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September 29, 2004

Peptides

So I think I mentioned that I went and saw that movie What the Bleep Do We Know (I'd link it but I'm just too lazy right now)... you know that movie is a trip. I wasn't that taken with it when I first I walked out of the theater..but slowly I've been thinking of it here and there and it truly can make you think in circles... I was thinking in this one circle that power must truly be the most amazing peptide the body can make because if you think about it, most of the world from parents to athletes to Hollywood to Presidents truly is addicted to power. The Power Peptide!

Posted by ashtangagirl at 8:39 PM

September 27, 2004

Rollout Hell

Thanks to all of you who responded so positively to my last post... I was truly depressed on Friday... well, maybe not depressed, but quite stressed nonetheless... I still feel like a poser ;0 but I also realize that this year of my life will pass, like all the others, and yoga will be no less important to me when I do have the opportunity to practice more.

I did practice on Saturday but so much has passed since, I can't remember much about it. I practiced tonight at PAC with M.... good class. M has been mixing it up some in the regular classes (we do two traditional classes a week at the club) and its been fun... tonight I was just rocking in my backbend... M was saying, now go! but I couldn't figure out how to get my hands off the ground... I just burst out laughing it was so funny. Tonight's practice was just what I needed, I was very attentive to my breath, not a spectacular practice, but nice and solid... jump throughs a bit loud though :0

I told The Husband tonight how sad I was about Maya Tulum. I had been planning this trip for two years... it was a gift to myself that when I could jump through I would do it (not that I do it well but I didn't put that quantifier on it ;>)... The Husband has told me not to give up hope..that we will find some way, someone, rather, to let it happen... so I'm not going to give up hope just yet... I went and saw What the Bleep Do We Know on Saturday ... if I just set the intention...

Rollout is still kicking my butt... I love what I do but sometimes the work is simply overwhelming. We'll see how much practice I get in this week... next week is our annual (well second annual ;>), solo trip to San Jose Del Cabo sans children and I can't even begin to tell you how much I'm looking forward *MOSTLY* to KNOWING I can practice everyday and just relaxing by the pool...

Posted by ashtangagirl at 9:10 PM

September 24, 2004

I'm a Poser Baby....

I haven't fallen off the face of the planet, no, friends, this is called Rollout Week. Not only is it Rollout Week (for those of you non-techno-geeks out there, rollout means that software I developed is being deployed in the enterprise this week..high stress, lots of pressure, mission-critical application....) but 24 hours prior to rollout I found out a crucial piece of information that required me to change the entire directory structure of my application!!!!! Again, for you non-techno-heads this is bad, bad, bad. It's been a long few days... Today was the test... things were going along, eh, so-so, glitches here and there, mad dashes to fix fires, pretty much par for the course... until, of course, 10 minutes prior to the conference call I had scheduled with an Office PM from Microsoft wherein I was supposed to demo all this shit... and then disaster... so, here it is 10 minutes prior to the 6pm First Series class, and in front of my box I sit... taking the time to write this only because my head is fuzzy, my brain is about to explode and I just feel like crying.

I'm such a yoga poser. I feel like I barely practice anymore. I used to practice 5-6 days a week and I'm now lucky to get in 3. I realize that the 5-6 days a week was pre-work but, shit, I can't deal with this anymore. The bottom line is, AYC's Mysore classes are simply too late in the day for a working mom. 7-9am leaves me unable to take two kids to two different places. Nighttime classes are too difficult because stuff like this happens.... I'm debating getting up and taking the 6am classs at PAC but I'm not 100% sure about the teacher. Yesterday I laid out my mat and did a few sun salutations and a few poses before I thought I'd have a physical breakdown.... And, on top of IT ALL, since it appears The Husband is going to be taking a job in an office next month I may have to cancel Maya Tulum -- the one personal thing I've been looking forward to for years. If I can find someone who won't charge me as much as it costs to get there to watch my kids during the week, I can go...but I don't know how reasonable that is :( *sigh*

So, I'm a yoga poser... my practice is suffering and I feel nothing but despair about it right now. I realize I'm in mental turmoil from the extreme stress right now but...still...... I'm a yoga poser.

