Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Yoga and the path of least resistance

Dear. God. A few months ago I wrote a flowery and breathless piece about the joy of yoga. I wrote about how I loved my body when doing yoga, how it was rest for my restless mind, and how light and beautiful I felt when I left. Since then, I've attended a few more classes, all yoga 101 classes and thought perhaps I was languishing in them and needed to take it up a notch. So I went to Vinyasa Flow, which sounded like a good way to ease into the the big kids class. I don't recall the last time I so seriously misjudged something. If yoga 101 is freshman level, the class I went to tonight is the first draft of your doctoral thesis.

The lithe instructor started the class with something he would do if he were just "coming in off the street." A handstand. I thought for sure he was kidding until I saw everyone doing one and staying that way for at least a minute or two. I just kind of assumed some semblance of downward facing dog and occasionally lifted one of my legs halfheartedly like I was considering a handstand. I thought then that maybe I should quietly roll up my mat and leave. A class that starts with a handstand is not likely to become more accessible to out of shape non yogis like yours truly. But I stayed. And it was kind of brutal. They did stuff that I can't even describe and really didn't think was possible for anyone who wasn't Madonna or a breakdancer. I sweat heavily and spent many quality breaths in child's pose wondering how close to 7:15 we were. Did I mention that Vinyasa Flow is also an hour and a half? One of my ears became slightly plugged with sweat, my clothing was soaked, and while Simon made a point to talk to other folks 'on the path' after class who occasionally sought respite in child's pose, he said nothing to me. I'm sure he does not expect to see me again. I don't know if he's right or not. I do know that I will be at yoga 101 on Saturday morning with a renewed appreciation for all things basic.

In my basic classes, there is an emphasis on form, on finding the edge of your resistance and not forcing yourself past it, instead breathing and waiting for your body to yield, to give you an invitation to the next edge. Because of that solid foundation, I'll be very sore tomorrow and Friday but I'm pretty sure I didn't hurt myself, straining to meet the class where they were instead of acknowledging and accepting where I was. I was frustrated, I wanted to be able to put my head next to the outside of my ankle and then balance my weight on the palms of my hands while I extended both legs but bad things would have happened, perhaps to everyone in the class, if I had pushed the issue.

So even though this evening was awkward, sweaty, and I feel I looked like Jack Black doing yoga, it was also a handy object lesson in striking the balance between forcing it and resting in what is. Some things should be forced, sometimes yielding to the flow is disastrous. It is easier to forgo basic hygiene, it is easier to protect your pride or feelings by refusing to allow anyone to reject you, it is easier to let things be and hope the universe delivers something yummy. It is the path of least resistance. My body will never issue me an invitation to do a handstand right off the street or any other time if I don't practice, don't seek to improve my form, my balance, my strength. Perhaps tonight wasn't just an impossible number of downward facing dogs and planks. Perhaps it was a situation that forced me, for my own good to seek balance in the challenge of growth within my very real limitations. Perhaps boundaries is a kinder word and I can accept that some of them are actually walls and may come down during the life long improvement project that is me. But I won't get there going with the flow.

Friday, February 20, 2009

BS

Had my second session today with Mr. BS. He was again wearing a blue sweater. So there you have it, the name stays. That he again wore a blue sweater amused me greatly. If he's wearing it again next week, well, I'll probably have to say something about it. To him. He flutters his eyes rapidly when he talks at times. It reminds me of the arm of disk drive rapidly reading across the disk. I think also that he had a sleepy moment and I think I'll have to ask him next time if he ever gets bored of hearing the same things over and over again. For my part, I did try to stay away from the 'I think I don't love myself because I didn't get enough stuffed animals growing up' kind of discussions though he did try to go there. I told him that we could spend a lot of time there and what I really needed was some quick wins, some action I could be accountable to him for that would put some pressure on me to actually keep commitments to myself. I know he wants to explore why I can't keep commitments to myself and don't like making them to others. That may be interesting to discuss at some point but it doesn't get the laundry done or get me to the gym. I'm not sure where this is going but I like that we both agree that we can use therapy as a tool to create some measure of accountability; first to him and then to me once/if some momentum is built for good habits I'd like to have in my life.

A part of me feels good because I feel like I'm always trying to be better than I am. I'm trying. To borrow a gag-inducing total quality management (TQM) term, I'm in a continuous improvement phase. A tiny part of me wonders if it will ever be okay to just be.

