Baby Bunny Face for the Win.

13 Jan

I know I’ve officially emerged from the muck and mire of sickness when it all comes out of my face at the same time.

You know what I’m talking about.  That day after a sinus infection when you blow your nose for five minutes straight, wondering where it’s all coming from and whether blowing harder will mean pulling your brain out through your nostrils. Yesterday was my day.

It started out as a simple, ordinary nose-blowing session and once I realized the depth of the situation, I nonchalantly made my way to the bathroom so that I could complete the disgusting task in peace.   Dave, (King of the Man Purse Tribe) sensing what was about to happen, proceeded to follow me and begged to see the tissue when I was done.   Actually, “followed” is not an accurate term.  He proceeded to chase me. 

There is little in this world I hate more than being chased.  It doesn’t matter if it’s playful and it doesn’t matter if it’s someone I know won’t harm me.   It could be Mr. Snuffleupagus behind me and I would still sprint into the far horizon screaming bloody murder.  There is something about running with something intentionally running after you that scares the living daylights out of me instantly and without fail.  Dave knows this and will often accompany the chase with raised eyebrows and cold, murdering eyes, darting like a fierce mongoose through the jungle of furniture in our apartment.  He chased me through the dining room, around the living room, and past the hall to the bathroom where I found my refuge and begged for release. 

I absolutely cannot stand being interrupted while I’m in the bathroom.  In fact, if there’s one thing I hate more than being chased, it’s probably being interrupted in the bathroom.  It’s the only place in the world that I can be alone without having to answer anyone, listening to my phone beep at me, or being responsible for missing out on the goings-on of the world.  

Showers offer me a rare and golden moment of solitude in life.  

 Dave also knows this about me and sometimes tests me while in the bathroom, shouting out ridiculous questions that I clearly cannot answer in my current state,  like where the remote control is.

The beauty of his method is that he does everything that makes me crazy all at once so that he only has to suffer the repercussions of one incident when he’s actually managed to commit several major crimes.   And I can’t blame him because it really is a brilliant methodology.

Unfortunately, our bathroom door is old and complicated and doesn’t lock and since Dave clearly knew that I wasn’t using the restroom for naked purposes, he barged into my fortress of solitude and waited until I had to bring the tissue down from my nose.  I stood there, unyielding and still wide-eyed from the chase.   Like a frightened baby bunny, I coiled in the corner, heart racing with fear, waiting for him to sink his sharp teeth into my tender neck for the kill.    He relented and exited the bathroom so that I could finish my business in peace.  

I’m pretty sure it was my baby bunny face that did him in.

And so I have regaled you with my nose-blowing adventures.  It is the final chapter in my blogging about my sickness.  Because on this, the 13th day of January in the 2011th year of our Lord, after a high-speed chase and a little bit of my brain pulled through my nostrils, I declare myself officially cured. ♣

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A Luck Dragon Would Be SO COOL.

12 Jan

I have emerged from my sickness cocoon.

Yesterday, for the first time in 4 days, I was restored to my full dual-nostril nose breathing capabilities.   Behold the power;  I shall use this newfound oxygen intake to do large-scale and bewildering things. 

I had the energy to hang out again –  I wanted to be social.

Of course, when I say I wanted to “be social,” it’s like a 13-year old Mormon girl saying she wants to “get freaky.”  

So maybe not social.  Maybe I just thought it would be a really awesome idea to watch  The Neverending Story at the exact same time as one of my friends and to text each other about it while it played.   But I thought there’s no way I’m going to be able to make this sound cool at all. 

I called up my friend Scott in Chicago and sheepishly asked him what he was doing and if he maybe wanted to start The Neverending Story at the exact same time as me and then text back and forth about the experience while it was happening.   ABSOLUTELY he says, but he’s on his way to a theater gig and can’t hang out and maybe tomorrow.

Damn.  There’s absolutely no way I know two people who I can talk into doing this with me right now.

