When you hear a song that is good
Working the front desk at a pilates studio doesnt have many benefits other than being able to take classes for free. The pay is bad and I have a lot of very elderly white people constantly trying to make small talk with me and commenting on how I look. There are also less older white women teaching the classes that equally love to comment on my hair and occasionally try to transpose some kind of gay stereotype on to me. It's as if they have a lot of experience with gay people and feel comfortable around them, but it's a specific type of gay in mind. The one's that go to Pride and love to travel. It's not something completely unfamiliar to me, but it just feels like a narrow view of gay men that I though we had evolved pass. Sorry, gay people can be poor too guys. It feels like a weird pocket dimension where I'm back in my hometown but with less people of color. Everybody feels old and too comfortable talking to me.
Anway, painting a picture here. The space is small, my "desk" does not have leg room so I'm always hunched over to reach the key board, and we do not have a landline phone. We previously had to use our own phones but they have very graciously gotten a work iphone in the last year so I no longer have to stay logged into some weird app that is going off at all times of the day. I guess people mostly try to change pilates memberships or cancel classes in the middle of the night. I can't imagine trying to contact a business over the phone at 9:34pm but I guess there's a cliental that expects that availability from their pilates studio.
I don't work often, but I do work regularly. Its a boring job where I try my best to have a very real blank "Please do not make small talk with me" face for 3-4 hours. Each instructor has a playlist that they never change and have just become white noise for the most part. Every now and again though, I'll tune into the sounds of the studio and there was one song that came on recently that made me think "This is the greatest thing in the world." Bizarre Love Triangle by New Order is not an underrated hidden gem, and I am sure I had hear it 100+ times before that day in that exact same spot. But something about that one time made it hit. I am listening to it on loop as I write this and it still sounds really good. It sounds like slipping into the air and just floating a foot off the ground, looking up and not down. My hair partially covers my face, and I've got a slight smile. It's eruhpric but not overwhelming. I can tell that Kim Petras sampled this for Heart to Break (I am not a Kim Petras fan but she is another victim of the Pilates Playlist Limbo).
It was my escape for that day. And I guess I can be thankful to the pilates studio for that. I heard a good song at a time where I wasn't expecting too. It found me because of circumstances at a time when it felt like more than just backgound sound to making little circles in the air with your legs in straps, "and now reverse them, 8... 7... 6... 5....... 2... aaaand last one." I don't know if this is how New Order envisioned people listening to that song, dissociating at the frond desk of a pilates franchise, but I reccomend it. It's rare for me to hear a good song unintentionally. It really grounded me in a magically way, like walking out my front door and seeing a sunset. I just kind of freeze for a minute and take it in, and think "Wow, things are good." It's not always about the highs and lows, maybe we just need that passing feeling of contentment.