Mercury Falls
Posted by Sarah in books, recommendations, reviews on Jan 30, 2012 | 0 commentsGiven my previously mentioned minor obsession with Revelations-style Rapture, I can’t believe this book slid under my radar. I blame the original cover as the second cover grabbed me. It was a loaner on my Kindle and MAN, I blasted through it. Whether you’re a skeptic or a believer, I’m recommending this because it was damn funny and wicked clever.
From my GR review:
I loved this. Loved it. Humorous, sharp and clever – unabashedly picking apart the idea of free will, destiny, religion and divine intervention with fantastic action and dialogue. One of my favorites:
“The bullet, having thoroughly enjoyed this hole-punching business, proceeded to punch holes in the windows of four nearby cars, finally coming to rest on page 328 of a dog-eared copy of Gravity’s Rainbow, which is 186 pages further than anyone else had ever gotten.”
It begins with a reporter who’s spent her professional career following Apocalypse cults and reporting on them for a Christian publication and spirals into the actual mechanics of the impending Apocalypse and how she’s managed to trip into it. There’s a spectacular Antichrist, Angels of dubious allegiance and intelligence, plenty of Twilight allusions and frankly, it was one of the funniest breakneck reads I’ve had in ages. I loved it so much I plowed through it all in the same day.
Among Others
Posted by Sarah in books, reviews on Jan 23, 2012 | 0 commentsEverything I read about Among Others by Jo Walton could be summed up as “if you love books, you LOVE THIS BOOK.” The story is told from the viewpoint of a teenage girl who is an avid reader, so there is that. She comes from some interesting family circumstances and is attending boarding school. What I really enjoyed about this book are the way the characters use books for conversation (thoroughly believable) and the female relationships characterized at the boarding school (also believable). It’s a fantasy novel of the ‘magical realism’ sort, which is to say that it’s pretty modern with fantastical elements that are important to both the story and the characters. While I did really enjoy the book, I did not love it and that was disappointing. There are so many things about it which mean I SHOULD have loved it but it just didn’t grab me as I’d hoped.
The Last Werewolf
Posted by Sarah in books, recommendations, reviews on Jan 13, 2012 | 0 commentsMy latest read for 2012 was maybe one of the most lauded of 2011. What I kept hearing is ‘literary genre fiction’. Truthfully, as someone who reads a lot of genre, I’d say it was far more genre than literary. Sadly I think most of the critics of “genre” don’t read much of it, so they don’t know how much smart, incisive and thoughtful commentary exists in a lot of great genre fiction. Yeah, there’s brain candy but you find that in any book label. It was an interesting read with a different take on vampires and werewolves and the commentary was heavy on the meaning of life and death, the individual’s role in society and whether or not our history is really important to why we do what we do. All of which makes it sound like there was a lot less killing, shooting and fucking than there was. If you like the Hunger Games series and aren’t completely against the idea of werewolves, I’d definitely check it out.
Oh my fucking GOD you guys
Posted by Sarah in books, entertainment, movies, reviews on Jan 10, 2012 | 0 commentsMy new scrubs finally arrived. I ordered them on December 29. This was not my favorite online shopping experience ever and let’s just leave it at that.
But the SCRUBS. Dude. I am marginally embarrassed that they say Grey’s Anatomy on them because SERIOUSLY but the tags are small and unobtrusive and HOLY SHIT THEY ARE SO COMFORTABLE that I almost don’t care. Almost. They are fantastic colors and they are so soft but sturdy that it was totally worth it. Not worth the WAIT, maybe but still worth it. Awesome.
This is random because I’m sitting in front of the TV but CBS just interrupted New Hampshire primary coverage for NCIS. I laughed out loud. Because bitchez, we know our old peeples like their NCIS and we are NOT giving up those advertising dollars for an election that doesn’t really COUNT yet!
Unrelated, the 2012 book list is underway! I powered through the first six Harry Dresden books (I’d previously read 1-5) and had forgotten exactly how much I enjoyed them. Now I’ll have to pick up the rest. In the meantime, I’m partway through The Last Werewolf which is – thus far- as interesting as everyone on the internet said it was. I’m reserving judgement until it’s over, though.
