Pincha!

Went to an amazing yoga workshop yesterday, run by Doug Keller. He's an incredible instructor - patient, clear, accepting, and funny. His focus for this workshop was on healing the upper body. A loud Ding! Ding! Ding! for Kalesy who is currently known as WristShoulderInjuryGirl.

He explained the anatomics and kinesiology of alignment and why we get pain when/where we do and how we go about healing that. And, although it didn't seem like we had been doing a lot of asana, by the time the day was winding down, I was feeling pretty fatigued.

Which is why I was surprised (shocked?) and absolutely friggin thrilled when I found myself in a full Pincha Mayurasana in the middle of the room.

Pincha has long evaded me. I just have never had the strength in my shoulders and back to go into the full expression and hold it. At least not when I don't have the wall behind me as support. But yesterday, whoosh! up I went. It was amazing.

Of course, the thing with Anusara yoga - or most yoga traditions for that matter - is that you're not supposed to get hung up on achieving the pose. It's supposed to be about finding the openning in your body, playing the edges to find the spaces that allow your inner radiance to shine through. But, let's be honest, when you finally get a pose (and I say get, not master, because who knows if I'll be able to do Pincha again tomorrow...) you feel great. I'm the King of the World!

Until, of course, you're practicing it Just One Last Time and the fatigue that's been threatening to overtake you finally does. And you fall. And you eat floor.

Here's to fat lipped-yoginis everywhere!

Turn the Lights Down, the Lights Are Too Strong

Join in with EarthHour 2008 - a global initiative to reduce global warming and light pollution.

For one hour - 8 p.m. local time on March 29 - everyone is urged to turn their lights off. What will this accomplish you ask? Look at last year's results from Sydney's Earth Hour:

On 31 March 2007, 2.2 million people and 2100 Sydney businesses turned off their lights for one hour - Earth Hour. If the greenhouse reduction achieved in the Sydney CBD during Earth Hour was sustained for a year, it would be equivalent to taking 48,616 cars off the road for a year.

The website has lots of great resources for other ways you can contribute - or not contribute as the case may be. I've been posting this info lots of other places, hoping we all can do our part. Pitch in. Eight at night on a Saturday is a good time for it to go dark, anyway, right? (nudge nudge wink wink know what I mean know what I mean?)

PS -- Turn the Lights Out - FABULOUS song by A-ha.

I Love You Light

A long while back, I heard a folk concert broadcast on NPR. A song by the artist David Crossland stuck in my mind. Titled Minots Light, it tells the tale of one keeper of the Minot's Ledge Lighthouse who used the light to broadcast the words "I Love You" to his wife.

Last week I finally broke down and bought the CD. (This is how I make purchases, I have to think about them for about six months.) The song is just as beautiful as I remembered it. Made for perfect background music as I walked along Pebble Cove Beach on a sunny Easter Sunday.

If you get a chance, pick up some of David's songs or albums -- he's releasing a live CD soon. He's got a beautiful voice and I'm a big fan of supporting independent musicians.

Pretty Bloggy

I occasionally lurk over at a fellow Gloucester blog: Good Morning Gloucester. Captain Joe takes lots of interesting and inspiring pictures. And lots of pictures of food, which is always a good thing.

A day or two ago, he uploaded some of Good Harbor Beach in early morning. Since it's snowy, rainy, and cold out today, I will treat you with one of his pictures of better days.


I live 1.2 miles from this spot. Have I mentioned lately how much I love my new home?

More from the Losers' Club Files

Losers Club Goes to Vegetarian Potluck.

Awhile back, I joined the Northshore Vegetarian Meetup group. I figured it would be a nice way to meet people who were into vegetarian food and maybe some casual socializing.

This weekend we were supposed to have a St. Patrick's Day potluck. I was concerned over what to make. Many people in this group, it seems, are raw foodists. Vegan, militant raw foodists. Me? Not so much. Life without pasta and mozzarella? For that matter, without bagels and butter? Puhleeze. But after reassurances from the group founder that cooked food was OK, I decided to make my infamous stuffed peppers.

Now, what was I thinking? I could have easily made anything, why did I decide to make an ingredient heavy, prep heavy dish? Oy vey. My stuffed peppers require at least three canned items, two boxed items, much vegetable cutting, assorted sauteeing, and copious mixing. And that's all pre-baking and "plating."

Saturday a.m. I journeyed the hour down to the nearest Whole Foods. If I was going to force these people to eat cooked food, the least I could do was make it organic. The price tag? $88. I spent all of Saturday night cooking like a madwoman. I made three trays of stuffed peppers. They looked and smelled gorgeous.




Alas, at noon, I drove the 35 minutes over potholed terrain to the house, only to find it dark and empty. The potluck had been cancelled -- the victim of flu and family emergencies. I hadn't checked my email; I hadn't been alerted.

Now I'm a hundred bucks poorer and I have three trays of stuffed peppers to dispose of. Here's hoping they freeze well.

Thou Shalt Not

Warning - gonna go deep for a moment. Avert your eyes if necessary.

So, yesterday, Pappa Razzi decreed that there were new sins. Among these are no-brainers such as "polluting the environment" but also questionable categories such as "genetic modification." But, as I was learning about our new list of No-Nos by the Vatican, I wondered about that phrase in general: No-No. By it's very essence, it negates.

Being a recovering Catholic, the young Me would never have questioned this. Don't do this, don't do that -- it was all commonplace. Lying = bad = don't do it.

But, in contrast, why not live life in an affirmative?

The older Me questions worldviews that cut life up into black and white and tell people what not to do. In other words, instead of telling us not to pollute, why not tell us to respect the Earth? It may be semantics, but semantics are sometimes powerful things.

