mended

When there is absolutely no way to invisible repair the clapotis, repair it boldly. The patch keeps the same pattern, but sets it at an angle, and adds an extra corner at the bottom because why not. 

And! Nearly a year after tearing a hamstring, I'm back road-running. The healing period was spent running laps up, around, and down the 7 flights of parking structure, which kept the cardio and let things heal and made other things stronger. (Of course I did not rest.)

I also changed my gait completely, a mix of necessity and intent, which I'm given to understand one shouldn't do? Or something. Whatever. I am far happier than I thought I'd be to be running again. I look forward to it, even.

And! It doesn't hurt. I had forgotten what that's like.

I came late to running--in my 30s--because I'd always believed I wasn't built for it. I pronate pretty badly on a heelstrike, which is my "natural" stride, and end up pulling my body weight forward, rather than pushing off from the ball of the foot. Turns out I could, and did, muscle my way through for a while, with a scattering of IT and piraformis injuries (treated with months on an elliptical). But the hamstring, boy howdy. There was ouch and then there was ouch and then there was literally unable to touch my toes. Like, could not. Pain override.

It was the yoga that clued me in, hard. I couldn't do things I'd always done. A quick search told me what this was. Torn hamstring! Tendon?! I had to let that heal. And that meant I was going to have to stop running.

I was terrified. There was no gym access! Walking isn't enough! I'd get...well...fat.

And here let it be said: this is not about fat-shaming. This is about body dysmorphia and eating disorders.

belated

( ...originally typo-titled "bleated," which might be kinda appropriate too)

I was going to write about getting the vaccine when I got the second dose two weeks ago (Pfizer). I had imagined--based on my unexpected emotional reaction to the first dose--that I would have Feelings. First shot, we'd gotten a spot unexpectedly, because a coworker posted on Facebook that a nearby vaccine site was accepting appointments right now for educators and we jumped on that. After that jab, I realized how much stress I'd been under, and how even one shot made me feel like...not that things would return to normal, not that everything was okay now, but...like there had been a pressure, a discomfort to which I had become so accustomed I no longer noticed it, and now it was gone. I noticed the negative space of it, the place it had carved out in my psyche. I thought that the second shot would herald a return of that feeling, but it didn't. I was just relieved. 

That was two weeks ago. If there is such a thing as officially vaccinated, all the immunities as in place as they will be... we're there. Our region is coming out of restrictions, things are reopening, and great! But I am in no real hurry to go back to the restaurants I haven't been to in over a year. I've grown accustomed to the take-out sandwiches on Friday "date night." It feels weird to think about removing a mask in public. And eat in public? Egad. Visiting a zoo might be nice. Or a museum. Or a store that isn't faithful Trader Joe's. But be around people? No, thank you. My latent agoraphobia has taken root this last year, hard.

(I better get over that before classes start in the fall. Because barring a new pandemic, they will. We've been super lucky here--the UCs have shut the fuck down and stayed that way for in-person instruction. How delightful to have official policy dictated by science and public health, instead of political toadshit.)

And I wasn't going to write about any of this, sweartogod. I was going to write about The Patchwork Terror and how, in his quest to eat all of Tinycat's scarfed-and-barfed breakfast, he chewed a big chunk out of the first clapotis I ever knitted. And how I did not quite freak out because he's not Idris: he shreds and gnaws whatever he eats to tiny pieces, even wee bits of kibble-treats, so I was pretty sure he hadn't swallowed long strands. (He never did throw up a damn bit of it. Where has it gone? The obvious answer--through him--has not manifested. He either reduced that wool to tiny pieces and digested it along with his food or it's still sitting in his gut, making itself into the grandmother of hairballs.) 

But also, ferfuckssake, I was upset, too, at the destruction. The loss. That clapotis--hours and hours of knitting, out of a indie-dyed colorway--is irreparable and irreplaceable. Of course PT was, is, more important, and I would set fire to the clapotis myself to keep him safe, but he's also fine, and fortunately not inclined to chew on textiles unless someone has thrown up on them first. This is a one-time catastrophe. 

But then, as I began writing, I realized--the worry, the fear, the anger, the guilt about being angry over a ruined thing on which much work had been spent, the grief over what was destroyed--felt familiar. This was a fresh wave of it, sure, but that's why I noticed it, after so long being numb to it. It's what I felt last spring. 

Anger. Fear. Guilt. That sinking, sick feeling of knowing something is irreparably mangled, and there is nothing to be done for it except figure out a way to salvage what's left: make it, if not beautiful, at least defiantly functional. Somehow. Wabi sabi. (And even if it's not beautiful again, ever--the clapotis will be warm. It will be of use. And it will be a story). 

I wish I could say that I think the world, post-pandemic, post the 45th president, will be like this clapotis. I don't think it will, though. We can't wabi sabi what's happened. We won't be past BLM because we're not past white supremacy. We can't get past anti-science insurrectionists because they're still crawling all over the Capitol. We can't even get people to take the fucking vaccines. I don't know how that sort of damage becomes functional again, that it can be patched. I hope I'm wrong. I don't know what happens if I'm not.

