Grunting Makes it Easier

I was hoisting my body out of a chair the other day…

UH!

You know how it is.  You’re terribly tired, your muscles grumbling about how you don’t take them out for months and then you expect some sort of performance -- and now you're all sore and achy, aren't you?

UH!

It's got me thinking.

Today’s topic de jour for today – redundancy being a topic for another time – is grunting.

Not enough is being said about grunting; and frankly, I’m appalled. Look at all grunting has given us.

1. It’s a ridiculously descriptive word, an Archie Bunkeresque word that pretty much declares itself without any help from you.
2. Look at it. Grunt. If you had to come up with a word to describe the act of grunting, it practically throws itself at you.
3. It’s very difficult to misspell the word “grunt”. There’s just no other way to spell it, and I like that in a word.
4. It’s also, at least on the east coast of the U.S., a crumbly-topping-and-fruit cake dealio. Don’t let the name fool you. Trust me. Order the Blueberry Grunt.

I could go on – and probably will! but I’m heading to yoga and after 60 minutes of heated exertion, I’ll bet I’ll think of more to say on the topic of grunting.

And there you have it, a perfectly Monday kind of post.

Minimum effort.

Maximum grunting.

Wherein Pearl Becomes Conscious, or Look, You Little !!#@$%, I Said "MOVE OVER"!

As part of a social experiment in 8th grade, our political science class had a general election. As a result I, along with other classmates heavy on charm and short on real action, was voted into office.

Whereupon we were promptly moved to better living quarters.

There, at the front of the class, we lolled about on extra-large desks. Members of the high school football team peeled organic pomegranates for us, and we were carefully talcum-ed before exertion, lest we chafe.

We were, of course, thoroughly convinced that we, the elite, were deserving of these things.

Meanwhile, our constituents were forced toward the back of the room, their desks pushed together in overly friendly and possibly unhygienic groupings. Cries of “heeeeey, no fair” went unheard; teeth were bared in boisterous and vicious acts of aggression; and correct penmanship was disrespected in wanton, territorial displays against the left-handed.

My campaign promises, whatever they had been, were quickly forgotten, not only because I was an eighth grade twit but because those of us on “Mount Olympus”, as our neighborhood was called, quickly came to political differences with those on “Cannery Row”.

Arguments ensued. Friendships were forever altered, but for crying out loud, couldn’t the people in the back of the room see that we deserved all that extra space?

It was a far cry from yesterday’s yoga class.

There I was. Wedged between Amy and The Guy What Smells Like Cheetohs, mere inches from six people, while the row ahead of the row ahead of me had full range-of-motion rights.

Look at them, up there! Why do they get special privileges? How come the sweat around their mats is from them only? Look at them, with their breathable air and their smiley yoga faces!

No fair!

It is part of the practice, of course, to set aside petty annoyances, to tune out that which does not serve us in pursuit of serenity and a good stretch.

I close my eyes, do my best to ignore Stinky and Fuzzy and Sweaty and the other yoga dwarves crowding my mat.

It was then that I remembered Social Studies.

I had this coming to me.

Wendy, wherever you are, I’m sorry that I didn’t work harder to make more room for the desks. I’m sorry that I suggested that if you worked harder that you, too, could get elected and move to Mount Olympus.

And I’m sorry we traded that one time and I kept your painters pants.

It’s been 30 years, but I finally see the error of my ways.<

Eueueuchchch; or The Monkey Loses This Time

Right off the mat, as one might say, if one were to say such a thing, I can see that this guy’s gonna be special.

It’s yoga time.

There he is, pre-class, legs spread.  He swings his arms back and forth, back and forth.  Uh-uh-uh, he grunts.  He twists his torso to the right, then to the left:  Uh-uh-uh.

I lie back on my mat and close my eyes. Surrounded in my new job – at least by my ears’ understanding – by far-flung malenprops and four-to seven-spindled farquardts running about three clicks below harmanfletcher, the hour I spend at yoga is my buffer between work and home. 

I leave everything, as we like to say, on my mat.

The monkey in my head, the one that makes fun of women in five-inch heels and regularly suggests that I go ahead and eat whipped cream by the fists full, has other ideas, however, and is already slapping his big heavy palms against the inside of my skull.  Get a load of this guy, he chortles.  How you gonna ignore this galoot?  This guy’s gonna ruin your whole class!

I wave the monkey off. 

I don’t come to yoga to talk to monkeys.

But the monkeys, apparently, have come to yoga to talk to me.

Aside from rhythmic, steady breathing, and the sounds of music and the instructor’s voice, the room is silent. 

“Oh, hell,” the man whispers. 

“Well I can’t do that,” he mutters.

I twist from one position to the next, sometimes looking at the front of the room, sometimes the back.

“Eueueuuchhh.” 

I shudder.  Someone has just either cleared a long-standing clog, or the man on the mat to my left and back a couple feet has a sinus condition.

