Oats, rice milk, Greek yogurt, honey, PB, raisins, cinnamon

It has occurred to me in the last 48 hours or so that this semester year (students speak of time in semesters the way pregnant ladies speak in terms of trimesters) is moving by entirely too quickly. The most glaring example of this being the fact that come June, this little lady needs a big girl job, a fact I have been avoiding for, uh, three years.

I’m actually really, really ready for a little stability, consistency and, you know… money. But I’m also dreading the inevitable return to (cringe) a full-time life of fluorescent lights and filing cabinets and skeezy break room donuts.

I suppose that if this is not what I want for myself, then it is not what I will have. But the fact that I haven’t nailed down an elevator pitch to the question “What are you going to do when you graduate?” leads me to believe I’ll be grasping for any offer that comes my way. An elevator pitch, by the way, is business jargon for the 15-second summary of your product/service/company that you could throw at someone in a short elevator ride that has them asking for your card before the door opens at their floor. My response to what I’m going to do with myself is not nearly so succinct or convincing. It’s more of a rambling: “Oh, uhhh… In June? Well. Uhhhhhh… I mean. I could do clinical work but I don’t want to be in a hospital. So then there’s maybe the health department with WIC and SNAP and all that but… I don’t know. Maybe school foodservice? I love kids, you know…”

I already see myself limiting my options to traditional career paths in dietetics but, as we know, my path has been anything but traditional.

SO. My mission after this super busy week at my current office (we’re hosting three events back to back to back) is to:

1. Figure out what I want out of life.
2. Get it.

Not black stretchy pants.

Since yoga has taught me that I can create my own reality, I’m convinced that I can create a position that moves me. Something that combines writing and food and yoga and service. Should you be in need of such services, contact Weaz for a copy of my resume.

SPREADSHEETS

Veggie burger, cheese, rice, beans, celery, hummus.

Coupla things…

I think my arms are getting pretty diesed.

Exhibit A.

I’m ok with that.

Sometimes I want to cut all my hair off. I mean all my hair. Like in a very dramatic THIS-IS-A-BAD-IDEA Felicity kind of moment.

Yeah, girl.

But something tells me it’ll come across more like this:

Oh Brit-Brit. I love you anyway.

My desk looks like this in night classes:

This is normal.

I have been laughing so much lately. I don’t know if I even noticed I’d stopped doing that. Everything is funny. Especially the “DO YOUR DOODY. SCOOP YOUR PETS’ POOP” and “LET’S GET NAKED!” billboards I saw on the way to work today. Thanks for that, Charlotte. Gearing up for the DNC, I see… I’ll take pictures the next time traffic is at a standstill, which will probably be tomorrow.

I’ve convinced my office to let me teach them yoga. Twice a week. It’s gonna be awesome.

Not like this.

I have no issue with Rihanna collaborating with Chris Brown and I’ll tell you why… Have you heard the song? Hello. “I’ma make you my bitch.” That song was already aggressive and filthy and empowering and the addition of her abusive ex to the remix just hammers home her message: “I’m in control here. You are my bitch.” Plus, publicity stunt. Steady chasin’ paper. Duh. Babygirl got game. I mean, think about it. When 50 Cent rapped about letting us “lick the lollipop” or when Lil Wayne welcomed us to “lick the rapper” (surely you caught the double entendre there, yes?) and assured us he’d “make it juicy,” women of the world sang along from club to car to cardio class. But when the tables are turned… when it’s about “licking the icing off”… when a woman owns the hell out of sex as an assertion of power, suddenly it’s a sign of weakness. Yeah, I get that he beat the hell out of her and he’s a dirtbag and he was wrong wrong wrong. But, in my opinion, she has his balls in a vice grip with that Cake Remix. Don’t you see that?

Go on, put your name on it.

Ri-Ri, you get it, girl. And it’s not even your birthday.

Oh hey, blueberry smoothie.

So.

What have I been doing with my life?

Riding my bike.

Eating Starbursts.

Watching Bachelor with Weaz. ("SRSLY COURTNEY??")

Working.

Painting my nails to save cash money.

Going to school. Sort of.

Remember that class I forgot to go to for a month? Well. When I went back I took a test. I got an A on it. I also took a microbiology lab exam last week that I didn’t study for until the morning of. B. I’ll take it.

