Yoga and cheap leggings

This title of this post suggests an embarrassing event occurred at yoga tonight as a consequence of wearing cheap leggings. That is not the case, but it does seem quite probable.

This evening I went to my second yoga class. In theory it should had been my third class, but I skipped class no. 2 because I felt like there was a small Tasmanian devil hitting puberty in my abdominal - so angry! I never expected to say this, but I actually like yoga. I thought I would be restless and demand something more sweaty that rips my muscles apart and reattaches them incorrectly, but apparently I can also appreciate something more relaxing. I think I determined the pattern for yoga success: do said muscle-destruction the evening before at kettlebell class. Then I spend the one or two following days looking like a duck when trying to go up or down stairs. This is actually a rather accurate visual because ducks don't have knees, thus stairs are difficult for them. While they can fly up instead, I don't have that option as evolution has yet to provide humans with functioning wings. So I don't bend my kness on stairs, because bending knees requires muscle contraction/expansion/whatever it is muscles do. As a consequence of muscle-destructive kettlebell class, stretching muscles the following evening seems like a logical recovery and, equally as important, feels nice. Plus, I like the part when the instructor makes us lie on the floor (in a slow, 90-step process with lots of deep breathing) and relax. It's like nap time for adults! More so, the instructor has a soft soothing voice so it kind of sounds like someone is humming you to sleep.

That all being said, I don't understand the purpose of really expensive yoga clothes (*cough* lulu lemon *cough*). Well, I kind of do, as I have spent the equivalent of a small country's GDP on bicycles, bike clothing, and bike accessories, but my sit bones and I are very confident it is worth spending extra dollars on better quality bike shorts. Maybe there is a different form of super advanced yoga that does demand proper pricey yoga clothing, but I certainly hope people don't feel intimidated and that they can't try it because they don't have "real" yoga clothing. Anything non-restricting will do (although I have avoided my previously discussed stretchy comfortable high-dollared bike shorts as the excessive crotch padding doesn't scream 'yoga' as much as 'weak bladder'). In actuality, I think yoga in a bathing suit isn't unreasonable. I was going to suggest naked yoga, and it probably does have its place among a few specific market segments, but that may discourage newcomers.

I also feel yoga has a place in office environments. Yoga seems to stretch you out, like rolling out dough and increasing its elasticity. Sitting at a desk all day turns your body back into the ball of dough. It would be wonderful to have a light yoga class at lunchtime, outside in the sunshine. (My imagination doesn't support winter. It's like an outdated version of flash and 'winter' doesn't load.)

During yoga I was also thinking about what it means in terms of body language. I was supposed to be clearing my mind, but apparently I don't do that very well. Typically one with 'closed' body language might be assumed to be disinterested, unapproachable, self conscious, etc. Yoga forces you to open your body, let you be seen, and hopefully helps some people feel more 'open' on the inside.

In laughing-dirty work humour unrelated to yoga, I was wearing a dress at work yesterday that had zippers on the sleeves. Someone chirped, "Oooh, easy access!" and I said, "It's a dress, all dresses are easy access." If it were possible to do a winky face emoticon in real life, I would had done that there ;) . What I didn't bring up is that after wearing new pantyhose for an entire four hours a medium-sized hole managed to materialize in my crotch. Touche, realllly easy access. Which brings me to my point de l'heure, that any 'designer' that puts a seam right between your legs is clearly a man, has never worn pantyhose, or has incredibly thin legs. You know how the packaging brags "double constructed toes" or whatever is it? How about quadruple constructed crotch. See previously mentioned extra padded bike shorts for inspiration. (Not really.)

Of course, the real solution is simple for the not-freezing days that I highly recommend: thigh highs. Thank you logical people of the fashion industry. My apparently massive thighs and I salute you.

Note: unlike the models in the photos, please make sure your dress/skirt/bottom item of clothing is long enough to cover the top bits of thigh highs or people may think you 'charge' for 'special services' that involve 'closeness' of 'genitalia'.

YYG observations

Interior shot of one of the massive
Halifax - Charlottetown planes.

I've been spending a lot of time at the airport lately. Unfortunately, this is not a result of long layovers en route somewhere amazing and wonderful, but is actually for work purposes. The Charlottetown Airport is special because it's tiny and kind of treated more like a train station. You could arrive 90 minutes before your flight, or you could arrive 25 minutes before your flight, provided you have no luggage to check and have already printed your boarding pass at home. Otherwise, you should be prepared to arrive 45-50 minutes before your flight if you are from away; 15 minutes if you are an Islander or have 'strong Island connections' (not as in flight connections, but as in having family in PEI, previously visited, or perhaps once ate a potato or at least strongly considered eating a potato). That being said, sometimes it can take longer to check in if you're from PEI because it must be asked how the family is doing. A detailed answer with some new gossip is expected.