Posted by ashtangagirl at 5:51 PM | Comments (7)

September 22, 2004

Thieves, Liars

Last night was the Ministry, Thrill Kill Kult concert..... We left my house and when to Chipolte for burritos, meeting up with Angel and her friend Adriana there. From there we headed downtown to 4th & B to see the show. We got there in time to catch the tail end of the first band, Hanzel Und Gretyl... pretty trippy band. Sounded tight and loud but, as Angel said, at one point we thought they were seriously invoking Satan.

Following that Thrill Kill Kult came on... I have to say, having been excited to actually see TKK, I was incredibly disappointed... Not only did they appear, well, to be doing a Bono imitation, but they didn't sound good at all.

Ministry, however, rocked. I was pleasantly surprised too that they played a lot of songs off my favorite CD, Psalm 69, including Psalm 69 itself... The highlight was probably Thieves though... They included Diety but not Stigmata which myself and apparently many others were bummed about. Angel said Al was looking mighty spent in his older years --- she was center stage, front row... me, I'm more mellow with age, I prefer to be in the back, hanging out, no pushing, shoving or otherwise defending myself against the insanity of a show (which I really like the energy of actually...but just don't do it anymore).

While watching Ministry my best friend, D, and I were up in the seated area, this guy gets up next to us and starts his own little pit... flailing around to the point that D & I were actually flinching every few seconds afraid to be beaten to death or otherwise trampled on by this overly drunk, aggressive, meathead who didn't seem to understand that the pit was DOWN ON THE FLOOR. After he did that for awhile, his girlfriend gave him basically a lap dance to the groove of NWO (if you can imagine that).

People watching was quite fun... a mixture of the long haired headbangers of yore, the middle-aged mellowed out ex-freaks (myself included), the Hot Topic fan club, the old hardcores who still got it, the skins... At one point when D & I were talking about different people I realized that I like to see how people groove... its fascinating really... some people bang their heads, others have to move their upper body, others just their legs, others need the pit. I had been hoping that I would run into Bill Blitz... oh friend from the Alibi that I figured, were he gonna turn up, Ministry would be where it would happen... I have pleasant memories of Emerald City playing Jesus Built My Hotrod and the dance floor.

A late night for me... leaves me tired today. I didn't even drink so there's no hangover...just pure exhaustion.

Posted by ashtangagirl at 10:30 AM | Comments (4)

September 20, 2004

Changes Are Coming

With The Husband being technically laid off, our lives are about to change and, I'm not sure exactly how it's going to play out. Right now, he has no job offers, which is a bit frightening all things considered but not terribly crucial either. We are fairly certain he'll be getting an offer shortly from another large telecom company and that he'll take said offer... the short end of the stick is that its an in office, micro-managed job. Neither of us have worked IN AN OFFICE for years, for The Husband, more than a decade. We've built our lives and, in my case, my career, via the flexibility of having two parents home full-time. Neither of our kids have ever had a parent who leaves the house to work. It's about to happen and I'm not sure how I'm going to do everything that I will now be 100% responsible for:

getting both kids to school at different times, different schools
grocery shopping
house cleaning/repairs/etc
all meal preparation
various extracurriculars (dance, gymnastics, soccer practice...)
my own full-time job
my yoga practice
making time for The Husband to still have a healthy body

and a host of other tasks that I'm sure I'm gliding over because I haven't been a stay at home parent without help EVER. You'll also note that my job and yoga practice pretty much come under everything else :(

I think what will eventually have to happen is that I will definitely need to find help. That help will either be to watch The Daughter while I work or watch The Daughter so I can do yoga.... if I could find the right person this little snafu in the evolution of our life could actually provide me with the ability to practice at AYC Mysore mornings maybe two times a week but I'm not going to hold my breath as I just need someone willing to work with our wacky schedule, part-time, for a reasonable amount of money that won't make me working pretty much null and void.