We saw Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol over the weekend. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Tom Cruise may be batshit nuts, but he works his ass off to try and make a good movie. I enjoyed it pretty much EXACTLY as much as I’ve enjoyed the others (which is a good thing) with a bonus of Simon Pegg. Afterwards I got snagged by a studio focus group person to answer some questions about the movie and about the movies we saw previewed. Wow, y’all. There’s about to be some SHIT coming out.
My favorite part: Why wouldn’t you see Ghost Rider?
Me: DID YOU SEE THE FIRST ONE? It was fucking TERRIBLE. (she actually had to type that all out. I was amused.)
Her: What could we change about the trailer to make you more likely to see the movie?
Me: PUT ANYONE BUT NICK CAGE IN IT. He’s been terrible ever since The Rock. In fact, put The Rock in it and I might go see THAT.
This was apropos of The Rock being in the equally terrible looking sequel to GI Joe. My response to that was ALSO Did you see the TERRIBLE FIRST FILM?
I won’t lie, I had a bit of fun with the fact that she was having to type my responses verbatim.
They don’t give you money or anything for doing those surveys but, as I told Spouse, if I’m going to keep bitching about the shit movies Hollywood is putting out this is the LEAST I can do to try and help. As it is, we rarely see films in theaters [response to actual question from survey lady: We like to see shit blow up.] but if you’re going to give me a chance to have input I’ll stop and answer the questions for the common good.
Surprise from the survey: Spouse saying he’d be most likely to see Snow White and the Huntsman (versus other previewed films) because of the people in it. Huh.
Things I have loved this year – tv, apps, podcasts
Posted by Sarah in books, geek toys, recommendations, reviews, television, tv on Dec 30, 2011 | 1 commentI listened to A LOT of podcasts this year. It started with The Nerdist (which I still love) and led me to some comedy podcasts that I DIDN’T enjoy so much but ultimately I found Girl on Guy (Aisha Tyler) and Sklarbro Country (the Sklar brothers) which made up for any missteps. Episode 1 of Girl on Guy has, by far, the funniest story I have ever heard. The rest of her shows are right in my wheelhouse. She’s a chick who thinks like a dude and has wide-ranging interests and plenty of geek hobbies. And she’s funny. Sklarbro Country is a great combination of comedy and sports with impressive guests. I’m less enamored of their ‘celebrity call in’ segment but it’s toward the end so I usually just skip it.
I also love Pop Culture Happy Hour and Culturetopia from NPR. The former was a recommendation by my friend Mimi and it consistently makes me laugh.
Book podcasts! Bookrageous is a fave because it’s three friends talking about books and graphic novels they like and frequently trying to convince one another to read something they love. It’s been great and I got a couple of excellent recs out of it this year, not to mention it’s fun to listen to. Incidentally, I recommend Brews and Books (Josh’s blog) since it’s the way I found the podcast and I love his beer reviews. Books on the Nightstand is a little more polished but also gave me great reading ideas this year.
Sound Opinions from NPR was my go-to music podcast and I enjoyed every single episode.
The 404 was my geekcast of choice, as I have raved about before. Buzz Out Loud switched to once a week podcasts with special coverage episodes, which means I listened to it more than I would have expected.
Doug Loves Movies was, hands down, the funniest podcast I listened to all year. I could be seen laughing out loud at work REGULARLY while listening.
Android Apps:
Words with Friends. Do I really have to explain this? I was the kind of kid who learned to play Scrabble by making the coolest words we could- we didn’t keep score. Words with Friends has taught me strategy. I dig it.
Tweetcaster replaced Tweetdeck toward the end of the year because it’s got a great user interface and it does everything I want it to.
No Time to Cook by Real Simple is a great app and cost about the same as one issue of the magazine. Consistently delicious recipes. ChefTap I already raved about but I am still loving it and having lots of success.
Foursquare continues to be my default ‘travel’ app, with a side of OpenTable for getting reservations. My fave utilities are Springpad and OurGroceries. My calendar is Jorte, whose only fault as far as I can see is an inability to create bi-weekly events. Now that I work in an office with a radio, I understand and use Shazam.
Gentle Alarm is still the way I wake up and I still love it. Tea Timer has been great for making tea, the Starbucks app is great if you’ve got a Starbucks nearby (I no longer do) and the Eljay app has made my LJ flist mobile.
Tab Tools is a GREAT app for guitar tabs and my goal for the new year is to actually USE the Meditation Support Timer.
Greader and Gmail are on my homescreen with G+ and Tweetcaster. Password Card is the best thing for creating safe passwords on the go.
