Today I had a big huge "meeting" in the office. I was expecting my boss and a colleague early so I knew I had no spare moments this morning. I was super stressed. I'm between a rock and a hardspot with this demo I have to do on Wednesday and the path I chose ended up being the path of most resistance. I got on the mat as early as I could and swept to seated somewhere right around 7. I was a bit surprised at my speed. I couldn't figure it out. It's a bit wierd to be doing seated when everyone else around you is moving through standing. It's just this odd feeling of being somehow out of synch to early. When I got to Ardha Badha Paschimottanasana I couldn't figure out why my knee was all messed up when I realized that I had completely forgotten balancing poses. I glanced at the clock, I didn't have enough time to go back (because you know the punishment for skipping is to go back and redo all the ones from that point on) so I just kept on going... but that's the way my whole practice was... for a great deal of it it was pure physical activity and a will to do the practice. At some point, close to the end of first, I finally found some groove and focus but by the time I got to kapotasana I could only embrace it as a pose to get through and I hemmed and hawed until I had my teacher's full attention for the whole messy event. I need to do that pose a whole hell of a lot more... I need to just sit right here and chew on it for a good long time... kapotasana. I didn't really enjoy backbends much more... fell out of my first attempt to stand up... was trying to think of anything other than doing another backbend so I looked around, JMS was waiting for Supta Vajrasana... I sat long enough to let my poor inflatable ego wonder if I "should" go assist, would he not like it, would it be better to let him sit and wait? In the end my ego took over and I decided the idea of that next backbend was enough to propel me across the room. It gave me enough time to at least convince myself that I could stand up even if I thought I couldn't. It appeared to work but I gave up after two... my mind just wouldn't disengage...

In the end, my boss didn't come and I was about 5 minutes late picking up my colleague at the train station. I had a crappy ass day at work... stupid Beta software. Why do I do this stuff? I should stay working in last year's technology... there's like documentation on that stuff.

Since I had such a bad day, I didn't leave The Office until after 6 (but I did make it to The Daughter's gymnastics this afternoon where I a) got asked if I would be interested in teaching yoga to the team girls; they apparently have a lot of hamstring injuries/tightness and sore backs ... no kidding? I told them I thought that I knew people more qualified to do that, any takers? b) got to watch The Daughter do a beautiful walk-over (what is that viparita chakrasana? backbend to handstand and to standing) and c) her coach told me she is gonna get moved on to the next level (L3) in June... so I watached some of those girls today... wow.. beam handstands and stuff cool)... so we went to SoupPlantation. Get seated next to this lady who clearly recognizes me... and I recognize her but I can't figure out from where. I sorta gave up trying to figure it out and then a few minutes later The Daughter points her out. I keep asking who it is and where she knows her from but she wouldn't reveal. Then I realized it was the little girl on the street who's mom is really nice and wants to try to get them to "know each other" since they are the same age on the same street. When I came back from a trip to the Carbo Machine she says to me "You practice with Tim Miller?" Completely confused she explains that she practiced with Tim for the past two years.... but I couldn't place her in that context at all. She said the new studio is simply too far so she's never been there and didn't practice at the warehouse. It's wierd she lives just down the street from me, we apparently went to the same place at 7am everyday and I couldn't place her at all. I told her about Kiran's noon Mysore up the street though so maybe she'll come there. Good energy in the room always makes a huge difference in the practice.

I now need to go back to my Programmer Hell. Ah, it's a frightening place to be. I almost forgot to mention how I met my colleague's sister today. She lives down here and so before he went back on the train she stopped by. She works at that Ayruvedic Big Huge Place in La Costa. She had the most amazingly beautiful tattoos. Beautiful Indian decoration as big wrist bands. A lovely mandala in the center of her hand and on each finger a lotus flower. They were beautiful and her other arm was exactly the same right down to the lotus on every finger. Tattoos... I want a new tattoo.