Bend It Like Bikram

Christmas comes early! I was number crunching my weekly estimates for a project
at work and found that I’d over-estimated my spending for the past three months
– suddenly money is saved! I tell ya, Great Moments at work!

Ron was back from Hawaii for a day or so and is off flying again already.
He brought me a real live lei home. It’s in the fridge and I’m supposed to spritz
every few days. He also brought me a shell necklace so we can look like island
boys (not sure there’s such a thing as a caucasoid island boy). He’s pretty
dark but part of it is a farmer tan. I’m determined to get him back roller blading
again this summer (last summer, our lack of employment had ass mostly indoors
in a gossamer veil of self-pity). I still think that I saw Ron long before I
met him one day when I was jogging on the lake – he’s a total badass on the
blades (from his ballet days). He can to spins and skate backwards and other
tricks. He’s such a show-off.

Teleclass pilot is tiring but going well. I’ll be done with the bulk of sessiosn
after Saturday. Tons of audio to encode and upload. You learn alot listening
to yourself. I have got to excise the phrases: sorta, y’know,
like and uh from my vocabulary. It sounds really unprofessional.
I’ve also noticed I have a tendency to affirm what a participant is saying as
it is said. I’ll agree and say ‘right’ in the middle of an explanation which
would probably seem less intrusive in a face-to-face environ but on teleconference
it comes off as impatient. I’ve also learned that I’m a loose cannon on teleclass.
At least I haven’t slipped into profanities yet – that would be entirely inappropriate
– but I do have a good time and I think that elicits a great informality that
gets people to relax, learn and have fun. My launch into RSS explanation yesterday
wasn’t very well reasoned. I gotta re-tool that – probably going to toss that
to the end of the course – or make it, it’s own entity. It is hard to explain
RSS without someone experience the ease of use of a news aggregator. I did get
a great testimonial to use in my marketing

Cheers, Andy!!! What an enlightening and thoroughly invigorating class you’ve
given us. I am so very grateful. Need any outrageously awesome testimonials?
It didn’t better my sex life (which is already sterling, thank you) but has
given me a couple of clients and several more inquiries that may lead prosperous
places. I’m a blogging fan! And an Andy activist!

Had a nice wheat-free week and pretty much super-low processed sugar. Though
I think the rice pudding I had last Wednesday might have had some sugar in it.
One of the owners of Nookie’s – I think his name is Michael – is one of those
older, handsome vibrant people that you just admire and hope that when you’re
his age – late 50s? – that you are as active and glowing. Like with my buddy
Kevin who proves there are second, even third acts in life and sometimes turning
60, moving into a studio apartment and biking around Chicago is a perfect way
to celebrate aging.

I have to blog that I’m super proud of my parents lately. They’ve both begin
doing light weight lifting. Dad is tall and stocky and I think just light weight
lifting will really help his strength and he’ll quickly get his football playing
build he had in high school. I was nagging mom that studies have shown that
just light weigth training, even in senior citizens, has been shown to increase
bone mass and help strengthen the joints. I probably don’t say enough positive
stuff about my parents on this blog – but I am really proud of their commitment
in learning t’ai chi and undoing the wreckage of a high-carb, high-fat midwestern
diet. It’s crazy to think how we used to eat every morning: scrambled eggs,
bacon, toast, orange juice… and now I’m all about Kashi and soy milk, Heather’s
a massage therapist and mom and dad are t’ai chi heads.