Dear Emergency Medical Spanish App – YOU ARE AWESOME.
Untappd is a recent addition which I’m playing with. Verdict is still out.
TV.
Dude. I watched A LOT of TV this year.
Tops on my list: Revenge, Justified, Homeland, Community, Castle, Sons of Anarchy, Once Upon a Time, Grimm, Criminal Minds, Modern Family, Ringer, The Mentalist and Covert Ops.
Whether it was brain candy (Revenge, Covert Ops, Grimm, Once Upon a Time, Ringer), interesting crime drama (Justified, Homeland, Sons of Anarchy, Castle) or comedy (everything else), this was the stuff that made me keep watching.
Revenge is campy, but awesomely so (and FYA does GREAT recaps), Covert Ops is slightly less campy but equally fun. I’m enjoying the modern takes on fairy tales and I loved the comedies. That said, if I was going to recommend something to everyone, it would be Homeland, Sons of Anarchy and Justified.
Homeland had tight and intense writing, focused storylines without a dozen hanging threads and some INCREDIBLE performances. Claire Danes better get an Emmy. Watching Sons of Anarchy is like a terrible accident – you know what’s probably going to happen, you can’t look away and then HOLY SHIT something else comes out of the blue – but so out of the blue that you disengage, you’re just pissed you didn’t see it coming. Justified has Timothy Olyphant so that’s 1. He’s a cowboy in Wild West sense of the word, so that’s 2. It’s got one of the most interesting fencesitting characters (is he good? is he terrible? does he even KNOW?) in Boyd Crowder that I’ve seen on television, so that’s 3. Add in the very specific kind of subculture that happens in rural areas and it’s engaging, thoughtful and consistently a wild ride.
So there you go. That’s my favorites roundup. My list of this year’s books is at Goodreads and I think I posted about MOST of them, so you should be able to click on the 2011 books tag on this post and get all the entries. At Goodreads the books are all listed chronologically. I’m hoping to get through a reread of some of the Dresden Files books this weekend so I can start catching up.
Salvage the Bones
Posted by Sarah in books, reviews on Dec 27, 2011 | 0 commentsThis ended up being book 60 of 55 Books I Read And Am Willing to Tell People About. I’m pleasantly surprised to be exceeding my goal but I’ll probably keep it to 55 again next year. With any luck, I’m going to end this year’s reading with some brain candy.
Back to my original point: After reading about a dozen reviews that loved Salvage the Bones but didn’t seem to really know how to TALK about it (including Jen Weiner, who I LOVE), when it came up as a Kindle Special Offer for $2, there was no chance I was passing it up.
First, the hype is justified. It’s an incredibly lovely novel, written with equal parts hope and sadness and captures an experience that most will only ever read about. The language is beautiful and the characters painfully well-rendered. For those unfamiliar, it’s the story of an impoverished family’s experience surrounding Hurricane Katrina. Before you jump to the ‘holy depressing’ conclusion, it’s also an amazing story about community and family and how we try to take care of our own. Definitely worthy of the acclaim and awards.
In only tangentially related news, I completed my online FEMA emergency training and while being PAINFULLY DULL it’s actually full of good things which makes me hopeful about our response to further natural and man-made disasters.
Hey girl, I’mma leave this post
Posted by Sarah in books, food, miscellany on Dec 22, 2011 | 1 commentYes, that’s a Ryan Gosling/Kanye West meme mashup. Because THAT’S the kind of nerd I am. Know what other kind of nerd I am? I got a Littman II Classic and that motherfucker is LIKE MAGIC. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, that’s totally fine – just keep scrolling.
Book 59 of 50 this year turned out to be The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova. I remembered enjoying The Historian but not so much I wanted to purchase this particular book, so I checked it out from the library. The premise involves a mystery surrounding a painting and the disturbed artist who attempted to attack it. It’s told in varying viewpoints by the shrink, the artist’s wife, the artist’s mistress and a painter in the 1800s.
There was probably not a single twist I didn’t predict, which is not a dealbreaker for me. I was thoroughly uninterested in the mistress, so I skimmed her chapters. The language, while lovely, was a bit… forced throughout. For example, you can write the way people speak or write the way they’d write (which is frequently more lovely) but you can’t purport that speech patterns are the same as writing patterns as I’ve literally never met anyone in my life who speaks exactly as they write. That was just a bit weird.