In the meantime, I have a clapotis to mend. 

antisocial

Early advice from my mother: write nothing down you don't want someone to (be able to) read. If it's written, she said, anyone can read it. Maybe someone you didn't intend. If it's written, there's no guarantee of privacy. Nor should there be expectation of it.

(My mother basically taught me that people kinda suck, or at least enough of them do that you gotta be wary. I don't think she was wrong.)

Also early advice from my mother: think before you speak. 

I am not so great at the second--sometimes deliberately so--but the first one stuck with me. I wouldn't keep a diary of anything real because, little cute lock or not, someone might read it. (I did not think of writing in cypher, like Anne Lister; if I had, maybe I'd've written more, and there would be juicy details for someone to decrypt after my death. But see? That's even the point. Anne Lister's diaries got decrypted and fucking published. I would be long dead and would not care as a result, but even so: Mom would be right. I wrote something, and people read it, and I had no control over it. Would have no control. Oh, fuck the verb tenses. You get it.) 

The point is, I am less likely to write something potentially inflammatory than I am to say it. Even on social media. Maybe especially on social media: I don't pop off with the first thing that comes to mind (and out of my mouth, snarked for the benefit of whichever cat is in the room and possibly Nous, as we are in the habit of saying the shit we'd never write to each other, just so it gets said). If I say some shit to somebody online, boom, there it is. There it stays. Then everyone else who can read and access that page sees it, and suddenly my snark has an audience, and well, we know how this works. Proliferating toadshit. I'm not allergic to opinions--oh no, heavens, haha, I have a few of those, and they are not always kind--but I don't see the point in sharing them for their own sake, either on my wall or in someone's comments. I don't want to have a goddamned brawl. I hate the drama. 

Therefore I avoid posting in Facebook threads, even among my very locked up friends list. I avoid Twitter threads for the same reason, plus, you know, totally public (and I'm a woman and a teacher). I hesitate to post here, even, which is... kinda antithetical to having a blog in the first place. 

So I'm gonna try and write more this year. Here, I mean. Even if I am talking to the echoing emptiness of the internet...that isn't really too different from talking to my cat(s) (except Tinycat, who always answers). I probably still won't post a lot of inflammatory stuff because all the reasons. You want to hear what I really think, catch me at a con and I'll tell ya. 

but why not dragons?

So over on Facebook I see a post by a former grad-student-turned-HS-teacher, asking how to help a student of hers "transition" from epic fantasy to "more serious" literature, and I am back to being 19 again, in the TA offices, listening to the MFA grad students going on about genre in tones of great scorn, and feeling defensive and defiant. Be proud of me, readers: I did not storm in there and punk-post about judging books by their cover (the student reads books with "dragons on the cover," which is obviously proof of the contents' quality), or get high-handed about how fantasy can be, and often is, serious literature with challenging writing, jesus H, have you read N. K. Jemisin or Le Guin or goddamned Beowulf, the fuck is wrong with you?

Instead, I spent a morning on this post instead of the WIP, but hey, blog posts are still writing, and the WIP needs to percolate a little more, and goddammit.

Once, long ago, I was an undergraduate student who wanted to be a writer. I was persuaded to pursue the literature degree, rather than the creative writing degree, for reasons of practicality, which, had I interrogated them closely, were really based on fears that you can't make a living as a writer rather than any certainty that an English degree would prove more employable. (I should have gone for the astronomy degree, or the chemistry degree, or anything else in STEM. I was dissuaded by Calculus 2, for which I had an abysmal teacher, and a desire to spend my weekends playing D&D instead of in a laboratory.)

I spent much of that undergraduate literature degree reading things I did not like and trying to find ways to read and research things I did like for credit, like the forty-source annotated bibliography on J.R.R. Tolkien scholarship instead of Hawthorne or Dickens or [insert canon author here]. That, in turn, led me to his inspirations and influences, and I discovered Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and All The Medieval Romances(tm) and mythology, which mean going over to Classics for some of my electives (and reading the Welsh and Irish stuff on my own), but whatever. I had imagined that literature was full of dry realism, women seeking husbands and red badges of courage and scarlet As, and instead I found all this magic stuff that looked like D&D. After years of resisting the parental dictates to "read more widely" (which meant: read Dickens and Bronte and put down the Tolkien or Cherryh or the Le Guin) I saw that I could read legit literature and still get my fantasy vibe on.

But I couldn't write it, not in that MFA program, so I kept going with lit in grad school, and after a series of science-grant administrative jobs I ended up adjunct professoring in composition at a big public university. The staff is composed of people like me, lecturers with graduate degrees, and English graduate students in both the PhD and MFA programs. My office shares a hallway with several professors, some in Creative Writing, some in Literature. As one might imagine, I come into contact with a lot of academics. A lot of us like Tolkien. A lot of us are gamers. But for most of us, it's still unserious. Leisure stuff. "Real" literature is something else, something mysterious, that could be universal themes or beautiful prose and universal themes or so much cultural cache we can't get rid of it? (And okay, but why is a goddamned hairy-handed vampire more legit than a dragon, as a book's subject? Dracula, not Twilight.)

Well. In my cynical mood, I'd say what they mean by serious is Not Fun (for me, this applies also to Dracula).

