mas88's Xanga

Yogamania

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 21:24:00 GMT

What am I doing yoga to these days? This is my most recent yoga playlist. I have adapted a workout from a Baron Baptiste podcast. It feels so ridiculously affected to say that my home practice is adapted from a Baptiste podcast, but there you have it. The fact of the matter is, I am relatively thrifty, but nonetheless, highly motivated to improve my yoga practice. Podcasts = free. I have adapted my home practice to suit my flexibility and my needs, and it varies on a daily/weekly basis.

Playlist follows below:

1) I'm Not in Love -- 10cc
2) Blue Motel Room -- Joni Mitchell
3) The Jungle Line -- Herbie Hancock/Leonard Cohen (Joni Mitchell)
4) Silver Stallion -- Cat Power
5) Hearts and Bones -- Paul Simon
6) Jesus, Etc. -- Wilco
7) If You Want to Sing Out -- Cat Stevens
8) Orange Sky -- Alexi Murdoch
9) Something So Right -- Paul Simon
10) Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring (12 string guitar) -- Leo Kottke
11) Kashi Vishwanath Gange -- Krishna Das
12) Friar Park -- Ravi Shenkar
13) Same Mistake -- James Blunt

Namaste.

The Movies

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 02:56:17 GMT

How is it Thursday already?

How is it almost August already?

I am trying to make a list of all the things I have done this summer. They're weird. I think they're totally normal, but today I was telling a friend that I hadn't seen a movie in the theatre in roughly a decade, and she looked at me like I had horns. I live in a bubble.

I haven't seen a movie in about ten years, but I have a season subscription to the NY Metropolitan Opera. I'm not a snob, I swear, I just don't like most major motion pictures. I like opera. I like the tragedies, and I like the Met staging, because they always have horses, and the horses inevitably shit on stage.

My bubble-world burst, though, when we were driving back from North Carolina, and I couldn't understand (literally, could not comprehend) why everyone was driving an SUV. Didn't they know that we have an energy crisis, and a credit crisis, and a mortgage crisis? Were they paying for gas with their credit cards?? In short, WTF???

Also, we stopped to pee in a McDonald's. Every friggin' McDonald's along the entire Eastern Shore route was PACKED. Didn't all those SUV driving Americans know that there is a diabesity crisis too??

I was horrified.

Me. Just over 100lbs dripping wet, with an all-organic kitchen. Vinyasa yoga practicing, fuel-efficient luxury sedan driving me. It's like I had no idea people actually lived any other way. I mean that innocently, not judgmentally. I felt sort of foolish, realizing what was happening outside of my happy little yuppie bubble.

I am slowly coming to realize that not everyone's life is an exercise in existential absurdism. People go to movies. And eat McDonald's. And drive SUVs. God, that sounds so weird to me to do. Really, really, weird. I've never eaten an extra-value meal in my life. I can't imagine eating--actually consuming--a fast-food hamburger. Unless I were really super drunk, or it were In-N-Out.

Someone asked me, if I don't go to movies, what I do on a date with my husband. Andrew and I don't really go on dates. We go out to dinner, I suppose. I guess that counts, when we go out. We have people over from time to time. We go to our friends' houses. My ideal day or date would be exploring some new spot--in the city, out of town, wherever--maybe a museum, or a new beach, or a lake, or kayaking on a new river, then a great local dinner, and a dessert out. Then a long walk, or a nice drive if the weather is nice. If it's cold, then maybe watch reruns of silly television before bed.

I am an activity person. I hate sitting. Going to the movies is what's wrong with America, in my mind. Video games, computer games--ugh. Get up and do something! At the very least, rent a movie so you can sit close to someone and interact while you're watching.

Note to Self...

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 21:48:26 GMT

Just because YOU are pretending not to have rheumatoid arthritis...

Does not mean it is pretending not to have YOU.

Ugh.

Headcase

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 20:12:58 GMT

I was recently proclaiming the virtues of this once-a-day migraine medicine I take. I used to have the kind of migraines that had me begging Christ for mercy; that had me writhing on the cool tile of the kitchen floor, searching for some kind of relief. In January of 2006, I had finally had enough, and I saw a neurologist, who agreed that this once a day medicine was in order.

It has several approved uses, among them, treating epileptics, some heart-attack victims, and certain obsessive compulsives, and its side effects are many. But it has changed my life. I am no longer crippled by migraines that would leave me DEAF. (Literally. I would get sound-interruption migraines).