I think my biggest complaint is that it took the best story elements and techniques from The Blind Assassin and Possession and just didn’t deliver well on it. It doesn’t help that those are two of my favorite novels but I was predisposed to enjoy the premise and the mode of storytelling and ultimately for me it just fell a bit flat. Which is not to say it was BAD because lord knows I’ve read some absolute shit this year that I wouldn’t even talk about (hence the 50 list) and this was a good read, it just fell a bit short of its potential.
Hrm. Self edit here: I looked at my review of The Historian and apparently I DIDN’T enjoy it that much (I gave it two stars), so I guess this comes out ahead at 3 stars.
Unrelated, I’ve been inspired by the BrokeAss Gourmet and I think I’m going to create a recipe for Dark Chocolate Cranberry brownies. I’ve got spare cranberries.
Also, Dear WordPress: I KNOW there’s an update but I’m not installing it until I’m completely convinced it will not utterly fuck up my site. This is because I had that whole snafu earlier this year with my site being utterly b0rked and that’s not how I’m looking to go into the new year. I’mma let you update in my own damn time.
I’ll admit it
Posted by Sarah in books, entertainment, miscellany, movies, recommendations, reviews on Dec 5, 2011 | 0 commentsI spent an embarrassing amount of time this weekend watching cheesy holiday made-for-tv movies on the Hallmark Channel. Ridiculous. Some of them were actually worth it, though.
I finished book 57 over the weekend – The Postmistress. It was similar in tone to The Distant Hours (though I felt The Distant Hours had a more compelling story) and is set in the same time period. While I enjoyed it, I had the sense throughout the entire book of WAITING for something to HAPPEN. And then when something happened, it felt like I went back to waiting another several chapters. Hrm. Of the two, The Distant Hours is to be preferred.
Catching up
Posted by Sarah in books, recommendations, reviews on Nov 30, 2011 | 0 commentsI haven’t blogged in a bit because 1) holidays. Thanksgiving was nothing short of epic – our friends came over and we watched football and drank and had great conversation and played games – for 13 hours. It was fantastic.
2) Job change. Black Friday was set to be my last day and when I woke up, I couldn’t be arsed to go. And thus, the old job ends. My new job begins tomorrow and I am very excited about it.
3) Travel. Having the long weekend, I went to Glenwood Springs with Spouse and enjoyed a bit of out of town scenery.
4) Nonprofit news. I’ve spent a bit of my free time putting together articles of incorporation and bylaws and basically getting things in order so that I can make this happen. Very exciting.
In semi-related news, I’ve made the 55 Books I Want to Talk About goal – a month early.
Book 56 is The Paris Wife by Paula McLain.
I LOVED this. Anyone who knows me knows I’m a Hemingway fan and I’ve a particular relationship with A Moveable Feast (my favorite of his works) having traced a fair bit of it through Europe on my own. I was always a bit fascinated by his relationship with Hadley but I’m not much for biographical research. This is incredibly executed and wonderfully imagined, it’s about complex people and the difficulty of relationships (also a theme in my 2011 books?). Hemingway sounds like Hemingway which lends all sorts of credibility to the novel. Hadley is an engaging and thoughtful character and the dynamics not only of their relationship but all their relationships in Paris and beyond are visceral.
I haven’t highlighted a book on my Kindle in ages and I highlighted a BOATLOAD of brilliant bits in this. In fact, I was rather surprised to not find much in “public highlights” mostly because this was incredible. Lovely, lovely, lovely. This is one I got as a library lender but I’ll definitely be purchasing a copy.
Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter
Posted by Sarah in books, recommendations, reviews on Nov 20, 2011 | 0 commentsI can’t remember why, of all the books I put on my TBR list this year – and believe me THERE ARE A LOT, that I decided to buy this one. Maybe it was a review I read or heard, maybe the price was right but for whatever reason I did.
If I had to pick a theme in my books this year, it would be “atmospheric.” Not intentionally, of course, but I’m finding the thread running through my favorite reads of this year at least.
This novel, by Tom Franklin, isn’t a mystery or a thriller but at the same time it is. I’ve never read Franklin before but it’s a delicately woven narrative linking two characters and a difficult problem, in a tough time and place. It’s complicated and dense, like relationships are, but at the same time it’s engaging and thoughtful and pulls you along to the next page. Some of his descriptions are lovely but mostly it’s just about people and the things we do and how we punish each other.