The Facebook poster seems to think that her student's dubious literary analysis skills will be bolstered by Not Reading Fantasy. I think--just based on the kid I was, reading shit I did not like one bit in high school lit classes--that if the student has something to say about the work, her literary analysis will suddenly improve; but if she's bored or disengaged, well. Shitty writing. I learned to fake it, but I had good teachers who let me play with form. My essays were half the time fantastic arguments made in character's voices, weird and recursive and, because I gave a damn about what I was writing, good analysis.

Which is not to say broadening of literary horizons is not a good and necessary thing for cultural literacy and just knowing shit and hey, sometimes we find something we like--I would not have read Virginia Woolf on my own, or any of the modernists, without that graduate seminar--and sometimes we encounter concepts we wouldn't, if we stayed in our comfort zones (Like modernism. Like post-modernism. OH MY GOD, JAMES JOYCE, WHY?) But if we're talking about learning to read critically, then... why not something with dragons on the damn cover? Just because dragons aren't "real"? (Well you know what? Neither is Mrs. Dalloway, or Kurtz or the Artful Dodger. Characters and settings aren't real. They just exist on a scale of scientific-materialist plausibility.)

Here's a thought: if you want someone to be a better writer, let them write about something they care about. Dragons. Or vampires. Or women seeking husbands. Or whatever.  Then make them think critically about why they like it, why the prose is working (or not), what the author's saying. Some writing is just crap, okay! But the way to have someone realize that is not to tell them it's shit and hand them a different book. Teach them to like the thinking, and they'll start looking for writing that makes them think. With or without dragons.

yellow

Look at that pollen. Just look.

I've been binge watching The Great British Baking Show on Netflix. I don't generally like reality TV, but I do like baking, and I love learning things. (I have learned that I will never try to bake a Swedish Princess Cake, for example. Or baklava from a hand-made phyllo dough. ) I have seen half a dozen baking catastrophes, and learned how to avoid or even repair them. And of course, people get emotional--weeping over a curdled custard or a failed biscuit or brutal feedback from the judges. I sometimes shout at the judges, especially Male Judge, who seems to revel in being scary.


One thing I've learned is that the judges prefer risk to safety. Try big, fail big--and get more points than timidity, safety, and perfect execution. The contestants freak out about that, like the spectacular failure will somehow be worse than the mundane one. And I think, while sometimes simple is just better when one is eating for oneself, in the context of the show, simple isn't better. You're assumed to have mastered simple a long time ago. All the simples come together to make an amazing! Or, if not an amazing, at least a this is a really great idea, but.

The thing to avoid is not trying.

Let's see. How might I make that connect with writing? I sense a lesson.

I am worrying and fretting on WIP (which is not, oh fistful of On the Bones of Gods fans, the third installment. That one's in the proving drawer, waiting for its rise. I write other things in the meantime because, well, I write.). This time, I've got a stage beta-reader. The Rat is reading, chapter by chapter. The idea here is she will catch any horrific failures before they metastasize into 93K words of unsalvageable. This practice also helps me hold onto plot threads myself. But still, you know. I worry. I am teetering on the verge of throwing out a whole chapter, which is really not a big deal (4k? Pff.) but the reason I'm teetering is not that the prose sucks, but that I don't know if I'm doing it right.

Let's ponder that. I don't know if I'm writing my own freakin' story right, with a world that comes out of my head. Who else would know? My problem isn't that I can't write, but that I'm on the edge of having to commit to this world-build. I think, oh jeez, this is boring, this is safe, but it will makes sense.  Then I think, I should try X instead, because it is NOT safe, but it could crash and burn spectacularly.

Then I retreated to Netflix and spinning thread and watching people freak out about patisserie.

There are probably biochemical reasons for this. Like, oh, losing an hour of sleep. Or the coating of yellow pollen (fucking palm trees) all over EVERYTHING.

So today--or tomorrow, if office hours run late or suck my brain out--I will try again. Not the simple option, either. Because I've mastered simple, and I need to try for awesome.

carrying the ghost

I note that my last post concerned Idris and the Detritus Balls. He recovered nicely, two nights in the hospital later, with no surgery.

Then, last Saturday, it happened again. The detritus balls seemed small this time. And as per usual, he tossed 'em and began galloping around, acting like he was just fine, thanks. We dutifully stuffed some Pepcid down his gullet, to deal with the nausea. He kept it down. We figured he'd be okay, since he was only showing signs of nausea, rather than turning into Sad Cat Loaf. He didn't eat dinner, but no shock there. Drank a lot of water, which is how we know our cats don't feel well; unless they puke, they don't drink from the dish. So that seemed fine.

Only this time, when we woke up on Sunday, he was way, way worse. I wanted to say--oh, it's electrolytes, he's weak. But no. He was panting, in obvious distress, trying to get as close to us as he could. This is a cat who does not whine or complain; but he looked up and made Distressed Kitten sound at me. So I knew, this was bad. Whatever it was, on this Sunday morning, when our regular vet is closed and the internet is no help at all.

And then he went into shock. Stretched out on his side, belly distended, and gasped. His feet were cold. And his muscles twitched, like he had a palsy. Spasms. A body full of charlie horses.

