Blue party

So on Saturday some friends are having a fancy dress party.  The theme is blue.  I have three options, two I already own and one that involves wigs

1. A vintage dress that used to belong to my Great Grandma.  It is both blue and sparkly
2. My wedding dress is a blue party dress from the late 50’s.  It would also do.
3. Go down to Rye Lane and buy a blonde wig and some hippie-ish clothes and go as Joni Mitchell

What do you think dear reader(s)?  Make this decision for me, I am too weakened by the stresses of every day life to think for myself.  Oh woe.

For Real

So Willie is here for a visit and this month he brought with him mood swings and a replica of Mt Vesuvius on my chin.  “Oh Carolyn,” I hear you say, “Don’t exaggerate.  Mt Vesuvius is much too big to fit on your chin.”

Well, let me tell you, patronizing voice in my head, I have seen Mt Vesuvius and I have seen the impressive zit on my chin, and I can assure you that they are roughly the same size!  There’re probably a fair few ruins just waiting to be excavated in the lower right hand corner of my face.  Just around the corner from Vesuvius 2: Electric Boogaloo there might even be a pizza place and a wacky European disco.  Sometime this evening I may have to make evacuation announcements.

I’m sorry.  I’ve gone too far with the metaphor and taken it from trite to full on annoying.  You deserve better, dear reader(s).  To quote the classic coming of age movie My Girl  “Go Away! And don’t come back for five to seven days!”

DJ Zbornak rides again

Last night was January’s installment of My Awesome Mix Tape at the Gowlett in Peckham.  Since Harvey was out of town I (DJ Zbornak) got to be one of the guest DJs for the evening.  I played about an hour and took the easy road for the evening by planning out a playlist on my Ipod and just hitting play.  Lame?  Maybe.  But it was a lot less stressfull than the already low stress method of lugging a bunch of CDs to the pub.  Also the Gowlett’s CD players are busted and I only own one record album (Neneh Cherry’s Raw Like Sushi) so I had to make do.

My playlist for the evening started off with There’s a Tear in my Beer by Hank Williams Sr, Hero/Heroine by Freakwater and Hope is a Thing with Feathers by Trailer Bride and then took  a winding road to visit the likes of  Etta James (Stop the Wedding), All Girl Summer Fun Band (Grizzly), Solex (Solex All Lickety Split), Neko Case (John Saw that Number), The White Stripes (I just Don’t Know What to do With Myself), Regina Spector (Us), Jenny Toomey (Baby Would it Matter) and, of course, The Bangles (Hazy Shade of Winter).

And sure when he said it Jeremy was a little bit tipsy but he did tell me I played “A really good set, really good, I’ma go get some Scotch now.”  And then he bobbled away.  I’m inclined to  agree with him, but then I did play a bunch of my favorite songs, so I would.

You know you’re interested in my sweat

I checked out a new Bikram Yoga Studio last night.  This one near the Old St station.  It’s smaller and a bit grottier than the one in sort of Soho that I started at but cheaper for 10-class passes and also a little bit easier to get to and from.  The one in sort of Soho had a better starter deal of 10 classes for 20 squid whereas the starter deal at Old St of 1 month for 30 squid had schedule restrictions that wouldn’t work for me. 

Anyhow, last night was my 6th class and it went really well, I’m a little achy today, but definitely feel like I’m getting the hang of this.  I no longer spend the entire class wishing for death and at the end I no longer feel totally wiped out.  Still feel fairly wiped out, but not totally.

The thing I really like about Bikram is that it’s a set series of 26 poses always done in the same order.  You start and end with breathing exercises and you do each pose twice.  This set formula allows you to get lost in the actions and focus on what your body is doing without getting distracted.  I like knowing what to expect when I walk into the studio each time. 

Once, back in Chicago, I went to an Ashtanga (I think) yoga class in Evanston and we spent a full 45 minutes focusing on our toes.  Our toes!  I spent the whole time thinking about how freaking lame that was that by the end I felt more tense than I did when I arrived.  I’m sort of bad at letting my mind clear when I’m supposed to be focusing on the stretch.  But with Bikram yoga knowing what to expect has really helped me to stop obsessing over the petty business of putting on unflattering work out clothes and sweating excessively and equally helped me focus on what my body is doing and how it is changing and adjusting.