So if that wasn’t obscure enough, I highly recommend it.
Kindle, my bizzle!
Posted by Sarah in books, geek toys, recommendations, reviews on Nov 17, 2011 | 2 commentsXmas came early in the Wilder house.
I ordered a Kindle Fire for Spouse for Xmas and I did the preorder because I remember how previous Kindle rollouts have sometimes been delayed. This actually worked out well because the only thing on MY Xmas list was the Kindle Touch (wifi). So on the day his Fire showed up, I took my K3 to Target and did a trade-in (I got about $25 which was a bit less than I would have gotten if I’d done it online) and picked up my KTouch. (NB: You can also do this via Amazon. I used Target because I have access to an employee discount)
So. KINDLES ALL AROUND.
Spouse has been debating about a tablet, as the iPad/Xoom movement has been sweeping his workplace. I’ve got some iPad issues, not the least of which is the price tag, so we were talking about usage. He wants to be able to check work email and manipulate Office documents, plus use it for media purposes – which is what made me think the Kindle Fire might be perfect.
It’s a bit heavier than I would expect, having been spoiled by the Kindles, but the graphics are pretty sweet and the screen is very responsive. I got him a case that allows it to stand up and he hasn’t had any complaints about the touch keyboard. (I was a little worried on that point, I’ll admit) Today there was a free app (they do it every day and I kind of love that) called Enhanced Email which can be configured for his work account. There’s also an Office Pro app which allows you to create, edit and share Office docs and is compatible with Office 2010. With those few functions, he’s pretty much all set. The web browser seems to be pretty quick and Cloud access is definitely nice.
I don’t know that he’s gotten into the video yet but the Prime trial means he can watch Arrested Development streaming so I expect that to change soon.
As for me, the Kindle Touch is SWEET. I love the touch screen and I especially love that it allows me to turn the pages without moving my hand. Once you get used to touching the top of the screen for the menu functions (also like that on the Fire, btw) it’s a snap. Long touch something to add it to a collection or see other options, short touch to open it. Completely intuitive if you’ve been using the Kindle line.
The clarity of the screen is great, the ads are unobtrusive and only visible as either screensavers or on the menu screens. Page turns are also noticeably faster.
I’m adjusting to the size which is simultaneously great and crazy small. Like, I can’t believe how much smaller it is but I don’t feel as if I’ve lost anything but HOLY SHIT LOOK HOW SMALL IT IS. It’s pretty fantastic. I haven’t hooked it up for social networking but I WILL say that the touch screen made it hella easier to enter my securely ridiculous long wifi password.
Unrelated to the tech, I decided to change my collections on the new device to simplify things a bit more.
Definitely related: if you own a Kindle, you should definitely have Books on the Knob on your RSS feed. They do an amazing job of rounding up free/cheap books and the app of the day.
Back to unrelated: Anyone on G+ adopting Google Music yet? I dropped the app on my phone and I’m currently uploading my collection to the Cloud.
Further unrelated: I heard someone on NPR refer to 2012 as the Year of Dickens due to a number of adaptations in the works. Anyone want to (re)read some classics with me?
Halloween Reading
Posted by Sarah in books, recommendations, reviews on Oct 29, 2011 | 0 commentsIf you’re looking for something to read that suits the season, I’m going to reiterate my hearty endorsement of Mira Grant’s Feed and Deadline. Feed is the first in the trilogy and while it is a trilogy, each book is a solid standalone story. Suspenseful (Feed was literally heart-pounding), engaging and thought-provoking. Not your typical zombie read. Both books are $7.99.
So you’re not into zombies? Chelsea Cain’s ‘Heart’ series is excellent crime fiction with a wicked awesome villain and a fucked up protagonist. All of the best and worst things that can happen to characters are up in these books. Heartsick, the first in the series, is just $4.99.
These are all great books which make great weekend reads.
Not a conundrum
Posted by Sarah in books on Oct 23, 2011 | 2 commentsLit is one of those books I’ve had on my wishlist/reading list for ages. I’ve heard fantastic things about it and raves from people of all walks of life. As a result I was pretty happy to find it at the library for lending on my Kindle. I blasted through Juliet, Naked and started Lit.