But then I remember I’m a new woman.  I’m an oxygen hogging, dual-nostriled breather and I can do new and amazing things.  So  I call up my friend Karl-with-a-“k” (also in Chicago) and ask him what he’s doing right now and does he want to watch The Neverending Story and text each other about the experience while it’s happening.  He says:

“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea to me.  Let me just get it on the screen here.  I mean I’m not really doing anything except walking around in my apartment.”

That’s why I love Scott. And that’s why I love Karl-with-a-“k”.   Because this morning I bought a Groupon  for drycleaning and felt like I was getting old. 

But then I thought about how at any given time I have two people in the world who think it’s an awesome idea to sit down with me wherever they are, play The Neverending Story at exactly the same time as me and text about the experience as it’s happening.

And hey – as long as that’s true, at least I know I’m not the only one who doesn’t want to grow up. ♣

 

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Excuse Me Sir, Do You Have Any Bangers?

11 Jan

Hey guess what? It’s Lollipop Tuesday! In case you missed the first installment of the Lollipop Tuesday series, you can catch up on the deal here.

So today’s new adventure?  Bangers ‘n’ Mash.  That’s right: Bangers ‘n’ Mash – a classy dish for a classy dame.  With pictures!

Last night, trapped indoors by an incredibly inconvenient bacterial infection monster (let’s call him Gary), I resorted to my two brand spankin’ new cookbooks I got for Christmas.  I handed them over to Dave and told him to pick something ridiculous.  For some reason, he kept picking things that had “Big Beef” in the title.  Like I said… he’s a man’s man.

  After repeating the recipe for “Big Beef Balls” with Something-or-Other and giggling, he finally pointed out the winner: Rachael Ray’s recipe for “Fancypants Bangers ‘n’ Mash” from her “365: No Repeats” book (I couldn’t help myself). It just so happens that yesterday at noon, the teaser was released for the short film I directed this summer, Code Monkey.  Given that it features a song called “Fancypants,” I couldn’t help but make the big sausage and potato mess in celebration.  (Check out the teaser here if you just can’t live with the curiosity).

I sent Dave to the store for the necessitites and prepped the kitchen.   In the duration of his absence, he managed to call me 3 separate times with very specific questions regarding my needs.  Turns out “bangers” isn’t really an American term.  Apparently it’s not the kind of thing you can just walk into a grocery store and ask for.  Not even the butcher knew what the hell he was talking about.

I googled it and found that “bangers” is a term for “British bangers” and is just a type of white sausage. 

Mmm... Bubbling Pork Butt

After telling Dave I had no idea and just get something that had pig butt in it, he came home to find that Rachael Ray had made a note in the side comments that any sort of sausage would do.

Let it be known: there are times in this world when reading a book is actually more efficient than googling something.

And so Dave returned with the goods I began my journey into the sloppy world of onions, mashed potatoes, and pig butt.  Delicious.

Gary, the bacterial infection monster, kept me lightheaded the entire time and zapped my sense of taste and smell.  I had to enlist two hungry boys for their expert opinions and actually got some pretty rave reviews.

Final Analysis:  Fancypants Bangers ‘n’ Mash: a stupid name for a recipe that tastes far better than it looks. ♣

 

Thanks to this cool cat taking the time to lay it out on her recipesfromkari blog,  you can check out Rachael Ray’s Bangers ‘n’ Mash here and give it a go yourself.   I recommend playing with the pig butt before cooking it.  It’s mushy and mysterious and will occupy at least three solid minutes of your time.

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Dave, King of the Man Purse Tribe

10 Jan

Man, I’m so hot right now. And not like Megan Fox hot (she totally is, don’t lie).  Like I’m-working-up-a-sweat-just-typing-and-I’m-on-my-last-box-of-tissues-hot.

I have to admit that there has been an upside to how incredibly awful I’ve felt these past few days and it came in the form of a bowl of soup.

