Outside My Jurisdiction

Back when I was in NYC and creating/producing/living a lot of theater, I remember one time my parents came to visit to see a show I had produced as part of a solo festival.   (I think it was MY LEFT BREAST by Susan Miller which won an Obie, which is kind of a Big Deal.)
For some reason, I’d previously told a bunch of my friends that my father had often mentioned belonging to the LEGION OF DECENCY, an organization from the 1930s whose pledge was:
I wish to join the Legion of Decency, which condemns vile and unwholesome moving pictures. I unite with all who protest against them as a grave menace to youth, to home life, to country and to religion. I condemn absolutely those salacious motion pictures which, with other degrading agencies, are corrupting public morals and promoting a sex mania in our land. … Considering these evils, I hereby promise to remain away from all motion pictures except those which do not offend decency and Christian morality.
Some of the movies over the ensuing decades that the LEGION OF DECENCY condemned include — and please note this is a very weird, inconsistent, and incomplete list:
Some Like it Hot
Breathless
Psycho
Jules and Jim
From Russia with Love
The Odd Couple
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Rosemary’s Baby
Grease
All That Jazz
American Gigolo
The Omen

Anyway, my friends asked my father what he thought of the New York production he’d just seen, one which included lesbianism and some nudity, R-rated language and mentions of drug use.
My conservative, old-fashioned Connecticut father simply shrugged and replied, “It’s outside my jurisdiction.”
Last night, Belle and I had a rocky sleep.  She woke me at 2 am — something that’s happened maybe 8 times in the six years we’ve been together — except it didn’t seem like she had to go out.  Instead, she was panting and smiling and licking me –– perhaps because our loft bed is quite literally 15 degrees warmer than the rest of the cottage.
Ultimately, I decided to take her out in the extraordinary fog which she was amenable towards but I’m not sure was a necessary trip.  Finally around 3 am I drifted back to sleep.
At 6:15 my alarms started ringing because I had my first San Francisco private, really my first real private since leaving NYC where I taught them round the clock for seven years.
I’d conservatively planned to leave VERY early to find parking and after plunking down in a seemingly unattended lot asked the lady who was also waiting if anyone was on duty.
She replied, “I know you.”  I said, “Probably not, but my name is Edward.”
It turns out she’d taken a Lotus class on mine a week or two ago and loved it.  I felt being recognized and approved of as mini yoga-celeb pre-private lesson were very good omens.
I entered the swank building and realized that it also housed the tony law firm where my college roommate Peter works (the one I’d just had Thanksgiving with last week).  Another delightful coincidence.
I don’t reveal stuff about my private students — it’s just not cool — but I can say I really liked this guy a lot and I’m thrilled he wants lots and lots of lessons and that his office is walking distance from my digs on Telegraph Hill.
And let’s just say that his large amount of lessons is going to make life A LOT easier right now for Edward Vilga and Belle, and that I was beyond thrilled by that.
And mostly I’m thrilled to say that when a little contrast blew along afterwards –– an email from what I think is the SINGLE HUMAN in all of San Francisco who really is just not that into me –– I’m proud to say I was (more or less) able to let it go.
It’s just so easy to focus on the pebble in your (Prada) shoes, even when everything else in your life is fantastic.
But today, for once, buoyantly uplifted by my specific and general good fortune, I actually felt that this particular negativity was easy to ignore and put in its proper perspective.
Indeed, for at least this moment, this other person’s cranky drama was truly “outside my jurisdiction.”