I scooped him into a towel, Nous grabbed the keys. I thought he'd die in my arms on the way to the emergency vet. I thought he'd die there. His kidneys, they said, were basically in shutdown. His belly was full of liquid and air. His guts were not moving at all. There was clearly Something in there, the x-rays were clear about that, but they couldn't do anything until his kidneys stabilized or he'd die on the table. They reckoned to keep him overnight, on fluids, drain his belly, see if they could transfer him to our regular vet in the morning (the e-vet and the regular vet are literally across the parking lot from each other).

So we left him there, and I came home and gathered up his toys and stacked them on the cat tree. We made much of Louhi, who was cheerful (there is no romance with that cat. No sentiment). And we prepared, because...well. Not a lot of romance here, either. Wishing something will not happen does not prevent its occurrence.

At 11:45, the vet called. His kidneys were better. They knew exactly where the blockage was. The vet said he would probably be stable for another 12 hours, if we wanted to wait; but if it were his cat, he'd operate. Do it, we said. But don't call back at 3 AM with the report. We'll call in the morning. We have to teach, no sick days, we have to be functional.

At 6 AM, I called. He lived through the surgery. The culprit appeared to be a chunk of 'something rubbery.' Oh yes. The piece of his puppy toy he chewed through a couple weeks ago, which we had hoped he had not swallowed, or if he had, that it had been in small slivers when it went down. Nope. They wanted to keep him for a few days, see if they could get the kidneys back to normal function, or if there'd been damage. And they wanted to keep him on IV for a while, to see if the guts would restart.

He did not do well as a patient. Nous reckons he'd been so out of it when we left he didn't remember it. So he wakes up in a strange place, with strange people, and dogs, and his guts all stitched up. He's a sweet cat. But there? There, he alligator rolled and swatted and bit and fought like a cornered panther. They kept him tripping most of the time, just to handle him. Then the vet said we could come, and we did. They brought in this growling bundle of rage, wrapped in a freakin' rug, rather than a mere blanket. When we said his name, his head snapped up. He became a different cat, our cat. Purring, staggering all over himself. The techs came in, pilled him. He purred at them. The vet came in. Stared. Examined him, first time she could, hands all over him. He purred.

I think she'd been concerned that we wouldn't be able to handle him at home. I think she thought he was a devil cat and we were the kind of people who would have a devil cat, either inexperienced or neglectful or something. I felt judged, anyway, until she saw him with us. Then I felt un-judged.

We took him home Wednesday. Had to. The credit card had taken all the damage it could. E-vets are not cheap on a good day, and this place is 24/7, state of the art. So home he came, firmly e-collared, shaved, stitched, with a pharmacy's worth of pills.

He's figured out the whole pill pocket thing. They're fine treats. But the pills have to go down with the pill-shooter, and Nous has to do it (I am better at holding him, prying his mouth open; smaller fingers). The pain meds make him loopy, but they also make him hungry. The guts are working again, more or less. The first 12 hours they worked, but not controllably, so things got messy. I said words I never predicted: Oh, it's just poop.

I have shared my pillow with an e-collar and the cat head inside it for a few days now. We have played milk ring, best he can. He has to reach waaay past the collar, grab the toy, hold it, and back his head up until he can scoop it up. But then he brings it to me, purring. Play, mama.

He's going to be fine. We're out of the proverbial woods. Our vet saw him yesterday, running more bloodwork (oh, those kidneys). Afterwards, Idris was so worked up he popped the knot off his stitches. But that's okay, the tech said; the skin's mended now. He's six days past surgery. He won't drop his guts out or anything.

So he's okay, on his way to fine (barring any stupidity about the kidney damage, and you know what? I can handle that.)

And I am more depressed now than I was on Monday. Riddle me that. Well, no need for riddles. I get it. It was a close thing. And I am not ready to lose a 17 month old cat, not the one who brought Kitten back into the house after Pooka died, and Louhi was so sad she could barely eat.

Idris is carrying more than himself. He's carrying Pooka's ghost, too. Easy task, plenty of room, no trouble, because Idris himself is so big.

I know--when you take an animal into your life, that it's temporary. You know that an adopted cat, from a rough start, may have issues, health problems, gods know what. It's a chance you take. And you know, even if the health gods are kind, they're going to die. But when they're old. When they're 16 and 17, after diseases and disorders that signaled, loud and clear, The End Is Extremely Fucking Nigh. You have time to prepare, when that happens. Time to think of a time Without That Personality. The dying still hurts, the grieving still happens (I still mourn my first dog, who died 21 years ago), but you're...ready, I guess. You see the monster coming. It doesn't jump out of the dark.

I guess I'm bruised. A little sore. A little suspicious that another monster's going to jump if I'm not vigilant, snapping my head up at every strange noise, every unexpected movement. If I'm not ready to fight, tooth and claw, when it comes.

frankeneye

I'm perhaps 30 minutes from leaving for an ophthalmology appointment in which I anticipate needles shot into my eyelids (well, fluids shot into my eyelids via needles) and my eyelids peeled open and held that way by clamps while an extremely nice doctor stabs sharp things into said lids. This is all a very dramatic way to drain chalazia that have overstayed their welcome and begun interfering with my vision. This has also happened before, usually around periods of stress, and only ever in the right eye. The last couple of months have been delightfully stressful about those things which rate highest on the stress tests (at least in first world countries, where it is assumed you will not be facing bullets or starvation), and lo! the eyelid has responded. 