“Eueuuchhhhhh.”  The next position moves me to look back, in his direction, and I do so in time to see the woman just behind him give a look of revulsion.

She sees me. 

Our eyes meet, and we grin.

The monkey in my head had hoped, of course, for so much more.  But like I keep telling him: Yoga is not a competition. 

But if it were a competition, that woman and I just won. 

Distracting the Monkey

I wipe away my sweat mustache. 

The man on the mat next to me swipes at his own face at the same time, which, given our proximity, seems almost intimate. 

But to tell the truth, in a class this size, we’re all almost intimate.

I close my eyes, breathe in deeply.  I don’t come here to criticize, I remind myself.  I come here to focus, to stretch, to embrace the beauty found in an absence of thought, to leave the clutter of my life on the winter-grit dirty sidewalk, and to –

-- pretzel yourself next to perfect strangers!  The monkey in my head chatters gleefully. Eeee-Eeeee-Eeee! 

Oh, shut up, I think.

The man next to me grunts.  Sweat runs off his outstretched arms, pools on the floor between us.

The monkey grabs the inside of my skull, pulls himself up and plants himself behind my eyes. 

Holy cow!  Look at him sweat!  Oooooh!  Have you seen his feet?  What’s up with those toes, huh?  And where’d he get that hair?  Thatch!  Absolute thatch!  Hey – do you know where the phrase “raining cats and dogs” comes from? I'm bored!

The monkey goes on for several minutes, from his opinion on a thick head of hair to the tensile grip strength found in your longer toes.

Oh, shut up, I think.

I pull up into Mountain Pose, then fold forward, attempt to press my nose between my shins.  The sweat runs from my face into my hairline, distracting the monkey, who revels in the feel of it.

I put my hands on the floor, press back into Downward Facing Dog: feet hips' distance apart, head down, butt in the air: I am a human V.

"Breathe in, and breathe out," intones the yogi.  "Let your head hang heavy.  For the truly advanced out there, look under one armpit, say "hi" to your neighbor."

The monkey jabbers, rolls his eyes.

I turn to my left:  Amy.  I grin at her from under my armpit.  "Hey, Amy!"

She smiles:  "Hey!"

"Now turn your head, look to the other side," the instructor says.  "And say hello to the nice human being."

The monkey throws his arms into the air:  Eeeee!  Eeeee!  Eeee!

I turn my head.  The man with the running sweat, fabulous head of hair, and funky toes grins at me.

"Hi," he says.

I smile back.  "Hi."

And the monkey rolls his eyes again, gives up and goes elsewhere in search of distraction.  It's no fun criticizing someone who smiles at you.

So You’re NOT Going to Naked Yoga?

Willie has taken up yoga.

For someone who has not been to a class before, the man is surprisingly flexible.

And after years of practice, I find this natural lithe-ness of his to be, as I like to refer to it, “vexing”.

“The man’s like a freakin’ reed,” I gripe to Mary.  “Why should he be so flexible?”

She shrugs, I am sure of it, a nuance I am able to discern through years of intensive phone use.  “Maybe he’s been getting up at night, dropping into the splits while you sleep.”

We grin at each other, two disembodied chuckles.

“Get off my line,” I mutter darkly.

“Don’t call me again,” she threatens.

And so after his initial disappointment in finding that there will be no need for “yoga shoes”, Willie, being something of a clothes horse, has taken comfort in the need for sleeveless tees. 

He has dressed in a pair of basketball shorts, a dark sleeveless tee.  “We want to get everything tucked,” he says, bending forward and assuming Downward Facing Dog, “If ya know what I mean.”

 “I’ve been in yoga for over five years,” I say.  “I know exactly what you mean.”

He looks up at me.  “Nudity in the studio?”

He sounds a little hopeful, if you ask me.

“This Thursday, for sure.”

He stands, squares his shoulders a bit, frowns.  “Seriously?  There’s nude yoga?”

I shouldn’t play with him, the neophyte, but is it really “playing” when somewhere, surely, there is nude yoga this Thursday?

“It’s a spring thing,” I say casually.  “You know.  Some New Age thing, I’m sure.”

“Ah,” he nods.  “Sure,” he says.  “That makes sense.”

I grin.  “So you’ll be there Thursday?”

He drops back down into Downward Facing Dog.  “Yep,” he says, smiling at me.  “Just as soon as I get back from Chicago.”

I frown at him.  “When are you going to Chicago?”

He grins.  “I’m not, ya goofy woman.”

May the Muse be With You (and also with you)

I’m a head-sweater.

That’s head-sweater, not head sweater. 

There’s a difference, you know.  Talk to any head-sweater, they’ll tell you:  one causes sweat to pour from your hairline, obstructing your vision.

The other just obstructs your vision.

I reflect upon this, of course, mid-way through a yoga class.

“Connect with your breath,” says the instructor.  “If you find that you’ve lost sight of your breath, return to it, and return to your intention.”