I’ve bought a 10 class pass and my intention is to go at least 3 times a week and then someday I will be able to do all of these

Dear America,

Remember four years ago when I was all like, God America, quit electing jerks and making them my president?  No, well trust me it happened, I was grouchy about it.  Not that I was all psyched about John Kerry or anything but, to me, he seemed like the better option.  Unfortunately, you disagreed with me America, well at least 51% of the voting public did, supposedly.  I’m looking at you Ohio.

But this year, you saw the error of your ways and today we all get an awesome new president.

Now don’t fuck it up, America, okay?

Thanks,

Carolyn

Guess what happens tomorrow?

It’s new president day!  Awseome.

Also, I’m gonna go to yoga, but that’s not nearly as exciting.

Books and words and things

Books

My book club meets tonight to discus Spring Snowby Yukio Mishima.  It was good but very slow moving and strangely delicate.  I don’t know if I will read the other books in The Sea of Tranquility Quad, but I am glad I read this.  Even though it had a strong central plot line running through, the book moved in a slow almost dreamlike manner, as if it were just a series of images and movements.  When I think back to the experience of reading it, it’s almost as if I’m seeing the world created by the author through a glass.

Now I need to think of some books to suggest for the next meeting.  Anybody know any good classic type books you think I ought to have read by this point?

Words

Maybe this bit should be called Webs since it’s related to the interwebs, but it’s also about words. 

Lately, it feels like all of Port Huron (Port Huron of 1995 and earlier anyhow) is reaching out to me  from the internets (typo of internest there).  This is not a bad thing.  It is, however, a little disconcerting.  I’ve spent the last 13 years with out a whole lot of contact with anybody from the Blue Water area (family excepted, of course) and suddenly people are all over my Facebook.  Obviously a lot of them have left the area too, but my brain still puts them back at approximately age 16 in various locations (the Coney, the library, the mall, the high school, the Denny’s, the rocks by the river, wherever) in Port Huron, and this puts me back at approximately age 16 in Port Huron myself and that is weird.

It’s weird because I am not 16 in Port Huron, I am 31 in London.  I am an age I could never have imagined at 16 and in a place so far removed from where I was at 16.  I feel like there’s an onslaught of memories shifting around in my head all the time and it can be a little overwhelming.  And trust me, for me to find this overwhelming, me who will dwell in the past and nostalgia all the live long day quite happily, it’s, well, it’s overwhelming, okay?  I don’t have another word for it.

Again, not bad, generally it’s really good to hear from and about all these old friends who I’d resigned myself to having lost, but good Christmas, it can make a girl feel sort of torn between versions of herself.

Things

This is the miscellaneous bit.

• Back to yoga tomorrow
• Jeremy is in Germany until tomorrow night
• I still have plenty of tuna noodle casserole left over (yay)
• I slept too long this morning and had to run around like a mad woman
• I’ve not had any cigarettes, not even social ones, since new year’s eve (well done me).
• Tunde Adebimpe from TV on the Radio used to be in a band with Mike Patton of Faith No More and Mr Bungle.  Who knew? The Guardian, that’s who, and they told me.

3 times, 3 times followed by comfort culinary delights

I went back to Yoga last night and it was miserable.  Seriously miserable.

The class was PACKED again and that makes the heat kick up a fair bit which leads to nausea and dizziness if you aren’t careful.  Hell, even if you are careful.  I think for the time being I need to stick to the classes that are at awkward times and therefore will not be so crowded.

That said, I can feel differences in my abilities even now.  They’re small differences true, but still.  I can tell in certain poses that I’m able to push further and/or hold position longer.  Sure I still can’t manage the kneeling poses for crap, but my standing poses are improving.  And let me tell you, I have an exemplary corpse pose. 