I should preface this by saying that I never task Dave with making dinner.   This is usually because doing so will mean I am barraged with very detail-oriented questions regarding times, spices, and temperatures out of sheer terror that he will mess something up.  Which I think is adorable.  But when it comes down to it, I’d rather just do it myself.  Kind of because I get easily annoyed by questions and kind of because I’m more of a “go with it” kind of cook.  I can’t really tell you what makes my burgers delicious;  I don’t pay attention. 

But on this particular weekend, just being awake was such a chore.  My super awesome Dave – after working all day – went to the grocery store and bought the necessary plants, animals, and chemicals and came home to spend the next 2 hours concocting the best chicken noodle soup I will ever see in my life.   It was so beautiful I just wanted to take a picture of it.  But I’ve learned to stop doing that because two days later, without fail, I check my phone, call “Jackie two days ago” a moron, and delete 15 random pictures of food from my phone.

Sometimes I think food is just breathtaking.  It’s part of the reason I was such a fat ass in high school.  No joke –  the year they changed our volleyball uniforms to include spandex shorts was a startling dose of reality for me and everyone in the bleachers. 

But this chicken noodle soup was seriously amazing.   I kind of felt bad about being shocked by how good it was.  It’s not that I didn’t think Dave capable… it’s just that, well, I tend to harbor some rather traditional ideas of gender roles and Dave is most certainly a man’s man.  I could strip him of everything but his underwear and drop him off in the woods only to come back three days later and discover him the king of some crazy man tribe, complete with forts, trolleys, and a fully-fledged hunter-gatherer society.

But then I got to thinking about him making mention the other day of his newfound desire to attain a man purse.  …What if he’s transforming?  What if he’s being taken over by some sort of nurturing side that is set up like a time bomb in his body to mature and fully reveal itself when he hits 25?

Hey – if it means I get more picture-worthy meals that I don’t have to cook myself, then I say bring on the man purses. ♣

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My Martin Luther King Jr. Tree

9 Jan

My Christmas decorations are still up.

As I type, my Christmas tree is leaning in my general direction as if begging me to spare it the embarrassment of being seen outside its proper timeframe. 

 

I’m usually pretty good about this sort of thing.  Though I’m no Martha Stewart, I like to consider myself somewhat skilled in the way of domestic goddessry.  It’s just that at this particular moment, my movement in the apartment can be tracked by a trail of used tissues and drips of Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Therapy Ice Cream and taking down my Christmas tree is not high on my priority list this weekend.

What if I just leave it up all year?  And not in the way that my white trash hometown leaves up their Christmas decorations on their trailers all year, but in the way that maybe I can help this tree aspire to more than it ever imagined when it was birthed at the synthetic tree-making factory.  I’ll bet when it was in the truck on the way to Wally World, it had no idea that it would only see the light of day for one month, max.    It is my duty to help this tree meet its personal goals.

Of course, one glaring problem is the fact that I don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day (more on that next month, I’m sure) and we have basically no other holidays between now and Easter.    Whoever laid out the American holiday calendar severely favored the latter part of the year.   Of course, I have the option to decorate it in time for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, but aside from little scrolls bearing stories of victory for blacks in history, I have little to work with in the way of decoration.

Keeping my tree in my living room also poses another wee issue in that I live in an area of the city that is rich with Orthodox Jews.  I’m talkin’ old school Jews.  Even our Dunkin’ Donuts is kosher.  I have the feeling that keeping a “holiday tree” vibrantly displayed in my window might make certain members of my neighborhood feel that I’m pushing the issue.   Besides, it’s not like any of my neighbors are going to venture indoors to find that for 11 months out of the year, it’s not actually a Christmas tree but a MLKEasterSpringIndependenceDayBirthdayLaborDayHalloween tree.

Perhaps I should just take it down.

The only thing I’m looking forward to about tearing down the leftovers of Christmas cheer is that it’s that time of year where I put little surprises in the stockings so that next year at Christmas I’m greeted with money and cryptic notes from the Jackie of the past.    That’s correct: I use my stockings as a mini time capsules.

