, plus drinks and snacks. I had just missed the Mittens Class held on the nineteenth and twentieth. Which kind of bummed me out, but I rationalized that I shouldn't box myself in and be known for only one type of garment, so the standard beginners' group I signed up for would be for the best. Unless you're under ten or in an ice cream eating contest, you've got no business wearing mittens anyway.

As my Volvo and I repeatedly circled the block, I searched for a Learning Annex–type place but all I saw was a row of stores. After eight laps around, it dawned on me that the class would be held inside one of them. Probably the place that had lots of yarn and woolly things in the window.

I walked in ten minutes late and stressed because of it. I think the last time I was ten minutes late for anything was when I was trying to be a half hour late for a friend who was always an hour late. The store was filled with bright fluorescent lights to illuminate the high-end products such as yak wool area rugs, llama wool halter tops and dehaired goat wool socks. The Filipino cashier looked completely shocked to see a man in the store. It was as if I'd just walked into her bathroom stall.

I approached the cash register.

“Hi, I spoke with Cyndi on the phone.”

“About?”

“The knitting class.”

“Oh. The knitting class. Yes, I'm sorry. It's straight back, to the left.”

I nodded and walked off.

There were six women gathered around a glass coffee table, no one older than forty. Knitting. Some had large things that may very well have grown up to be blankets; some had what looked like the arm of a sweater; others had barely enough yarn to make a bracelet. As I got within earshot of the group, the first words I heard were:

“A scarf can
never
be too wide.”

I wanted to yell out, “Amen, sisters!”

I said hello to my fellow knitters and received a few hi's back, although no one bothered to look up from her needles. There was an assortment of decent-looking food: crackers, fancy cheeses, raspberries and several bottles of wine. Upon making eye contact with the plate, I promptly stuffed three raspberries in my mouth. I was psyched that I wouldn't have to stray from my Ayurvedic diet. I was allowed to eat all the raspberries I wanted.

Then Cyndi magically appeared from a back room. She had straight bleached-blond hair, was in her late forties and not wearing anything made of wool.

“Hi, I'm Cyndi. You must be the gentleman I spoke with on the phone.”

I nodded. My mouth was filled with raspberries.

This was strange. The class was actually in plain view of all the customers. People could hypothetically walk in off the street and heckle my knitting. I was self-conscious enough as it was. I didn't like being out in the open like this. Plus, everyone was working so assiduously that I felt as if I were part of the world's most overt sweatshop.

“Well, why don't you have a seat and I'll help you get started.”

I sat between a heavyset woman who was about halfway done with a cardigan and a sad-looking twenty-four-year-old who looked as if she had just gotten her hair cut really really short that morning but didn't mean for it to be quite that short.

“I've never knitted before.”

“Oh, it's easy,” said Cardigan gal.

“Okay, let's pick out a color or two,” said Cyndi as she held several balls of yarn in front of me. I selected the dark blue.

“We don't often have men in here,” she added.

“Oh, really,” I said with mock surprise.

“Now, what we're going to do first is create a tail, which should be one and a half times the length of your arm.”

“Sounds good.”

“Now let's make a slipknot toward the top of the tail. Like this!” She demonstrated and then quickly undid her work so I'd be starting from scratch.

I kept tying regular knots instead. I was already in over my head.

“Didn't you ever make a slipknot in the Cub Scouts or something?”

“My brother did, but it probably wasn't under this much pressure.”

“Would you like a glass of wine?”

I was sure that every bottle on the table had sulfites—forbidden by my Ayurvedic diet—but I needed to relax. Nancy would have also been torn here; she was allowed sulfites
⁷
but couldn't have raspberries. “Sure.”

“Red or white?”

“Surprise me.”

Cyndi poured me a hearty glass of merlot, tied a slipknot for me and resumed her lesson.

“Now we're going to learn how to cast on.”

“Excellent,” I said as I took a mountainous slurp from my giant glass. Damn. This stuff was incredible. Sulfites are delicious. And ghee sucks. I had it all backward.