I inhale raggedly and return to my intention, which involves envisioning my muse, a miniscule, fat-headed being that flies about, temple-high, spinning in tiny, ecstatic circles.

“Wheeeeee!” he says.

I mop the sweat from my eyes and smile. 

“There you go, Pearl,” the yogi says.  “Movin’ to expert-level yoga pose, huh?”

I don’t look at him.  The sweat pours down my face, pools at my collar bones.  I continue to smile.

I come to yoga to shut up, to turn my mind off, to do exactly what I’m told.  For an hour there’s nothing but the incredible heat, the yogi’s voice and my need to do nothing but listen to it, to let go of everything that has gone on before it.

The muse spins rapturously.  

Lean to the Left! Lean to the Right! Stand Up Sit Down Fight Fight Fight!; or Oooooh, I Won’t be Doing Any of That…

I took part in a three-hour yoga/boot camp charity event Sunday, an experience for which I paid $20.

The heat was hot; the bending was terrific; and at one point I hopped between the rungs of a ladder placed on the floor, rather energetically, I might add, to the pounding rhythmic strains of a group I shall never be able to identify.

We did it for the homeless.

The lousy homeless!

So I’ve told you all of that only to tell you this:  It is two days later, and I cannot stand up. 

Or sit down.   

Or flex anything beyond lifting aspirin to my lips. 

I exaggerate only slightly.

It’s fascinating, being muscle-sore from one end to the other.  There is particular fun to be had when I must walk from, say, my desk to the printer.  It is what I have come to see as a Great Exertion to lift myself up out of the chair, a move now requiring the use of both arms and the expulsion of a soft – but feminine!—grunting noise.

Once up, there is the challenge of forward ambulation, something that requires far more effort – and more feminine grunting! – than the side-to-side hobble I’ve been forced to adopt.

As you can imagine, it’s quite a look I’ve cultivated for myself.

The last time I was this sore was the 108 Sun Salutations Amy and I did last New Year’s.  The thinking, I believe, is that after 108 Sun Salutations, you can do anything.  Unfortunately, after raising one’s arms up over one’s head 108 times, this is not true, as I discovered the very next day when I attempted to raise them again to brush my hair.  I eventually accomplish this by laying my head on the brush and moving it back and forth until the tangles were out. 

You can just imagine how my lipstick looked that day.

Sunday’s efforts were for a good cause, however, and I really shouldn’t complain.  A lovely chunk of change was raised for people who may never know about it, and that is, perhaps, as it should be.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve printed out a number of documents I need to go pick up.

I wonder if anyone would notice if I just fell off my chair and rolled to the printer?

The Small Adjustments

So there I was.  In airplane pose.

Balanced on my right foot, left leg straight back, arms extended backwards, palms down, hips square with the floor.

It’s 99 degrees in this room, and I marvel, briefly, that the inside of my body is the same temperature as the outside of it. 

I pay for this, you know.

The sweat runs off my face and onto my mat cover.  I tremble with the effort, smile inwardly at the exertion.  I think of my father:  “As long as it hurts, you’re in good shape.”

He was talking about frostbite – a subject near, dear, and required by law, in the State of Minnesota, to be mentioned at least once a year.

The smile goes from inward to outward.

The yoga instructor pauses next to me, places a cool hand on a space at the top of my back.  “Pull your shoulder blades closer in, move them down your spine,” she murmurs. “It’s the little adjustments we make that alter our postures and bring refinement to our pursuits.”  I pull my shoulder blades closer together and feel the change.

“That’s it,” she says.  “Very nice.” 

Whereupon I lose my balance and fall to the left.

Hours later, eating green grapes and staring at the wall in my new place, I wonder about the small adjustments.  About the move from one demographic to the next, from one phase to the next.

I stand on one leg in the center of my little room, reach back with the other, and make the small adjustments.

And I do not fall.

Now If I Could Just Harness My Inner Jackass

So I was laying on my yoga mat Tuesday, pressing my forehead into the ground, as is my wont, when it occurred to me that I have entered a new stage in my life.

The stage?

The stage wherein I successfully cage my inner monkey.

There we were, in the yoga studio.  The temperature in the room is this side of “Bake”, the humidity just short of awakening the vestigial gills I’ve been holding on to for just such an occasion.  Perspiration rolling off us, we are contemplating the next move (“you will plant your hands on your mat, shoulder-width apart, tuck your knees up into your armpits and simply lift yourself off the ground”). We are inches from each other, breathing deeply and rhythmically.

Breathe in.

Yessiree, Bob, there we are: just me and 49 of my favorite people (between the hours of 5:30 and 6:30 p.m.).

And it wasn’t long ago that my brain would’ve chosen this very moment to ricochet with distracted, babbling thoughts. It’s too hot! Too hot! What’s the temperature in here? How much longer before I can lay down and play dead? Have I mentioned that it’s too hot?