Posted by ashtangagirl at 6:14 PM | Comments (1)

September 19, 2004

Hurricane Ivan in California

So Hurricane Ivan knocked out the data center for Ashtangi.NET. Fortunately, the webhost was able to recover all of the static HTML, the SQL databases... and, unfortunately, the MYSQL db that runs the MoveableType installation was dust. Apparently the mySQL server went bust and they were unable to recover any of my tables... I had a backup from a few weeks ago which left me with about 3 weeks of posts missing for all the hosted blogs. I've spent the weekend doing a manual import of everyone's blog posts.... creating a C# application to take the static HTML in a directory, push them into a single text file then parsing that out by hand (I could have created the parser in C# but I figured that by the time I did that, I could have done it by hand). This morning I was able to finish that job and learned a lesson about doing more frequent backups.

Yoga practice on Saturday was pretty good... not amazingly light or anything but a solid practice. M mixed it up a bit, having us do half moon pose in the standing series and then having us to --- starts with a V, can't remember the name... where you are on your side, one arm balancing and on the edge of your foot, other leg in th air, hand grabbing toes (in the second version).... Since I'm relatively weak in the upper body, this pose is pretty hard for me. I needed to break out the Yogi Toes at this point as I was sweating enough for it which is sorta unusual at the club.

We went out last night to celebrate my birthday.... first to a really great Indian restaurant called Bombay in Hillcrest... the food was awesome but if you ever go, make sure you understand their spiciness ratings... ours, at medium, was a bit too hot (apparently medium is about a 7 or 8). After the Indian restaurant we went over to Wine Steals, our favorite wine bar, and got a flight of reds to try. Found a new Rhone that I really enjoyed. When we got at 10pm, our kid weren't home!!!! You know its bad when your 6 and 3 year olds are out later than you! Apparently my sister got lost taking them to ChuckECheese (a place I'll never take them) and they didn't get home until 10:30pm!!!!!

Now I'm in the Indian food mode... I need to find something really great to make tonight.

Posted by ashtangagirl at 11:19 AM | Comments (4)

September 15, 2004

Day 1 of 35th Year -- No Yoga

I'm not sure if that's good or bad... but my own fault nonetheless. I had originally planned on getting up this morning and doing the 9am class since I could put The Daughter in the Kids Club at our club. Instead, The Daughter was up all night for some wierd reason, playing with his toys and telling me she didn't ever want to go to sleep again (where's the mommy yawn icon) and 9am came and went in my pajamas. When I know I'm going to practice, I eat a very specific way during the day. I have to make sure that the heavier proteins my body seems to need are consumed well earlier in the day and that I stay away from complex carbs. If I don't do this, I might as well not practice. In my zeal to hope for more yoga, I eat like this most days unless I know for sure I'm not going to yoga... tonight I was supposed to go out with my friend to celebrate my birthday...dinner at The Lodge At Torrey Pines, bottle of wine type thing... so I ate like crap today. I had macaroni & cheese.. I even ate some of the Tootsie Rolls that the candy fairy took from my kids the other day (you do know the candy fairy occasionally partakes of the bad, nasty, chemical candy right?)... so when my friend called to cancel 'cause her husband was sick (and, for those of you childless readers, in this case husband = babysitter), I was bummed that yoga was pretty much out of the question... if I could find a bandha in all that muck I'd have been lucky.

