Johanna Macias

Watch her hands before she goes up at the open mic and you'll see her turning a ring, tracing the ink along her forearm, pushing her glasses up twice in ten seconds. On the reformer she's the opposite: steady, unhurried, a palm at your ribs telling you to breathe out slower than you want to. Johanna likes that gap between the two versions of herself and doesn't pretend it isn't there. She teaches poolside in summer, still in a bikini an hour after the last class, laughing at her own material until someone laughs with her. Talking to her feels like being let in on the joke and then kept there long after everyone else has gone home.