Indulging my inner monkey is not why I go to yoga.   She has to stop.

The monkey casts a sideways glance at the tepid moat of sweat surrounding the mat of the man eight inches to my right and begins to work on the comment that will keep me from concentrating.  I successfully fight her back into the same corner of my mind where I keep Metallica lyrics and the closing times of local fast food joints. I promise her that we’ll look for trophy-sized cigarette butts on the way home and watch Cops after my shower.

The monkey loves Cops.

Don’t get me wrong. The monkey keeps me entertained, says terrible and amusing things I cannot repeat about the woman in the gold Spandex and the odds of finding loose change in the folds that make up much of her topography.

And it was the monkey who suggested I turn off my iPod Monday morning and listen in on the disagreement between Pookie and Boo.

Frankly, Boo’s trippin’.

This is the same monkey, however, who makes obscene references during solemn moments and encourages me to eat uncooked cake batter. The same monkey who likes to inline skate drunk and quit my jobs.

She’s had a good run, that monkey.

Hey. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying I don’t enjoy her chattering.  I’m not even saying that there isn’t room, now and then, for the way she stares at my fellow commuters.

I’m saying that sometimes, she gets in my way.

And so I’m harnessing my inner monkey.

I welcome this new stage.  

The Monkey Would Like to Speak to You Privately

I was rolling my forehead on the floor the other day – as is my wont – when I had a bit of a revelation.

The revelation?

The guy next to me really and truly stinks.

I paid good money for that, you know.

You can have it for free:  Some people really stink.

Not that this was just any kind of stink.  Truly, this was a deep stink, the stink of goats, the kind of stink that says, “Deodorant?  Whatever for?  I’m as natural as I was meant to be.” 

A noticeable and impressive stink.

“Inhale,” the instructor advises.  “And exhale.  Inhale.  And exhale.”

She has no idea what she’s asking for.

I remind myself that the world is full of distractions and that unpleasant smells are a part of it.  I tell myself that I go to yoga to center myself, to quiet the chatter of my monkey mind.

Yeah, says the monkey.  But this guy stinks!

I tell my monkey to shut up. 

The monkey flings mental poop at the inside of my head, suggests that I fret, kvetch, and complain, anything but concentrate and assume responsibility for my practice.  The monkey believes that if I stop what I am doing, perhaps work up an inner boil of some sort over how horrible this person is for breaking my concentration with his stench that I will be righteous in doing so.

The monkey is my constant companion.

I beat the monkey down with an internal promise of a good 15 minutes of freestyle irritation later in the week.

Maybe Thursday.

Eventually, of course, I am distracted from Stink Boy by my need to breathe in conjunction with movement, by the difficulty of the poses, by the unnaturally warm room; and after an hour, I find myself at the end of the class, exhausted and covered with sweat.

We are rolling up our mats when he looks over, offers me a big happy smile.

And the monkey and I smile back.

At The Foot of The Master, or How Much Can I Put You Down For?

My father, as has been mentioned, is a salesman, and a good one at that. Ol' Paul has a talent for conversation, for appealing to the common denominator in any group. He is not shy about using this talent.

“How’d you kids like to make 50 cents?”

Growing up, no matter how many times I heard that phrase, I always fell for it.

“Let’s see how fast you kids can wash the car. Get it done in under 15 minutes and there’s a small DQ cone in it for you.”

Neighborhood kids would follow him to the shed for a rag and a bucket, squeal-y with the anticipation of working their collective asses off for a 30-cent cone.

My father worked as soon as he was old enough to consider working, and he sought to instill in us the same burning desire to toil as soon as we were old enough to hear about it. Like my mother’s belief in the medicinal properties of the Hot Wet Washrag, my father believed in the healing power of work, in the self-affirmation of a steady paycheck.

“I had a paper route when I was a boy. Did you kids know that? Did I ever tell you about the route I had when I was a boy?”

“Yes, Dad.”

I apply for my first job in fourth grade by filling out a form in the back of a comic book. There, next to advertisements for x-ray specs and garlic chewing gum is the opportunity to earn extra money I've been looking for:  door-to-door sales.  Candles, greeting cards, little porcelain salt and pepper figurines of angels, windmills, and mushrooms.  Who wouldn't want to buy these things?

I am, of course, hired immediately.

My father is sitting at the kitchen table when my first catalogs come in the mail. He pats the chair next to him, holds his hand out. I hand him the catalogs.

He flips through one.

“See? You’re thinkin’. You’re thinkin’,” he says, tapping the side of his nose. “You’re in a trailer park, you got all these doors right next to each other. Boom, boom, boom, you’re up and down the streets in five, six hours.”

He pauses, lights a cigarette.

“Let me hear your patter,” he says.

“My what?”

“Your patter. Your spiel. Your opening line when they open the door.”

I hadn’t considered my patter.

He slaps his left hand on the kitchen table.

