I Love It When A Plan Comes Together...

Rumination: The Pits

...but with all apologies to the A-Team, I love it even more when unexpected paths put you onto awesome things that you SHOULD have known existed but that had somehow eluded you.

Such is the case with The Rumpus, which I just stumbled upon during a passage search for work. A hyperliterate blog devoted to music, comics, poetry, literature, and culture, it has both a monthly book and a poetry club in which each month, an advance copy of a given book arrives on your doorstep PRE-PUBLICATION, and you participate not only in an online discussion of the book with other enthusiasts, but in an online discussion with the author--how many opportunities do you get to talk to an author about their work? In my case, not many--especially not fiction authors.

The comic I attached above is from a series called Comiques--one of many awesome comics featured on the site (they had me at Tony Millionaire, but my ardor intensified at the sight of all the artists I'd never heard of, like Anne Emond). This one resonated with me simply because this is a phenomenon that I have experienced many, many times--obsessive rumination over a perceived gaffe, no matter how trivial, could potentially enmesh me for a whole day, sometimes even more. I don't think I understood that not everybody has experienced obsessive rumination--what is often referred as being "trapped in your own head"--that it's not a universal state. Some people have the gift of "getting over it," of letting things go.

And I don't think I even realized, until reading this comic, how long it's been since I've obsessively ruminated over anything. I've felt bad or silly about things, but I haven't been paralyzed by them, and that--well, that is something to be incredibly thankful for.

In Honor of Groundhog Day...

Spring-Seeking Mini-Playlist

At least I can pretend it's springtime in my mind:

1. "Meditation Song #2," Cloud Control

A great song to play when you start the car to go anywhere. Makes you feel like the windows are down and you're going somewhere awesome, even when they aren't, and you aren't.

2. "Time to Run," Lord Huron

Bad guys with hearts of gold, on the lam with nothing left to lose. Sounds like freedom! And like springtime.

3. "Shuggie," Foxygen

This song sounds like an early thaw. Not like Walt Disney after a premature thaw, or like your freezer during a power outage, but like playing beach volleyball in late March when the air feels like no temperature at all.

4. "Global Concepts," Robert DeLong

A shameless, self-aware pop song that makes me fucking dance, d-d-d-d-d-dance.

5. "Coming in from the Cold" (Bob Marley)

One of my all-time favorite Marley songs, and like a robin, an unmistakable harbinger of spring's impending arrival.

 6. "Come to the Sunshine" (Van Dyke Parks)

He was like Ariel Pink, before there was an Ariel Pink. Oh, and also, so much way awesomer than Ariel Pink. Yet another thing that makes me wish I'd been in Los Angeles in the 60's.

Yoga Teacher Training Journal: February 5

Come on winter, end already! It's time for some fresh yummy stuff.

Look Around, Leaves Are Brown, There's a Patch of Snow on the Ground...

Why is it so hard to get motivated to be healthy in the winter time?

One of the cool things about practicing at the Plainsboro studio is that I get to drive by Whole Foods on the way home. And I'm sorry, but I LOVE WHOLE FOODS.

I know it's not cool to say that. It's shamelessly bourgeois, vaguely hypocritical, and appallingly expensive--as anyone who has walked out with a $75 bag of groceries (containing no more than five items) can attest.

But when the weather outside is frightful, and the landscape and the sky blend into each other indistinguishably, both the color of dingy gym socks, Whole Foods provides an oasis of abundance and vitality and when I walk in there, I can pretend for just a moment that it's spring. Colorful, beautiful fruits and vegetables as far as the eye can see... Fine meats and cheeses, actual butchers and fishmongers... A salad bar brimming with bright raw veggies, heaps of garlicky kale, tabouleh and quinoa and hummus and grape leaves... Soups and soups and soups and soups... I could go on and on. My politics jump ship in the face of a simple need to passively absorb what I can only call "brightness."

For whatever reason, I hit that winter moment today where I decided it was time to really get serious about eating healthy. Cutting out the weeknight booze, rethinking how I eat when and where, and why. I've added "dropping ten pounds" (or a more experiential version thereof) to the Universe List, but really, weight loss isn't the point so much as feeling good--healthy, balanced, vigorous, abundant.

I have been treating my body well with the hot yoga, but I acknowledge that I do not treat my body as a temple in other ways. I'm ready to experiment with health--Lord knows, I've already experimented with just about everything else. Many excuses to go to Whole Foods. And an opportunity to explore my yoga practice more deeply, in a deeper commitment to health.

Yoga Teacher Training Journal: February 1

Some like it hot... and some like it even HOTTER.

Hot Yoga Mystery #16: The Strange Case of Dandayamana Bibhaktapada Janushirasana

Gentlefolk of the hot yoga community, I present to you a conundrum.

Shallow inhales, deeper exhales. Yeah, yeah.

If someone were to ask me what my favorite pose has traditionally been--or, rather, what is one pose that ranks consistently among my favorites--I'd have no trouble selecting this elegant bit of contortion ------------------>

However, if this same person were to ask me, moments later, which pose I most consistently sit out, I'd have to confess that it is this cruel, heartless mistress ------------>

Huh? That doesn't even make any sense. How can that be?

She is among my favorites because she is good for my thyroid. She is good for my pituitary gland. To me, she seems analogous to Ardha Khurmasana, only standing--which admittedly makes things trickier.

She is also supposed to bring my heart rate down. The jury is still out on that one.

I often find myself crumpling out of the first set, however, because there is sweat in my eyes and running up my nose and I am struggling to breathe--try as I might to take the suggested "shallow inhales, deeper exhales," my body refuses to register this purported influx of oxygen. As I choke my throat, the discomfort is only compounded.

Am I doing something wrong?

Maybe this pose is difficult primarily because it comes right after Trikanasana, which I cannot pretend to love as much, despite or perhaps because of the fact that it is the "master pose" or "climax pose" of the Standing Series. So why not just sit out a set of Trikanasana?

Because I have got cajones, hombre. No one with big ole brass cajones like I got is gonna sit out a set of Trikanasana--what is this, cotillion? A quilting bee?

No, man, the quilting bee comes later. Thirty seconds later. In Dandayamana Bibhaktapada Janushirasana. Cuz I'm tuff like that. Tuff, and completely ridiculous.