We shall see.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Missing the original

This is a night when I miss the old blog. It is much colder, much, much colder tonight than it was this morning. The wind is fierce and gusting. Guy number 16, 17, and 18 have ignored my correspondence and my neighbor is out on her second date with a guy she met on the same site. He contacted her first. My gut resembles what I fancy the first trimester of pregnancy would look like and I'm very blah. I feel like most women, that I could be more attractive if I lost twenty pounds (at least) but fifty pounds ago, I wasn't dating so I can't blame that on the lack of interest or response to my interest. I am so completely over this and so annoyed with myself for setting myself up for this kind of consistent rejection. I know I'm not every one's cup of tea, I'm just stunned and disappointed it is as bad virtually as it is in person. I really thought at least 1 of the 18 guys would at least say hello back. I've just removed all pictures of me from my profile. If traffic picks up, or someone writes, it will be telling. Not the sort of telling that is healthy but telling nonetheless. It's not like I don't know that confidence is attractive. I just don't have any (in that area-give me a gun or something to proof read and I will dazzle and amaze you). And for guys like Batman, the Groucho Marx quotation applies: I wouldn't want to be a member of any club that would have me. I swear I don't let on that I'm a total boob in my profile. I'm light and funny and witty. Really.

Moving on... The original site is gone. Archival efforts have not worked well. I reached out to a fellow Apple user and they agreed I might be SOL. If I want it on the web, I may have to cut and paste each entry into a new post. That's probably not going to happen. If men had hormone shifts every month, they would have long ago annihilated us all. So at least there's that.

post script to men (in general): I'm going to be awesome. I will do something great, be something great, and you will recognize there was value there all along. I don't do it for you or your approval, I do it in spite of a lack of both. To prove to myself that I have value even if you don't value me.

God, hormones are powerful. A possible future alternative energy source?

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

One more thing from match.com

I swear this is from a profile:

dumb idiot likes boobs...
I am a breathing person looking for the same, as stated before boobs are preferrable. As we will have some to do when we occasionsionally bore each other, i can lose track and stare at nipple


Married girls, I know sometimes you probably look at the back of your husband's head and want to smack it. Hard. But if you're overall happier with your choice of mate than not, then commiserate with me on my bemused despair with what remains out there to chose from.

No drama

An open letter to the men on match.com

Dear Guys,

For the love of all that is holy, please, please, please, PLEASE resist the temptation to make a statement letting girls with "drama" or "games" know they need not apply for a hot date with yours truly. What you really mean is, "please don't be my ex-girlfriend." No girl knows wtf you are talking about when you request no drama, and statements like that serve only to highlight you as possible douche. No girl I've ever talked to finds statements like that attractive. Same advice stands for guys letting all the psycho girls know that they need not apply. Oh, and definitely do not chose a screen name incorporating any of those themes, e.g., nopsycho123, nomoredrama... It makes you seem gay.

I have to write 13 more of you before I can officially give up. If just one of you could at least reply to my message, that would be super. Thanks.

lookingformyboo looking for me...

You can fairly accuse me of being dramatic about many things but I think this fairly serves as an example of why I have the attitude I do about dating, virtual or otherwise.

From: lookingformyboo1 (lookingformyboo1@talkmatch.com)
To: me (me@talkmatch.com)
Date received: February 8, 2009
Subject: You are an angel

Hello Sunshine.. what a pretty!Why would a beautiful lady like you be on here on match..men around you must be so blind that they couldn't catch the pretty fish in your society..the way you stole my attention was out of burglary..I am Nicholas some people calls me nickie,I am an Hydro Electrical Engineer, I am originally from the US,my dad is from Wiscosine and my mom is from france.,i grew up in Avignon france,but i relocated to the states where i have to run my career,I am new to this site,And i signed up here to see if i could find someone that is humble,friendly,kind,passionate and caring,I lost my wife In a car crash..her car came into contact with a truck carrying fertilizer...i feel like crying each time this comes into my head...its so hard..i taught the world was over,maybe i should end my life..this happened at the year 2005...And since then i have remained single and i hope you know how it means to be lonely..I taught i could go on with loneliness..i later found out that loneliness is a decease,and i can find true love again more than i had,its a believe..i really need someone to share my happiness with,someone i will kiss and say there is no more pain..someone i can hold and plan the future with...So i decide to set up a profile on here. so that i can find someone who is honest,kind,understanding and friendly,Someone who is going to love me truly and believe that my son is part of the package of the relationship,But i am so lucky cos your profile happens to be the first profile i went through and i was so impressed with what i read on it and i am so much interested in getting to know you ,So i decided to write you to let you know how i feel and to know if we are both in the same wave length.Cos i think you might be a God sent to me.I am a father of a son...when you want to email or write me a reply..i want you to send it to my email account..here is my email address.. lookingformyboo1@talkmatch.com.
Hope to hear from you.
Nicholas


Seriously?