“You lost me,” he says. “You lost me. You lost me and I’m closin’ the door.” He leans forward in his chair, ready to slam an imaginary door.

I put my arm out. “Wait!” I pause. “OK.” I say. “Knock, knock.”

“Who’s there?” my father says.

“Hi. My name is Pearl and I’m 10 years old and I’m selling candles and cards and cute little salt and pepper shakers because I want to buy a bike. Would you like to see a catalog?”

My father sits back, taps his cigarette into an ashtray shaped like an outhouse.

“OK. Not bad. Not bad. But hand them the catalog, don’t ask them if they want to see it. You asking gives them the chance to say no. And when you hand it to them, have it open to the candles. Women love candles.”

He pauses.

“And how old are you again?”

“Ten.”

“Really?”

He looks at me, frowns. He seems perplexed. “Tell ‘em you’re nine.”

“Why?”

“Nine sounds better.”

“Why?”

“It just does. Trust me.”

He pauses again.

“Oh, and don’t tell them it’s for a bike. Bikes are iffy. Tell ‘em you’re going to band camp or something. People always want to send kids away for a couple weeks.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

“You’re welcome.”

I Am a Vessel. A Slightly Cracked and Momentarily Unfocused Vessel.

It was at the yoga studio, yesterday, that I was blessed, if you will, with the gift of distraction.  That is, distraction reared its shaggy, diverting head, and I managed to decline.

A yogic victory!

I did, of course, file said distraction away and think about it after class.

You see, when you are in a yoga studio, it is because you truly want nothing more than to focus on movement and breath, to lose the many chattering monkeys that have taken residence in the brain. 

When you are in a yoga studio, mat stretched out afore you, your hair plaited into submission, mind on the hour ahead, one of the last things you need – aside from the realization that the bean burrito was a bad idea – is the groaning newbie next to you.

Look at him over there, vigorously swinging his limbs.  He wants you to know that he played sports as a youth, is ready to beat this next hour into compliance. 

And for the next hour, he grunts.  In a room silent of participant vocalizations outside of steady, exaggerated breathing, he moans.  He mutters “Oh, gosh”.  At one point – no lie – he growls.

Growls.

I allow myself one glance. It is, as it turns out, to be a glance executed at the same time as the woman on the other side of him.  Our eyes meet, widen.  A subtle shake of the head is shared, and we return to our asanas. 

And this is what yoga teaches us, grasshoppers:  The world intrudes, despite our sometimes ardent wish that it would not.  It is up to us to decide if it will affect us.

“Bite me,” the world says.

“Make me,” I say.

That’s Some Mighty Big Modesty You Have There

Spring Break has arrived, the free time allowing a large number of particularly young, bendy creatures to descend upon the yoga studio.

Have you been to my yoga studio?  Crawling with earnest, friendly folk, clear-eyed and sincere, I am given hope that the current generation of young adults is not as self-centered as, well, I was.

We shed many things in the practice of yoga:  our attachment to outcome, our clothing…

How often do you get naked while there are strangers in the room?  If you’re like me, pre-yoga, the answer to this question is “rarely”. 

It’s not easy, the first couple of times. 

There are some, undeniably, who cannot wait to stand around naked.  They come out of the showers, a towel wrapped about their heads.  Nude from the scalp down, they eventually remove the turban, only to stand, nude, in front of the mirrors in order to blow dry their hair.

These people should not be trusted.

But not everyone is comfortable in their skin.

Last week I watched a young woman change her clothes without removing her coat.

We’ll pause for a moment while that sinks in. 

Can I get you a coffee?  No?  I know of an unlocked candy drawer around here if you – no?  OK.

She stood there, the poor little doe, in a coat that reached mid-calf.  Balancing on first one leg, then the other, she removed her socks, pants, and underwear in a hunched-back dance of shyness almost too painful to behold.

Almost.

One can’t help but look.  What’s she doing?  Normally I am too concerned with stuffing my clothes into a locker to notice the people around me, but the coat, coupled with her furtive, please-don’t-look-at-me movements, is magnetic.

Surely she will have to take off her coat to change her top, won’t she?

No.  She will not.  Huddled, she disappears in a quilted, lumpy demonstration of flexibility that bodes well for the hour of yoga ahead of her.

I leave the locker room while she finishes. 

She’s young, she’s good looking, and she’s awkwardly unsure of her place in the world.

From one generation to the next, I want to tell her:  Honey, it gets better.  

I Said MOVE OVER, or Varying Degrees of Consciousness

As part of a social experiment in 8th grade, our political science class had a general election. As a result I, along with other classmates heavy on charm and short on real action, was voted into office.

Whereupon we were promptly moved to better living quarters.

There, at the front of the class, we lolled about on extra-large desks. Members of the high school football team peeled organic pomegranates for us, and we were carefully talcum-ed before exertion, lest we chafe.

We were, of course, thoroughly convinced that we, the elite, were deserving of these things.

