little flower

"little flower in this hour show your power"

I haven't thought about that phrase in ages. It just popped into my head, and it was our "favorite" prayer in grade school (b/c it was short and didn't sound like a prayer).

the other "religious" expression was the song "Oh! Oh! Oh! How Good is the Lord!" because at the "Oh! Oh! Oh!" parts, we barked like seals.

but now I'm content to look at little flowers themselves, and if I want to bark like a seal, I go to the zoo, not church.

reflection section

this is the reflection section.
for your protection, is is a reflection.
if you look, consider an inspection.
look to the post above and determine the connection.

curb your enthusiasm

Curb, your enthusiasm is inspiring. The way you jumped out in front of that car tire is just the kind of thing I've been trying to get everyone here at Curb Camp 2008 to do. With cars getting smaller again, curbs are going to have to take it upon themselves to get draped in rubber. People are better able to navigate with smaller cars, and that means we get run over less frequently, which means less rubber, which means less fun. I understand that. You understand that. But understanding is not enough. If you want rubber, you got to jump for it. and curb-o did just that. bravo.

stop collaborate and listen

stop collaborate and listen, daniel is back with a brand new edition
his kitchen's stocked with wine so fine
all four bottles and still the cheapest total in line
white white white white wine
sex sex sex sex all the time


ripe avacados for intimate lube
Oh, I'm sorry, did I intrude?
did you construe that as rude?
what up with that attitude?


where's your breath?
where are your bandhas?
where are those glares from Peter Fonda?


some say ice is no passe?
ice ice baby? Please, go away.


yeah, that's what they say.
i sure give them all they say.
but they can keep it.
and they can keep my dental bills.
cuz that kind of shit is really what ills
and then next easter, you start with the pills.


first just to write all your christmas cards.
then to get through the quilting fabric. so many yards.
but then to get that head ache off your back.
then cuz...helll...it's too early to hit the sack.
and then cuz you don't want your brain to go black.

the grass is always greener

Walking home from work on Monday, the light was so beautiful. Even the grass in the apt complex that allows dogs -- grass that is surely loaded with canine caca -- looked so perfect.

I had a sweet yoga class tonight. It was just me. The class itself doesn't exist anymore (the weds class I go to, not the tues class I teach). But the owner of the studio said I could still come and practice, if nobody is using the space for some other purpose. So I had the space to myself tonight, and I did full ashtanga primary series minus Marichi Asana D. I skipped that pose. I have an excuse, but really I just skipped the pose. Which I'm totally okay with. I had a great practice. I interfaced with the breath in a subltly new way. I really tried to follow the breath, and at times I did. The breath became the metronome. The pulse. And the poses were just there to fill the space. It's actually really hard not to focus on the poses. To just do them and breathe, but have the focus be on the breath. Anyway, writing about yoga is kind of like writing about dance...the words don't do it justice. As the ashtanga guru says, "practice and all is coming." although I do have a slight modification to that statement: don't practice so much that you give yourself repetitive strain injuries. As the beer commercial says, "know when to say when."

and just like with drinking, it's really hard to know when you're at "when" with yoga asana. as an indy rocker (whose name i now forget) says "I think i've had enough to know when I have had enough, I think I know enough to know." that's some pretty sure-of-yourself talk right there good buddy. If only we all could be so sure that we know enough to know. I don't. Which is why it's hard to know how much of yoga, or anything else in life for that matter, is really too much. sometimes I think it's too much. but what what part of me is saying it's too much? Is it the part that really knows? Or just the part that thinks it knows, but really has an ulterior motive for telling me I've had enough.

and the green grass grows all around and around and the green grass grows all around

but the whole "knowing when to say when" to yoga itself is kind of silly, because you can always just stay with your breath and be mindful. you can be walking down the street, or having dinner with your lover, or cutting your finger nails or sending emails at work. you don't have to be wearing those cute yoga shorts that give your junk just the right bulge, and the tee shirt that is tight enough but not too tight.

white party

welcome to a collection of white flowers from Plum Canyon in Anza Borrego Desert State Park in San Diego County, CA. I just got back from teaching my weekly yoga class, did the dishes that have been sitting on the counter since Sunday (ivano is away for work and I've regresssed into slob mode to some extent...who needs to put anything away, that's what the floor is for). These are photos from the saturday walk I took with the San Diego chapter of the California Native Plant Society. It was an amazing amazing day. When we left the desert and stopped in a tourist town in the mountains on the way back, I felt ashamed to be a human. We're so messy and dirty. And loud and clumy and mean. But we do know how to make ice cream. And for that I am grateful.

I almost forgot the reason I called this post white party...b/c i wanted to draw the distinction b/w this white party and the circuit party with the same in a different california desert between anza borrego and joshua tree...in palm springs of course.

and that reminds me of the time I was invited to an arty "white party" in iowa city in january of 1999. I didn't have any white clothes, so I wore all black, but covered myself in pieces of paper with words of white colored things like "vanilla ice cream," "snow" and "clouds". I didn't really know anyone at the party and let's just say that when the party was over (and I stayed till the bitter end) I still didn't know anyone at the party.

plant nerds R us

these photos are from saturday in Anza Borrego Desert State Park...the same park that SDG&E and their parent company Sempre Energy want to run a huge powerline through. It's a park. It's a wilderness area. It's not an industrial park. And why not focus on conservation and solar initiatives in the city of san diego?

