It's Springtime, at least on my side of the hemisphere. I guess in China they're starting winter, I don't know how that whole geographical season/climate thing works. For the longest time I was convinced the refrigerator ice machine worked on magic, so that goes to show how much thought I put into the inner-workings of the world.

In any case, we're a skip away from Memorial Day which has me screaming a big "HELLO!" to my good buddy Mr. 3-Day Weekend. I'm still keeping my fingers crossed that the weather will warm up and maybe, just maybe, we can tell the ducks to get the hell off the pond forming on our pool cover and open that baby up for the season. I always look forward to the new light of the Spring season because the warmer seasons are always my best time for exploration. That's always when I seem to be off trying new things and visiting unusual places. Today was one of those "try new things" days.

I've been itching to get out and DO something lately, to the point that if one of my friends called up and asked if I wanted to play a rousing game of badminton, I'm pretty sure my response would be, "YOU'RE GOING DOWN, BITCH!" Honestly, I'm for any sport where I can get equipment in all pink, which thankfully seems to be growing in popularity. A couple friends joined some gym and want me to go with, but here's the thing -- I'm not paying good money and driving half an hour out of my way to get exercise when there's a sidewalk right out front of my house. Plus I hate working out with friends because they'll fuck up my pace.

That's why I've told no one that there's a yoga class going on three blocks from my house.

I originally found this out weeks ago when I was checking to see if the YMCA offered CPR courses. No luck on the CPR courses, but drop-in yoga classes "by donation" was a hell of a runner up. Of course I headed out and bought the most flaming hot pink yoga mat I could find, and had to do a little reading up on Wikipedia to make sure I knew what I was getting in to. I knew yoga was some combination of meditation and stretching and that it seemed to be the Tantric sex of stretching. All good things!



Today shortly after work I shoved my yoga mat, keys, umbrella, and some cash into my Miss Piggy tote bag and walked out to the community center for yoga class in my black stretchy pants and t-shirt. I got in and opened up the old gymnasium doors and there were about 15-20 women all of different ages spread out in a semi-circle. I dropped $5 in the donation bin and took some floorspace while one of the girls advised me that I'd be needing to get blankets and foam blocks out of the bins. The instructor came over to introduce herself and give me the basics and then we started.

We started out with some meditation and unwinding then we got into yoga poses. I was having trouble figuring out the inhales and exhales during the Cat Pose, but I was totally rocking the Downward Facing Dog. Stretching and posing just feels soooo good, but I never put so much thought into the positioning of my pelvis in my life! I decided that while I was letting the world flow away I'd try a hand at finding my "power animal" because I'd just had a rather hearty discussion about it. I knew mine would be something totally strange because it's just not in my nature to be a normal power animal like a wolf, raven, horse, dragon, etc etc. Turns out I'm an oyster.

Yoga class turned out to be all kinds of awesome because I really did feel better, at peace, and more properly aligned afterwords. I think this is going to be a weekly thing.