Yogadventures: It's Your First Time!

A friend from work was asking me about trying out yoga, and my first thought after "Yes! Definitely do that!" was, "you should read my blog, I write about yoga all the time!" And then I remembered that most of my posts about yoga involve failure and existential woe. Not a great way to convince someone how awesome it can be, is it? You know me, though, always looking on the bright side and all that. So, for her, for anyone thinking of trying yoga on for size who hasn't been sacred away by all my talk of handstands and circus freaks, behold: Your Yoga Virgin Pep Talk.


My first yoga experience was a "Yoga for Dummies" DVD the summer after my freshman year of college (I know, I KNOW but it helped me lose my freshman 15...and also the other 15). You can definitely pregame with the Exercise OnDemand videos your cable offers; there's bound to be a beginner yoga video in there somewhere. You'll get to know what the poses are called, but no one is there to check your form, so really the best way is to go to a class. Classes can be intimidating! There might be chanting that you may or may not know how to feel about! But there are four things you can keep in mind to help you feel more at ease your first time.

The Goody Bun Screw: A Triumphant Advancement in Hair-Putting-Up Technology

I was wandering around CVS a few weeks ago waiting for a prescription to be refilled, so on impulse I bought a Goody Bun Screw. Because, haha, I'm a twelve year old boy and, bun screw. And because my hair looks decent up in a bun, but of course I'm remedial at making my hair be in one. My hair has what we'll call a very well-defined sense of self--you can ask it nicely, but you can't order it around.

This thing is amazing! All you have to do is kind of get your hair into the idea of a bun, and then you put it over your sort-of-bun and twist. And it looks DONE. No more playing roulette with an elastic band hoping for the one-in-a-thousand moment when it actually looks good and you can barely see the band...but then everything flops out to the side. How many times do YOU try and retry until you just decide "whatever it's fine who cares?" I think I've topped out at three.

The 5 Most Awesome Things About Working In a Soundproof Room

I work in a production studio all day. It has a heavy door with the kind of slit window you see in the scary mental asylums in the movies. Because it needs to be soundproofed, the walls are padded, too. This hilarity was never lost on any Production person ever, and we make the most of the metaphors. Mine doesn't have a window, which deprives everyone else an excuse to "see what the weather's doing" i.e., "check in on her to make sure she hasn't gone crazy all alone in there." They worry about me.

They shouldn't! It's awesome. Here are five awesome things about being alone in a soundproof room all day, that have ruined me for cubicles and normal office people forever:

SPOILER ALERT: Men Don't Actually Want Funny Ladies After All

Or at least a great deal of men who talked to The Gloss don't. I love The Gloss, and Jennifer Wright was right, her Real Talk slideshow was definitely the most depressing thing I read all day. Not that I wasn't already pretty certain what the answers would be, just from personal experience.

The worst guys in the slideshow are the ones who think they really do like funny women--or try really hard to sound like they do because they feel like they should, but then their words betray them:

I'd definitely prefer to date a woman with a good sense of humor. The only reason I date anymore is to have stories to entertain my friends with, so even better if she can laugh at them, too.

Carl! You're sneaky! You make it sound like you would love to be with a lady who is funny but it turns out you define female humor as laughing at YOUR jokes! I see what you did there. Extra points for the "whatever I don't want girls anyway" fakeout. Actually, the idea that "I'd love a funny woman who will laugh at my jokes AND THEN if she makes me laugh too, that's a bonus" crops up a lot. I do not think this word means what you think it means, boys; even Siri will laugh at your jokes.

Yogadventures: The Sick Girl and the Sadist

So, this one time I was sick and I went to hot yoga just for the humidifier. And it went exactly as well as you would expect.

Now, I usually don't work out when I'm sick. Because seriously when you've got a built-in excuse, you use it. And also, your white blood cells are working overtime to fight off the germs and that has to be calories, right? I can't even remember the saying--I feed a fever and a cold, and I don't work out.

But I had to go to LA in a week and a half for a press junket. And I really didn't want to sit in a room full of movie stars not having invested every possible second in Looking As Good As Possible. I know one day or another of working out or not working out isn't going to make a 10-pound difference, but welcome to modern-lady insecurity central. I wasn't about to pound out a kickboxing class, but maybe I should go to yoga?

One Thing the New Footloose Gets Very, Very Right

Trigger warning for discussions of physical assault and domestic violence.