The point of this is not to brag on my intelligence but instead to highlight my stupidity. Oh, the things I could accomplish if I would only apply myself… The “good enough is good enough” attitude I’ve adopted in the last year as a survival mechanism is simply no longer necessary. My schedule is not as crazy. (Nor is my mind.) I think it’s high time I got my ass back in gear. That I be exactly who I am again.

I had a mild nervous breakdown in teacher training on Sunday. (Naturally.) It’s hard to verbalize but basically what I was feeling was a lot of doubt, a lot of fear, a lot of confusion. This process, for me anyway, has been like one big spotlight on my weaknesses–physical and mental–and it’s a whole lot to take in. It’s not a negative thing at all; it’s just an opportunity to grow. But it’s a lot. So I word vomited some of these emotions to a friend via text and he gave me exactly what I needed to hear.

“Basically this: You are perfect just the way you are. But you are not really just the way you are because you have piled up so much shit around the way you are. So you really have no idea what the way you are actually is. Yoga is an undressing of the spirit.”

It’s so true. And then yesterday, this from A Course in Miracles:

“You are only love, but when you deny this, you make what you are something you must learn to remember. As you teach so will you learn. If that is true, and it is true indeed, do not forget that what you teach is teaching you. And what you project or extend you believe.”

I believe I’ll be dragging my butt to ashtanga this morning because I have lacked the self discipline to practice on my own outside of teacher training. But I’m learning to remember that I am still as strong (willed) as ever. That I cracked under pressure, yes, but that even breaking requires strength. Soft, malleable things bend under force, which is good sometimes. It takes something strong and solid to shatter under force. And this is not really a bad thing because then the pieces can be put back together so long as you learn to remember where they go.

Meatless meatball sub. Hello.

Listen.

I don’t believe in a life of mutual exclusion.

I believe in practicing yoga and drinking beer.

Clearly.

I believe in working hard all damn day and playing hard all damn night.

I believe in talking to god (or God or G-d… whatever) and cursing that asshole whose turn signal has been on for the last thirty miles.

I believe in vegan baked goods and a very serious string cheese habit.

Simply put, I believe in having my cake–blended into a milkshake–and eating it, too.

All the boys to the yard.

The situation was this…

Adam wouldn’t stop talking about meatballs. (He’s a vegetarian.) I wouldn’t stop talking about milkshakes with cakes blended into them. (I’m a dietitian… sort of.) The only movie we had to watch was Sarah’s Key. Now, maybe I’m the only one who thinks that eating meatball subs and milkshakes while watching a Holocaust movie is a poor choice, but the point is that the stage was set for a really ridiculous, rather incongruent little evening.

I don’t know where this milkshake+cake obsession came from, but it has pretty much consumed my life for the last week.

Last night, dreams came true.

In making my magical concoction it occurred to me that I have perhaps never made a milkshake before. Smoothies, duh. Milkshakes? Not so much. I guess I’d do it more often but I’d worry about all the boys showing up in my yard all the time…

You know.

“Don’t you have a recipe or something?” Adam asked.

How hard could it be? Ice cream… milk… cake. DUH.

Tah dah.

And that, my friends, is how it’s done.

Our meatball subs were equally as straightforward: Trader Joe’s meatless meatballs, baguette, marinara sauce, mozzarella.

Maybe I was sprawled out on the floor crying for Tums 15 minutes later, but you know what? I was also artfully crammed into this beauty eight short hours later…

Supta kurm-fuckthis-asana

Because life, you see, is simply not as black and white as we try to make it. It’s not about defining which foods are good versus which are bad. Or about defining those lifestyles or religions or people that are good versus those that are bad. Maybe sometimes it all just is. It’s all just an experience. Live it.

Think about a seesaw. It’s only fun with people on both ends, right? This is the only way to take it for a ride, with weight at each extreme. Life is like this, too. And it’s ok to live in extremes because this, I think, is also the only way to balance.

I'm on yer shelf... bein a book.

A very happy create-your-own Caturday to you.

Last night as I lay in bed well past midnight more physically exhausted than I’ve been since… ever but still wide-freaking-awake (damn you, coffee!), the cats started to seriously doubt my ability to rise early and post Caturday.

Oh ye of little faith.

BUT guess what we talked about in yoga yesterday, you little jerks? We talked about how intention can reconstruct your reality. How simply thinking something will make it so. So I set an intention to get up at 5:45am and not go back to bed as I usually do. Sure, there was an alarm (and three cups of coffee involved), but it happened, didn’t it? I will use my newfound powers for good only, which means I’m also going to eat a milkshake with a cupcake in it tonight. Intention = set.