During my time at yee ol' YYG, I've witnessed a phenomena that would probably almost never take place in the airport of a metropolis. It shall be called the Fly Away Support Clan (aye). I estimate that 80% of people flying out bring at least three people with them to the Airport for support. In some cases, the Support Group spends a bit of time at the airport while the flyer checks in. Flyer checks in, all is determined to be satisfactory, good byes are said. The second type of Support Group stays a bit longer until the flyer decides to proceed through security. Flyer heads to security, support group says good bye and leaves.

The remaining two Support Groups are a bit more irritating and surprisingly frequent. As part of my jobby-job, I approach people and ask if they are visitors or "currently live in PEI" (you have to be very careful with how you word this). This is a bit more difficult when the traveller is surrounded by a small entourage. The first remaining Support Group hovers by security to make sure the traveller gets through okay. They aren't exactly standing in line, but standing almost in line watching the exciting process of their person pulling off half of her clothing, pulling miscellaneous "dangerous" items from carry-ons, proving electronics aren't actually bombs, etc. This creates a bottleneck because new people end up standing behind the Support Group, surprised to find a line at such a tiny airport.

The last Support Group takes on the role as personal security guards to the flyer. They basically escort the traveller through the security line to the point they get asked for a boarding pass and identification. I'm sure this happens all the time in major international airports. You know, the ones where they don't let you in/near the line unless you're actually going somewhere. (Note that I appreciate in some situations it may be necessary, such as a child travelling alone, someone in need of assistance, etc.)

I mentioned above how careful one most be with wording when determining who is a visitor and who is a PEI resident. I made a critical error at first by asking, "Are you from PEI or were you visiting?"

"Oh yeah, I'm from here, just visiting." (I'm constantly relearning that asking a male an 'or' question is pointless.)

"Okay, do you currently live here?"

"No, I moved away 15 years ago."

"Great! I'm handing out blah blah blah blah blah to visitors."

"Oh, I'm not a visitor, I'm from here."

!!!!!

So now I carefully and politely ask people if they currently live in PEI or if they were visiting. It's still tricky but communication is improving.

And lastly, most of you are travelling with waaaaaay too much luggage. Keep it simple, friends. (MacPhail proverb. The end.)

Resolve me!

I've been trying to think of a new year's resolution. I realise that January is more than half over (woohoo!!!), but I'm late for most things so being late on a resolution is acceptable, unsurprising, and even expected.

I was strongly considering giving up pizza for 2012 and then realised I already ate pizza in 2012. On January 1st. I made it an entire 17.5 hours into the new year until I broke a (potential) resolution that I had been thinking about but forgot when the important test came. Thank God I'm not a smoker considering I can't even quit something that doesn't have addictive properties.

I toyed with the idea of eating properly. You know, using a fork or spoon instead of my hands or feet.

Ha!

Exercise more is common, but I don't really feel like that should be a resolution for me because it's boring. Plus I already am a rather active person and don't enjoy just sitting around. Last night and tonight being exceptions due to external factors. Actually, due to the internal factors of not feeling super well.

Another new year's resolution I have highly considered is the goal of being on television. It doesn't have to be anything significant, I just need to be able to identify myself somewhere on the screen.

How I Will Get on TV

• CBC Reporter - Le boyfriend lives with a CBC reporter. I'm sure he will eventually need extras or an opinion for something. I would be good for weather stories as I prefer to describe weather in terms of how it feels or how it makes me feel. Examples: "Shoot me in the face" is MacCode for "it's snowing a lot and I had to walk somewhere but it's not snowing enough that work will be canceled and my boot is leaking." "It's like being stabbed with needles in the eyeballs" means there is precipitation mixed with some form of ice and it's awfully windy. "I'm so happy!" means it's sunny and I'm sweating and rolling around on the grass in my front or backyard.
• Work - Sometimes it's a slow news day and something we do is determined to be noteworthy enough to share with the rest of PEI THE WORLD. I've been quoted in the newspaper, surely being on television is the next step. In fact, it's one of the reasons I keep make-up at work. That and freshly applied make-up doesn't always react well to walking or biking to work in most types of weather.
• Win something - This strategy came to me at a hockey game the other night. The 50/50 total value was climbing, climbing, climbing reaching a point that the winner would get around $2000. I bought tickets because I was actually quite sure I would win, make a small speech and thank "the man above" (person doing the lighting), and get on television. Unfortunately I didn't win the draw so I was unable to see this plan to fulfillment. Now, to win something of value.
• Go to the gas station - One morning the price of gas changed - I think it went down. My mum was at the pump trying to pump gas (it had been awhile) when she was approached by someone from CBC. Mystery Reporter asked if he/she could ask my mum some questions and Mama said yes (like me, she wished to be on tv). Unfortunately her response was not aired; one can only assume her opinion was wrong and not supported by the CBC. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is not the voice of the people.
• Right place, right time - hanging out in frequently filmed locations, such as the province house when the house is in session.