Having been raised very sheltered from the pop culture of my childhood, I have lots of blank spaces where certain touchstones go: I didn't see Dirty Dancing until late in college. Or Karate Kid until a boyfriend made me watch it many years later. And I didn't see the original Footloose until two days before they sent me to LA for a press junket for the remake. 

Seeing it with my grown-up, lived in eyes for the first time, I didn't really like it all that much. It bothered me that Ariel came off as a psychotic whose only motivation was the craziness in her head. And then when she gets in that knock-down, drag-out fight with Chuck that ends in him holding her down and punching her until she stops struggling? Boy did that hit a trigger.

And it had me really, really upset. 

As in, how-am-I-supposed-to-watch-this-again-in-two-days-in-a-room-full-of-strangers-and-maintain-some-sort-of-professional-demeanor upset.  How am I supposed to talk about this movie when my only thought right now is pleasestoppleasestoppleasestop?

I was worried. And, thankfully, I needn't have been. 

Should We Have a Conversation About Yogasms?

...because I feel like it would go something like, "what?! girl, gross. really?!? ugh, ew. what?" And then I would have to feel bad that my Catholic upbringing makes me prudish about doing sex things in public places and won't let me be happy for people who spell yOga with a Capital "O" [PS yes this will be full of euphemisms, in case the Baby Jesus is reading].

A Daily Beast article is currently going viral wherein ladies are orgasming all over the place at yoga classes. There's even a word for it--yogasm--so it has to be thing, right? It's "on the rise!" Like cancer! Be afraid: orgasms! Who can tell when one will strike next! Well, I kind of think I can. I definitely believe that these women are telling the truth, but then again there's this:

“I was in lotus pose, focusing on breathing and lifting the muscles of my pelvic floor,” she said. She wasn’t prepared for what happened after her instructor pressed his body against her back and synchronized his breath with hers, lifting her ribs as she inhaled, and pushing down on her thighs as she exhaled. “I was tingling all over!” she gushed...The teacher is a famous name in New York City’s yoga circuit. Toned and tattooed, Rojas gives classes that are often packed with women hoping to get some hands-on instruction."

My Strange Love OR: How I Learned to Stop Sniffling and Love the Neti Pot

I am the worst sick person in the world. I have stood in the middle of our work cafeteria and cried because the only thing I wanted was chicken soup and it was not chicken soup day. I have protested loudly that "no one can keep me from going home early I am SICK!" to coworkers whose only thought was that the crazy lady should crawl into her bed as quickly as possible and stop infecting everyone. I have driven myself--sick--miles out of my way in search of the only place to get takeout matzo ball soup (I'm Irish). I have insisted on watching The English Patient over and over again, because in my delirium I forget why I hate it and besides it won all those awards and now I really do have five hours to sit and watch it...

In the absence of a thermometer, the severity of my fever can be accurately measured by determining the likelihood of me watching The English Patient. From, "well I've always had a thing for Naveen Andrews" (mild) to "maybe I haven't really given it a proper chance" (hospital).

But there's one thing I do when I'm sick that is absolutely the best: I reach for my neti pot.

WHY does this one look like a wang.

At this point you're having one of two reactions: ugh you put water up your nose on purpose that is revolting! Or: yeah, neti pot, high five! It's definitely one of those things where you just completely do not understand why anyone would ever do such a thing, until you do. I was certain I'd be in the former camp forever--I still hold my nose in the pool because, ew water up your nose. It took me many years, many MANY sinus infections, AND a job that requires me to consistently sound like a person who Is Not Dying to finally become desperate enough to try anything to breathe again.

There's a reason why every time someone mentions a neti pot, people come out of the wood work going, "oh my god I love mine! Use it every day! Makes everything smell like Jesus and peace!" and you sit there going, "you people sound like you're in a cult:" because it gets you exactly like a cult.

DVR Thunderdome: Buffy Summers VS Summer

It's Fall Premiere time! Have you gone through Entertainment Weekly's grids as if they were puppy adoption pages, wondering which new shows looked cute enough to bring home? Have you sat with HuffPo's "shows to watch" slide show and a glass of wine and agreed and/or disagreed? No? But it's commitment time! Who will you love? Who will you finally break up with because you've finally realized that loving them isn't enough and they'll never again be what you fell in love with (sorry, Desperate Housewives, it's not me it's you)? There's only so much space in your heart and on your DVR. Choose now!

