From Pennsylvania folks are travelin'

Yoga definitely provides me with blog fodder. Whether or not it's actually interesting is another question, but hey, it's new content.

Last night the crazy yoga teacher made us go around and say our name and an interesting fact about ourselves. I said I was going to Florida today, which is only semi-interesting. Pretty much everyone else in the class talked about either their kids or their pets. I’m sorry, but the fact that you have three kids isn’t really all that interesting. Or that you have a dog. Could no one come up with more interesting things than this? Once you have kids, is it all downhill in terms of interest?

I suppose we were all just taken aback, since intros aren’t normally a part of yoga class. But I want real interesting facts! Random stuff! It would certainly make the people in the class easier to remember. As of now, they all blend together with their kids and their dogs and their cats.

I am going to Florida today: my interesting fact was true. My plane leaves in about five hours, and I have to drive to Baltimore to catch it. Mike and I were IMing about this: what if your plane crashes when someone is following it in real-time on the computer? I guess it just disappears, but it would be much more fun if there was a big skull and crossbones and a sad trombone. Not fun for your relatives and friends, I suppose, but come on. I’d be DEAD and I’d think that was funny.

I thought about this over Thanksgiving when my plane had free wi-fi. What if hijackers took over? What if the plane started crashing? I mean, technically couldn’t I send out a mass email saying “I love you all! Bye!” That would be weird. And what if I were on AIM? Could I chat until I died? What if you were chatting with someone and they died in front of their computer?

Gah!

This has turned into quite the morbid little blog post. I’ll stop here. Have a good Christmas, and no matter what happens, I’ll catch you on the flip side.

Yoga wedding birthdays

I take yoga a few times a week, and I like it, even though one of my teachers bugs me just a little bit. She reads “inspirational” quotes that are cheesy and a bit clichéd and her voice has weird inflections, like she doesn’t quite understand what she’s saying.

Anyway, if you’ve ever done yoga you know that there is usually eastern-ish new age music playing in the background as you breathe and move through your poses. But last night my teacher threw on the old school stuff – and I really do mean old school. We were doing our poses to Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring and Pachebel’s Canon in D, which do nothing but make me feel that I’m at a wedding, watching bridesmaids come slowly down the aisle. (And a very specific wedding – it’s outdoors, and there’s a string quartet or harp playing – a movie kind of wedding.) Even if you don’t recognize the names of these songs, if you listen to them, I can pretty much guarantee you’ll think “wedding!”*

So I wonder what Bach or Pachebel would thing if they saw us doing these ancient Eastern poses to their very Western Civ. type music. I kind of like the juxtaposition, but somehow it doesn’t feel quite right.

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And even though summer is only officially over as of 9/21, things have definitely changed around here. There’s always something that happens at the end of August that makes everything feel different. 8 PM suddenly feels like the middle of the night instead of the end of the evening. You can almost feel things roll over.

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This is probably my last post until my birthday! The last post while I’m 30. It’s been a good year, a relaxing year in a lot of ways. I’ve stopped thinking about how old I am, and about expectations. There are no expectations for 30-somethings, really. Everyone just figures out their own life as they go along.

Last year the economy collapsed right before my birthday—the week OF my birthday, as a matter of fact. This year things are much quieter - and that's good. Worldwide economic destruction is NOT the kind of birthday excitement I'm looking for. This year I'm going to a wedding on my birthday, which is much more palatable: drinks and dancing, whoo-hoo!

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*And even though they’re so overused, I can’t help but love them anyway. I think I’d use them in my own wedding—they're just really beautiful pieces of music. My musicians would probably want to kill themselves though. Canon in D? Seriously. Talk about hacky clichés.

You know what's weird . . .

. . . walking out of your house and seeing twins first thing in the morning. Bah! Seeing double! What’s happening?!

. . . working out on an elliptical at the gym and seeing a shot of an almost identical gym on CNN . . . where a shooter has just killed 3 women.

. . . carrying a tomato around in your purse and a watermelon buckled into the front seat of the car. I feel as though I should write a poem about summer fruits and veggies appearing in random places.

. . . googling your own name and realizing you personally are nowhere on the first three pages. There are a lot of illustrious women out there who share my name, and it’s not even THAT common. (There are also a lot of spam sites.)

. . . knowing your little brother is 28 years old today. If he’s that old, than what am I . . .

Ch-Ch-Changes

I have changed my routine and totally changed my life. I used to get home from work, eat some cereal, and lay in bed for a good part of the evening, watching TV and falling asleep. Finally, around 9 PM, I would drag my lazy self to the gym. Then I would be so hyped up on exercise and my nap that I wouldn't be able to fall asleep until like 1:00 AM. Get up at 6:45 AM and repeat the whole day, fuzzy-headed with lack of sleep, until I would get home and crash into my bed again for a nap--a vicious, vicious cycle.