All right, I’m about to be buried in the huge mountain of used tissues that has accumulated in this time I have been stationary.  I have to move on to throw off my trackers.  You know, in case the Jewish neighbors are hunting me down for my Christian decoration deadline violation.  ♣

Hey, I made buttons today. And I think that’s awesome.  Check out the beautiful stalker tools on the top right.  And many thanks to this Jackie for having the only how-to that put it in terms my small brain could comprehend.

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Larry, the Lump-Necked Giraffe

8 Jan

Oh man, I haven’t even been blogging for a full week yet.    Is it possible that I’ll find something worth babbling on about every single day for another 359 days?  Yeah, probably.  I mean, as long as the world continues to harbor such great inspiration for mockery (e.g. Sarah Palin, the Sun Chips bag recall, my disgustingly obese cats) I think I’ll be just fine.  Onward.

I’m incredibly ill today.  Turns out that I probably should have called off work this past week because by the time I made it to UrgentCare this morning, I was a pretty big mess.  Suffice it to say that my left tonsil is so huge that it hurts to move my neck. 

I keep thinking of ways to use this for the good; maybe I can use it as inspiration for a cartoon character – perhaps a giraffe that leans to the right and is shunned in social situations involving cooler, straighter-necked giraffes.  Or maybe I can just turn myself into a circus act.  Hey – with my developing Bikram Yoga skills, maybe I could contort myself into some kind of killer pose that accentuates my newly acquired neck tumor.  Then when Point Park sends me that damn theater alumni survey, I can finally check the box that indicates I am supporting myself solely by working in my field.

But alas, my illusions of carnie grandeur and children’s book author fame were nipped in the bud by a fancy pharmaceutical concoction called a Z-Pack. 

I must admit: I had absolutely no idea what a Z-Pack was until today.  Probably because the last time I had health insurance, it wasn’t one of the best-selling antibiotics in the world.   Back in my day, you had to take a whole bottle of antibiotics to get better -none of this 5-days-and-we’re-done stuff.   I suppose a shout-out is in order for President Obama.  Like him or not, the man got me healthcare.  And I’ve been working full-time ever since getting out of school, so keep your ignorant assumptions about me deserving to pay an average $250+/visit in your mouth please. Thanks.

By the way, if you think other people should be able to have affordable healthcare, you might want to speak out against the potential repeal.  Or even get involved.  Think about it.  Otherwise you might have a lot of up-and-coming children’s book authors and sideshow starlets that you’re not prepared for, America.

And so my weekend shall be spent indoors and unshowered, in the company of my overly obese cats and my PS3.  Well, actually, that’s how all my weekends are spent.  It’s just that this time it appears I actually have a reasonable excuse. ♣

P.S.  As promised, I’m actually, like, doing things to the site.  Check out the new “About” tab above and the ability to rate a post.  Stay tuned for more exciting changes to come.  I will be a force to be reckoned with.

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12 Tips for Not Completely Sucking at an Open Mic

7 Jan

I’ve been spending a lot of time at open mics lately.

Let me rephrase that.

I don’t really ever go out, but when I do, it’s usually to an open mic.  Mostly because I have a musician for a boyfriend and an apartment that chucks a hippie in your face upon entry and my life has just sort of developed into this strange, artsy, music-y strangeness.  Yes, I said strange strangeness.  It’s technically legal to say that.  Just one more sign that English is failing us.

So because I tend to harbor unnecessarily strong opinions about things that I have little or no expertise in, I’ve decided to stay true to my nature and compile a list of tips for Open Mics.  That is, if you want to play at them.  If you want tips for being in the audience – I only have one: drink.

So here I give thee,

How to Not Completely Suck Playing an Open Mic

1)   Don’t have an expression on your face that is more intense than your song.  It’s a one-way ticket to douchebaggery.