It was an amazing walk with lots of blooming plants. I'll post some photos in the next day or so. Some of the people on these walks are hard core botanists and it's fun to watch them in action.

guarda che luna (or, look at that easter egg in the sky)

below is the view to the East

...but we hunt in this water everyday and never find any eggs...why is today going to be any different???

kirtan in remembrance of Sean O'Shea

I'm drinking ginger tea with honey as I wind down after the aruvedic feast and yoga chanting fundraiser for the Sean O'Shea foundation. It was at Four Seasons Yoga...my favorite place in UTC! tomorrow morning, butt early, I'll be meeting other plant nerds for another hike in Anza Borrego Desert State Park. i can't wait!!!! :) d

Her Milkshake is Better than Yours! (tricky clicky)

park slope pizza walk

supine lupine

supine lupine

on the way to work today.

tomorrow, I'll walk the same way.

but tomorrow won't be like today.

tomorrow is red eye day.

New York City all the way.

but only for 36 hours :(

green bean orgy

A green bean orgy.
It puts creamed beans in a whole new light.

credit cards and teaching yoga don't mix

I teach yoga on tuesday nights at Four Seasons Yoga here in San Diego. Unfortunately, that means I have to handle student money and even credit cards. We have the old-school system where you make a carbon copy of the card number and then process the transaction later on. I did my swipe thing and filled in the details, and then put my pen down and almost started signing the student's receipt. It's funny to be on the other side of the credit card transaction. I'm so used to be the one paying.

I also accepted a payment by Discover. I have no idea if we even take Discover.

i was jealous of this guy in college

I was jealous of this guy in college...the guitar player and singer...his name is tim casher and he's the front man for the band Cursive. they kick ass. And my junior year of college, my roomate and best friend matt had a class with Tim...and I was jealous a little...when your best friend starts hanging out with a rock star I think you're allowed to be jealous! the embed link option is blocked from this video, so if you want to see tim's sexy pulsing forearms (and the rest of him, also sexy and pulsing) you'll have to follow the link. Martin and Peter know this band by my pet name for them "screaming white men" and I say that with the utmost respect...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=_qGDR5t-ZQ0

: )

d

schooled at school

So...the cool art student who slings espresso at the campus cart near my office told me on Friday that I reminded her of someone famous...but she couldn't remember who...and today she had the answer...thanks to watching MTV over the weekend. "You remind me of Roger Daltrey. You don't really look like him...but you remind me of him...maybe it's the hair!" she said...leaving a pregnant pause...so curious about how I would react.

"I wish I knew who Robert Daltrey was," I said in as defeated a voice as I could find.

I should really get a Who album...

not related to urban hike

totally worth reading (topic: the monster comment that got obama's advisor fired and the deferential role of american journalists wrt politicians)

urban hike: views of national city

I took our car to the Ford dealer where we bought it about 19 months ago, b/c it was time for the 15K checkup and well past time to try to understand why the engine light is on. Since we're a one-car family, I took the car myself to the 8AM Saturday morning appointment. I packed 25 pounds of books, magazine and even the health profile I was supposed to fill out for the general check up that I forgot to go to last wednesday. Oops. HMO paybacks are hell. I'm in for it. But anyway, the point is that I dropped off the car and embarked on a six hour urban hike through national city, chula vista and south san diego. It was a ton of fun. The Walmart bathroom below was one of my rest stops. The urban equivalent to how to take a shit in the woods could be "how to take a shit in Walmart." Of course I didn't do any reading at all. The heavy backpack really did make it an urban hike though. And I even had a close encounter with wildlife. Near the back of the crazy modern building above, I cut through an empty parking lot and then another. A big black SUV appeared in front of me out of nowhere. It slowed down when it got to me and a white guy no more than 18 with the serious face of someone who had just seen a ghost or was about to do something really horrible starred at me from a half-way-rolled-down pitch-black passenger side window in the second row of seats. He moved his eyes so as to say "your it." For a moment, I truly believed i was about to get my ass kicked. but before I even decided how freaked out to be, the SUV dissappeared. I moved my ass to a more populated area damn fast. Scared white liberal. I know. It was probably nothing...but then again, we're hardwired as humans to react to potentially threatening situations and I'm not one to ignore them.

urban hike: mexican taco stand

As my hike wore on, I grew determined to find an authentic hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant. You'd think they'd be all over, but they're not. I walked past a failed upscale coffee joint called "Chicano perk" and an abandoned and for-sale art deco movie theater. I found psychics, flower shops and even a tool shop that can only be accessed via a leather store. I discovered an old fashioned ice cream parlor that still makes its own ice cream and the storefront of a company that will take care of all your family auction needs (not sure if that meant selling people or possessions...and this close to the border, it may mean both. Human trafficking is real in these parts...but I digress.) I was obsessed with an authentic Mexican food experience. I'd been listening to Spanish all day and it made me hungry. Yes, hearing a sales pitch for synthetic oil that costs 2o bucks more than the usual blend makes me hungry, when I'm running on empty and the conversation is in Spanish. after crossing from chula vista to national city and national city to south san diego. After going under a long and dark underpass and crossing strange military properties, I told myself. One more light. I'll walk to the next light...way up yonder...and if I don't see anything promising I'm turning back. There was an Italian place that was dark and cavernous and totally scary that I was going to try if I couldn't find a decent taco. but I didn't have to brave the spooky pizza joint. Just before the next light...with the san diego skyline far in the northern sky, I saw hand painted yellow taco shop sign nestled between two car detailing places.

urban hike: Walmart Bathroom Chula Vista

The Walmart bathroom in Chula Vista (south of downtown San Diego) in a not trendy or gentrified part of town was filthy this morning when I needed it urgently. These are the URLs kindly posted on the walls of my stall. Deezznuts.com is a dead link. Freeones.com looks like a spyware magnet...so beware. The myspace site really is a band, but I didn't bother to listen. I also googled SBS and South Bay Spics -- thinking the writing on the door of the stall might be the name of a gang, but a google search didn't provide any clues. I think I prefer going to a rest oom. It sounds vaguely dutch.