It's a long one, people, but I use 'penis' five times, so hang in there

Someone asked the other day how I came to be a pilates instructor. While the exact path is quite a long and boring story, wandering primarily through the hall of horrors that is high tech, people are often surprised to hear that I started out as an art restorer.

(Which might be the most tedious job of all time, should you get any romantic notions into your head about what it involves. Try working on one square inch of canvas for about three months, getting the chemistry of the paint just right, the original artists brushjkh;hte;hieorasdl....oh whoops! See, I just fell asleep there.)

What it entailed for me was working for a prominent art dealer who also happened to be a paranoid, raging alcoholic. I worked out of a studio in his home, flanked by his accountant (who was a RECOVERING alcoholic) and his personal assistant who came to work, daily, with a massive hang-over and commenced drinking again around lunch. My boss would come into the studio each morning, clothed in only his canary yellow bathrobe, drinking whiskey (with a shot of Sanka), to check in on his workers. By 12noon, he was usually so sauced that we would take bets on whether or not he would fall into the pool as he wandered between the studio and the house (he did, once, on the only sick day I ever took). My job was to repair damaged canvases that he brought back from buying trips throughout Europe.

Nine months into this slow descent towards purgatory, I coped by smoking crack, spent too much time with a cute, tattoo covered Starbucks barista (while still sort of engaged to my college boyfriend who demanded that I talk with NO OTHER MEN since he couldn't supervise me from his perch in Michigan…), and rebuffed advances by the accountant who asked me to attend his AA meetings with him because he thought working with me was compromising his sobriety (what with all of the crack smoking). It was a strange time. My boss had taken to wearing his robe constantly and as he was leaning over me one day, bathing me in his whiskey breath, his robe opened and the sight of his flaccid, 60 year-old penis nearly made my 21 year-old brain ooze out of my ears and my soul dissolve. I promptly went outside, hid behind a shrub and called a friend, wailing "NO ONES WORK DAY SHOULD INVOLVE A GERIATRIC, FLACCID PENIS!" Not unless there is lots and LOTS of money at the end of it. And tequila. And DIAMONDS. And, perhaps, a full lobotomy. (I was kidding about the smoking crack part, by the way, but it might have helped.)

So I went to Banana Republic and bought what was then an outrageously priced suit and began interviewing. One day, I was heading into my final interview for a job I eventually accepted. Before leaving the studio, I sat down to apply some lipstick and heard a sickening, squish as my butt made contact with the chair. I had sat in my paint palette, my black pants now festooned with the bright orange and yellows of my current canvas. The bellows that issued forth brought my co-workers running, fearing either that I was having a bad acid flashback or had endured another penis sighting. The accountant started to wipe at the spot on my ass (giving him much material for his next AA meeting) and the assistant took a nip from something resembling a flask while saying "It looks like you just shit crayons!" The timing was dreadful as I had to leave RIGHT THEN to go meet with a CEO and some VC's and could do nothing about the stain. Did I mention it was ON MY ASS? BRIGHT ORANGE?

Without going into too much detail, I spent the entire interview sitting on my purse in such a way as to hoist up that side of my butt rather than leave permanent stains all over the swanky Menlo Park offices. I got the job and weeks later my new boss said to me "So I have to ask, what was with you and your handbag that day you had your final round of interviews?" Blushing, I told him the story. He laughed and, knowing what kind of work environment I had been subjected to, said "I don't know, I think if you had led into your interview with 'Excuse me, I just saw a 60 year-old penis and the force of that emotional blow knocked me over into my paint palette, so pardon my messy pants' we would have all understood and probably offered you a beer and a heavy narcotic."

God, I miss the days of working at a start-up: readily available alcohol and not a penis in sight. Well, not unless you asked for it, but that’s another post entirely.