2)   Tune.  And not into the mic, doofus.

3)  Try to avoid “jamming.”  There are few people in this world who can bring anyone joy with jamming: people who are already rock stars, and grandmothers.

4)  Pay attention to the sets that are played before you’re up.  Don’t follow a cover of  “Closer” (originally by Nine Inch Nails), for example, with an original song entitled “Lollipops, Babies, and Kitten Kisses.”  Which brings me to…

5) Consider your venue.  Consider your genre.  If they don’t match up, stay in the audience.  It will save you 10 minutes of performer’s hell. 

6)  Know when it’s your turn and have your big sack o’ stuff ready to go.  There is absolutely no excuse for lugging your guitar case up front in a crowded bar, unlatching it all the way around, taking out your guitar, and (ugh) tuning  [refer to tip 2]. 

7) Get to know the other folks playing up there.  Like their stuff or not, they’ll be your biggest supporters.  Even if you suck really, really hard.

8 ) Do not, I repeat, do not get drunk before you get in front of the microphone.  If this proves difficult for you, show up earlier and get higher on the list.

9) Write new songs.  People who go to open mics enjoy hearing fresh music from up-and-coming hopefuls.  Chances are you’ll get a group who comes every week, and after the 4th week in a row of hearing your working rendition of “Lollipops, Babies, and Kitten Kisses,” they’re going to get tired of your face.

10) Tell the audience if it’s an original.  Sometimes….rarely… but sometimes, someone actually writes an original song that’s really good and the audience will chalk it up as a cover unless you tell them otherwise.  If you’re lucky enough to be able to write something people want to listen to, make sure you take credit for it.

11)   There’s a difference between good musicians and good performers.  People want to watch someone who is both.  So make that happen.

12)   If you like something you see someone else do, figure out what it is and make it your own.  Sometimes, that’s what seeing the up-and-comers is all about.

So there you have it: my list of how-to’s, written from the perspective of someone who’s never done it.  But hey, I watch it a lot.  And I have a public medium with which to express my uneducated opinion.  And I’d like to think that counts for something. ♣

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Elevator Tetris

6 Jan

Had I not gotten a degree in theater, I’d have aggressively pursued sociology.  …Well, the fun parts of it anyway. 

I’m a people-watcher.   I love to study them, the way they move, their quirky, inexplicable habits.  Trying to capture these details with my own body is my way of immersing myself in the study of people and of society and is one of my favorite parts of being an actor.  And it is for these reasons that I just adore watching office folk.

I have an office job by day because I need something to help feed my theater habit at night.  It’s a cruel, addictive cycle.  In my time amongst cubicles, elevators, and important titles, I am continually amused by the society that has been created there.  I am an outsider – a Jane Goodall, throwing herself into a world to live amongst these creatures and to study their interactions.

One of my favorite parts of the office is Elevator Space Relations.  This is true in any elevator scenario with more than one person, but I find it particularly interesting at the office. 

I was heading down from the top floor today and joined the 5pm elevator party just after a particularly high-level executive. 

Before we got on, however, he did me the good service of pretending to be interested in how I was today and I did the same for him.  I told him I was good and he told me he was good.  This is another fun one for me…because let’s face it: when anyone asks that question who isn’t your best friend or family member, they don’t really want an honest answer.  I totally felt like junk today.  I came in to the office to see how long I could make it because I’m a moron.  When he asked how I was, an honest answer would have been something like, “Oh, I’ve been better.   My head was a giant, disgusting hot air balloon filled with evil pixies smacking their wands on my frontal lobe and making it through this day was no small feat but I was too afraid to call off and look like a flake.”

Something told me that would have made the last 10 floors even more awkward. 

And so we stood in silence…the entire time from the top of the building to the bottom.   There’s only so long one can stare at the blinking number at the top of an elevator before they feel like an idiot.

