Friday, September 05, 2008
Friday On My Mind, but Off My Rocker
Happy friday and good riddance to this week. Damn but it’s been hard to bounce back, and this is coming from one who bounces for both fun and profit on the US Pro-Am Bouncing circuit. In fact I actually did bounce for a solid 25 minutes this morning on the mini-tramp, but that was just a warm-up for this weekend, which will be dedicated to getting some goddamn sleep and watching stupid movies and Burn Notice with a cold beer and my feet up. And with this circumscribed worldview and lack of focus in mind, let me throw down a few chewy tidbits just so you don’t think I’ve spurned you for another blog with a bigger hit-count (as if!):
1) I saw a bus pulling up to my stop this morning while still on the sidewalk in front of my house. Saying to myself that it wasn’t worth my effort to run for it, I started running for it anyway, cutting across the greenbelt to narrow the distance. I noticed as I reached the far sidewalk that it was a regular 38, not the Limited or Express (hm, sounds like I’m shopping for pants at stores in the mall (and for the record I do not wear 38s)), so it really wasn’t worth my effort. I also noticed, as I returned to an easy loping pace, an unpleasant sliding sensation under my right heel. YES! DOG WASTE! JAMMED UP INTO THE TREADS OF MY FAVORITE BUSINESS SKETCHERS! I tried to pound it free by slapping the shoe against the curb, and then tried to abrade it out by grinding my shoe into sandy dirt; then I received a free cup of Peet’s coffee at the bus stop from a candidate for district supervisor and caught the BX, whereon I sat quietly, inhaling the strong dark aroma of unsweetened coffee, seeking solace in its warmth and richness. You know what? It smelled like dog crap. Now I am going to have to find a way to clean out that shoe before it makes me sick as I sit here at my desk. How about putting it in the microwave in the coffee room? Anyone have any experience drying out shoe poo that way? I’m afraid it may have some impact on the lingering scent of butter-flavored popcorn....
2) I’ve been avoiding political rants lately on this blog (not that I have the same discretion in my personal conversations, just ask me about Sarah Palin if you’ve got 40 minutes or so), but this one is just too juicy not to flog: I didn’t see any of the RNC convention but I understand that Johnny M, the Elephantine Presidential Candidate, presented his speech in front of a big screen on which was depicted a stately structure with a broad lawn. Why? Well, it’s a nice break from the “Grecian splendor” of the Donkeycratic speeches in Denver, which got them into so much trouble - but why *that* building, and what was it anyway? Well one of my favorite blogs has revealed the solution, or at least the short answer to the second question and a damn fine idea about the first one. The building depicted is Walter Reed Middle School in NoHo, which I would have attended had I lived three blocks east of my actual home growing up; instead I went to Robert Milliken Jr High, named after the guy who measured the atom (it was a 38 regular (which means I would not have had to run across the turdmeadows to reach it)). Milliken was not an especially memorable place; Reed had, at least, a much nicer campus. Nice enough to be the backdrop for the RNC convention’s main speaker? Hmm… maybe. Or maybe - just maybe - somebody was told to get a photo of Walter Reed MEDICAL CENTER, where this nation’s stalwart fighting forces go to recuperate after suffering casualty in the service of liberty? Sure, that makes sense - ex-P.O.W. with permanent injuries, professing interest in reforming a D.C. establishment that has taken flack (so to speak) for, among other failures, serious deficiencies in care and facilities at WALTER REED MEDICAL CENTER… So the call went out, Get me a photo of Walter Reed to look impressive behind Johnny Mac, and they found this one but they didn’t like it so they went with my rival junior high school. This, my friends, is why we need a president who doesn’t need on-the-job training on how to use The Google (tee-em). Visual proof is at TPM Muckraker.
3) Here’s a little something-something that will only be funny to those of you with extensive yoga practice experience. However, I assure those of you without such experience, this would really be funny if you knew squat about yoga (ba-dum). I’ve seen a lot of these “office yoga” guides, the sort of thing that gets taped to the bottom of your computer monitor or pinned up in a coffee room, encouraging folk to do some basic exercises so they don’t get cramped up and rupture a disk or something while sitting at their brainiac machines for 32 hours a day. I’m guilty as anyone (moreso than some) of failing to take breaks, not shaking out my hands or limbering up my back, letting my neck slowly turn into a column of twigs and pebbles so I can’t turn my head without repositioning my feet, preferably by placing them a pedicure bath while a bevy of professionals kneads my sorely knotted cervical musculature. However, let’s be honest, those “roll your head/stretch your arms/flex your toes” exercises are not yoga. Yoga is a demanding, vigorous practice that integrates body, breath and spirit. It is sweaty, demanding, and can change your life. Yoga is not a short or easy path, but it is a rewarding one. Let us not demean it with comparisons to small-scale desk-chair isometrics.
Instead, let us demean it by suggesting the following actual, full-body postures that truly do represent a form of yoga that is designed to enhance cube-farm fitness:
* Downward Faxing Dog
* Exalted Stapler
* Salutation To Whom It May Concern
* Phone Tree Posture
* Task Chair Posture
* Kabhallapotty Break
* Staff Pose
* COBRA
It is to laugh, is it not? Is not all of it to laugh? It is, truly. Don’t sass me. I’ve had a long week. Next week: some posts about music! Everybody enjoys that, right?