I had to semi-bully my way into an appointment; evidently the last almost 4 years, in which I have not needed such services, should require my physician (who has seen me exactly once, ever, because other visits are handled by PAs and other relevant specialists) to refer me to the ophthalmologist who I have seen for this on two other occasions. Not that my doctor would have to see me to do so, necessarily, but she'd have to generate the appropriate email and add another 24 hours to the process. I objected to this rather...vehemently. When it takes me 10 minutes to get my eye open in the morning because of the swelling (which goes down, once I'm upright) and I can feel the pressure of the lumps on my cornea when my eye is closed, well, guess what? I don't need any more delays. (And this is with a single-payer HMO, mind you. It's easier here than with most HMOs to see a specialist.) 

The procedure itself is also a source of great stress, which is why I'm not using my precious "free" time to prepare for next quarter's classes. It's a reboot of my Zombie Apocalypse class, plus and minus a few readings, so it's not like I don't know the material fairly well. But really, I'm too twitchy to concentrate. 

My students, meanwhile, anticipating their successful completion of my class, are trying to register for the next level of first-year writing, which I happen to be teaching next quarter. I have been told repeatedly that my sections are already full, sad face, and who else do I recommend, or might third place on the waitlist still work out, etc. I confess. I don't know what to do with this popularity. I'm glad, obviously, that my students like me and my teaching, especially since this lot survived Beowulf and Aristotle and some truly difficult writing. So it's not that they think I'm an easy instructor (which would gall). I am secretly flattered that my sections fill up as fast as they do, and that I have a reputation among students. I'm also weirded out by it, because I don't know what to do with popularity. I know I am a very good teacher. I can own that. Personally likable? I guess. My teaching persona is sarcastic, irreverent, profane, and funny. (Not that different from Real Me, except way more patience on display at all times.) Also: ridiculously helpful in office hours. So I get why the students want me. If I were a student, I would want me (which is why I teach the way I do: I am my own first audience). But it's still weird to be so sought after. And it will be nice to see familiar faces in the classroom next quarter, and have that many fewer to learn. 

So I'm not complaining. Just ruminating on why being good at something, and being recognized for that, makes me uncomfortable. Maybe it's just the eye talking.

yorick's lucky

My various gods and ancestors, the migraines. This is the season for them. Thanks, changing weather! Thanks, super sensitive barometric sinuses! My eyeballs feel hot and fuzzy. That's only slightly less awful than the icepick behind one of those fuzzy eyes, making it water and blur.

There was something I wanted to rant about, and I delayed it long enough that by the time I sat down to write, the headache has struck. Which I guess is okay, because seriously, who needs more ranting on the internet? --Oh. Nevermind. Now I remember. But I won't rant, or rather, it's been long enough that I am not feeling ranty (which was the point of waiting). And also, headache! Which means my time in front of a lambent (I love that word) screen is limited.

I ran across myself in a blog the other week. The blog belongs to a work-friend, who also happens to be my boss for these past few quarters, and who will be my boss again next year, too.  She is a hardcore Ashtangi. Seriously hardcore. We've talked about yoga together a few times over the years, and I read her blog because it's a glimpse into a world I don't inhabit and about which I am curious, because I am almost always curious about other people's experiences.

In one of my semi-regular passes, I saw a mention in this blog of a work-friend who is "dithering" in her practice, because said work-friend will not accompany her to an Ashtanga shala no matter how many times she asked. And since she'd just asked if I wanted to go to a workshop with Kino MacGregor, and I had said 'lemme check,' I knew she meant me. Well, that and the last two or three times she's said 'come practice with so-and-so and I will go with you' I have declined.

 My only Primary Series exposure has been filtered through other practices; my favorite instructor, who does Viniyoga, taught a whole quarter last winter that was Ashtanga prep. Loved it. Loved the sweat, the challenge, the power of it. I told her that, when I was new to yoga and she was not and we were discussing my practice. I had it in my head, back then, that what I wanted from yoga is the physical badassery, and to some extent I still do; but I've been practicing for a few more years, now, and my opinions have evolved a little. So has my situation. When I thought I might want to be an Ashtangi, Nous was hip-deep in dissertation and I was, well, lonely. At loose ends. Feeling like I needed something that consumed my life like his diss consumed his. Something that was mine in a way that diss was his.

Well. The diss is over.

The  implication of the blogpost in which I found myself a supporting character was that my dithering about my practice was in some way indicative of some hesitation or fear about leaping into Ashtanga. Let me be clear: the post was not about me. It was about asana practice and diligence and her relationship to those things. I was there only as 'this is what I was like, too, once, and I wish I'd stopped dithering sooner." And there was an implication there that I was afraid to commit to Ashtanga, and that was the reason for all my refusals.