It’s like we all got together one day and decided that there wasn’t enough time between point A and point B on an elevator and that since no one knows how many people may join on the way up or down, there is little possibility for discussion outside of the weather and the number of days ’til Friday.  So we just stopped talking altogether. 

My next favorite thing is how beautifully people will align themselves in an elevator.  It’s like one big spatial relations puzzle.  Every time someone new enters the picture, people in the elevator, without talking or making eye contact, will naturally work together to adjust themselves so that they leave as much room for a personal bubble as possible for everyone involved.

 It’s like the bathroom stall game, where if there are three and the nearest one has someone in it, you go to the far one.  Who made up these rules? 

I’ll admit, I like to rebel.  Sometimes when someone asks me how I am, I actually tell them.  And sometimes, I actually follow-up when they lie and tell me they’re good just to see if I can shake a human answer out of them.    Furthermore, I sometimes make people uncomfortable by choosing the stall directly beside them. 

I get myself through my day job with these little games.  I’ll admit that just a few days ago there were 3 people joining me on an elevator ride and I didn’t move from my space.  Yes, I felt the air thick with anticipation.  I felt their discomfort with the fact that there was not even spacing between the 3rd and 4th temporary members of the steel ride society but I was comfortable and deemed that everyone had an adequate amount of room.  And then an amazing thing happened: everyone else adjusted to me. 

I felt powerful.  I felt like an elevator goddess, directing human traffic with my mind.  I was the awkward T shaped tetris piece and everyone had to start a new row to adjust for my addition to the stack.  It was glorious.

I think I’ll start to use these powers for my rise in human society.  I will be the immovable force around which others must accordingly adjust themselves.   And slowly but surely, I will make my way to the top of the corporate world.  One awkward elevator ride at a time.♣

 

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Confession of an UberGeekNerd

5 Jan

Sometimes I feel like I understand the miniscule, shaky line that society has drawn between geeks and nerds and then I read something like this Wikihow and I’m utterly confused again.  So to solve this issue forevermore, I will simply refer to myself as a GeekNerd.  

Me, a GeekNerd? Alas, it is true.  In fact, I feel that with so many recent subscriptions to Twist365, some of ya’ll deserve a better grasp of what you’re in for.  So here I give thee: Confession of an UberGeekNerd.

I suppose the dead giveaway is that my dad is a Dungeon Master.  And no, I’m not referring to a dirty kink… I’m referring to the wonderful world of Dungeons and Dragons.

If you’re still reading this, thanks.  This is where I usually lose people.  In fact, I’m pretty convinced that aside from my aggressive personality and bizarre cartoon voice outbursts, my role-playing habit is probably the next best reason I didn’t have much of a dating life in, well…ever.

See, my father being a Dungeon Master meant that my entire life revolved around D&D.  When I turned 13, he proudly handed me a 20-sider and allowed me my rite of passage: rolling up a new character.  It meant I was truly part of the family.  After all, my mother and two older brothers played every Tuesday night without me because I wasn’t allowed to join the table until I was of age. And I’ll admit that when the time came for me to jump in, I totally digged it.  There’s something about sitting around a huge table of men approaching a midlife crisis with their huge velvet bags of bulk-ordered multi-colored dice and pieces of paper in front of them that served as proof that they were not really themselves but actually wizards, fighters, and powerful mages in a highly developed fantasy world that seriously altered my adolescent experience.  

Our entire house oozed with peculiarities.   My father’s bedroom was a library bursting with fantasy novels from which  he gleaned material to create his very own world for his friends and family to play in.  In fact, he eventually wrote his own reference book, which was as thick as a dictionary and chock-full of pictures, reference materials, spell charts, and some of his original art.    Oh: did I mention my dad’s an artist?  A really good one, too.  In fact, he just received his Masters to compliment his dual undergrad and is making some truly groovy stuff.  I’m hoping to commission him to jazz up my site soon.  But before all that happened, dad’s biggest outlet for his artistic desires was in the form of character wanted posters.