After class I took three buses home (a journey that is actually better than it sounds) and had a choice between eating leftover stew or making tuna noodle casserole.  When given a choice of this nature my answer is almost always tuna noodle casserole.  I fried some fresh mushrooms in butter and pepper (would have added some dried parsley but somebody whose name starts with J and rhymes with air-a-me used it all and didn’t buy more, jerk) and then added in some celery (a controversial ingredient) for extra crunch.  When the celery was just getting soft I turned off the heat. 

While this was happening I was also boiling some pasta.  Once soft I added a can of Cream of Mushroom, a can’s worth of milk and the tuna (the last time I made this, I actually forgot the tuna, it was a shameful shameful moment) and mixed together.  Next I mixed through the celery and mushrooms and then added half the mixture to a casserole dish, layered on some cheddar cheese and then topped up with the last of the mixture and did another layer of cheese.  This point is where some people add potato chips, but that is gross and I don’t sanction such outlandish behaviors.  I know, I know, I’m hardly a purist what with my additions of fresh mushrooms, celery, occasionally garlic and sometimes even parsley, but for real,putting potato chips on top of your tuna noodle makes the baby Jesus cry.  Do not do it. 

Finally, into the oven, my culinary delight went for 15 minutes at a hottish temp (around 345 F or 180-200 C) until the cheese had turned golden. 

And then the comfort food binge began.  All memories of achy limbs and torutre by yoga fled into the ether as I savoured some of the food of my youth.  I know many people remember the tuna noodle with derision, but they are wrong.  The tuna noodle should be embraced and loved.  With just the tiniest bit of tweaking it becomes a lovely meal.  Sometimes, if I feel the need to make it healthy, I add frozen peas to the mix.  I’m considering spinach for next time.  But sometimes, especially when stressed or worn out, sticking to the basics is the way to go.

Just remember to keep the bag of Lays/Ruffles/whatever closed and far away from the oven.  Seriously, it’s not okay.

It Begins

So I started Bikram Yoga on Thursday and, seriously, it sucked.  The first session left me feeling nauseated and dizzy, totally not fun.  But I met my personal goal to at least stay in the room the whole time.  I knew it would suck, I just didn’t know how much it would suck.  I really don’t remember it being so miserable when I did it back in 2004.  But then, that was 5 years ago, so maybe I blocked it out.

Apart from the general suckage of the heat induced nausea I also discovered that my ankles have gone to crap.  Even though the arthritis is not causing my any major pain at the moment, I have lost a lot of my flexibility.  3 years of limping and gimping around have definitely left their mark on me.  The kneeling poses which I expected to be easier than the standing ones, were excruciating.  My ankles just don’t remember how to bend back anymore.

All this said, the second session I attended, on Saturday afternoon, was a lot better.  I went to TK Maxx and got some marked down sports wear courtesy of Nike and Puma and that made a huge difference.  I also did not eat for 3 hours prior to the class instead of only 2 hours.  At the start of the class I said to myself, “Okay Carolyn, today you are going to at least TRY every pose.  You don’t have to complete it, just try it.”  And I did and I did not want to die while I did it.  Sure I’m not a bendy doll like the lady in front of me, but I’m trying and I’m learning.

It all still kind of sucks, but less.  After class 2 I felt revitalized and tired rather than tired and miserable.  Also my costochondritis has not been hurting so much.  Sure all my formerly ignored muscles are all like, “Carolyn we hate you!” especially the muscles in my thighs and back, they are full of hate.  But I know that class 3 will be just a tiny bit easier.  And hopefully my ankles will lose some of their inflexibility and become all bendy and elasticated again.

Also, it is claimed that Bikram Yoga will lower my stress levels and I am all for that.  Also word on the street is that it will help me lose weight and I am also all for that.

So 2 down, a million more to go.

The first great disapointment of 2009, a tragedy

So if you see a muffin called the Mega Berry Muffin you would assume that it would have a lot of berries in in it, right?  You would expect such a muffin to be more berry than muffin, right?  You would be all like, wow this is going to be like a giant bowl, a mega-sized bowl even, of berries with like a tiny drizzle of muffin batter over the top, right?  You would not expect such a treat to be 99% muffin and 1% berry.  1 lousy raspberry falls far short of the expectations set up by the word mega.

My life is so difficult!