Started Rolfing again last night. My right butt cheek is so tense it’s flipping
my right hip out big time. That and I’m certain my hamstrings are so tight that
it’s causing my pelvis to tilt out of whack. Very excited to get back into that.
I really trust my massage therapist – the same guy that did it last time – so
there isn’t any heeby-jeebies to get over. Last time all of my alignment problems
seemed to radiate from my right psoas muscle being constrained causing my back
to tilt right and other assorted bullshit. It was awesome he worked on my right
leg a lot and lots of stuff released. It’s so creepy when they park the pressure
on your quad or tendons and then you feel like you’ve got a little fish flipping
around in there and the whole muscle releases. He did some work in my abdominal
wall to – I’d noticed that when I did diaphragmatic breathing that the left
side of my stomach extended farther out than the right – that’s even now. And
the neck work – ah, the neck work – you think you’re going to die but when the
pressure is released it’s like being bathed in Krispy Kreme glaze. A lot of
loosening up of the chest too – the one thing about Rolfing is it makes you
really understand how all the different muscles and pieces connect altogether.
How the psoas starts at your pelvis and wraps all the way up your stomach and
then around your hip and up to your back.

And following Mark‘s recommendation
– I’m going to jump into a Bikram Yoga class on Sunday. Bikram is notable for
being the ‘sweat your nuts off’ version of yoga. You do a series of 26 poses
twice over 90 minutes in a steamed, heated room. I’ve noticed that I don’t have
a huge respect for effortlessness in my life. I don’t like the gentle tweak
of the Alexander technique, I need the ‘hands in your guts’ feel of Rolfing.
I don’t go for brisk light comedies, I like dirty profane enraging documentaries.
I don’t have the patience for t’ai chi but want to try this version of Sweatin’
to the Yogis. Even as a performer and musician I was not very comfortable with
lightness and ease of art – I wanted to be sure I was entirely involved and
immersed in what I was doing. That was a big habit for me growing up. I’d have
a pet project – say the Whitechapel murders – and I’d check out every book I
could find on it at the library and build a little safe info-womb. I loved the
library when I was a kid – or in college. I loved waking up early on a Sunday,
working out and then going to the library. Picking a few topics and just bathing
in data. Mom and dad taught us to have a great respect for information… did
I mention that every room in our house has at least two bookcases? And all the
books were always within reach of Heather and I – even The Joy of Sex
or the The Sex Book that had us wondering what the hell frottage was.
I always detail my upbringing as hippie without the drugs. Sure we hung out
at weaving communes, sheared sheep and wore tie-dye shirts and Heather and I
had a minor obsession with the occult growing up (Remember the Wicca book, Heather?
We were goths before goth was goth!). Mom and dad had a great hope in the time
they grew up – during the civil rights movement – one reason they became teachers.

To all spammers: Yes, I am happy about the size of my penis. Thank you for
asking. Also: I’ll pass on the bukkake.

Had lunch at We today with Todd – that was fun.

I have absolutely no clue what is going on in Haiti. I know there’s rumors
that the CIA is encouraging the destabilization of Aristide. I know that the
leader of the guerillas is not a Haitian – he’s an American. I know that this
will be Haiti’s 33rd coup if it goes through. I try to rack my brain and wonder
what kind of natural resources Haiti has that the United States would want so
bad. I know that the coast Guard has turned back over 1,000 refugees fleeing
by boat: No you stay in there and get slaughtered. Gonna do some online
research on this and hopefully get some more understanding. But consider this:
George W. Bush falls over himself to masturbate democracy on everybody everywhere.
Even though the last thing he wants is a democratic election in Iraq (they’ll
elect an Islamist state) and in Haiti’s case we are supporting the deposition
of a democratically elected leader. Democracy becomes a mask for well you
asked to get pillaged – you voted us in, right?

Alright we got a server outage at work so I have to check on that all day and
then I also have my marathon teleclass today – the whole class in a matter of
hours. This should be fun, insane or both.


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Comments

2 responses to “Bend It Like Bikram”

  1. mark Avatar

    I have a tendency to read everything on whatever “it” has to be too. Not sure why I need 4 versions of the same story but I’m working on it. AND, for whatever reason, my link from you is pointed to my old site(and it seems uglier now!) not sure how you did it but I’m impressed and thanks for the knod!

    Kevin seems to have found the answer to life.

    COMMENT:
    Glad to hear ya ran into some money and YEAH for Yoga !

  2. Andy Avatar
    Andy

    Fixed, Mark – sorry bout that!

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