I read Cherry some years ago and thoroughly enjoyed it. I read it for the same reasons I wanted to read Lit – universally great reviews. For me, Lit has been much slower going. And then I ground to a halt. One, life is to short to read things I don’t find compelling. Two, I just cannot get into the subject no matter how lovely the writing. It turns out that having had my own binge drinking experiences in high school and college, I don’t find it all that interesting to read about those experiences of others.
Caveat, here: I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell. It was a terrible film but long before the film it was a website and then a book. My husband pointed it out to me and Tucker Max’s stories fucking slayed me. This one especially. Yes, Tucker Max is a misogynist douchebag but a funny story is a funny fucking story. (Literally)
This is all apropos of getting the email from my library that Charlaine Harris’s #10 (Dead in the Family) is available. I didn’t want to buy it because 1) hardcover price, 2) the series has been getting repetitive and 3) my friend Mo said it wasn’t that great. Free, though, means I’ll try to read damn near anything.
That said, I’m ditching a literary confessional for a trashy vampire book. My inner English major tells me I should be ashamed but I can’t muster it. I’m down with a little bit of brain candy now and then.
Enlighten Up, Yoga Bitch
Posted by Sarah in asana, books, classes, movies, philosophy, teaching, yoga on Oct 21, 2011 | 0 commentsI’m sick and my husband is going out of town so I’m writing a post for your Friday enjoyment.
Earlier this week I wrote a post about the book Yoga Bitch and a friend commented to ask if I’d watched the film Enlighten Up. I have and there are some striking similarities between the two. They aren’t the same story by any means but I think they both begin with a flawed premise.
In life, if you go looking for A Thing to give your existence meaning I suspect you will inevitably be let down. It’s too much pressure, both on the Thing and on yourself. You’re attaching expectations to an Unknown Thing and it’s also putting pressure on yourself to 1) identify with and 2) attach oneself to that Thing. It’s a bit like hearing from everyone you know that The Alchemist is an amazing and lifechanging book and then reading it and finding it only mildly interesting and/or a little pedantic and thinking that maybe there’s something you’re missing out on. Why no, I’m not speaking from personal experience at all.
I got to yoga by being lazy. It’s a story I tell with some regularity, especially as almost everyone says “I can’t do yoga.” I don’t enjoy running. While I have been known to engage in running as a form of exercise, it’s not fun. In point of fact, I think running should be reserved almost exclusively for eluding a weapon-wielding psychopath although that rather undercuts my argument since without practice you wouldn’t get all that far but I digress.
So I don’t enjoy running. I also don’t enjoy aerobics classes. That’s why, in 2001, I picked up a yoga book on the clearance shelf at the local Barnes and Noble. I was 26, married just over a year, had settled into our house after moving twice within 12 months and working a stressful job in outside sales. The odd hours of my job were not conducive to taking regular classes and I thought I’d see what this yoga thing was all about. I took the book home, tried some of the stretches and thought ‘Hey, this isn’t so hard.’ Some of the stretches were familiar from when I played sports in school. When I looked at the suggested routines at the end of the book, I thought perhaps I’d benefit from some live instruction.
Let me be clear: I was not looking for salvation. I wasn’t looking for enlightenment. I wasn’t looking for inner peace. Mostly I was looking for a way to work out that didn’t involve a gym (I’d tried that unsuccessfully) or rollerblading with my dog (epic disaster). I’d heard yoga was good for you and helped with relaxation. I’ve always had issues with quieting my brain and figured this couldn’t hurt, right? I was nervous though because I’ve always been a fidgeter. Ask anyone who ever sat in a meeting next to me or watch any of my sales videos. FIDGETER. I was not hopeful about my ability to fit into a zen environment.
My first class was at the only yoga studio in my city. It was the basement of a dentist’s office, complete with industrial carpeting and cleaning crew noises overhead. The class was taught by the woman I found out later owned the studio and it was like a reintroduction to my body. It was stringing together movements and muscle actions that I’d never used before and I loved it. It was physical and I could see how it could be made more aerobic if I practiced on my own. WIN.
As I practiced more often and took more classes, yoga seemed more logical. My studio didn’t partake in chanting, which suited me just fine – not even an Om. Then I had the magical class – the class which, once having had it, means you never look back. During the class I was so focused on every single thing that I was doing – each muscle motion and the depth of each breath – that I literally didn’t notice the passage of time. I came out of savasana not just refreshed but energized and motivated. NOW I understood why people do this. It’s moving meditation.