Essentially, my father would develop a core group of characters in his D&D world and introduce recurring enemies for them to fight.  (For those of you who actually know what I’m talking about, he ran a campaign with old school modified 2nd edition, not this crazy 4th edition 20-sider based business you’re all up to now).  So once characters had committed crimes in his world and the recurring enemies started to take notice of them, he proceeded to draw up wanted signs and plaster them all over our dining room walls, complete with portraits, who was hunting them and the amount of the reward in gold pieces.    Many a Baker family dinner was spent munching on spaghetti and talking about our days with imaginary Dungeons and Dragons characters staring down at us from every side.   For a while, the only thing that even made that room resemble a dining area was the fact that it had a surface to eat on.  But then Dad decided to redesign the table.

When it became absolutely crucial to our gaming experience, dad decided to transform our dining room table into a Dungeons and Dragons table.  He coated it in black acrylic paint and cut a huge square hole in the middle which he replaced with gridded plexiglass and two freshly mounted black lights.  Reason would dictate that this was unnecessary and perhaps not the most sound decision based on the fact that D&D was only scheduled for Tuesdays and living our lives was scheduled for all other days.  But it was also admittedly totally awesome.

It’s unfortunate that I eventually had to grow up and go to college because it meant that I could no longer be part of my dad’s D&D world.  It also meant that I had to find a way to fill the void, which was immediately accomplished with World of Warcraft.

My gaming addiction is a beast in itself.  The best indication I can give you of the severity of my problem is that one of my best friends in college gathered up his desktop computer, brought it over to my suite, pounded down the door, and demanded that if I wasn’t going to come outside, he was going to set up an equally addictive game beside me so that he could at least still spend time with me.

He was a damn dedicated friend.

If that isn’t enough for you to fully grasp the picture, perhaps it will help if I also add that my current boyfriend and love of my life recalled just the other day how when he first met me,  I was always in my room, unshowered and in my pajamas, huddled over the computer with boxes of pizza hidden beneath my mattress.

Hey – something had to fill the void.

Supposedly, I’m cured now.  I eventually got the courage to uninstall Warcraft (after a terrible relapse or two) and it is now safely tucked away in my basement storage locker.  It still calls to me sometimes in the still of the night.

So for now, I have nothing.  I have no D&D, I have no WoW, and thus I have no outlet for my GeekNerd addictions.  I suspect that I can only go on like this for so long before some underworldly demon rips me from reality and tosses me into my own personal hell.  After all, I work right down the street from GameStop and I can’t  help but notice all the expansion packs.   Not to mention Blizzard’s Diablo III is currently under development and the release of that game is a burden that may be too incredible for me to bear.

So I’m stoked that I finally have a laptop.  Because any day I may relapse, quit my job, and disappear from society, which will inevitably leave me homeless and wandering from coffee shop to coffee shop in search of an outlet and a table with which to feed my beastly addiction.  And if that day comes within the span of my 365 Project and I happen to blog about it, maybe you can all come visit me with your computers and play your favorite addicting games so that I feel like I’m part of the human network again.  ♣

Hey! I’m not alone in my resolution to blog every day.  In fact, WordPress is encouraging everyone to resolve to update their blogs once a week or once a day in 2011.  Check out these cool cats who are giving it a shot:
http://shelbyisrad.wordpress.com/2011/01/05/guess-what-im-doing/
 
http://herheartsmiles.com/2011/01/04/im-posting-every-week-in-2011/
 

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I Am Not a Camel

4 Jan

Ladies and Gentlemen, Happy Lollipop Tuesday.

What’s Lollipop Tuesday, you ask?  Lollipop Tuesday is a special series on Twist365, where every single Tuesday of every single week, I will try something new that I will undoubtedly suck at and share my degradation with you all.  Some may be mundane, some may be ridiculous, and when I run out of ideas, some may even be illegal.  Today’s feature: Bikram Yoga.