Saturday, February 14, 2009

The long goodbye

I know I’m dragging this out like the ridiculously long goodbyes we used be be able to have in airports, waving, smiling, and blowing kisses until we disappeared down the jet way and then resuming a wordless miming ritual of the same upon taking our seat at the window, even though we really couldn’t see each other. Yes, this blog is going away; yes, I will miss this black space and white font; yes, I will miss Teresa on this blog. But I hope letting this go will make room for something good. The membership expires tomorrow, so this will likely be the last post.

I had my first appointment with a mental health professional since the $125 and 50 minutes I’ll never get back incident with Dr. Awesome. I was 30 minutes late for the most ridiculous reason. I got to the building with time to spare but forgot the phone number, suite number, and the actual name of the doctor I was seeing so I rode the elevator in a 13 story building for 25 minutes walking into random offices asking if any of them were expecting me. The young man at the information desk in the building might as well have been vase or a hat for all the assistance he was able to provide. While riding the elevator, afraid that my stopping at every floor and wandering about was going to eventually provoke the attention of security professionals, I scanned my cell phone for dialed numbers trying to remember when I had made the appointment so I could figure out which number to call. 22 minutes into this ordeal, I picked the right number from my cell phone, they told me where they were, and I finally ended up breathlessly in the office of the man with the blue sweater.*

His sweater was probably cashmere though I base that only on his trouser jeans. Older men who wear trouser jeans, probably also wear cashmere when they wear cerulean blue sweaters. A refined and monied casual. He was left-handed which shouldn’t matter at all except that I feel a third graders kind of kinship with fellow south paws. I want to talk about scissors and ladles and other confounding prejudices of the right with a civil rights fervor. He was amused (I think) that I had been to two previous therapists only once and that I simply called Dr. Awesome crazy. He did not invite me elaborate on that assertion. He seemed to bemusedly accept that based on my track record, he may never see me again even if I made a big show of making a follow-up appointment. In our brief 25 minutes together, we got more out of the way than I did with the previous two folks put together so I’m hopeful that the third time is the charm. We shall see.

Perhaps the end of this black and white, often melancholy blog is the beginning of an adjustment in my psyche, moving from the contrast of a dark space with many points of light to a lighter space with dark elements for contrast. You know, working the balance of my insides so that whichever of the yin and yang is black, doesn’t suck in all the light.


*I’m tempted to give him a moniker of BS because of that sweater but we’ll wait for session two to see if I can come up with something that doesn’t have a pejorative connotation.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

I'm kind of a big deal-but not on match.com

Well...gotta say that I'm kind of feeling like my ego has been hockey checked hard. The dudes are not feeling me on match. It's got me thinking a lot more than I should. I've done almost every version of dating site before but I've never posted pictures. Guys still wrote me and I even met a couple over the years. This time, I figured I would dive in and put it out there and posted several pictures. I've received a holla from Batman, and a scam letter from an english illiterate (perhaps quite articulate in another language) person pretending to be a widowed white guy with the screen name lookingformyboo. I will probably post the full text of his ridiculous e-mail on the blog in the coming days. A slight detour; I like a progressive white guy as much as the next woman of color but it makes me cringe when I see screen names like whitechocolate or lookingformyboo. Using street language does not make you 'down' and on some level is kind of offensive. Another subject for another day. The second thing that irritates me about white guys on match are the ones who chose every single race, including the enigmatic 'other' category except black women. Ouch. I'm telling you, asian guys and black women have got to get better PR people. We are floundering out there.

And lest anyone feel compelled to encourage me to communicate with guys I like instead of waiting for someone to communicate with me, I'm 0/13 for responses to e-mails I've sent to guys. Really. I'm clearly batting out of my league here and should have grabbed Batman while the gettin was good. So, in this massive, worldwide, countless members rejection, I have earned at least 30 days of whining about the wasteland that is my would-be love life. In addition to the sting of being the sole rejected race on many guys profiles (including the ones match sends to me--I've totally blasted them for that), it hurts that when I had a profile with no picture, I had more guys interested in me than with a picture. Is there any good way to interpret that?

Yea, I didn't think so either.

