Underwear Limbo

I am just sitting here at my desk in nothing but underwear and a green reindeer bathrobe. Why am I sharing this excess of useless information that has probably put a random and unpleasant picture in your mind? Because I may or may not have a date tonight. And because I'm not exactly sure, I don't know whether to put on my comfy pajamas, or get all cuted up for some boy. We started IMing and things were going well. We bantered about the poorly chosen location for West Hollywood, as well as how much commuting sucks. Then he asked me to meet for a drink and I said, sure, why not? (He's 6'' and lives less than a half hour away, so those are the first requirements right there. He's also a writer so he was able to spell correctly and express himself using real words. Score!)

This is not me, but that is my bathrobe.
 And my happy face slippers, aww I miss those!
My friend was wearing them as a costume
for when she played a crazy person in one of my movies
in college. It was a good wardrobe choice for crazy.

I had to cut the conversation short because I was headed out to yoga. I totally would have ditched it, but I already signed up and would have lost a credit. Not to mention I skipped last week to go to my parents' house and already felt guilty enough about it. So I gave him my number and told him to text me if he wanted to hang out later. I also gave him the name of an awesome Irish pub conveniently located near my house. Then I skedaddled because there's nothing worse than running late to yoga class (you get hate stares when you interrupt the flow of the chi.)

I found this when googling "yoga bitch face."

No text while I was in yoga, and no message when I got back to my apartment. Since the original plan was to meet at about 8:30pm, I knew I had to book it to get showered and ready. But there was no real confirmation that he got my message about my number and the bar. So I proceeded with my routine up until the point where I have to decide, makeup or no makeup? Cute butt jeans and ever-so-slighty padded bra (which always feel like false advertising, but man do they do the trick!) or yoga pants and an oversized t-shirt? Thus the reindeer bathrobe. Because there's no commitment with a reindeer bathrobe.

Haha, and this had the caption, "Unbuttlievable!"

I re-read the IM conversation we had and realized that unfortunately our conversation could be interpreted in a couple ways. The first, that we were going to meet tonight at around 8:30pm. The second, that on some unspecified day this week (other than Wednesday because I have a date with another guy, BALLA!!!) we would be meeting at around 8:30pm. Oops. That's what you get for trying to be casual and noncommittal. You end up not making commitments like when and/or where you're going to meet up!

Lady pimp.

Why am I stressing about this so much? I don't owe this guy anything. It's not like it's a meeting with my parole officer (that's tomorrow night. HAH!). But I feel guilty because it would be a bit of a drive for him and he has to wake up at 4:30am every day for work. He was already going to be staying out late just to meet me (awwwww! Sounds like good people to me!). So because of this modified sleep schedule, it's possible that he's either asleep right now and that's why I can't get a hold of him. Or he's sitting at the Irish pub waiting for me to show up in my cute butt jeans and padded bra (side note, the padded bra has become a necessity since I started losing weight in the one area I could not afford to shrink).

This could be him, all sad and lonely
with only his girly cocktail to comfort him
from the devastation of being stood up by me!

So what do you think? Is he fast asleep, secure in the knowledge that we'll set up a date at a later time? Or is he all sad and lonely at a bar in an unfamiliar town waiting for this delightful creature who may very well be the love of his life? I DON'T KNOW! I already sent him a message essentially asking him if he wanted to reschedule, and no response. He may not have a smart phone (I don't either), so he doesn't get the OkCupid app. He also may be slightly dumb and forgot to take down my phone number and left the house without a way to contact me. I know I'm way over-thinking this. But I would hate to take the trouble to get cute (ugh), and then go sit at a bar by myself for an hour. However, I think I would hate to do that to someone else that's going out of his way for me (eventually affecting his work tomorrow).

I haven't even met this guy and already I'm going psycho on him (though that would explain the reindeer on the bathrobe I'm wearing in June). And I'm not really a psycho girl, I swear. I just would like some confirmation so I can at least put some goddamn clothes on!

Namaste

I just had my first real experience with yoga this evening. I actually went to a class on Monday, but it had a meditative focus that meant a lot of lying down quietly in the dark. I can do that at home for free. Tonight was a lot more intense, but not as hard as I thought it would be. Mostly because it was a million degrees in the studio. I know they're trying to get you to sweat out your toxins, but if you're wearing gray yoga pants for the first time, you sweat so much it looks like you peed your pants. (You're welcome for that image by the way).

I still love this movie.

It was hard for me to relax, since I raced over to Burbank from Studio City after work, cursing traffic and lack of convenient parking spaces. I just barely made it in time, so I didn't get a chance to go to the bathroom beforehand. I try to drink a lot of water these days, so I spent the whole hour with an uncomfortably full bladder being twisted into new and unusual shapes. (Sidebar, I had a similar experience with my first pap smear. Talk about uncomfortable! ... Too much information?)

The last thing you want when your bladder is about to burst 

is someone literally poking it. Yowza!

As for the session itself, I liked that it was set to Bob Marley rather than far out New Age-y music. But like the first time, the instructor kept using words like 'chakra' and 'energy' and 'third eye' in a deliberately soothing voice. I sympathized with a lady in back who couldn't stop giggling at the absurdity of it all. I kept my s--- together, but there were times I just balked at some of the terms. I almost lost it when we literally started by chanting 'oooooooohm' and ended with our hands in front of our hearts and bidding a farewell 'namaste.' I guess it's just been so parodied in pop culture that it was bizarre to think that people are genuine in their yoga spirituality. As a skeptic, I find it hard to buy into all that.