I look at it this way. There's lots of people that say "I don't/won't eat: meat, sugar, cooked food, carbs, dairy..." And so if you (accidentally, natch) consume one of these things, you are breaking a rule. You are bad. (And, of course, if you live by Church tenets, then you have to go to Confession and be absolved of all your sins by an outside force, a Father).

BUT ... if you say, "I eat healthy," well, that can mean a lot of things. For me, that means not consuming meat and trying my best to rely on local and/or organic and/or less processed foods. But if I happen to really want to eat that box of Caramel Delights I bought from the Girl Scouts, well.... I just might. Because sometimes sugar and chocolate and coconut and caramel formed together in a chewycrunchy combination of sweetrichness feels healthy for me.

I'm trying to live my life less and less in a state of negative absolutes and more and more in a state of positive acceptance. That doesn't mean that I'm allowing myself to do everything. (For example, still choosing not to drink on schoolnights.) I'm just trying to realize that maybe life isn't about rules, so much as about attitude. Approach it with a sense of gratitude and acceptance and life itself becomes much more fulfilling.

I think. I hope. We'll see.

Profiting from Loss

I had a very productive therapy session today. Have I mentioned I love my therapist?

One of the things we talked about is mutuality - feeling like you are getting as equally as you are giving. I don't have a good track record with this.

In many of my past relationships (through my own fault, admittedly) I have been the "giver." Sometimes I have felt (emotionally or otherwise) repaid for this. More often, not.

The thing is, you don't mind giving when you're in love with the person. Or even in like.

But the minute it ends, you REALLY mind. Unfortunately, by then, it's too late to do anything constructive about it.

Enter my brilliant marketing plan: The Ex Bill.

Wouldn't it be great if all spurned lovers could easily create an itemized bill for all costs and "services rendered" and send them to their ex's? You know, line items for things like "Pain and Suffering for putting up with you after the Patriots lost" or "Gas money for shuttling your sorry ass around." Or even "Water used while sneaking a load of laundry into my washing machine."

All bills could be personalized and either sent or burnt, whichever your spiritual outlook on life recommends.

I think I would make a fortune. What do you think?

Quoi?

I got tickets to go see EDDIE!

Can you say Crazed Fan?



PS - This is why Eddie is so brilliant...

Give Me Lotsa Hair

I just called my stylist down in Harvard Square and since she's going on vacation, her Saturday appointments are booked up from now till doomsday. I managed to get a 9:45 on April 5. That's a month from now. And it's at 9:45 - on a Saturday!!!!!!

I'm not sure I can stay sane enough with this ever-growing mop to last that long. But I've been faithful to her for so long, I'm afraid what someone else might do to my head.....

Maybe I'll look to this for some inspiration.



(It kinda looks like Rachel. Who had makeup AND hairspray on MSNBC last night!)

The Daughter My Mother Never Had

As we all know, Kalesy's mom is a bit of a Church freak. God on speed-dial and all that. In addition to her roles as Eucharistic Minister, Altar Girl (Woman?), CCD teacher, Christmas Pageant Organizer, Head of the Welcoming Committee, and Nursing Home Minister, she also occasionally serves as a sponsor for kids getting their first communion and confirmation.

One of these kids is Lindsey.

My mother adores Lindsey. Lindsey adores my mother. In my (now abandoned) bedroom at "home," pictures of Lindsey adorn the dresser and desk. Lindsey in her first communion dress, Lindsey in her school picture, Lindsey and my mom in matching dresses at her confirmation. Now why on earth would this give me a complex?

Yesterday, Mom went in for cataract surgery. If I was told once I was told a hundred times: this was no big deal, in and out, standard procedure, do not worry. So I didn't.

When my mom recovered enough, she gave me a call. She was feeling okay, she said. A little tired. But I should see the bouquet of flowers Lindsey sent her, with a beautiful little Get Well Soon note...

I suck.

Karmic Retribution and a Lack of Sleep

I've been doing a bad thing lately. Actually, by not doing something, I've been bad. I haven't been writing in my journal. I'm not sure why I've been so bad about it - I know that journaling helps me clarify my thoughts and exorcise my demons. And lately I've had a lot on my mind, so I should be keeping it up. But I haven't been.

Which is probably why I slept about a grand total of eight minutes last night.

Work is stressful, in a weird sort of boring way. I'm worried about why I'm not being worked hard enough. Is it just that my account doesn't have much going on right now? Or is my boss trying to passive-aggressively communicate something? The work I have done has been well-received, so I am truly at a loss to figure it all out....

And then, of course, there's the personal life. Mr. Zips came up to "visit" yesterday. Still not exactly sure why - the pretext was to drop off some framed pictures he had done. Maybe that was all there was to it, maybe not. But the net net was a very awkward, very difficult afternoon. And he didn't even offer to pick up the tab for lunch.

But, despite a well-meaning coworkers certainty that if I saw Mr. Zips I would have bad karmic reactions - I had a great karmic reaction.

After Mr. Zips left, I decided I didn't want to sit at home and wallow. So I went out for a walk and then down to the local Mexican restaurant (site of the infamous "swinger" proposition). Well, this time, I ran into a group of people who are 1) into sustainability and the organic movement locally and 2) apparently have a cute, intelligent, single friend "who would just love me." Business cards were exchanged, plans were tentatively set. So, even if it doesn't work out at all, at least now I know people in town. Real, bonafide friendly types.

So, I had all these intense, conflicting things going on (and that's not even touching on the curfuffle's of close friends or my mother's pending cataract surgery) and instead of writing I just watched a John Malkovich movie and went to bed. And woke up. And woke up. And woke up.

Tonight, I'm gonna write in my journal like a MoFo and then sleep like a baby.