And then another invite appeared on Facebook to a workshop here in L.A. in March at her former shala. Come with me, she said. I'll be right next to you. No fear.

And that is where I got all...not angry. Okay. Maybe angry. Huffy, I think, is a better descriptor (which both amused and annoyed me: seriously, self, wtf? Get over it). I decided that, if I was clearly so attached to her opinion of me, and so reactive to it, that I'd best examine why that is. (I blame the Aristotle I've been inflicting on my students lately, and his relentlessly reasoned approach; also, I blame Vulcans, but only in an admiring way.) So anyway, I went off and thought about it. Am I dithering? Am I...afraid?

Yes and yes, but not for the reasons I think she thinks.

One: I like where I practice now, both for location and price. I like being able to walk to practice. I think twice before driving anywhere in this damn city. The two shalas I know of are north and south of an hour away. That adds 2 hours to any practice I schedule. No. I won't even drive 10 minutes to get to a Yogaworks. So I am dithering about driving to the workshop.

Two: You cannot beat the price of my gym membership with a stick, and although they cost extra, the yoga classes are also a great deal. This workshop, for the single session I would attend, is not cheap.

Three: I am generally pleased with the breadth and quality of my classes. I love my Thursday teacher because she can balance the student skill-levels and challenge everyone, and because she knows all our names, and because she will make a point, every class, of speaking to all of us and offering at least one correction. She pushes me at things I am not ready for, sure; but by doing so, she makes sure I don't stagnate, and that I work actively in my home practice to get to those impossibilities. I don't think there's a jot of Ashtanga in her practice. My favorite teacher is trained in Viniyoga and if  he gets permission to do a teacher-training this summer, here in Irvine, I will do it.  Commit. In a heartbeat. (I am not in love with my Monday class, but that is another tale for another time; the instructor is fine, but he is not as good as Thursday's teacher at managing a multi-level room.)

Anyway, I like being an eclectic. (Do I sound defensive? I'm trying to be Aristotelian.) I don't want to do Primary Series, and only Primary Series, until such time as I graduate to Secondary. I don't want to get up at 4 am or 5 am for practice because that's when Ashtangis get up for a reason I haven't yet confirmed but which is based in spirituality. Do not want.

Which is not to say I don't derive something other than visible gut muscles  from my yoga. I do. Focus, detachment, discipline. But  I have my own spiritual practices, and a sense of purpose not reliant on my yoga. Yoga applies to my thaumateurgy, not my theurgy. It's a supplement to other things, not a center. It is not my priority. I am not interested, at this time and probably ever, in making that shift.

But I know I have it within me  to wish for a structure by which to regiment my existence. It's so much easier, with routines. With habits. With rituals. And I have sworn off rituals.

That said, I did agree to go to the Kino workshop for a single session. I will  keep an eye on my work-friend because I don't know the Sanskrit words for the postures, and she does, so I can follow along. And I will come home sore, after an hour in the goddamned car (probably more, on a Saturday), and impressed all over again by the badass Ashtangis in the world. She can believe I'm afraid, and that's fine. I know better.

Not that I have signed up for the workshop session yet.  Perhaps I AM dithering, after all.

walk all over you

I have two spectacular bruises under two toenails of my right foot. This is notable because a) I haven't broken any toes and b) even though they don't come from the same injury, or even the same type of injury, the bruise patterns are identical.

One is on the ring-finger toe, and came from catching the nail on the edge of a new Birkenstock, first time I wore them back in mid-late October. I felt it happen. It hurt at the time. I hopped around and cursed because I fucking knew better than to wear new Birks out anywhere until I'd broken them in. Those flat footbeds are slippery. There's nowhere to grip. 

Anyway, I cursed, hopped, and then promptly forgot about it until the bruise appeared a week ago. It crept up like a five o'clock shadow, gradually growing darker and darker. Given the color of it, and the amount, I'm surprised I'm keeping that nail.

The second is on the toe next to it, and I have no idea of its origin. It hurt last week, during a run, and I thought I must've tied the shoe wrong and jammed a toe in against a seam. It was only after I saw the bruise that I realized I must've done something more traumatic. What, I do not know. Pain can't be expected to deter me from stupid behavior if it comes around this late and I've already forgotten whatever the hell I did.

Okay, no more toes. Well, kinda toes. More like, the incredible and unsung uses of toes, and why you should be nice to them.

I dislocated the long middle toe on my right foot about a decade ago during a martial arts class. I took out both the central joint and the lowest one in the foot itself (knuckle? Do we call toe joints knuckles?) The dude who reset the central joint either didn't see that the lowest was out too (on account of the spectacular swelling and immediate bruising), or we were both glad to get the first joint back without me throwing up, and decided to quit while we were ahead. I suspect the former. Anyway, it took me months to realize what'd happened, and by then, the toe was healed out of joint. It looks like a crescent moon, curving out of the foot to the right. Makes putting on nail polish a PITA, which is how I even noticed it. Eh, I thought, and moved on. My only takeaway lesson was: curl your toes when kicking. No really. CURL THEM.