Meanwhile, our constituents were forced toward the back of the room, their desks pushed together in overly friendly and possibly unhygienic groupings. Cries of “heeeeey, no fair” went unheard; teeth were bared in boisterous and vicious acts of aggression; and correct penmanship was disrespected in wanton, territorial displays against the left-handed.

My campaign promises, whatever they had been, were quickly forgotten, not only because I was an eighth grade twit but because those of us on “Mount Olympus”, as our neighborhood was called, quickly came to political differences with those on “Cannery Row”.

Arguments ensued. Friendships were forever altered, but for crying out loud, couldn’t the people in the back of the room see that we deserved all that extra space?

It was a far cry from yesterday’s yoga class.

There I was. Wedged between Amy and The Guy What Smells Like Cheetohs, mere inches from six people, while the row ahead of the row ahead of me had full range-of-motion rights.

Look at them, up there! Why do they get special privileges? How come the sweat around their mats is from them only? Look at them, with their breathable air and their smiley yoga faces!

No fair!

It is part of the practice, of course, to set aside petty annoyances, to tune out that which does not serve us in pursuit of serenity and a good stretch.

I close my eyes, do my best to ignore Stinky and Fuzzy and Sweaty and the other yoga dwarves crowding my mat.

And then I remembered Social Studies.

I had this coming to me.

Wendy, wherever you are, I’m sorry that I didn’t work harder to make more room for the desks. I’m sorry that I suggested that if you worked harder that you, too, could get elected and move to Mount Olympus.

And I’m sorry we traded that one time and I kept your painters pants.

It’s been 30 years, but I finally see the error of my ways.

Full of Hot, Sweaty Air

Here we are, almost half-way through January, and the newly reformed have yet to give up.

The yoga studio is packed. Inches away from my fellow man, I practice patience.

It’s all part of the practice, I think to myself. He/she doesn’t know an outward expression of calm is part of it, that his/her heavy sighs and grunts are distracting to others, doesn’t know to be cognizant of where his/her feet/arms are in relation to his/her mat…

It’s enough to drive me/you/one mad.

It’s a New Year’s resolution of theirs, no doubt; and I’m sure all across the world something or other is full to bursting in January only to return to normal operations by mid-February.

Not that I don’t wish our newly arrived brothers and sisters success! Of course, I do! Anything else would be stingy and mean-hearted, and I am neither of those things.

True, I once told a panhandler to “touch me and I’ll scream”.

Oh, and it’s possible that I have wished ill upon droopy-drawered men, their pants belted just inches above their knees.

And then there was this one occasion where I screamed, from my second floor porch, at a man in the park, a man who consistently failed to pick up after his German Shepherd to “…never come back here! I know who you are!”

Hmm. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen that guy or his dog in almost four years…

OK. So I’m not stingy, anyway.

Still, attendance at the yoga studio will be like last year, and the year before. They come in, riding the high of heartfelt resolutions and tingly with the excitement of that first, free week of yoga and in short measure discover that a hot class makes you sweat by the bucket, that holding a position until you tremble is hard work, and that the firm young bodies surrounding them are a blow to the ego.

In time, however, should they stay, come the discoveries of the truths in yoga: that one adapts to the heat, that the mind gives up long before the body, that the nubile youngsters lack the determination of their elders and give up easily.

And that surely there’s nothing that feels as good as successfully doing the splits next to someone half your age.

All of these things are true and will come with devotion.

And stop calling me Shirley.

Cigareet? or It’s the Little Things

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the weekend, brought to you by a partnership between Dow Chemical and the Department of Transportation in conjunction with your local government and The Committee to Convince You That You Have Choices.

Once again, we ask ourselves questions regarding said weekend. What will the weather be like? Will I see friends? Will I wear that dreadful shirt again?

The answer to these questions – and any others you can think of – is found deep within the murky and danceable songs found on my iPod.

What? You didn’t know?

My iPod, set on “shuffle” and played during my morning commute, knows all, tells some.

Play along, won’t you? I have so little…

Feng Shui by Gnarls Barkley
Say it Again by Scribe, feat. Tyra Hammond *
Kick Drum Heart by The Avett Brothers *
Tighten Up by The Black Keys
The Hardest Part by Coldplay
I Feel You by Depeche Mode
Just Like U Said It Would B by Sinead O’Connor *
Tired of Being Alone by Al Green
Say Hey (I Love You) by Michael Franti & Spearhead
Shake It Out by Manchester Orchestra
10:15 on a Saturday Night by The Cure

This Friday’s prediction? It says, hey! All those people you love? You should hug them, ask them to dance, maybe take them to the Bearded Lady Motorcycle Freak Show on Saturday…

And speaking of freaks, I don’t know what’s going on lately, but I’ve been meeting them.

First the man on the bike – who pulled over to introduce himself as “Mike” yesterday, by the way – and then the man outside the yoga studio…

6:45 in the afternoon. After almost a full week of temperatures that hovered around the 110 degree mark, the 84 degrees was almost autumnal. I left the heated yoga studio in my yoga pants and top, and waited, on the corner, for my ride,.

