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I hate missing workouts, but missing yesterday's workout was entirely my own fault. September 1: not only the 70th anniversary of the start of World War II - it's also the day when Madrid essentially wakes up from its self-imposed state of suspension to start back to work. Job interview in the morning, e-mails before lunch, was supposed to do volume training up near El Pardo for a couple of hours but after getting caught up in watching the Vuelta (and the subsequent crashfest) in the afternoon, I didn't get my ass in gear until 6PM, by which time the trip up to El Pardo would have gotten fairly complicated, what with managing the cloverleaf of traffic between two ring roads - bad enough mid-morning, probably impossible at the start of rush hour.
The doubts start: So, what to do? Risk it? Go to the Casa de Campo? Haul out the static trainer? Doubts doubts doubts doubts. I get dressed, heart rate monitor and all, but I keep staring at myself in the mirror and thinking, The reason why you're not into training today is that you know that today is the first day when you need to be making money, which you're not, and you don't have enough money to pay the rent, let alone get groceries or pay for your monthly transit pass, which you need because the bike you normally use to get around Madrid has been sliced and diced into various pieces, rendering it unusable and you need to make money and you're going out to train?? (Yes, unfortunately, the voice in my gut is that eloquent.)
I shuck the cycling clothes, grab the posters and head out.
For most of the year, the easiest places to find private students are the Escuelas Oficiales de Idiomas, the state-run language schools which are a rich source of English students, mostly because the teachers who work there are not (mostly) native speakers. The closest one near me is open between 4 and 7 this week. Shooting fish in a barrel, I think. This is going to be like shooting fish in a barrel, and you are smarter than hunger.
The staff at Goya are friendly and helpful. I decide to make a beeline to Embajadores. The building was closed for all of August for renovations, and the small groups of nervous, smoking students loitering on the sidewalk doesn't set off the alarm bells that it should. Bad news. Not only is the building still under renovation, the staff give the impression of having been flown in from an EOI in some remote part of Teruel. They're not just unhelpful and ignorant; they're rude to a degree that I haven't seen since I left working in the media in Toronto. The badly-named Information Desk is staffed by the Laurel and Hardy of crap customer service; one is as thin and as welcoming as a praying mantis; the other keeps looking at the punters with a face of resignation.
- Good afternoon. May I put a poster up on the notice board?
- No. (Fattie turns her back to me and starts digging in her purse for a pack of cigarettes.)
- I'm sorry?
- No, you can't put an ad on the notice board because we're still dealing with renovations and the notice boards are in a pile on the floor. Come back later. (She starts digging in her purse for a lighter.)
- All right. (No reaction from Fattie. I clear my throat.) How? MUCH? LATER?
Fattie walks out the door. I look at Praying Mantis with a shark grin and a "don't fuck with me, you irascible excuse for a public servant" look stolen out of "Brüno". Being able to yell, enunciate very clearly and smile is one of the few pisstakes that foreigners can get away with in Madrid.
- Mid-September, says Praying Mantis.
Two more weeks? Fine. I am gonna give my printer the workout of its life and then come back here and paper every single piece of cork with posters. I'm gonna steal every single student you've got and give them the knowledge that will permit them to question and challenge every single Princess Di lookalike who got hired by this half-bit outfit. And, for good measure, I Scotch-tape an ad on the signs outside the school.
I am angrier than hunger. I didn't deserve to be treated like a piece of errant earwax and I'll be damned if I'm going to let some paper-pusher who OD'd on beach and tinto de verano deny me a living. This is the advantage of giving up everything except work and cycling: I have a lot more energy and drive to invest in both. And if I can't work out, then clear the track for Eddie Shack. Little Miss SuperSyntax is hungry and determined and will be solvent before you can say, "What happened to your cell phone bill this month, Iñigo Cuestecita?"
But then again, hunger isn't particularly intelligent. Hunger is a whiny-ass preteen who is able to reason, but won't. Hunger is lazy, and feeds on a person's laziness or lack of drive. Hunger is a motivator that doesn't know what it wants. Hunger is the main way out of jealousy.
I stomp up Ronda de Toledo. BANG! Pedro Salinas library, one poster. BANG! Centro Cultural Ronda de Toledo, one poster. Up past the Palacio Real; my bunions are starting to ache and the sweat is dripping down the back of my neck but I ain't done yet. BANG! Replace the poster in the José Acuña library. BANG! Two photocopy shops in Isaac Peral. That leaves five more posters for Wednesday, which I will spread around Carabanchel and pass onto other students.
Screw this being broke shit. Just because there are hundreds of female cyclists who are willing to be financial San Sebastians, riddled with arrows and bills and empty bank accounts, doesn't mean I want to be one.
I'm not just smarter than hunger. I'm angrier than hunger. I'm more resourceful, more determined, more pigheaded than hunger.
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