nevers

These past couple weeks I've attempted to become very serious about evening yoga -- in the style of yin yoga, where you hold poses supported only by gravity for 3-5 minutes, and I do mostly hip openers. Pigeon, butterfly, supported extended butterfly, piriformis stretches. It's a nice way to wind down and Penny joins me, she loves the yoga strap and we make up poses. Forever and ever my chiropractor has told me, you need hip openers and looser hip flexors! So this was an attempt to work on that.

But I've been wondering, when in the hell will I start to see any improvement in baseline flexibility? I can stretch as long as I like but the burn of the stretch doesn't seem to lessen...well now after a week of way more intense activity (so more muscle and fascia movement in general) where I've gone for two run/walks and had my regular Thursday spin class as well, I sat down after my run today and bing! Better baseline flexibility! Huh. Does it take other people this long to notice a difference? Acro pals? Anyone else with regular stretch practice past or present?

I find it interesting that although I think "yes yoga every day I want to be that person" I also think "oh god yoga every day is that really what it takes?"

Rain in New Jersey devouring the landscape
like those mythic dragons of another time,
another country. The train window frames it

like ink scrolls of brooding masters,
and now the shingle-roofed towns unroll
one after the other, panoramas

of domestic assurances, warm rooms,
nights with beer and TV. I'm only looking in,
and fictive homes are turning on their lamps,

and I remember mother taking me on the train
out of Manila–I was four or five, and we sat
at the station and she said you could hear it coming,
( Read more... )

Alex went away for a while, so we had a special guest star in the house!

Some must employ the scythe
Upon the grasses
That the walks be smooth
For the feet of the angel.
Some keep in repair
The locks, that the visitor unhindered passes
To the innermost chamber.
Some have for endeavour
To sign away life
As lover to lover,
Or a bird using its wings
To fly to the fowler's compass,
Not out of willingness,
But being aware of
Eternal requirings.
And if they have leave
To pray, it is for contentment
If the feet of the dove
Perch on the scythe's handle,
Perch once, and then depart
Their knowledge. After, they wait
Only the colder advent,
The quenching of candles.

May was not much of a month for me writing here, for a number of reasons. Some disconcerting-but-not-necessarily-bad news, which sucked a fair amount of my attention away; two visits to the IRS office to try to resolve things (now just old New York State stuff, and things should be good); visits to the Center for Sex Positive Culture, resulting in mixed feelings about the community; plans for another round of Botox for Soren's leg, thanks to a friend, which wound up being scheduled for the morning of my return from Minneapolis; a week in the Midwest, Minneapolis with Elise, Wiscon with various and sundry, and back to Minneapolis; Zach's confirmation the evening after I returned; emails of various levels of helpfulness....

...and, because it was a goofy idea, I have submitted a video of myself singing "I Miss the Mountains" to Chorus Idol, which is a contest being run by the Seattle Men's Chorus. On the off chance that I win, I would be singing a solo in the SMC's concert later this month. The odds are very low that I will even make it into the semi-finals, but, as I observed earlier, if I didn't enter the contest, the odds would be even lower.

Jane has posted about Skippy missing me; I should note that he's been deliberately snubbing me for the past two days: I put fresh food out for him, and he walks away from it. (He does eat it when I'm not in the kitchen, though.) If we have salmon for dinner tonight, I'll see if I can win his affections back with some.

It is easier to confess a defect than to claim a quality.
Max Beerbohm

Ask me to name one outstanding quality about myself, and I will hem and haw, knowing deep down that my best self-appraisal is unreliable. It seems safer to be derogatory than complimentary, to criticize rather than praise. Perhaps it is habit that leads me in that direction. Often I am not conscious of my reproachful thoughts until they are clearly on the surface. Then I turn them over to my Higher Power, ask to have them removed so I may be free to live fully, without either arrogance or false modesty.

For today: For an honest, balanced view of myself, I take a few moments in which I free my mind of everything except God’s love for me.

So, yesterday I went to try and buy a dress. AND I BOUGHT A DRESS. wildestranger gets all the credit for this. She handed me dresses, I agreed to try them on, and then she told me to buy one. I BOUGHT IT. (For the curious, it is this one)

It may not be exactly wedding appropriate - although I think it will do for the evening part, and I have a red-flowery dress that should do for the ceremony - but it does solve my "oh, fuck, I'm presenting at X Impressive Conference in July, what the everloving hell do I wear?" problem. Whee!

