Hello, Day 13

Don't worry, my blog is not going to be exclusively about yoga henceforth. I am really into my 30 day challege though. Look, it's my yoga mat on a business trip with me. 

I also have a yoga mat in my office now. It's a good talking point. And even if someone doesn't ask about it, just the mere presence of it communicates, "I am a calm and centered person." That, or "I am so far from being calm and centered, I need to bring a yoga mat with me to work." Either way, it works for me. 

I find that anytime I go out of town, it is hard for me to stick to whatever "challenge" I may be torturing myself with. Luckily, I was not on a diet, as the Cubs were playing and they had my favorite beer on tap at the hotel bar. I sat next to a woman who was on a diet though, tiny as she was, and it was depressing. I'm glad I'm a bit more sane when it comes to what I don't allow down the hatchet. 

So, truth be told, there were two days during my trip that I did not do yoga on the mat. The interesting thing was, I didn't beat myself up about it, which is very yoga-esk don't you think? I tried to be mindful of my yoga practice off the mat on these two days, which I think I was fairly successful at, though I did talk a lot of shit during our long drive. I managed to only become mildly annoyed with my coworker, and when I was hiding from him at the bar, I was very mindful of my thoughts and posture. 

We do the best we can, don't we? 

30 Days of Yoga - Day 6

30 Days of Yoga has become my appointment with myself, and since I really like Dorothy, it's working out.

I have to tell you that I attribute most of my continued motivation (I realize I'm only six days in), to my teacher. I find her irresistibly charming. I am very picky about my yoga teachers. Well, I'm picky about pretty much everything. Except food. I like all food as long as it wasn't tortured, contains carcinogens, or fibers (did you see that YouTube video about McDonald's?), is still alive and crawling (think, Thai restaurants in LA).

I digress. I love my yoga teacher. My yoga teacher, who has about 800,000+ hits on each of her videos (told you she's cute). She's the perfect blend of quirky, knowledgeable, kind, but motivating, and her timing is impeccable. By timing I mean, just when I'm about to say "Eff this, let's see what's for dinner instead," she looks at me and says, "Come on. Stay with me." OK Adrienne. Anything for you.

I think I'm going to need a better, more eclectic blend of stretchy pants. Today Adrienne wore tiger pants. Every time she did a forward bend she was eye to eye with a tiger. These are the things I find helpful when on the mat.

Unfortunately, yoga has not cured me of my shopping habit. 

Look, it's my new yoga mat at happy hour. Cheers!

Day 3 (was yesterday and I did yoga)

I'm not going to lie. I don't hate it.

I'm highly skeptical of course, and being a statistician (totally by accident as I always hated math), I am willing to say there is an association, maybe a correlation, but causation is going too far, for right now at least, but my interest is certainly piqued.

In the three days that I have been doing yoga (I am one of those people who works out once and thinks she's lost weight by the way), I have noticed the following:

1. My formidable morning low back pain, wherein I resemble a 75-year-old woman, groaning in discomfort, terrified I might slip a disk, has nearly disappeared.

2. Evening tension headaches. Gone.

3. Homicidal fantasies towards coworkers (one in particular) have decreased markedly.

4. The idea that I take yoga with me throughout the day, when I'm late to my meeting in Ohkay Owingeh and I'm stuck behind an RV from Oklahoma, when my child is rolling on the floor crying because she thinks that Nina (the dog) doesn't love her anymore, when I see a homeless animal, MSN somehow sneaks onto my homepage, I think of any of the thousand clients we serve and the battles they are waging. Bringing my awareness back to the present moment. Back to my breathe (I know! Seriously, I did this today). Back to my truth, which is and always has been, things are always working out and most things are not that big of deal.

5. My body is pleasantly sore.

6. Someone called me lazy yesterday. I looked at him, shocked. He looked slightly frightened at this point and then relieved/confused when I shouted, "Thank you!" (I'm about as non-lazy as you can get so I appreciated the compliment).

I don't want to get all religious about yoga. I refuse. I mean, I will buy a new yoga mat because thirty days is a long time and I need motivation, but I'm not going to start wearing beads and googling trips to India. I am merely conducting a scientific assessment of the changes in my mind and body as I progress through this journey.

There's one more.

7. I feel more comfortable in my own skin, which is manifesting in a decreased desire to exaggerate (though I do love a good story). That being said, I am not a statistician. I do statistics. Sometimes.

Day 2

Internal Dialogue

12:10 PM - Could work be anymore stressful today? Stupid question. Of course it could. But why, why must we all implode on the same day? Can't we space it out? Maybe it's good they all do it on one day because then I get it over with. This would be a great time to do yoga. Right now. Right when my blood is boiling, my smile is turning fake, and my eyes are squinting at the receptionist who keeps asking me questions that are all leading up to, "Am I getting a raise?" Can't you tell this is not a wise time to ask me for a raise? Yoga will be good today. So glad I made this commitment. *Note to self: bring yoga mat everywhere. Yes, be that person.