For those of you who aren’t vegan walking sticks,  Bikram Yoga is the practice of 26 yoga poses in a 105 degree room for 90 minutes, often led by a drill sergeant hiding behind a bendy, beautiful, totally zen exterior.  Not to be confused with “hot yoga,” Bikram Yoga can only go by the name if it features instructors taught and certified in India under the tutorage of the most bendy guru of them all, Bikram Choudhury.  I feel that for most people, Bikram Yoga is in the same mysterious cloud in the universe as the Bermuda Triangle, or the ceremonies in the Salt Lake Mormon Temple.   Today, allow me to share with you one of these deep mysteries of the universe. Well, from my crackly-jointed, awkward, muffin-top perspective, anyway.

One lovely surprise was that there were folks of all shapes, sizes, and ability levels in the room.   What I didn’t find surprising was that a tiny-waisted, doe-eyed brunette set her mat and towel beside me, long hair perfectly braided, and outfit (or what there was of it) perfectly appropriate and coordinated.  She somehow managed to look unaffected by 105 degrees of thick, heavy air surrounding her. 

The laws of science dictate that any time one enters into unfamiliar territory, one will without fail endure the experience beside the most daunting master of that territory man has ever witnessed.

My distraction and only saving grace from this spectacle came in the form of a peculiar fellow who entered class just before it officially began, with a bag of goodies in tow – one of which was a moon suit, minus the helmet.  As I stared in awe, he proceeded to set up his  mat and towel and uncrinkle the silver contraption.   I watched attentively as he pulled it over his head and down his awkward limbs, wondering if perhaps this man was a hobo who had wandered in with delusions of grandeur, convinced that the only way he could achieve his dream of being a space cowboy was to succeed in the greatest feat of all: Bikram Yoga in a space suit.

My inner monologue was jolted by the entrance of the instructor and the class began.  Three minutes in and I’m absolutely soaked in sweat and B.O.  and all we did was breathe. Mmm…sexy.  Braids is beside me, contorting like Gumby while maintaining a pleasant, zen-like smirk and I’m struggling just to lock my knee and not slip on the towel that’s shielding my mat from my nasty sweat puddle.   The instructor is lovely, encouraging, and beautiful.  She lovingly caressed my ego, called me by name, and led the class through a series of awkward poses, most of which are named after animals.

I can do animals, I thought.  I’ve been animals.  I went to Point Park for Theater, after all: I can be animals, I can be textures, I can be both, even. I do one hell of a styrofoam llama.

But this was totally different.  I’m being coached to put my forehead to my thigh and then wrap my arm around my jiggly parts and whatnot while my awkward sausage fingers slipped on my drenched, pasty skin.  It wasn’t pretty.  Halfway through the class I began to drift away and fantasize about passing out but my fantasy was abruptly halted by the overwhelming stench of body odor, wafting over the carpet.  Delicious.

Finally, as the 90 minutes came to a close and I completed the end pose, the instructor turned off the lights, turned on the fans, and opened the windows.  Sweet, cool night air – a gift from the gods! I lay prostrate on the floor, totally stoked that I did this.  Now that I had made it through the battle,  I felt pretty awesome.  It was probably just the euphoria of release from the human broiler, but there in the dark, I realized that I had completely forgotten about the beauty beside me, the space suit man, the smell of the carpet, and my imperfect body.  Every single pose was a new challenge and a chance to succeed or fail.  Every few minutes, I had the opportunity to fall out of a pose, look in the mirror, smile at myself, and start again.  It’s not often you find a method of exercise that is so demanding on the mind and the body.  Or that teaches you to simply do some sort of good for your body, whatever it is and however much you can. 

Somehow in the middle of the slippery, drenched chaos, I was actually enjoying myself.  And you know what? I think I’ll go back again.  I can’t believe I might actually go back for more – if not to see moon suit man, perhaps to see how many classes it takes me to look like Braids.  I may never be a tiny-waisted brunette, but I can sure as hell work my way up to a mean toe touch. ♣

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