Today in the DVR Thunderdome we have Ringer, starring Sarah Michelle Gellar as Bridget, who pretends to be her twin sister Siobhan (also SMG), who just commited suicide, versus New Girl, starring Zooey Deschanel and attempting to answer the age old question: what if a girl moves in with three dudes, and also she's exactly like every character Zooey Deschanel has ever played? Ladies, and your shows, prepare to battle to the death over the Tuesday 9PM DVR Slot 2. Slot 1 is already permanently reserved for the Dancing With the Stars Results Show. Don't you judge me.

Battle on!

I Own A Record!

Yeah, I know, but I didn't before...but the label sent over lots of Queen records for Freddie's birthday and the music director made sure I got one. Yay! So now I can be one of those people who walk around and say things like, "well obviously if you want to experience the classic albums as they were meant to be you can only do that on vinyl," or "really, if you know how to listen to it, new vinyl does actually sound better than a digital recrding," or hahahahahahaaaaaaaa no. Those things are best said from behind ironic facial hair, and anyway I actually avoid those people (because you kids don't advocate for antennas over HDTV, so really? Who are we trying to fool here, eh?). And while I have nothing against the records themselves (I actually love the smell, is that weird?), well, I just plum don't know how to work 'em.

And I work at a radio station! Actually, I worked for a station that still has a Vinyl Cut feature. Yes with real records. Some of which happen to be stored in the studio where we have our writing meetings for my current station, so the one thing I do know how to do with a record is to make a Pope hat out of the white liner jacket. Because when everyone runs out of punchlines, it's time for props, obviously. If I had known about this as a teenager I would have been soooo into the vinyl resurgence. Pope hats! I have photographic evidence of this that I am banned from posting because one of the other prods is a sourpants. And my new record is too new to have the liner so there will be none forthcoming. But trust me, Pope hats--who else has done this? I mean, not necessarily at your jobs, but I don't know what you guys do all day, so maybe? If not, totally do this at your jobs.

Day 25: For Once. For Ever.

Be only here and only now. Let your mind be completely present in this moment and only this moment. This moment is both passing and infinite. You are here forever. You were never here.

That's what they start saying when you've been stuck in Warrior 2 for what's probably been 10 whole minutes--has it only been 10 seconds? it feels like 10 years--and that's the point you start to want to kill them. Your thighs are burning! Your knee is shaking! Your toes are staging a mutiny! Surely you can NOT stand here all day to indulge their masochism.

But you do, because secretly, you can. It's a secret even to your own mind. Why do our bodies default to can't? Is it really survival? What kind of survival instinct says, "I'll bet we can't run anymore. Oh well, here comes that saber-toothed tiger"? In yoga, you use your conscious mind to argue with itself. And focusing on only the infinitesimal present keeps you from giving in to, "okay, it's been too long, if it's going to go on for much longer we're taking a break." There is no time. And there is no The Time Before. You have never chickened out. You have never fallen down. You have always existed here, just like this.

What Wine Goes With Your Natural Disaster?

Did you encounter a dilemma, wondering what to pair with any of last week's Acts of God? The PA Liquor Control Board has you covered. It seems the PLCB was shocked to discover that after Mayor Nutter told us we might have to spend two weeks indoors staring at our family members in the dark (underwater), we all reached for the bottle. So much so that it made front page news. Liquor sales were up FIVE MILLION DOLLARS MORE than usual.

But back to our question: champagne for earthquakes, I guess because of the whole "yay we lived!" vibe? And red wine for hurricanes, because it doesn't need to be refrigerated and remember when M Nutt said two weeks? I'd go with a California Zinfandel because it's strong so it'll last. Sadly we'll never have any numbers for beer, since our archaic Quaker alcohol-selling system keeps it separate from the hard stuff. But I'm thinking IPA's for hurricanes--they were meant to travel to/from India and not lose their taste. Or maybe a stout, since if you can't cook it could also be a meal?

Drink up Philly!

Day 22: What the Hurricane Taught Me

Bitch.