3:47 PM - Son of a bitch! I do not want to do yoga. I want to drink wine and watch Harry Potter.

5:03 PM - So. hungry.

5:30 PM - Oh, lasagna...

9:12 PM - Oh my God. Still haven't done yoga. Actually went back to work after dinner to avoid doing yoga. I am so fascinated by myself. I didn't know I could be so avoidant! Crazy. Ok, I can't handle how mean and judgemental I will be to myself if I don't do this so, here we go. Bedtime yoga sequence. Will check in after if I stay awake.

9:22 PM - Returning work emails....

I did it.
It was delicious [Rolls eyes at herself].
No, but it was. I am a ball of stress. My body makes noises when I move my limbs. I'm not going to do something stupid and commit to stretching before bed for the next 30 days, but I can see how that might be helpful. In other news, pushing a baby out of my vagina for 36 hours did a number on my hips. They're tight as f**k. This may have something to do with my nearly constant low back pain.

I fell asleep in savasana, which is par for the course. Was happy that my open mouth snore was caught only by this guy (see below). He's really good at savasana by the way. He practices all day. They say it's the hardest pose. My yogi Jaco.

Alright, y'all. Let's see how tomorrow goes. Should I take my yoga mat to the Albuquerque office and bust a move? That staff is still getting used to me. I rapped to them about essential oils last time I was down there so I may as well whip out my yoga mat, keep 'em guessin'. 

30 Days of Yoga

I have committed to 30 days of yoga and I'm already pissed off about it.

Yoga and I go way back. Mom used to take me to her yoga classes when I was about four or five. I found them dreadfully boring. I did however, enjoy the 1980's yoga outfits that looked like they hailed from The Chorus Line. This could be the root of my fascination with thongs. Yoga and I then met again in my early twenties when I was living in LA, and of course had to jump on the Bikram bandwagon. I still love Bikram yoga even though we are fairly certain the founder is a daft pig who hates women. Regardless, I watched a woman literally transform before my eyes by doing Bikram everyday and abstaining from Burger King. Powerful stuff, that sweating is. THEN, I moved back to Taos, felt lost, couldn't find a job, and so I spent most of my time at the gym, in the mountains, and in dying warrior. Within a few years, all my yoga teachers moved away so I took it as a sign, threw in my yoga mat and started jogging instead (Truth be told, I jog sometimes. Like twice a month).

I don't particularly like yoga people. This sounds terribly judgemental and I don't mean to dismiss an entire group of people. By in large though, if I see a "I <3 Yoga" sticker on your volkswagon, we probably won't be close friends. It's not you. It's me. I'm fiercely competative and there is no avenue for this in yoga and so I take it out on all of you. It's unhealthy. I know. I practice at home now, beacuse I'm such an asshole.

Like most insane relationships, yoga summons me. It's been summoning me now for a couple years. I have every single yoga studio schedule saved on my ipad. I never go. To any of them. Sometimes my phone dings at me in the middle of the day reminding me that it's time to go to yoga. I haven't been to a yoga class in three years. Still, my resistance to yoga is interesting to me because it has the potential to vastly improve my life, as it has done for me many times before.

This is all to say that I have decided to start a 30 day yoga journey. I completed my first day today and I found myself thinking about beer for most of it. I like my online teacher though. She's funny and cute and has a strange haircut like a Portland, OR based yogi should. I'll keep you posted. If, by the end, I run out and buy an "I <3 Yoga" sticker, I will totally understand if you don't want to be my friend anymore.

Cheers to Birthdays

I don't have much to report on my birthday except that I'm sitting on the couch in my underwear drinking an expensive bottle of Pinot Noir. I don't plan on drinking the entire bottle but let's be honest, it could happen.

I love my birthday. Always have. Even though I struggle with all the same insecurities as everyone else, and maybe a few more, deep down I really do like myself. Which is why this moment, alone, couch, underwear, wine, is so divine. I have never minded being by myself. I don't like being by myself in the forest because I'm convinced that there are forest ghosts who will eat me. I also don't really like being alone at night if any scary movie previews have recently snuck into my psyche. I feel much safer now that I have a child, which I realize makes absolutely no sense whatsoever but still, she protects me when Aaron is out saving the forest ghost's homes.

I also like my birthday because I love cake and I love an excuse to do whatever I want for an entire day. For the most part, I'm pretty hard on myself. I work hard, it's usually never good enough and so once a year I like to relish in the practice of utter relaxation, celebration, laziness, gratuitous online shopping, avoiding phone calls, and whatever else strikes my birthday girl fancy.