Fast forward a decade.  Chronic hip pain, which I assumed was from running. One hip. The right hip. I reckoned it had something to do with that out of joint middle toe, because that's a guiding toe, and it's clearly not able to guide anything or bear weight. It just shunts its responsibilities off to its neighbors (one of which is bruised now). But as I was trying to take pressure off the bruised toe, I realized that I swing that leg out in a semi-circle, from the hip socket, rather than driving straight forward. The hip flexor is doing more work, which is why it's usually stiff. The piraformis is doing more work, and the socket is super flexible because all the tendons and ligaments are used to stretching and flexing. That's also why the left hip is less flexible. It's stabilizing for two. And that bad habit while running is 100 times worse when I walk. Go fig. So I am trying to retrain my gait with two bruised toes.

But I'm really glad I figured out how that sickle-toe was messing me up. Hopefully I'll get the hip realigned and the muscles balanced in fewer years than it took me to mess them up.

old black cats, you break my heart

Pooka vs. Pixie, from 2006

 So, Pixie lost 20% of her body mass in the last year. She did this without losing appetite or energy. The blood tests confirmed hyper-hyper-omghyperthyroidism. She and Pooka had low potassium (kidneys!). And while Pooka's kidney numbers didn't change much, Pix's did, though the hyperthyroidism is probably holding it a little at bay.  Her heart murmur also started singing death metal. There are tests for that, too, but the vet wants to settle out her thyroid meds.

First two weeks, one pill a day, in halves, powdered in her wet food so she doesn't know it's there. Now, this pill is tiny. Like fingernail clipping tiny. She found it in yogurt. She found it in ice cream. But powdered, ha! I can hide that under the potassium powder, which is "tuna" flavored and smells awful and so of course she and Pooka love it.

One blood test later, and her thyroid was on the low end. Apparently she responded well to the meds. Her appetite fell off and she gained almost a pound. So the vet cut her back a half a pill.

And one week into that, she's doing the BIG EYES thing that usually means high BP, diabetes, kidney shit, and hyperthroidism. In Pooka's case, none of these things were true. He just had sudden and immediate and total blindness. Pixie can still see. Not well, but she's got shapes, light, etc. Not so good with up close. Vet visit's already on tap for Monday, vet's out of town until then anyway. No way we're doing an e-clinic visit. A) SUPER EXPENSIVE and B) we know what this is. Or what it likely is. And if the vet puts her back on the extra half pill on Monday, she'll probably recover okay (so saith Google).

She's eating, yay! but she's clearly nervous. No purring when you pet her, even if she leans into your hands. This is not a happy kitty. She won't even investigate the boxes from ThinkGeek and Zappo which are all over the floor. Pooka broke the Birkenstock box getting his 12 lb ass into it. Pix won't even investigate.

She will not do well blind, even though she can hear just fine--unlike Pooka, who moves slowly and carefully and navigates by headbumps and grumbling most of the time. When it first happened, he behaved much the same way, except he moved a lot faster and hit things a lot harder. So I don't know. If her sight doesn't recover, I think we're facing a quality of life issue. She is Not Happy(tm) right now. If she continues in Not Happy and moves into Mostly Scared, well, shit.

Oh, old cats.

hey, it's bright in here

Oh good lord, this headache. Full blown migraine! Yay! That's because August 1 is the first day of miserable summer, here in SoCal. Ah well. We got an extra month of tolerable. I knew this was coming. But migraines suck, man. They totally do. Got the sparky eyes and the nausea and the every-muscle-all-locked-up-in-my-cervical-column thing going.

Of course I am going to yoga anyway. I won't feel any better sitting on my ass at home, and it will be a nice distraction to try and keep down dog from turning into upchuck. Ha! I only wish I were kidding.

OS Lion is weird and new, and I am trying like hell to be positive about the changes, even if it makes me feel all WTF? Argh! because I refuse to be one of those people who hates change just because it's different, rather than because it's bringing something hate-worthy to the table. I can get used to a different look in my email. Really. World ending? Nope.

This would be an ugly segue to something that is bugging me, as of yesterday, and so I will write about it here because hey! no one reads this! But it's related to changes and hostility there-to. There's a list I'm on, of writers (although the list is there for life outside of writing discussion), and this weekend one of the members wrote to ask why the word learner is replacing the word student in common usage. I wrote back, against my better judgement, and explained where I thought it came from and why (having to do with conceptions of learning, and how students were formerly seen as passive vessels in education, while the newer models of pedagogy--new, as in the last 15 years or so--try to conceive of students as learners, active in the process. The terms are interchangeable, IME). Clearly that was a mistake. I should've just deleted, like I always do, and moved right on. This unleashed a slew of snarky crap, with a bunch of people with panties in a wad about changing language and how back in THEIR day, etc.  My favorite was the woman who climbed up on her high horse and told me how it was at her university (where she is a student) and how only some people use the words this way. It was kinda baffling. Still ignoring my better judgement, I said something about hey, language changes, yay language! One person's jargon is another person's professional diction. If it doesn't stick, it'll go away. Whatever, right? I mean, seriously, this is anything to give a shit about? And I knew that wasn't the end. I knew it. And sure enough, this morning there was another post demanding that I defend why 'my profession' has gotten its jargon into the every day speech of those common folks who just don't need another word to use. And I lost it. Only a little losing, but still. Of the three people on that list who said something similar to me, I caught the shit for it. Because, clearly, I am the spokeperson for all educators, right here! BOW DOWN AND WORSHIP.  Also, I'm in charge of infecting common speech with jargon. Like learners, in addition to students. There's no more room for synonyms, people. There's a finite number of words in our language, and dammit, I (personally and professionally, as spokesperson for educators) caused it. 