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Johns Hopkins surgeons remove donated kidney through vagina; Proof that men are still in charge

This story was running on all the major news networks a few days ago. Doctors at Johns Hopkins performed a living donor nephrectomy (removal) through the donor's vagina. They hope it will encourage others to donate because it reduces scarring and recovery time. I feel especially entitled to an opinion on this story because I have donated a kidney, at Johns Hopkins, Dr. Montgomery was my mother's surgeon, and I have a vagina*.

This is a parlor trick to me. When they start exploring how to remove organs through a man's scrotum, then I'll sit up and pay attention. I have the same scars that the woman in the article has with the exception of a nicely healed six inch scar where no one would ever see, even if I had the body or complete lack of shame to wear a bikini. I only donated two years ago and it annoys me that any time has been spent perfecting this procedure when we still haven't figured out how to deal with the kind of rejection that ultimately put my mother right back on dialysis. I understand that recovery time can be an issue if you absolutely had to get back to work and you worked somewhere you needed to be able to lift 25 pounds right away but c'mon, you just donated a kidney. Even if you don't have a six inch scar, you still have everything else going on--why leap back on to the UPS truck? I know that times are hard but seriously, you just gave away an f-ing organ. They still cut you open, even if the holes were smaller.

I'm not sure what the obstacles are to donation, living or dead, but I know of all the things that kept me up at night or snuck up on me as a quick stab of panic during a mind idle, recovery time was not among them. I actually had grand plans for post-surgery and had I not caught the stomach flu right after I came home, I probably would have done them. Everyone is different but I have a hard time imaging a clamor among female would-be donors insisting that doctors find another use for their vagina as a portal. I'd love for them to use that ingenuity to figure out how to quickly dissipate the gas they use to inflate your abdomen that leaves you intensely uncomfortable for a few days after the surgery.

Not to mention the serious ick factor introduced into the entire donation process. People are naturally curious and I've found they want to know the mechanics of the surgery. They have been removing diseased kidneys and gall bladders through the vagina for some time apparently but that is stuff people are throwing away, it's not working and needs to leave the body. Perhaps it will be used for science but it will not end up in someone else. I understand we've all taken that trip, but I would not want to have 'birthed' anything headed for someone else's insides. It seems rude. It would be a horrible story and never suitable for mixed company. Had we done it that way, I would still be wondering if it contributed to the rejection and host of other problems she had in the two years after the surgery. And honestly, I don't need doctors up in my business any more than necessary. That anyone would think that the line would be queueing out the door with women wanting to donate their organs now that they can literally deliver the gift of life is evidence to me that men still run the show. Get cracking on that intra-scrotal removal and I'll be impressed.


*Sorry Brosef, I know that made you throw up in your mouth a little

Sunday, February 1, 2009

Karma

I believe in karma. I have no idea what faith or spiritual construct that comes from. I do know that the bible covers the subject of karma in its own way (as you sow, so shall ye reap), so I don’t feel traitorous toward my faith to say I believe in karma. But I digress.

Petty and passive aggressive person that I am, I did indeed turn off the water to the toilet and even staged the toilet to imply technical difficulties, leaving a plunger (that I have not had to use even once since I moved here) balanced on the lid of the bathroom trash can. I was pretty pleased with myself.

I came home that evening to find Skid Mark undeterred by my elaborate set up. I realize now that I should have flushed the toilet after turning off the water to the tank so SM would not have a full tank to release when he finished desecrating my bathroom. I made a mental note of it should I find a small and petty need for that kind of information again. For now though, I just really needed for SM to stop using my home as his personal rest stop. So I wrote his boss that evening, talking about this and that and at the end of the e-mail, I mentioned that I was having issues with my toilet and would appreciate it not being used when I’m not home. Perhaps she knew the ‘issues’ were mental health ones and entirely mine vice the toilet but whatever. She didn’t acknowledge that part of my message in her reply and I worried she wouldn’t pass the word to SM.

The next morning, getting ready for work, I was trying to figure out if I should leave SM some note about the toilet, purchase a child lock for the toilet, turn the water off again, or just take my chances and leave an un-booby trapped toilet available for his exploitation. I was doing all this thinking where much of the worlds morning thinking is done and wouldn’t you know that when I flushed, I got the slow choppy flush of a stopped up toilet. Now I had a real toilet problem. When I left for work that morning, the plunger balanced on the trash can had actually seen combat. Karma...

ps. SM did not use my bathroom that day but I’m suspending celebration until/if a trend evolves.