“You can put down the other needle. We'll only be using one for now.”

I sneaked in another sip as I stuck the second needle back in the small paper bag I'd been given.

Cyndi demonstrated as she spoke. “What you want to do is take the tail end and wind it around your left thumb, then wrap the yarn over your left index finger so your hand is in a gun shape.”

I grabbed another raspberry and nodded.

“Then insert the needle—which is in your right hand—upward into the loop and your thumb and then bring it back from the index finger side and then pull your thumb back to tighten the loop on the needle. Here. Now you try.”

I attempted, but it was as awkward as my trying to hold a fork as a teenager. I kept screwing up and Cyndi kept on undoing all of my work and restarting the process herself.

“I'm going to leave you alone for a bit and work with these other students, but I think you're getting it.”

I think you're lying.

“Okay.”

I took another gulp of wine for inspiration. Then I stared intently at my needle and yarn and continued my cast-ons while I listened to some of the other knitters' conversations.

“Courtney, why are you all dressed up tonight?”

“I'm going to see Counting Crows.”

“They were just on Leno.”

“I can't stay up that late.”

“You could tape it.”

“I'd never catch up on everything.”

“I can't believe Leno's quitting.”

“Shut up!”

“You didn't know? Conan O'Brien is replacing him in 2013 or something.”

“Conan is so tall.”

“Yeah. He is.”

“And Jay has that chin.”

“Yeah. He does.”

A new knitter straggled in with a baby.

“Sooo adorable.”

“I know! Isn't she!”

“She really is,” I piped in without looking up to see if she was.

“Y'know
Emily
is pregnant!”

“You are?”

“I am!”

“How far along?”

“Just ten weeks.”

“You're in for the ride of your life!”

Did groups of guys talking seem this boring to women? I felt as if I were listening to 3-D versions of every meaningless cell phone call I've ever heard, only this time I had to hear both ends of the conversation.

I did about forty or fifty cast-ons before Cyndi returned.

“Oooh…okay. These are not
exactly
what we wanted. You're splitting the yarn on some of these and the others are just…um…wrong.”

She again yanked apart all my work and started fresh for me. Meanwhile, I grabbed another fistful of raspberries and quaffed down some more merlot. I was starting to get buzzed.

I didn't understand how this was relaxing. Maybe compared to dealing with crying babies and racing toward menopause it was. Maybe compared to going through a divorce it was. Maybe compared to having a shiv stuck into your lungs it was. Perhaps I simply needed to amp up the stresses in my life and then I'd appreciate the true grandeur of yarn manipulation.

Once Cyndi did twenty cast-ons for me—in about eighteen seconds—it was time to remove the second needle from my little brown bag. I don't know what made her think I was ready to double the number of needles. I sucked with one. This couldn't possibly be easier than casting on. And I was right. I watched Cyndi demonstrate as the yarn magically wrapped around her fingers, through other fingers, and back out again like a Rube Goldberg drawing. It was actually pretty cool watching her do it. I felt like a cat being teased with a piece of string.
This
was relaxing.

“Ah, you finished your wine. Would you like another glass?”

“Sure!” If this whole knitting thing wasn't going to pan out, I was at least planning on drinking $49 worth of 2003 Kendall-Jackson.

“Now
you
try,” she said while mercifully filling my glass to the top.

I picked up both needles and felt completely helpless. I tried to follow the instructions I had just received, but my hands seemed to have their own agenda. It was as if I were attempting to eat a single grain of rice with a set of chopsticks. Had Cyndi stabbed me with my knitting needles I wouldn't have pressed charges. She would have done us both a favor.

I repeated about ten or twelve knit stitches and thought I was at least in the ballpark. Then I discovered otherwise, as Cyndi yanked all of my equipment out of my hands.

“You've just repeated the wrong stitch a dozen times.”

“Oh,” I apologized.

“And even if they were correct, you're pulling them way too tight, anyway.”