I always indulge myself in some reflection of the year that has passed. For instance, I became a wife this year. That was a pretty big deal. I scored my dream job (I have a few dream jobs. One down, three to go). Ellis turned three and learned to say things like, "Actually mom, ___________ [insert demand], that's the deal." And "I love you mom, this many (and she holds up her splayed out fingers and toes)." I embraced my OCD and got rid of all the furniture in the house that was causing psychiatric distress. I committed again to my spiritual practice which never fails to transform my life in every possible way. I completed a squat challenge, but unfortunately my ass still doesn't look like the asses in the magazines (speaking of asses, mine is doing much better. Thank you for your support and happy birthday to me). I stopped saying everything that came to my mind. Turns out, that doesn't work for me, so I'll be going back to the way I was before. You've been warned. I went to Belize, which was nice but apparently what happens in Belize, doesn't stay in Belize. Hashtag double botfly abortion. I learned some new things and made some new friends. Also huge, I mastered self-tanning lotion. I had a million, maybe more, I don't know, wasn't counting, moments of complete contentment looking at my child, laughing with Aaron, listening to the Aspen leaves slapping hands, watching water move effortlessly around obstacles in its way, comparing my hands to my moms and realizing for the first time that we have the same pinkies.

I think this year I am grateful for my gratitude. I'm happy I can recognize how fun and sweet my life is. Cheers you guys! I think 36 is going to be the best yet!

Pain in the Ass

In my line of work, we talk about all kinds of morbid things. We enjoy a dark sense of humor. I mostly surround myself with people who either work in the same field as me, come from a bat-shit crazy family, are themselves bat-shit crazy (most of us are in some way or another), or have watched enough Oprah, Dr. Phil, White Oleander, Girl Interrupted, any movie Clint Eastwood directs, to at least stomach my sense of humor, if not appreciate it and chime in from time to time. I considered myself a real tough bitch when it came to talking about the "hard stuff." I can play socialite with the best of them but I will always find the group of people who are talking about someone having a mental breakdown and want to join that conversation. Yea, I like the dark stuff. Except when it involves my ass. My thrombosed hemorrhoid ridden ass.

There I am, doubled over in pain, crying as hard as I did during my 36 hour labor, telling Aaron, "There is no way in hell I am going to get help for this. I would rather die of pain than explain what is going on with me." "I'm sure they see it all the time Dorothy." He responds coolly. "They see way grosser things than this." He adds. "EVERYONE KNOWS ME IN THIS TOWN. I sit at committee meetings with these people. There is no way. NO WAY!" I retort dramatically.

1500 mgs of Tylenol, 800 mgs of Advil, three google searches, two sitz baths, and one heart-to-heart with myself in the mirror later, I announce that we are going to the ER. For being a drama queen, I sure do not like over utilizing the medical profession. I needed to be in more pain that I could stomach to stomach talking about my pain. I was there. It was bad. Active stage of labor bad.

I was mortified enough that I sent Aaron to breakfast so I could suffer in silence with my hopefully, visiting ER Doc. He was very nice. I told him what was wrong. He was sympathetic and I hid my face in a pillow while he checked me out. Hearing him say, "Oh yea. That's a big one. We are going to need to lance it. It's clotted," helped me feel ever so slightly better because a.) my google search was correct and b.) you're Goddamn right it's a big one. I can't walk. Or sit. Or sleep.

I have a love-hate relationship with lidocaine. It's the opposite of most of my relationships though. It starts out bad and then gets so good. When he stuck my 'roid with his needle, I thought I might die. Then, euphoria. 48 hours of excruciating pain, gone in an instant. I love drugs.

He pulled out some rather large blood clots, which I insisted on seeing. "I didn't peg you for the type?" He said before showing me. They were as big as jelly beans, but flat and round. Little assholes. He discharged me with a big maxi pad, sitz bath instructions, a script for some narcotics, which he cryptically added, "you're definitely going to want these.", and told me to follow up with a surgeon asap.

I went home, crawled into bed and enjoyed another twenty minutes of pain free existence until suddenly, and without warning, I was in mind-numbing pain. It made my vision blurry. Tears shot out of my eyes and I scrambled for the pain meds. It was too late. I was behind the pain. I knew I had hours of this to look forward to. I surrendered and sobbed until it passed. I kept on a healthy, every 4-hours, pill pop regimen after this. I slept soundly but still couldn't walk the next day.

After 20+ sitz baths, a liquid gold Doterra concoction from the blessed Annette Gano, a clairvoyant healing from the magical Stephanie Harrison, a chiropractic visit (I don't know! I figured it couldn't hurt) a whole lotta' fibrous foods, and three days in bed, I am thankful to report that I am definitely on the mend. I'm terrified to meet with the surgeon. Afraid he's going to want to cut my butt open, which turns out, is really painful and should be avoided if at all possible.

This whole experience reminds me of birthing Ellis, which by the way is where I first met my roids. I remember being in a lot of pain "down there" but I had this little, amazing creature to take care of so I didn't think much of it. It healed, she survived, it's all good. I hope this has a good ending too.

I'm writing this not in hopes of grossing anyone out but I have to protect my rep. Roids are officially on the can and will talk about list. I know I'm not the only one. Google says I'm one of 100 million sufferers. That's a whole lot of pains in the asses. As always, thanks for listening.