So....Irene.  I live in one of the floodier parts of town, and although I'm up the hill from the river a ways, I'm at the bottom of a small ridge so all the water runs down from the hill and spills into my street, and manhole geysers are a pretty regular thing here. So who could tell whether my first-floor apartment was going to food or not? It was a toss-up. But I decided to wait and see what would happen, and besides if I did flood I wanted to be there to move my Harry Potter books off the bottom shelf of my bookcase. So I hunkered down by myself in my apartment with my supplies: "non-perishable food items" in the form of wine, frozen pizza, chips and salsa, wine, the biggest jar of reduced-fat Skippy I could find, and wine; also my lantern, batteries, duct tape, and a 1000-page book with dragons in it. Oddly, the duct tape was the thing that reassured me most of all. I could duct tape the cracks in the door frame and then the water wouldn't get in? Yes, I did this, laugh at me.

You know what sucks about being all alone during a hurricane?

Ev. Er. Y. THING.

Day 17: I Want to Be a Circus Freak

Day 17 of The 30-Day Yoga Challenge

Want.

"Here's one for all you circus freaks!" 

 ...was the joke that preceded a pretty pretzelly move that I didn't really get that far into BUT MAN there was this guy who nailed it. And then even the reverse, where you put your hand under the opposite way. Don't even try to figure out what I'm saying, even I don't know what-all was going on and I was there. But there were limbs doing things I've never seen limbs do in Real Life. I was supposed to be working on my own remedial version, but all I wanted to do was stare.

Actually, what I really wanted to do was say, "damn you really are a circus freak!" But can you believe some people wouldn't think that was a compliment?

Day 11: How To Pick Up Hot (as in attractive) Girls Who Do Yoga

Day 11 of The 30-Day Yoga Challenge

OHM here often?

1. Go to a yoga class.

Day 10: Chanting Is All The (Uncontrollable) Rage

could you shut it? i'm working out here

In the course of this little experiment, I've started to read some yoga life articles, just to see what other people are talking about and to give me some new things to think about (and write about!) besides, "down dog again...also very sweaty today." And apparently there's a horde of people out there on the Internet who are all, "argh enough with the all the damn chanting already aaarrrrggghhhh!!!!!"

Really, this is a thing?

I Don't Come Down To Where You Work And Knock The Johnson Out Of Your Mouth

But maybe I should. Seriously! One of you is even doing it wrong, all of you stop it.  Also, chocolate ice cream, Rick Santorum? Isn't your CIA bodyguard supposed to jump in front of you before this happens, or is this some kind of subversive signal to a whole 'nother kind of Base?

PS now that we've got photographic evidence that the only thing that's bipartisan is the eating of phallic foodstuffs, can we please stop talking about how it's sexist?

Day 9: Forgiveness Blows

If you can't forgive yourself, you can't forgive others. Which is probably why after a truly deep, cleansing, powerfully challenging practice (With tears! Yes, more tears--hip openers are Pandora's Box?-- awesome) I was the girl screaming out her car window that "you have a stop sign you jagwad!!"

And Saturday I was all Compassion, etc.  Dang.

What's the Sanskrit for "may all beings be happy and free and also obey traffic laws?"


Further misadventures at the 30 Day Yoga Challenge page.

Day 7: The One Where There Was Disco!

Hadji had me at "my San Fransisco yogi friends call this The Jane Fonda."  But then everything had jazz hands and I was so happy I could Just Die. "This flow is gonna be like a dance, okay? And also do it like you're an animal!" And did I mention he has the greatest taste in yoga music ever:

Day 5: A Tyranny of Handstands

Day 5 of The 30-Day Yoga Challenge

My arms don't straighten. The left WAY more so than the right. I know you're thinking to yourself, yeah, I'll bet they actually do and she just has them twisted around or something. But indeed they do not! I've never had an injury that I can recall, and I do remember getting all kinds of x-rays and the doctor finally concluding something like "golly that's odd." It just decided to grow crooked. Thank you to whichever ancestor gave me THAT latent gene. In the course of living life, this is not a problem.  Most people don't even know it, because you can't really tell unless I'm doing cheerleading moves (and BOY did my coaches have a grand time with me--fantastic jumps, arms for shit).

In yoga, it's pretty much everything.  It makes my down dog go a little itsy tiny bit to the right side. It means my right shoulder usually hits the ground first at the bottom of my pushup. It means that both halves of my body are so uneven that my ability to do the same pose on both sides can vary from Killed It to Almost Got Killed. And it has created for me an arch-nemesis: Handstand.