Well, if I couldn't do yoga, I did the next best thing (dripping sarcasm here)... I stood in line not once but three times in the same day to try and get my Verizon Broadband working again... You see, when I arrived in Seattle last week, my wireless NIC didn't arrive with me :( The only thing I can think of is that it fell out when I went through airport security... I took my computer out to watch Guruji doing 3/4 series on one leg but I'd have noticed it in my lap if it had fallen out there... so, regardless, gone is the NIC which costs the ungodly amount of $350 for a replacement. Stood in line this morning with a 3.5 year old child who not only inspected every phone in the store, but also explored gravity by yanking them as hard she could and seeing what happens when the retracting cord wakes up... oh and then testing the upper limits of stranger patience when she ripped one all the way out of the wall and made the little beeping alarm go off that apparently all Verizon Wireless sales people are oblivious to and can listen to for 10 minutes without turning it off ... all the while mom is feeling *this* big and frazzled. 40 minutes later, I purchase my replacement NIC with an indignant schmoozer (well, he schmoozed the cute blonde girl in front of me for 15 minutes... not me, however...damn there's that age thing again). Got home, nope...doesn't work... 2 more times of standing in line (unimportant to the ramble here) it finally works again.

... and so my ramble ends...

Posted by ashtangagirl at 9:41 PM

September 14, 2004

Happy Birthday (I think)

Technically in one hour and 14 minutes I will be 35 years old (the clock is ticking down as I write this). This birthday is one of turmoil for me and I don't really know why. I just don't feel good about my birthday this year. It might be that everything is in flux around me... careers changing, jobs changing (careers and jobs are different!), kids going to school, friends coming and going... I was already sorta in a downward cycle emotionally, feeling somewhat out of whack, then the Seattle trip which really has just made me feel horribly sad and sorta lost. 35 seems way too close to 40 for my taste (sorry to everyone already there)... I nearly feel like I should be having a mid-life crisis (and, yes, B, it would probably be a good one). Maybe this age thing just means I have to grow up....

I had a really wonderful practice last night. It's so amazing to me those nights when you are simply just on, where the breath stays steady and calm through the practice, I was able to concentrate on my bandhas more than usual because the rest was coming easy. Since M took over the gym classes, the classes are a lot more challenging. She sticks to the first series for the most part but has told us she'll mix things up a bit. Last night we stuck to primary but did Marichyasana A, B, C, D, E & F... FUN. I had mentioned to M that I had watched the Guruji 3rd/4th series DVD and saw what looked like a Mari D twist but with the bent leg over top of the folded lotus leg. M says this isn't a Mari and I can't remember the name she said it was... anyway, since Mari D is pretty "easy" for me, she told me to go ahead and try it... I had to laugh while giving it an attempt because that, my friends, was hard. I could get the leg on the outside but I couldn't twist or bind... my friend on the mat next to me, chuckled... I mouthed "What" he says "Finally a pose Julie can't do!" In a way, he was right... it was fun for me because I couldn't even get close to it. A good glimpse at the non-existent future (what is that 3rd or 4th series?). We ended the Mari series with Viranchyasana B which I've done before in Vinyasa classes and I think once at a noon improv class at AYC. That's a fun pose. Backbending was great for me last night... lots of bend, pretty easy to get up with the wall, going back down against the wall I stopped halfway and held it for a moment...was trying to get the feeling ingrained in my head... Probably the most difficult pose for me in first series now is headstand. I feel like this is one area where I'm just not progressing. I can't hold it any longer today than I could 6 months ago and I still can't do B except for very occasionally.

My kids gave me sweet cards they made for me this morning... my husband the Monsac purse I had told him I thought was cute a few weeks ago (it really is a cute purse). I've got a conference call with my old firm shortly, a ton of work to do, The Son's back to school open house... busy birthday...

Posted by ashtangagirl at 8:02 AM | Comments (7)

September 11, 2004

Let's Not Even Say Seattle...