Envision me, if you like, looking fabulous.

This is preferable to reality.

In actuality, my complexion, following physical exertion, leans towards spotty purple-ness. As earlier confessed, I’m a head-sweater, and should you ever see me following strenuous effort, words like “apoplexy”, “heat stroke”, and “did you know ‘aubergine’ is French for ‘eggplant?’” will spring to mind.

Also at this corner is a man. He is my age. Tall, thin, in tight black pants and a plain black tee shirt, chains running from a belt loop to the wallet in his back pocket, he has hair to his waist and one of those mustaches that is shaved bare in the middle, a look that has always disturbed me. He is wearing a black cap advertising his love of Motley Crue, heavy black motorcycle boots and mirrored sunglasses.

His bicycle leans against the brick building.

We give each other the nod.

I watch as he bends forward, pulls up his pant leg. Stuffed into a grayed sweat sock are folded bits of paper, a pen, what may have been a bag of salted, in-the-shell peanuts, and a pack of generic cigarettes.

He straightens up, opens the pack, and holds it toward me.

“Cigareet?”

I look into his mirrored sunglasses and smile, wave off the pack. “No,” I say, “but thank you so much for offering.”

He nods again, lights his own cigarette, bends forward and puts the pack back in his sock.

He throws his leg over the bike, straddling it. “See you around,” he says. He touches the brim of his cap and pushes off, whistling the opening strains of Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love”…

I watch him, smiling, as he pedals down Washington Avenue.

Have I ever told you how much I love human beings?

They’re my favorite.

Have a great weekend, everyone. Don’t be afraid to come back tomorrow.







* If you have the time and inclination, I recommend these songs!

Wherein I Lose Your Respect, or Sheesh! You Don’t Do the Wash for a Week and Look What Happens…

I have a locker at work.

A part of the Scandinavian-inspired, blond-wood, contemporary cubicle of corporate contentment that is my corner of the 48th floor, said locker is large enough to hold my yoga bag.

And now that Mother Nature has stopped trying to kill me, ie., winter is over, and there’s no need to don the layers of clothing normally stowed in this locker, it is not impossible for my yoga bag to be thrown in on a Friday morning and forgotten in my joyous sprint to the elevator later in the day…

It is a Monday morning, 6:45.

I open my locker to put my white jean jacket – the one with the cute little black and white cloth flower pinned to it? – on the hook when a thought comes, unbidden, to my mind.

Brie. No, not Brie; Camembert? No, wait. Cool Ranch Doritos. That's it.

Wait. What?

This disturbing cheese-based thought is followed by a thought equally as disturbing: high school gym class.

I shut the locker door and take a step back, blinking solemnly. I am 15 again, and my mother is musing, in that perplexed yet slightly medicated demeanor she adopted for the bulk of my adolescence, on whether or not my gym socks should be washed weekly, as she believed or, as I apparently believed at the time, on a quarterly basis...

I re-open the door.

There in my locker, the yoga mat has ripened over the weekend. Rolled up and abandoned, it’s missed its end-of-the-week wash.

Hence the vaguely cheese-ish smell.

I shoot a quick spritz of a perfume sample at it, the one I keep in my purse for just such stink-related contingencies, and shut the door.

It worked in high school, it’ll work now.

And who hasn't done some washing up in the sink in the women’s bathroom over the lunch hour?

Wait. Yoga’s Not a Competitive Sport, Is It?

Here we are, half-way through January, and the newly reformed have yet to give up.

And the yoga studio is packed.

It’s all part of the practice, I think to myself. He/she doesn’t know an outward expression of calm is part of it, that his/her heavy sighs and grunts are distracting others, doesn’t know to be cognizant of where his/her feet/arms are in relation to his/her mat…

It’s enough to drive me/you/one mad.

It’s a New Year’s resolution of theirs, no doubt; and I’m sure all across the world something or other is full to bursting in January, what with people turning over leaves in varying stages of new-ness, only to return to normal operations by mid-February.

I can’t wait.

Not that I don’t wish our newly arrived brothers and sisters success! Of course, I do! Anything else would be stingy and mean-hearted, and I am neither of those things.

True, I once told a panhandler to “touch me and I’ll scream”.

And I have wished ill to droopy-drawered men, their pants belted just inches above their knees.

And then on one occasion I screamed across the street at a man known for consistently failing to pick up after his German Shepherd in the park to “…never come back here! I know who you are!”

Hmm. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen that guy or his dog in almost four years…

OK. So I’m not stingy, anyway.

Still, attendance at the yoga studio will be like last year, and the year before. They come in, riding the high of heartfelt resolutions and tingly with the excitement of the first week of yoga being free and in short measure discover that a hot class makes you sweat by the bucket, that holding a position until you tremble is hard work, and that the firm young bodies surrounding you are a blow to the ego.