BUT . . . last week I started making a point to go to the gym directly after work. No lying around--just change into my gym clothes and out the door. And guess what? I get home by 7:30. This is a revelation! I have some time to clean, to start laundry, to take the trash out, to clean the bathroom sink. It's awesome. And I have the whole evening to be home without dreading the gym!

Like I said, revelation! All this is going to change in the next few weeks when I start a job on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. Just a small job, for some extra cash. I'll be typing and proofreading for a few hours each of those evenings, and making money. I really don't have any right now, and I have long-term financial goals. This will be very helpful. And I'll still have Thursday-Monday as free time. But I need to figure out how the gym is going to fit into this new schedule. And before the job is finalized, I have to pass my drug test.

Bits and Pieces

Mel Comes Through (again)

Today one of my co-workers came into the area where I sit with two of my homegirls and asked if any of us could think of a really cheesy friendship song. And of course I had one ready immediately. The homegirls laughed at me, because I was all over it. It was like I’d just been waiting for someone to ask that question. I'm always waiting for stuff like that.

The song? Friends are Friends Forever, of course. Cheesiest song EVAH. You can see Michael W. Smith singing it here. And yet, even though I laugh at its cheesiness, it still reminds me of 8^th grade graduations and last nights at camp and people moving away while I was in middle school. Those first few notes take me back there, and there's a poignant element that even the cheese can't completely erase.

"Patronizing Men" Episode #256
I despise being patronized more than anything in life. Tonight at the gym I was on the elliptical, doing my thing, and this big guy (muscled, I mean) carrying around his gallon of water and energy drink, climbed on the one right next to me. There were others, not next to me, that were available, but that didn’t matter to him. I finished my workout—3 miles, 40 minutes, 500 calories (standard fare for me)--and climbed off. He gestured at me to remove my headphones since he was going to say something.

“Were you seeing your heart rate on here?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I answered. I never really care about that.

“Well, that was actually my heart rate you were seeing, so you if you’re counting your calories you probably want to deduct about 20%.”

I just looked at him. Why would HIS heart rate be showing up on MY elliptical? Unless there was some kind of censor?

He noticed my confusion. “Were you watching your calories?”

“Yes.”

“Well, they were based on my heart rate.”

By this point I was just annoyed. “Yes, but they were about right for me.”

“Did you see your heart rate on there?”

“Yes, but I never pay attention to that. My calories were about the same as they always are.”

“Are you sure?” This killed me. Am I sure? Are you kidding me? I’ve been doing this for over a year. It’s always the same—I know what I’m doing. Why does this guy think he has to advise me? Is this some kind of ill-advised pickup line? Cause the one way to completely turn me off forever is to be a patronizing douche.

“Yep.” I gave him a fake smile and went to the locker room.

Weather Elements
It’s snowing and sleeting and generally being difficult weather-wise. The MINI is actually okay in the snow, I’ve decided, because even if the back end slides around, well, there isn’t really a back end. It’s just like a big block, and that makes it harder to lose control. So I should be good. I managed to get around town today just fine.

Snowed In

After all my complaining about weather hype in the last post, it actually snowed several inches today! And the weather people hadn't really gone forecasting crazy, that I noticed. Maybe they were chagrined after their weekend failure (isn't chagrined a good word?). Despite the lack of weather mania, the milk case at Weis was still pretty much cleaned out at noon today.

I blame December 5. I think in the last six years it's snowed on at least three December 5ths. I'm not sure why I know that, but it comes from my high school attendance secretary days. Snow was always such a Big Deal. I'm glad I don't have to deal with multiple teenagers stopping by to ask "are we getting out early?" for the millionth time. "No. You're not. Go back to class." I wasn't very sympathetic.

So I came home, "shoveled" my sidewalk, put on sweatpants, and spent the rest of the evening being lazy. Because it's impossible to drive anywhere in these treacherous conditions, right? So of course the gym is totally out.

Rock the Casbah

Tonight I went to a belly-dancing class at my gym. It was hard. Especially comparing myself to the instructor, who could shimmy smoothly and roll her torso like nobody's business. All while wearing a little bikini top and low slung clingy pants. (Seriously, if the men knew what was going on in that class, they'd be coming in in droves).

But, in my opinion, the key to good dancing (in addition to a basic sense of rhythm) is the ability to lose your inhibitions and self-consciousness, and just do it. And that applies to all kinds of dancing. Including belly. So I will probably go back, and keep trying, and wear something slightly more appealing than a pair of drawstring athletic pants and a t-shirt.

But it'll be a long time before I'm very good at any of that . . . have you ever tried to roll your core from chest to hips without moving your legs or arms? Wow.