Yesterday I was compared to a variety of people, including Cleopatra, Angelina Jolie in the movie Hackers,and 1920 silent film star Louise Brooks. 

Comparisons of this nature are acceptable, though I patiently waiting for someone to notice my resemblance to Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction.

Hairdresser Jeff, he is a genius. I’ll consider posting a photo soon, though I’ve noticed a glitch with my digital camera. It substitutes a similar but noticeably uglier model in my place. Must be defective. I’d ask for my money back but it was a gift.

Yesterday was notable not only for the sheer number of celebrity comparisons but because it marked my one year yoga anniversary. I’m naturally flexible, but with yoga practice, I am well on my way to becoming a human pretzel. Especially now that I am practicing yoga on my lunch breaks (no more reading at lunch, remember; no more reading till the manuscript is done), I am turning into a rubber band.

Yoga is about far more than contorting oneself into impossible positions, of course. It is also about meditation and relaxation and spiritual wellness. Unfortunately I haven’t got the hang of any of that yet. I don’t know that I ever will. I am not a laid-back person.

If you know me personally, you realize that is a stunning example of understatement in action. As a lifelong member of the Anxiety Disorder club, I am by nature fretful and high-strung. I do not know how to relax without either A) falling into a deep sleep or B) partaking of certain vegetables which are unfortunately illegal and therefore unavailable to me.

I can’t get the hang of meditation. Whenever Yoga Instructor Jennifer asks us to clear our thoughts I find my brain working overtime. I’ll be mentally composing a short story or doing the math to see if I can possibly pay off my student loans in this lifetime.

So yeah, I’m missing out on a big part of yoga, the breath control and the meditation and the relaxing. Typical Westerner, I am, ignoring the traditions of a 5000-year-old practice and focusing only on the physical exercises.

But that’s nothing to scoff at. It took me a quarter of a century to find an exercise I enjoy.

Well—I do enjoy other exercise, but only if I can dupe myself into thinking it’s not exercise proper. I love to go hiking, but there is a noticeable lack of mountains around here—a crying shame, and I wish somebody would do something about it. What do I pay taxes for, I ask you?

I love to go swimming, but I haven’t been in years. The problem with swimming is that it involves swimsuits. Swimsuits, for those of you who may not realize, are hideous garments made of skin-tight lycra that accentuate every embarrassing bulge on your body, while doing absolutely nothing to conceal the stretch marks that you may have acquired and enhanced through a year of yoga practice. Wearing them is a nightmare, while purchasing them is a mortifying, soul-searing exercise in making you despise your body, any resemblance to Uma Thurman notwithstanding.

What I really need is an estate on a private lake, preferably in the mountains because that’s prettier, where I could go swimming all by myself. (My birthday is in April. Hint, hint.)

No mountains around here, and no secluded water-front property in my name. Without yoga, I’d be completely stationary. Fortunately I can trick myself into forgetting that it is, in fact, exercise.

Off to work now, where I can look forward to a day of solving information needs, suggesting pleasure reading, and not-exercising-whatsoever-no-not-me during my yoga practice over dinner.