In time, however, should they stay, come the discoveries that one adapts to the heat, that the mind gives up long before the body, that the nubile youngsters lack the determination of their elders and give up easily.

And that there’s nothing that feels as good as successfully doing the splits next to someone half your age.

The Right to Bare – and Aching – Arms

You won’t be mad, will you, if I write clad entirely in clothing that may or not bear labels that say “One Size Fit All”? The elastic is so much easier for me to deal with...

The last few days have been a whirlwind of visiting, drinking, and, so help me, an attempt at 108 Sun Salutations.

A Sun Salutation, to the uninitiated, is a series of yogic postures. It mimics the sun during the course of a day and is often done at the start of a season.


In other words, there’s a lot of up and down in doing 108 Sun Salutations.

It took just under two hours to approach the limits of my abilities to fold forward, to perform chaturanga pose (the yoga push-up), to keep my Monkey Mind on what I was doing and not on, say, my grocery list.

I finished 82 of the 108 Sun Salutations that I set out to do, which is about what I had hoped for.

But in the end, I got more than that.

As a result of two hours of exercise in a heated room – and in addition to the appetite I developed and the opening of every pore I possess – it appears that I’ve lost the use of my arms.

Arms! Who needs ‘em, huh?

Luckily, I’ve discovered a number of “work-arounds” to the situation. For example, the two heavy appendages now hanging at my sides – I see them in my mind’s eye as salamis – while useless, have brought forth a previously undiscovered talent, i.e., the ability to type with my forehead.

I’ll pause while you visualize this.

I was also forced to brush my teeth today by laying my face on the toothbrush and shaking my head vigorously from side to side.

It worked pretty well, but you should see my lipstick…

So here we are, the first Monday of the new year; and I’m ready: same attitude, new date. Out of the “aughts” and into the – what? “Teens”? Do we have a name for this next decade? Do we need one?

“Start as you mean to finish”, the Brits say, and I, so far, am digging how it’s begun – although it appears I will not be doing any of said digging with my arms.

Now If I Could Just Harness My Inner Jackass

The weekend, my friends, approacheth; and to ready ourselves we consult my iPod, known right here in my very own head as a perfectly normal and reasonable way to foresee the events of both my and your weekend.

And it’s absolutely free.

The Trapeze Swinger by Iron & Wine
Love Train by Wolfmother
Electric Feel by MGMT
Shout Me Out by TV on the Radio
Ramble On by Led Zeppelin
Black Soul Choir by 16 Horsepower
Neat Neat Neat by The Damned

What have we learned here? The word this weekend is “relax”. Prepare yourself for drop-ins, interpretive dance, existential conversation, and guacamole.

It’s weird, but I see guacamole in everything.

So I was laying on my yoga mat the other day, pressing my forehead into the ground, as is my wont, when it occurred to me that I had entered a new stage in my life.

The stage?

The stage wherein I successfully cage my inner monkey.

There we were, perspiration rolling off us, contemplating the next move (“you will plant your hands on your mat, shoulder-width apart, tuck your knees up into your armpits and simply lift yourself off the ground”). We were inches from each other, breathing deeply and rhythmically.

The temperature in the room was this side of a hundred degrees, the humidity just short of awakening the vestigial gills I’ve been holding on to for just such an occasion.

Yessiree, Bob, there I was: just me and 49 of my favorite people (between the hours of 5:30 and 6:30 p.m.).

And it wasn’t long ago that my brain would’ve chosen this very moment to ricochet with panicked, chattering thoughts. It’s too hot! Is that guy looking at me? It’s too hot! What’s the temperature in here? How much longer before I can lay down and play dead? Have I mentioned to myself that it’s too hot?

But indulging my inner monkey is not why I go to yoga.

The monkey casts a sideways glance at the tepid moat of sweat surrounding the mat of the man eight inches to my right and begins to work on the comment that will keep me from concentrating. I successfully fight her back into the same corner of my mind where I keep Metallica songs and the closing times of local fast food joints. I promise her that we’ll look for cigarette butts on the way home (I may have quit, but she doesn’t know that) and watch Cops afterwards.

The monkey loves Cops.

There are advantages, I think, to choosing where and how you’ll let your monkey run free.

The bus, for example, is the perfect place for monkey thoughts.

Don’t get me wrong. The monkey keeps me entertained, says terrible things I cannot repeat about the woman in the gold Spandex and the odds of finding loose change in the folds that make up much of her topography.

The monkey was the one who suggested I turn off my iPod Wednesday morning and listen in on the fight between Pookie and Boo.

Frankly, Boo’s trippin’.

The monkey also, however, makes obscene references during solemn moments and encourages me to eat uncooked cake batter. The monkey likes to inline skate drunk and quit my jobs.

She had a good run, that monkey.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that there isn’t room, now and then, for her chattering.

I’m just not buying her bananas anymore.