The side effects, though, are wacky. At first, I could not taste carbonation in soda. Everything tasted flat. Then, it completely altered the taste of a lot of foods and beverages. Now, it has forever changed MY tastes. I cannot get enough of spicy food. The hotter the better. I once found myself in Chinatown, consuming an entire platter of fried jalapeno peppers before I even realized they WERE jalapenos because they just tasted sweet and delicious. Also, I hated coconut my entire life, and since going on this medication, I simply cannot get enough coconut. I found myself in a Pinkberry the other day, ordering up a green tea yogurt with coconut on it, wondering what the hell I was doing.

That's the other thing. This stuff makes me incredibly forgetful. I forget words, phrases. I used to be so on top of birthdays, anniversaries, etc. I forget them all the time now, if they're not written down, or I don't have alerts set up. I have to speak slowly and make lists because I can't remember ANYTHING. I've created work-arounds over the years, but it's still annoying.

All of this said, I haven't had a migraine in forever. The stuff is miraculous.

Speaking of miracles, I have my Mac back. Well, a Mac back. My Mac was defective. They backed it up and replaced it, after I spent an hour crying at the Genius Bar on Thursday. I spent the week without internet at home, and with spotty blackberry access. (I am having that replaced--again!--too!!). By Saturday, I was beside myself.

But, despite all the craziness and stress and technology woes of the last few months, and of all the things I do and do not have after all of this...I do NOT have a migraine. And that, gentle readers, is really the greatest miracle of all.

Summoning Spell

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 23:47:17 GMT

I am working from my old, rickety computer, since my Macbook is in the shop. An ill-fated Microsoft Office auto-update "patch" sent the damn thing into a tail-spin. The cursor was spinning across the screen and my computer started turning itself on and off. I finally got my old Dell to work this morning. Ugh. I haven't been able to respond to emails at length because my blackberry is on its last leg, and I am incredibly frustrated.

I am still waiting for the Apple Store to call me and tell me what is wrong with my Mac. It has been two days.

Anyway, last night I had dinner in Little Italy with CJ. We were walking to the restaurant and I remarked, "I never come here. The last time I was here, it was with my friend Zed. He usually comes every summer and I haven't heard from him this summer. I should call him."

We had our meal, and chatted, and that was that. But I continued to think of Z.

This morning, my doorman rang and said that there was a Zed to see me. I didn't think much of it. We live in apartment "E" on our floor. We get visitor calls for apartment "D" and "B" an sometimes "C" all the time. I figured it was a mistake. Zed lives in Los Angeles.

About two minutes later, the doorbell rang, unmistakably, four times, and I knew it was him.

I opened the door and said, "I feel like I somehow summoned you because I was talking about you last night."

He said, "I didn't want to call because I wanted to surprise you. I decided to stop by on the off-chance you were home."

It was the best surprise a girl could have asked for. Or not asked for, as was the case.

Little Boys

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 21:40:36 GMT

I have recently decided that little boys clothes are superior to all other forms of clothing. I buy them (for me to wear, of course) whenever practical/possible. It's simply that they are better made than women's clothing. When I buy dress shirts from Brooks Brothers little boys collection, the buttons are on the side of the placket that permits my dry cleaner to charge me the MEN's rate for laundry instead of the $3.50/shirt women's rate.

I have had...a day. Nothing has gone right today. Nothing.

I did, however, manage to make it to pilates, buy a new rug for the bedroom, make my 5pm meeting, get on my 6pm conference call, and get my scallops in the oven by 8:30. So I hit my markers for the day. But the intangibles just don't seem to be going right for me lately.

I could very much use some good thoughts.

Top Dog

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 01:55:02 GMT

I was doing yoga on the bedroom floor when Julius trotted in, his hair flopping in his eyes with each trot. I paused the podcast and reached up on the nightstand for a ponytail holder. (I keep them clipped in a carabiner on my nightstand. If you didn't know my middle name was "Ann," you might think, nay, be convinced, it was "Anal"). I tied his hair into a topknot, and sent him on his merry way.

A few moments later, Andrew came into the bedroom, protesting the dog's hair-do. "What is this?" he demanded.

"A topknot."

"I know," he said, "But come on. A PINK hairtie? The dog is gender confused as it is. At least give him a manly navy blue one."

"I only have pink," I said.

Julius, however, seemed no worse for the wear.

(The joys of owning little yuppie dogs are endless.)