I have a test on primary series today so Viva la Weaz has been quizzing me.

Nononono... it's downward facing CAT.

Weazasana

Ralph is not exactly helpful when it comes to yoga because she condemns it as devil worshipping. You all know Ralph is a conservative Christian, right?

I want you to know you're going to hell.

Thanks, Ralph.

I’m off to yoga my life away.

Good job, Weaz.

It's an orange, duh.

I was in over my head. I was in Copenhagen on a business trip trying to seal a multi-million dollar deal with one of our biggest clients. You may not know that in my other life, I wore suits and traveled to Europe and made lots of Excel spreadsheets. I fumbled the talk and stumbled the walk. My heart wasn’t in it.

Our office was super laidback. On our home field, I wore jeans and drank beer at my desk in the afternoon. On trips, though, I put on a show. I felt like a little girl playing dress up in her mom’s pumps and pantsuit. Trisha Yearwood lyrics resounded in my head: “She’s tryin’ to make it in her daddy’s world…”

But I wasn’t. I wasn’t trying at all. I hated it.

But this isn’t a story about my failed attempt at climbing the corporate ladder. No, this, shifting gears, is a story about food. And yoga. Bear with me…

When I traveled alone, I traveled the way I travel—haphazardly, authentically, cheaply. I’m all hostels and street food and walking to save cab money. If I was with colleagues, though, I got a little taste of how the other half lives and, on this occasion, eats.

We had a reservation at arguably one of the finest restaurants in the city, and, if you follow and agree with Michelin star ratings, one of the best in the world. Once serving as King Hans’ personal wine cellar, Kong Hans Kaelder is an intimate, elegant space with whitewashed walls and an open kitchen. We were greeted with hard-boiled quail eggs, butter emblazoned with the restaurant’s logo and a team of servers. It’s like nothing I have ever seen.

Cave

Fancypants buttah.

Everything was prix fixe with multiple courses and, naturally, there was nothing on the menu I could eat. Nada. So I (very discreetly) asked for a vegetarian plate, knowing that whatever it was, it would be good.

I wish I remembered everything I ate that night. Alas, I started blogging exactly one month later. One dish in particular, however, stands out. It was a small ramekin filled with some kind of something I’d never seen in my life that I could best describe (visually) as gigantic raisins. They were brown and bumpy with little craters. “I bet it’s some kind of organ meant,” I thought.

I ate it anyway. It was like pure butter. Pure salty butter. Perfectly savory and meaty but not meat. Were I willing and able to use umami as an adjective without making fun of myself, that’s how I’d describe it. “What is this?” I asked, a little too frantically.

Among my American coworker, French colleague and Danish clients, no one could give me the correct English word for these mysterious monster raisins.

It took a chance encounter in Whole Foods a full year later for me to figure it out. But before I tell you what it was that impacted my palate in such an intensely positive way, I should tell you I really, really hate mushrooms.

And this is where the yoga starts.

I do this thing where I make assumptions about everything.

• That probably doesn’t taste good because….
• That’ll probably make my life better because…
• This will probably ruin me because…
• She’s probably a bitch because…
• They probably think I’m a bitch because…
• He’s probably not into me because…

Sometimes it’s little stuff. Like, I don’t like mushrooms so I assume that anything with fungi in or around it will never taste good. Other times it’s kind of enormous. Like, I assume that everyone dislikes me unless they tell me otherwise so I distance myself until given a reason not to.

So I set myself up with these assumptions (“This is probably how something is/was/will be…”) backed by supporting evidence in the form of past experiences or current situations that I attach to them. Up until recently, I never once paused to consider:

(1) That the assumption is a story I created myself and is not real

(2)  That the “evidence” I attach to it is just as fake as the assumption itself

(3) Somewhere buried under all of that is reality

In Gregor Maehle’s Ashtanga Yoga, he puts it this way:

“The usual activity of the mind is to download sensory input relating to an object and then to compare it with all the data it has stored in the past. It then produces the most likely interpretation of what it believes the object to be.”

So because no one could tell me that what I was eating was a mushroom, because I couldn’t apply my previous assumptions about mushrooms to the dish, because I experienced it only for what it was, I loved (I mean loved) something I probably would have otherwise refused to even try.

So let’s say someone has heard that yoga is a for weirdo hippies who chant and meditate and don’t eat meat. Maybe they’ve heard that the physical practice is difficult and even dangerous, that it’s not for old people or fat people or inflexible people, that they won’t like it. They get invited to attend a class but immediately start applying these assumptions to the outcome of the invitation and, in the end, choose not to go.