It bothered me more than it should. Obviously. It's still bothering me. I have the list on digest so I have not seen any prevailing shitstorm. No, that will wait until morning, when hopefully the thread is old and stale enough that I don't see a point in dealing with it.

But I'm just fucking tired, people. I am tired of folks who complain because something is different than it was when they were kids, as if that isn't like saying omg! blue sky! yellow sun! wet water! Things change. Get over it. That any of these people are using a godsdamned computer is evidence that they can learn new things. Mostly, though, what chaps my ass is the hostility toward "my profession." I am a little baffled, a lot hurt, and a whole lot angry at the crap that gets thrown at education. You know what? Every profession has technical language. All of it creeps into common usage. I mean, my god! We say bacteria now sometimes, instead of germ! Or! Gasp! Virus might mean something your computer gets, instead of something you get. But if it's something related to education, why yes, it must be all shit and useless and pretentious. Words don't mean things, said one woman on the list. Words don't change things.

And while I know that's bullshit, I also think it's right. I mean, words don't change anything if someone doesn't want to listen. And I am tired of talking. I am two steps from just unsubbing and having done with the list, and not bothering to see what conversation transpired today. No flounce, no goodbye, just gone. Part of me says coward! Face them! and another part of me says Why? I already fight the good fight, 9 months of the year, in my classroom, trying to convince my kids that writing matters and thinking matters and omg! look! words are powerful. I don't need to waste my time, energy, and effort on these people. 

Because language does change, and meanings change, and societal thought changes as a result of the meanings we assign to words. Language evolves and takes culture with it (and vice versa). That's why it's so fucking cool. And if this list of people--ostensibly writers!--doesn't believe that, then I don't know what I'm doing there. Either they're wrong about language, or I am.

l'été est arrivé

So I'm reading my Yoga Journal this afternoon, after having done a little yoga, waiting for the korma to do its thing in the slow cooker (customarily, we say that it's cooking), and I came across an article on the most yoga-friendly cities in the US. To my total non-shock, Boulder was on the list. There was a little article about the town, the yoga it offers, its general population. And there were pictures. And I recognized those places. I recognized Pearl Street and the new-to-me-but-old-now renovations, the rock-bridge going up the middle of the street.

And I surprised myself. Had a little  tears-prickling-behind my eyes feeling, and an acute pain in my chest. Embarrassing, gods, I don't cry; I have a little chip of ice where my heart should be, and it pushes slush through my veins. Ask my students. They know. But seriously. I was homesick. Still. After damn near 7 years here, I miss there.

I never reckoned, as a child of the Air Force's cruel whims, to get attached to a place. We never lived in one more than 3 years until I was 12. I spent high school in the same town, and my parents still live there; but my home, the place I chose to go and spend 13 years of my life, is Boulder. 20-odd square miles surrounded by reality. Oz. Berkeley with fewer Californians (but only barely). Expensive little town, with high taxes voted in by people with the money to preserve their open spaces and their zoning laws. Well. Expensive by Colorado standards; the OC has violently readjusted my notions of cost and value. Pedestrian and bike friendly. Working public transportation. Pine trees and oak and maple and the foothills and the canyons. And winter. Wind. Snow. Sometimes thunder while the snow falls. The air is dry and thin, although wetter than a lot of places along the front range. The sun is out most days, sometimes brittle and cold, sometimes too close and too hot. And the mountains--gods, the mountains. Right. There.

I planned to love SoCal. I did. I came out here determined to want to live here forever and mourn bitterly when we moved away. I planned to love the sea, the sand, the everything except the traffic and how bad could that really be, anyway? Hell, baking would be normal again! Water would boil at the right temperature! And no scraping the car in the winter.

Okay. That last thing is pretty cool. There are a lot of good things about living in greater Los Angeles. I can, on a good day, make a list. But it's not Boulder. And those things can't make up for what's missing.

One of the things I miss about LJ is the what's-playing-now feature, like the mood thingie, only cooler. My mood is generally evident from my prose. But my music! Not so much.

So in the vein of missing that feature, what's playing now is Amorphis, "My Kantele," the version off Magic and Mayhem. It's about how people who say the kantele (which is an instrument, kinda like a guitar and a dulcimer had a transporter accident) was made by the gods, fashioned out of the great pike's bones and guts, are liars. The kantele is sorrow. It is grief. It is wounds and suffering. It's a little more intense a sorrow than homesickness. But the point is--the kantele is a Finnish instrument, and the grimness of the song comes from a people shaped by a land with a thousand lakes, scraped out by glaciers; a place that sees a lot of winter, and long summer days. It's a song about the shape and stamp place leaves in a person's soul.

Gods, I want to go home.