Thursday I flew up to Seattle and arrived about 20 minutes early to The Ashtanga Yoga School for the 5:45pm led primary class. The shala was up the stairs in this building, down a long hallway. The shala shares space or is part of a more general movement facility which also has martial arts, dance, performing arts from what I could tell. I couldn't figure out where I was supposed to go so I sat outside with the iPod tuned to Krishna Das figuring someone in the know would show up. After a bit of sitting in the sun (which was suprisingly hot) I walked upstairs and sat on some chairs... finally another person showed up but she asked me if I knew where to go. We sat in the hallway for awhile introducing ourselves. She had been practicing yoga since the 80s, been to Mysore (which, at the time she said, was essentially private instruction with Guruji, 5 people max practicing with him at a given time), studied with Tim when he taught at North County Yoga... Looking at our watch we figured there must be a back door since it was 5:45 and we hadn't seen anyone else... we started trying doors and found the class... which was just the two of us. I was disappointed that the schedule on the website indicates that David/Tracy is the teacher but neither was there... We started the class sitting down. I always get a bit alarmed when we start an ashtanga class in a method I am not used to. At every studio I practice at that does traditional ashtanga, we start at the front of our mats and do the invocation... in this class we started in a sitting position, taking breaths, doing the invocation then coming to standing. Past that things were normal ;) Since it was just myself and two other women (another woman came in halfway through sun sals) I figured we might get a lot of attention but I didn't notice much adjusting going on -- a few times here and there. I liked how the teacher led the class but I realized that most of my teachers do much different types of adjusting... not only verbal cues but also nice, powerful adjustments. I found it interesting that she indicated if we were practicing handstands we should do so after Utkasana. I had never heard of that before... we normally do these between Navasana. There was something else that she told us to do that was totally different than anything I'd ever heard but I can't remember now what it was... oh wait... in Upavistha Konasana she had us change our hands to grab the outside of our feet and not our big toe. I have always been taught to grab your toe and lift up. I actually had a pretty strong practice for me... but my head was pounding (I always get headaches flying) so I backed off in headstand only holding it for a short bit. Savasana was probably the worst I've ever had... perhaps you get used to this but just a minute or two into savasana and these loud noises started happening... it actually sounded like a basketball game was going on right next door... the doors kept shaking... what sounded like a consistent ball bouncing loudly.. lots of yelling and noises. Turns out that it was a martial arts class. I don't need silence for my savasana but it was a bit over the top and disconcerting.

The rest of my Seattle trip just needs to sit in the dust. It sucked and I ended up getting on a plane and coming home a day early. I was so bummed that I missed meeting JumpsThruSomeday from the EZBoard or chancing to get to the Saturday morning class and actually practicing with David Garrigues. It was probably for the best though as I did get to make it today to The Son's very first soccer game ever and it was awesome..he did so great (no, they scored not a single goal but he still did great). I'm bummed that my birthday celebration didn't happen (my husband isn't much of a "celebrator")... but... shit happens and we grow from it. In this case, I can only hope to grow from it and remember that compassion for myself and everyone else is imperative to growth.

This morning I practiced and it was one of those practices where the entire time I'm thinking "I should roll up my mat and leave... after the next pose... then the next" and so on. I just couldn't get it right. My legs are aching, my arms hurt... I carried my carry-on for like 5 hours and it weighed like 50 pounds (no really it did..apparently the bag itself weighs a lot and I had all my computer stuff in there).

Posted by ashtangagirl at 7:26 PM | Comments (3)

September 8, 2004

So Close

Tonight my teacher told me I was close to getting up from backbends... if I could just figure out how to get my hands off the floor... not as silly as it sounds. Really the problem is I just can't figure out, no matter how much rocking, how to get that initial drive to life one hand off the ground... and one hand is all I need.

A sorta so so practice tonight. With M, one of my favorite teachers, taking over the nighttime gym classes, I'm stoked that my practice will probably get better and better. This means I have a really wonderful teacher 4 days a week even if I can't make AYC. Initially my practice was H E A V Y... so heavy... so heavy... but about halfway through I found a good groove and some lightness... nothing to write home about but a solid practice nonetheless.