 Sidebar, the word 'namaste' always makes me think of this toolbag from "Lost."

Since we've already wandered into and gotten lost in too much information territory, I will tell you my other problem with yoga: my ass. It is just too big to do many floor exercises comfortably. There's a major height difference between my ass and lower back when I'm lying down and it's down right painful to try and roll back and forth like a rocking horse. Forget about The Plow position, I didn't even attempt it. My only other complaint was that halfway through my "dead man's pose" (that name I actually dug), the instructor started giving everyone mini-massages. I don't like to be touched. Especially by complete strangers. I dare say the massage had the opposite effect.

Is there a yoga school of thought that isn't all trippy hippy-ish?

Or does it just come with the territory?

It was a great workout though and I do feel really nice and relaxed. I just can't decide if it's worth the extra $15 a month. There aren't that many classes that work with my schedule, and clearly this one is just too hard to change, drive, park, and check in with only a half hour window (and that's IF I get off work on time. Note the big IF.) I should probably just get over myself though and suck it up. I mean, I already bought the yoga mat and everything. (It turns out they provide yoga mats for you. There goes that $12. I'm glad I have my own though. I'd hate to think about rolling around on a communal mat soaked with other peoples' sweat. Blech. You're welcome for that one too!)

An Exercise in Sublimation

I went to Target just now to buy a yoga mat. It was on sale for $12. Somehow, I managed to spend over $200. I was feeling reckless and impulsive. When I get like this, it manifests in either of the following two ways: A) Eating too much of something that's bad for me; or B) Spending way too much on stuff I don't really need and can't really afford. Check and check. Not to generalize for over half the world's population, but I think these are pretty typical female coping mechanisms. These past few months at work have been inconceivably stressful (I know, what else is knew, but for reals, it was bad), and there's some stuff in my personal life that's just a tad effed up as well.

Strange, my yoga mat didn't come with a pretty flcwer...

FALSE ADVERTISING!!!

This was a recipe for disaster that almost cost me all the amazing progress I have been making with my healthy lifestyle changes. I gained back six of the seventy-six pounds I had lost, on top of reverting to some of my old compulsive over-eating habits. There's nothing worse than feeling out of control. Especially when you can undo six weeks of hard work and weight loss with three days of poor decisions. I let myself wallow in misery for a whole weekend. Sometimes you just have to. But then last Monday, I got over it. I did laundry, scrubbed my whole apartment (including the shower which I confess had not been cleaned in... let's just say a while), and paid bills. There's something to be said for a cathartic cleaning and organizing purge to reset yourself and gain new perspective.

I'm the life of the self-pity party!

Monday was also the first day I started going to the Burbank Athletic Center. They had a free three-day trial, so I figured I should check out the mythical place known as the "Gym." I'd never really gone to a regular gym before. I was always in sports as a kid, then I went to Curves a few years in high school (apparently they donate to some uber-conservative causes, so boycott them if you can). In college, there was a free state-of-the-art gym that supposedly Kobe Bryant used to work out at, but it was too far to walk to and I didn't have a car. After college, I was too poor to afford a real gym, so I would just go running around the 'hood. But you couldn't do that after dark at the risk of being murder-raped. Then I created this workout, but it wasn't terribly effective. I've been running here in NoHo since about September, but the repetitive motion and hard impact from the concrete really messed with my hip. It was terrifying to me to think that I might not be able to exercise for physical, not psychological reasons for the first time. But perhaps working out on commercial quality machines would fix my joint problems.

Fuck this dude. He makes me vomit.

I wouldn't want to work out at his gym anyway.

It turns out, I frickin' LOVE the gym!!! I can't believe I didn't discover this earlier! Think of how much weight and weight-related aggravation it would have saved if I'd have known that endorphins aren't just a conspiracy designed to get us off our sizable butts in pursuit of naturally occurring uppers. They really do rock, who knew? I always thought gyms were expensive, at least $40-50 bucks a month, but the BAC is actually super cheap at around $10. Even my broke-ass can afford that. I've gone every day for the past week and I look forward to it every time. If you know me at all, you know how crazy that is. They have pretty cheap yoga classes too, which I impulsively signed up for just now to try it. I'm going at 9am tomorrow, so we'll see if I'm just as jazzed on yoga as I am about cardio and strength-training. (I'm assuming Wii Yoga really isn't the same.)

Clearly I can't be trusted with a credit card when I'm emotional.

This initial impulse-buy led to the afore-mentioned yoga mat purchase. Which was accompanied by yoga pants, yoga capris, new sports bras, brightly-colored sweat towels, multi-vitamins, and a bunch of other stuff to get me excited about this new phase in my life. I think this is behavior I learned from my mother. If you're going to make a big change, it helps to buy new stuff to get you mentally prepared. Even though I probably could have made due with the million sports bras and workout clothes I already have, I needed to do this. I will probably regret it when I get my Target card bill, but for now, I'm just stoked to see what all the fuss is about. And it feels good to finally have some control again. Well, I'm still eating too many things I shouldn't, but at least I'm overcompensating for my short-comings with excessive exercising. And it's a lot healthier to take out all my rage and frustrations on the Stairmaster than getting drunk or high or eating a whole tub of cookie dough.