In case this doesn't work, my back-up plan is to learn how to suddenly turn from skating forwards to skating backwards, and to be able to stop on the side and spray ice shavings up from my blades. So far zero progress has been made as I skipped skates on Monday and Wednesday. Apparently setting goals and resolutions really isn't for me.

New resolution: think of resolution for 2013.

Excuses? Excuses!

Hey Blog! Don't you look a little rusty and ignored like a pop can collection stored in a flooded basement?

Why the temporary abandonment? Well, a variety of reasons, readers. (All two of you. I love you both!)

• Christmas holidays - Although they arguably provided me with more time, people were home visiting and I preferred to completely overdose myself on holiday cheer in hopes of 'needing a social break' in January. It has never worked in previous years. Nor did it work this year. Instead, I have come to expect to be busy/eating all the time and get confused and unhappy when I have a free hour or twelve.
• Lost - You know that popular television show that aired for six seasons? During it's first season I was living in Scotland (aye) and although they started airing it in January 2005 (aye!) I didn't watch it (sad, aye) as I got in the habit of not watching television there because, well, it kinda sucked (super aye!!). I didn't watch season two as I was living in Florida and watched television even less there than in Scotland. The only channel I knew was the "What's on tv" channel (a good one to know, if one knows only one). I didn't watch season three because I just didn't, and by that point I felt too far behind and was busy having a lot of "Ugggggggggggh, I just moved home from Florida and I miss fireworks and cheapness and my friends and feeling warm" pity parties for myself. Finally, I saw the last Lost episode as a friend was having a viewing party. I did some homework before I went so I could at least enjoy it and know a bit about the key characters, and determined it was probably a show I would had enjoyed. A little over a year later I see the DVDs for Lost, season one, sitting quietly at the library. Of course, they have to sit quietly at the library for if they were loud, they would be asked to leave. I finished season one right before leaving on holiday in October and spent some of Christmas break battling a cold (battling = an excessively dramatic verb for something so minor) and watching season two. Now I have season three from the library (yes, it was also sitting quietly) and, well, am kind of getting sick of tv and Jack (aka Matthew Fox aka Party of Five character all grown up). However, given that I have the season rental for only a week, it's a lot of television commitment that has greatly reduced internet time over Christmas break and early January. Also, because I couldn't remember Matthew Fox's last name, I googled it and found this link quite quickly and had a nice chuckle. More also, I never watched Party of Five.
• Laptop - It's aging, takes a long time to turn on, has temporary freezes (I like to call them rest breaks) when doing complex things like opening a new tab, and stays a few words behind when typing something. So less laptop usage as less (laptop working well) = more (waste of time watching the hourglass cursor mock my efforts at productivity).
• Dating someone - Lately, I mostly just make him watch Lost with me. I'm sure he's thrilled with how our relationship is developing and how special our time is together, particularly as he has already seen the whole series. Only 2.5 more seasons to go! (=approx 60 hours of television as some extras must be watched, and if I recall correctly, the series finale was 13 hours long.)
• Work - Work was really, really busy right before Christmas. Intensely staring at a laptop screen all day makes me less likely to wish to intensely stare at it all evening.
• Trying to go to bed earlier - I tried three times. Didn't work.
• Twilight - For one week I read the first Twilight book. I haven't finished it yet because.... well, because I lost interest. The book is inefficiently written and things drag ooooout foreeeeever. Also, I couldn't help but laugh every instance 'beautiful' was written because it made me think of this by the Oatmeal. (Go read it, it will bring you laughter and possibly closure to lingering problems and issues from your childhood.)
• Lack of Bike Love - Although I don't write much in the peak of summer (all four days of it) because I don't understand the concept of indoor activity during that time, I (safely) daydream when I bike, increasing the probability that I'll think of something decent to send to the Internet.

That's all. This chunk of writing is all about not writing. Next time I will write about New Year's resolutions. Last year I wrote about giving up chocolate for a year (I was a little drunk post-levee and apparently full of terrible ideas). Of course, I meant a year as observed by a small village in Papau New Guinea that lasts for only a few weeks. Based on their calendar, I was very successful and am now a hero. This year I will not give up anything because it's a leap year. That one extra day without insert unhealthy thing could cause a dramatic, irreversible ripple in the sensitive space-time-water-earth-wind-fire-heart continuum. I don't want to put us all through that. Destroying your soul makes me sad.