(I have to put a disclaimer in here and let you know that my interest in the dogs is primarily in walking, feeding, training. Andrew is the one who hangs their little cashmere sweaters on baby hangers and arranges them in color coordinated order in the closet).

We were sitting on the sofa later, after I finished my flying crow kickback to chaduranga which no doubt pissed off our downstairs neighbors, and I turned to Andrew and said, "God forbid anything ever happens to me, because I feel like you would turn into the creepy guy who talks about his dogs like they're his children at office lunches and reads them bedtime stories at night."

He got a funny look on his face, indicating that that ship had long since sailed.

He is 100% overbearing New York dog owner. There were some who said I'd never make a dog-lover out of Andrew, but one of the great things about Andrew is that when he commits to something, he commits all the way.

Now I have to decide whether I should have him committed...

Flotsam and Jetsam

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 14:12:36 GMT

I am super skeeved by the concept of the "jacuzzi birth."

Admittedly, I spend most of my days working from home now, so I sometimes have the television on mute when it is "prime-time" for these baby-and-birthing shows. And, admittedly, I don't bathe in my own bathtub because baths conjure up the image of lounging in a lukewarm puddle of one's own filth, so you can only imagine how I feel about the idea of climbing into a hot-tub full of one's uterine flotsam and jetsam.

And it's not even the concept of laboring in a bucket of one's OWN internal slough that bothers me so much, it's the idea that no matter how many times one of those birthing jacuzzis is scrubbed, it's never going to get all that clean. There's ALWAYS going to be some kind of afterbirth stuck to the side of the tub somewhere. There's always going to be some lazy orderly or hospital tech who just didn't feel like cleaning that day or who was busy text messaging when he should have been scraping the ick off the sides of the intake valve of the tub-jets.

*Shudder*

I am also skeeved by the pads they put on everything, because they are identical to Wee Wee Pads that I have used to housetrain my dogs.

I am becoming increasingly aware of the fact that I am not a candidate to bear children. I love kids, though.

Maybe I should adopt.

But speaking of bath tubs, it smells like Maisy just reminded me why I don't use mine for anything other than housetraining my dogs...

Family Gothic

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 19:22:45 GMT

I've realized it's a bad sign when a writer prefaces something with "I really have nothing to say."

So I decided that I should show my life as it really is -- taking out the element of the absurd that I always put in. Of course, photos, as words, are subject to interpretation, but I hope these are taken with the silly and sweet sentiment with which they are being shown.

I am proud of who I am -- the real me -- stripped of pretense, and big words, and even sans silly props (though you will see I have, in at least one of the photos, a blackberry and a book).

Ferocious in kayaking gloves. (My brother demanded to see this photo at least a dozen times, exclaiming "Oh my GOD, my arms are huge!)

We were way awesomer until he hit the pier.

Considering that everyone else had several inches of height over me, I had no control over when and how I would be picked up and carted off.

You can see how thrilled about that I was.

And yes, the ever-present blackberry. I am super, super important. Also, I was on like level 24 and on my way to achieving the all-time high score on Brickbreaker.

This is a posed photo of my brother and me looking "bad-ass" while we waited to be called for dinner at a restaurant. Andrew just happened to get in the background, biting his lips. He looks like a mummy in sunglasses, I think, which is part of what makes the picture so bad-ass. I think I'm going to frame this one. It's just so tough. It's like, iron fist in velvet glove wielded by a creepy ol' mummy in sunglasses.

Also, you can't see it in this photo, but there was this awesome country couple sitting somewhere near us, who later got seated right near us at dinner. They were downing Jack-and-Cokes like they were going out of style. At some point during their meal, they left their brood of noisy children and got up all giggly-like from the table, then disappeared for a suspiciously long time. They returned, flushed and way more bombed than they had left the table, some 20 minutes later.

I will permit you all to draw your own conclusions about their disappearance.

Yuck.

(I realize now that my life is actually absurd.)

Equinox

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 12:18:16 GMT

I ran seven miles yesterday after not having run in a while. I feel like I got hit by a damn freight train. I think there is this phenomenon where, when one hasn't run in a while, it feels so super good, that one feels like over-extending one's self well beyond the limits of one's reasonable or unreasonable capacity.

Today, I have to go re-up my gym membership, but the thought of walking into an athletic club is so super unappealing to me, I am still in my comfy clothes, working from the comfort of my sofa.

Equinox might have to wait.