I, who was never able to sit and meditate, suddenly understood the point of TRYING. That’s not to say I started a meditation practice – I didn’t – but I got the idea of focusing inward with practice. Truthfully, in all these years I’ve never been in a class where people are looking around at their classmates (though I guess it probably happens) because virtually everyone is trying so hard to be balanced and graceful that they can’t spare a glance for the person who is UTTERLY CONVINCED that they are the most clumsy yogi ever and replete with the knowledge that they will somehow knock down the entire room domino-style. That said, I now fully understood the concept of using yoga to still the mind – its primary purpose according to Patanjali.
So the more I practiced, the stronger I got and while not every class was in that zen brainspace I still enjoyed it. I didn’t get enlightened, I didn’t find god but I got what I needed. In fact I loved it so much that I wanted to be able to share it with people and I got certified to teach.
Yoga helped me get through a hellacious year where my dad was ill with terminal cancer. It helped me get through the year after his death which turned out to be almost worse than the year he was sick. Most importantly, it’s a space I can always go back to – in a hotel room, in a park, in my house and virtually anywhere I can stretch my legs. With music (I’m a fan) or without. Props or not. Decidedly not in matching designer yoga clothing. Because yoga isn’t about what it looks like or what you THINK it’s going to be, it’s only about what you do.
That old adage from schoolteachers about ‘getting out of it what you put in’ is entirely true of yoga. If you put in more muscle work, you will get more muscle strength. If you put in more concentration, your concentration will improve. In classes geared for 80 year olds, I manage to work up a sweat because yoga taught me how to change the way my body works and how I utilize my muscles. Through yoga, I was able to help 80 year old ladies better understand the geography of their muscles and how to use them.
That is what I love about yoga. No one can tell how much or how little you’re working just by looking at you. You can adjust your workout in mid-workout or in mid-pose. No one is looking at you. We all have our own shit to sort out and work through and sometimes it happens in Warrior II. Sometimes it happens in a class where you infuse your breath with intention.
I once took a Tibetan Yoga class and while much of it was forgettable, the thing which was transformative was the breath. We were to breathe in imagining we were taking in something that we needed. Our exhale was to think of someone we knew who needed something and send the exhale of that thing out to that person. Chock full of woo woo? Hell yeah. But I left that class FEELING like I did something. I was lighter and felt brighter. Do I know that it’s woo woo? Hell yeah. Was some of my euphoria probably from increased oxygen intake? Hell yeah. But in that class I did not cheat on a single breath. I didn’t shorten an inhale or exhale by trying too hard or reaching too far. And sometimes, imagery is what gets it done. Look at sports psychology, for fuck’s sake. It’s SCIENCE. It works.
Some people bring their religious practice into yoga. It can absolutely be done and pretty much any yoga instructor can help you do it. I’ve had students dedicate their practice to Christ or use a prayer mantra to maintain their breath. Yoga is a tool that can be used in a multitude of ways.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that if you’re looking for a global panacea, you are destined to fail. This may be a newsflash but we’re more complicated than that. I can’t say that this works for me so it will DEFINITELY work for you. The problem of Yoga Bitch was that she was looking for something that no one thing could give her. The protag in Enlighten Up got sold a bill of goods that ‘yoga will do X, Y, Z for you.” We’re individuals. We’re thinking individuals. What thinking individuals should instinctively know is shit’s not that easy.
I’m not trying to convert you to the cult of yoga because there isn’t ONE yoga. I push back EVERY time I hear an instructor say “this is the right way to do x.” We are all different structurally and there are things that my body will never be able to do. I embrace that and don’t stop trying, I just stop expecting a magical yoga fairy to loosen my ligaments or change the shape of my pelvic girdle. For me, yoga is about accepting where you are and just trying to be better. At what is up to each individual.
Ideally everyone picks and chooses the things that the want or need or like to use and everyone has a different result – with one caveat. I’ve never seen anyone leave a yoga class that wasn’t smiling. The key is not to expect a revelation, otherwise you’ll always be disappointed. I felt bad for the narrators of the book and the film because they had this idea that yoga could change their lives. The only thing that can change your life is you. Yoga is just a tool that can help you do it.
Juliet, Naked
Posted by Sarah in books, recommendations, reviews on Oct 20, 2011 | 0 commentsRather than repeat myself, a link to my review on Goodreads.