Tomorrow morning I head out for Seattle... I'll be going to The Ashtanga Yoga School tomorrow night for the 5:45 led primary class provided my flight isn't late (and I find it!). After that I'm meeting up with my best friend and some of his friends for dinner at a vegetarian restaurant... Friday will be filled with business and pleasure... I hear its raining.. I'll be a wet rat.

Posted by ashtangagirl at 8:53 PM | Comments (3)

September 4, 2004

Just A Little Spot

Whenever I come back to practice after more than just a few days off, something always happens for me. I either accomplish something physically that I thought I was light years from ... you know, that magic ah-ha moment just happens... or sometimes just an after-physical effect on the body that grabs your attention. In today's case, it is the latter. My sun salutations felt like walking up a tall mountain... heavy... dreary in the sun. I was thinking "wow, I've just lost something... mind heavy, body heavy." But about halfway through the groove feels good, I've got some breath going... then we did setu bandhasana and I felt like I was all the way... I mean actually all the way.. no not perfect but legs just *this* close from straight, head where its supposed to be... and tonight my neck is sore... in my own zealot I crossed an edge... (what was that email, Gene, that you sent?) Fortunately I think it just needs a bit of massage and it'll be fine ;)

My 35th birthday is drawing near.... as my readers know I'll be going to the Ministry/Thrill Kill Kult show (whoo I even think Angel is driving (told you D))... and I'm also going to Seattle with my best friend this coming week for the first time in the 16 years or whatever we've been best friends. Cool... but tonight I was standing in the kitchen doing the dishes and thinking "WOAH... I'm like 35 an adult in this big house with a family (TWO KIDS!) and all the things that go along with a good life here in San Diego. I just don't feel old enough for that....

Posted by ashtangagirl at 8:20 PM | Comments (1)

September 3, 2004

Not Spinning My Wheels

I was complaining to my husband today that I haven't had a "real" practice in awhile. I did practice in Phoenix but always modified given the time, the space and the general overhead of the responsibilities for the conference. The day after I got back from the conference, my moon started. My moons are simply just horrendous and there is no physical way I could do yoga in the first 3 days...sometimes 4-5 days...which is the case this month. I've never had this problem in the past...just after giving birth to The Daughter. Age, hormones, physical something or other, I don't know. This week was also the first week of first grade for The Son (OMG I have a first grader!) and so far, so good. The Daughter starts preschool next week but its been a totally crazy week all around. First grade, preschool orientation and a call on Wednesday asking me to do an encore presentation of my presentation from last week's conference via the web on Thursday (of course I agreed). On top of that, the session I did last week really "put me out there" and I've been talking with a lot of people about a lot of things this week... very interesting and very time consuming. Then, of course, there's the real job I have and the real demand that I'm getting ready for another rollout here shortly and have to prove my concept (for those non-developers, this is basically the most stressful time of life).

So tonight I was lamenting the fact that there has been no practice for me when my husband said "STOP beating yourself up. Yes you've taken a break but just look at everything you've accomplished. It's not like you're sitting here doing nothing but eating bonbons.. you've prospered as a person by challenging yourself to stand up in front of a group of people and claim to know more than them, you've entertained various different people in different capacities this week including redoing said presentation for an entirely different target audience than you anticipated and you did well enough in all of that that you've got people calling you with interest in your professional skills." Of course I know he's right but I can't help but feel like sloth and doom when I don't practice. I know I say that whenever I have a break in practice but its true.

The statcounter thing has shown me that October is quickly approaching... as the days to Samhain (Halloween) grow shorter, the number of hits my blog gets on "Bionicle Costume" grow. For those of you that hit here, yes I made a Taka Nuva costume last year and it rocked... I'd be happy to share how we did it --- in fact, I think I have an email out there with directions. Who knows what this year's costume building entails for me.

Posted by ashtangagirl at 5:05 PM