If we could strip away all of these assumptions about what something (or someone) was or should be or will be, we’d be able to experience. Period. Experience something (or someone) for what it really is. For who they really are. And we might find that despite all our preconceived notions about how the experience will be, that it is actually better than anything we ever could have imagined.

“Only then, when we do not look anymore through the distorting glasses of our mind, can an object be directly experienced. This is the true meaning of direct experience.”

The point of sutra III.3 is that samadhi, or utter stillness of the mind, occurs only when we can perceive an object as it is without modifying it. The purified mind, they say, is “a clear crystal that is capable of faithfully reflecting whatever it is placed on.”

So this means it’s a mushroom and that’s it. It’s not a mushroom that probably tastes bad. This means it’s a yoga class and that’s it. It’s not a yoga class that will be too hard or too easy or too weird. This means you’re you and that’s it. You’re not you and your job or you and your spouse or you and your bank account. Just you.

I wish I could look at everything this way. That I could faithfully reflect everything and everyone for what it is and who they are. Why? Because I want to experience everything and everyone for what it is and who they are. And because I want people to experience me this way, too. And you know what’s cool? We can.

Oh, the giant raisins? They were morels. Kingdom: fungi. That’s right.

Wee tiny jar o' dark chocolate almonds.

Yesterday was weird.

I think I have some pent up rage that is not being addressed in my current OMed out yoga state of mind because I spent the morning looking for places I can go simply to punch things. Turns out, there’s not a whole lot of kickboxing in Charlotte. What’s a girl to do?

First, I start weightlifting. Now I want to punch things. Also I RAN yesterday (this is unheard of). And then followed it with yoga. Watch out world…

Eeek.

Nope. Negative. Sorry, girl. I find that absolutely horrifying.

No, I think my current desire to push my body beyond its standard routine (yoga about six times a week) came from this realization that yoga has made me really, really strong and really, really capable. I’m doing things I once thought were impossible. So now I’m kind of like, “Hmmm, what else can I do?” It’s a nice feeling.

People ask a lot of me. I answer to a lot of demands all day every day. At work, in volunteering, at school. I have a lot of bosses. It’s exhausting. I don’t think these things tap into any natural talents or take me anywhere near my mental limit, and they’re certainly not physically demanding. But I’m asked to do things and I do them. I assume this is the same for most people. Just going through the motions.

But every once in a while, I want to feel like I’m working towards my full potential, like I’m really alive. And that has absolutely nothing to do with sitting at a desk, let me tell you what…

Right??

So sometimes I want to use myself for myself. And that’s what all this physical activity is about. I just like the feeling of being completely used up, of doing something I want to do, of doing something challenging. I like asking my body to give me all its got and then taking that for all it’s worth. This body’s not gonna move like this forever, you know? Use it now.

Yeah.

So yes, yesterday I was sitting at the laundromat with 30 minutes to kill on the hot cycle and all of the sudden I was running down the street.

Boooring.

Beauuuutiful.

I think I must’ve done about a 3-mile loop. It was 65 degrees and sunny. It was awesome. I used to run all the time. I’d go out and crush 10-mile runs just for the hell of it. I never trained for an actual race. But I did so compulsively and without proper form, warmups or cool downs. I paid the price in the form of a right knee that now craps out around three miles (I felt fine yesterday). But I’m happy with just three miles now. Plus, that running injury led me to yoga, which has turned out to be a life-altering journey.

The point of this rant, I suppose, is that we’re more capable than we realize. That only we can push ourselves to our limit. That, perhaps, everything does happen for a reason. And that dark chocolate-covered almonds are the jam.

Smoothie? Microbial growth on an agar plate?

I am not a “science person.” I do words, not numbers. In college I was required to take two sciences to graduate. You know what I took? My senior year? Oceanography and avian biology. Yes. The study of the ocean spoke to my childhood dream of being a marine biologist (was this not every single girl’s dream from age six to approximately 15?) and I assumed avian bio would be little more than bird watching.

Turns out oceanography is all weather patterns and currents and erosion and shit and not a single mention of killer whales. Avian biology requires a pigeon dissection. Dear God. I also had to memorize 20 bird calls, which I played incessantly in my dorm, driving my hallmates to the edge of insanity. (I do have to throw in that I did get to capture, hold and release a wild cardinal in an avian bio lab and it was really, really cool.)

