Butt Yoga - A Christmas Tale

Bikram yoga is the new antidote to everything. Go sweat it out for 90 minutes at a time in tree pose and you'll never get cancer, goiters or canker sores.

The room is 105 degrees at all times. I don't know what's magical about this temperature, but it causes tiny rivers of perspiration to follow little Oregon Trails down one's face, arms, back, legs and other places one shouldn't mention. Except I have to because the whole room stinks like unmentionables. Mainly because the men wear shorts like these: And the room is carpeted. CARPETED!

I'm not a huge exercise person anyway. I wouldn't be going to this place at all if I
a) didn't live 4 blocks away
b) didn't have such an affinity for holiday foods in large quantities
c) didn't consider yoga to be one of those "sports" you can half-ass your way through and still see results
d) didn't have a friend already enrolled and applying prohibition era mobster-like pressure

But being a known fainter, I was still scared. What if I'm bending back looking at the wall and - boom - I go down like an anvil on an accident-prone coyote? It's hard to get back up from that without looking not awesome. Like running for a bus. This was a valid concern. However I made it through the first class (while watching old hats occasionally crouch in the fetal position or run for the door with a green face). I even made it through the second. And then the third. And I'll tell you what, if you can get through it (and if you've ever spent a summer in Louisiana, you can get through it) - it makes eating two molasses cookies a day for breakfast all the sweeter.

However - it should come as no surprise that I remain a cynical yoga-ist. I refuse to do the stupid audible breathing and I refuse to say "namaste" at the end of class. There's maybe one brown body on average in that whole room and it just makes us all sound like paleface assholes. And if they don't like it (they don't) then they can passive aggressively suggest it so (they do).

This didn't have much to do with Christmas at all, did it. Poo.

So what's new with y'all? I joined a book club.

My Spine Is Younger Than Yours

Yesterday afternoon I lay in a hammock for a full hour. I had an ice tea on the ground next to me…blue sky with puffy white clouds floating by…and long green tree branches fanning me like young, strapping, half-nekkid native boys. It was lovely.

At first I stared at the sky and thought about things. All the usual things that one thinks about when one finds the time to think purely selfish thoughts. Eventually all those thoughts narrowed down into one glorious summation. I’m currently very happy. And then I stopped thinking. Which, I think, is kind of like having a stroke.

My weekend was filled with sunshine. Yes, it has finally arrived. I’m in my three month don’t-detest-Oregon phase. I’m also fairly certain this will have an impact on the number of f-bombs used in my writing. I don’t know if this is a good thing or not. Perhaps you can tell me.

Or perhaps you cannot because you’re out in the sunshine yourselves. And that’s ok.

Oh god, I’ve become a hippie. I can already smell the patchouli oozing out of my pores like garlic. Looks like it’s time for a bleach bath tonight. Unclean. UNCLEAN.

Poor George Carlin. I really don’t agree with all this death of late. Something besides age and poor genetics/living has to be causing it. Something even more sinister. Like…bad juju. Somewhere out in the Louisiana swamps there’s a crazy-haired Creole lady who goes by the name of Marie Lapin using her gris gris to make Tim Russert have a heart attack. Stranger things have happened.

Yes they have.

Speaking of conspiracy theories – I woke up this morning with the cat staring at me strangely. I know it’s possible that I was talking in my sleep, or that I’d just inadvertently slapped her or something, but I really don’t think either of those things happened. I think she was just…looking at me. It made me uncomfortable. Like she knows something I don’t know and instead of telling me what it is in some sort of magical way, she’s just going to eat my face off and live in my neck.

Anyway, I’m hoping that doesn’t happen. My company’s having its Christmas party this week and I really don’t want to miss it. It’s a casino night. I might wear shockingly high heels.