Then The Jamesian and I went for dinner and drinks. We had decided it was going to be a sedate evening. Okay, the original plan was drunken sleepover, but then life intervened and we realised we were both sillily busy, and that wasn't going to work. So we altered the plans to become Grown-Up Dining and Drinking. That doesn't normally happen when The Jamesian and me hang out. BUT IT DID! We had two glasses of wine, and at twenty past ten I headed for the station. I mean, I didn't get home until midnight, but that is the curse of not living in PhD City. It's like I am a grown-up, and it is very very strange.

This entry was originally posted at http://liseuse.dreamwidth.org/642838.html. You can comment here or you can comment there using OpenID or your DW account.

I have been productive this morning! Any time I want to do something counterproductive to my goals, I ask myself "What Would Neal Caffrey Do?" and then choose to be productive instead.

It is possibly necessary to note that I have not conned anyone or stolen or forged anything. The Neal in my head is the one who's learning the canon and other details he will need, because I constantly wonder when and where he learned so much so well. It doesn't, to me, match the backstory we have for him.

(Surely someone has made a comprehensive list of all of the literary, art, and other cultural references in the show, right? I still need to find/refind/acquire one for Beauty and the Beast.)

Mostly this has nothing at all to do with White Collar but rather is simply a tool to get out of my current rut. Whatever works, right?

(source: The Mountain Goats - All Hail West Texas, "Fault Lines")

Robert Louis Stevenson
"Foreign Lands"

Up into the cherry tree
Who should climb but little me?
I held the trunk with both my hands
And looked abroad on foreign lands.

I saw the next-door garden lie,
Adorned with flowers, before my eye,
And many pleasant places more
That I had never seen before.

I saw the dimpling river pass
And be the sun's blue looking-glass;
The dusty roads go up and down
With people trampling into town.

If I could find a higher tree,
Farther and farther I should see,
To where the grown-up river slips
Into the sun among the ships.

To where the roads on either hand
Lead onward into fairy-land,
Where all the children dine at five,
And all the playthings come alive.

Hey LJ pals. Just wanted to tell you that I'm proud of you for posting today! I've missed this thing we had going on.

Hey, I'm looking for a poem - it was a translation and one line in particular, stood out for me: "Poetry, you put storms to good use". Other than that, the poem has completely slipped my memory. I'd appreciate any help I can get.

After Battle
Karen Lepri

As after battle, we examine each other’s skin, trace the surface
From shoulder to shoulder and then down the spine, to the calf
And returning to the chest, its cavity & beat:
You are here

Amazingly whole. What you lost, undetectable. We have
Already forgotten the epithets of insult blazoned
On our brows. The high points have turned dull in the eaves
Of purpose, memory: ears tune forward. Somehow, injured

We become most familiar, sub-species unto sub
Species, and then peculiar. What ordinary causes of war
We weave into tales of centaurs, imps, & other
Animals. What makes us human is not enough to explain

The anger love breeds. The narrow stretches that pump to
And fro the heart. Entering & leaving, the blood warms. The heat,
Both plot & message: o the sweat I wipe away, the sweat
You wipe away.

The antlions along the mulchy edge make little red-brown pits, to catch unwary ants and termites.

I'm reorganizing a few things in life right now, so for the moment my archive is access/friends-locked, and I'm for the moment I'm changing all access to reciprocal (I give you the same access you give me). If I made a mistake or you'll miss my inane comments or want to share opinions on any topic from asphalt to zebras, comments on and set to screened.

Honesty is the best policy.
Miguel de Cervantes

Have I ever stopped to think that, without honesty, the Serenity Prayer is just words? How can I accept the things I cannot change, without being willing to find out what they are? And if I don’t identify the things I can change, how can I even begin to change them?

All of this takes self-honesty, because it is I who will write my inventory, give away a fifth step and take the steps that follow.

God grants me the blessings I ask for according to my willingness to be completely honest with myself.

For today: What are the defects and burdens I want God to relieve me of? Digging them out is not nearly as painful as letting them fester.

It wasn't until I posted this pic on Facebook (begging the author of this book for ID help) that I realized the caterpillar is in the picture. The animal that made this beautiful S curve is at the bottom of it, camouflaged by color and body shape. It's an almost imperceptibly small caterpillar. I verified this yesterday by going out to the little tree and finding more caterpillars, now fatter and larger from nine additional days of eating. I also assumed that the little tree was a chokecherry, but I was coached to properly identify it as a black cherry. So much to learn.

EDITED TO ADD:
SO much to learn. This "caterpillar" is very likely a sawfly larva, which is to say, not a caterpillar at all. Stay tuned.