It would’ve been convenient if I’d taken, oh I don’t know, microbiology… chemistry… something I’m having to take now because I didn’t take it then. Hindsight is always 20/20, isn’t it? I mean, how was I to know I’d completely change my mind and drag my poor one-sided right brain through the act of “mastering” a science?

Microbiology blows is what I’m saying. The cruelest joke of this whole science thing? Lecture and lab. Gross. Who does that? I do not need five hours of this garbage twice a week. And I certainly don’t need back-to-back tests (one for lecture, one for lab) for which I do not study until an hour before they are to be taken.

Ew.

Anyway. I’m studying for my micro lab exam and my smoothie looks like a bacterial growth. That is all.

You love love.

Hello, single people. Feeling sorry for yourself? Drinking wine with your cats? Checking your phone twelve billion times to see if maybe someone wants to do something with your lame ass? Well. While you were busy wallowing in self pity, drowning your sorrows in chocolate and alcohol, and posting sarcastic-but-man-I-so-feel-this-way status updates about the injustice that is “Single Awareness Day” (I abhor this reference), here are a few people you may have forgotten…

Your Parents – Hellooo. These humans made you (or adopted you). Maybe it was an accident, maybe not. But I bet they love you anyway. I bet they love you and your expensive education and your affinity for the F-bomb and your complete inability to pick up the phone and call unless something has gone terribly, terribly wrong (or you need money). They loved you through poop and pee and vomit and all kinds of bodily functions. They loved you through temper tantrums at two (and twenty-two). They loved you through heartbreaks when you were sure no one loved you at all. They love you when you make them proud, of course, and even more when you don’t. And you know what, they love you because of these things, not in spite of them.

Your Pets – I know. I know. Cat lady alert. But seriously. Have you ever seen a human as happy to see you as your pet is when you get home from a long day? Probably not. Because humans have a tendency to love with expectation. Animals, not so much. Animals just love you because you exist. (And maybe because you feed them.)

Your Best Friend – Aside from a “You’re awesome!” card, this is the only Valentine I got today and it’s absolutely one of the best I’ve ever read: Happy Valentine’s Day to My Best Friend. Read it. Do it now.

Hearts You Broke – I get that you’re feeling sorry for yourself today and that, helloooooo, this day is all about you because some jerkface broke your heart but… Don’t you realize someone is thinking the same thing about you? Someone, somewhere probably wants to be with you right now. Maybe it’s someone you broke up with. Maybe it’s someone you politely shot down. Maybe it’s someone completely off your radar at work or your friend-who’s-a-boy-not-a-boyfriend. But rest assured you are not the only one wishing you were with someone right now, which leads me to believe someone is probably obsessing over you, too.

People in Shitty Relationships – I realize Facebook is drowning in washed out images of roses delivered to workplaces and candlelit dinners for two and, yes, engagement rings but… These are just the vocal ones. I promise.

Tonight I went to a beautiful guided meditation which focused on the heart. The teacher walked us through this process of identifying someone in our life who’s hurting, visualizing ourselves (invisible) walking up to them, seeing their hurt (physical, emotional or otherwise) as a tangible thing (this little black dot), actively inhaling it into our bodies and walking away, watching them release into joy as the pain burst into white smoke inside us. Crazy, right? Don’t worry, I totally tripped out a little bit.

But I thought it was brilliant. How refreshing to focus our love on someone we probably would’ve skipped over today while we were busy instead worrying about ourselves.

Give a little love today. And every day. Let your love throw spark. Sooner or later it’ll ignite.

The pants pajamas.

Hello, lovers. I hope you had a beautiful Valentine’s Day. It’s one of my favorites. Who doesn’t love candy and heartfelt cards and, hello, love? I know I do.

My day went a little something like this:

Oversleep. Get dressed in 10 minutes. The standard uniform will do…

Boots. Leggings. Too big clothes.

Shove PB+honey sandwich in face while driving to work. Play filthy rap music for motivation. Work like a MF boss.

Break for the gym. I lift weights now? Eat this salad:

Spinach, rice, refried beans, tempeh, salsa, peppers, celery

More rap music. Take care of biznass.

Yoga forever. Meditation. Ashtanga.

Oh hey.

Wanna see my new weightlifting guns? Ok…

Yeah?

Right? I think so, yes. They are there. Anyway…

Buy gifts for special Valentine lovers.

Yep.

Study microbiology. Study it so hard.

Eat conversation hearts like they’re going out of style…

It was a good day, a really good day.

And that is that.