when i quit my job in september 2007, i cashed out my 401(k) with the idea that i was gonna live for a year having fun, no work, all play. it may have seemed like a dumb idea at the time, but with the way the economy is, i think i may have made the right move and i had a really good time until my bank account went bust in march last year. i barely made it 6 months!

since then, i have started every month with no idea how i would make rent by the end of the month. it’s been quite an adventure, but i’ve done it! somehow, someway—a surprise check from the m & d, a good month on ebay—it’s been interesting to say the least. i remember being so stressed. it was the last day of the month, i started the day with pocket change and came home to an unexpected tax return that covered rent *and* food for the next month! nothing like that happened today. bummer.

when i got the dayjob, that made life easier. unfortunately, my checks are being garnished by the feds for taxes i couldn’t pay when i was unemployed (i din’t get a stimulus package for some reason). right now, my day job doesn’t come close to rent. i’m expecting a freelance check any day now. why is the client always in a hurry to send you the content for their website, but so slow in paying for the website? the work is done, the money will be here, but i still don’t have rent. i knew that streak would come to an end. the amazing thing is i’m not stressed about it like i normally would be. now ‘splaining this to my landlord will be a whole ‘nother ball of wax!

oh my god. look how much i’ve written! this goes against all the principles of blog writing, i know, but you wanna know what? fuck off. it’s my blog and if i wanna write about how not to plan for your late 30s and then go on about my bikram class, why not? well, class was great but i hit a wall at the end. i think i dozed a little in final savasana because i kinda snapped awake. tired boy. i can’t tell if i’m fighting a cold or just tired.

hey, look who came to visit while i was doing some of my chores today! technically speaking, this is about 2 stories below the chicken coop, if the hill were a building. gonna have to tell the landlord about this too! you wanna know what? this little guy can hop a really tall fence from almost a standing leap! see you tomorrow ~m

had a really solid practise today, friends. despite the fact that i really din’t have the healthiest of dinners last night. even though i only had a small breakfast of strawberries and almonds. are you feeling me? totally focused, din’t back down from any pose, no pacing at all, just pure effort. it was nice to feel so strong when people were dropping left and right.

i was really focused today, that was the only difference. my concentration was completely on. all those escuses for drinking lots of water, or whatever, are just excuses. i had work junk on my brain when i walked into the room and i told myself to stop thinking about it for 90 minutes and only listen to the dialogue. it was kind of robotic the way i shut my brain down and just practised. once we hit the mat for final savasana, i immediately thought about my dayjob again, but whatevs, there *was* an early meeting i was supposed to be at!

oh yeah, i forgot that some of you aren’t on twitter. guess what? i made the asianposes.com home page! my animated gif from last week is the 3rd image on the home page right now! pretty cool, huh? your sweat friend is getting famous. ha ha, not really, but it’s still cool. or should i say, it’s super-plus good! i din’t even know, @secretmuffin told me.

i have to be honest. i’m a little tired of posting hydrangea pictures. i have a ton of other photos i’ve been anxious to show you, but i really like the way the blog looks with all hydrangea pictures on the home page. so, indulge me for a day! see you tomorrow ~m

i hit the wall hard today, sweat friends! fortunately, it happened long after final savasana! i had a late lunch with my family and overindulged in extravagant food. i had barbeque ribs & chicken, potatoes, salad and a slice of a 7-layer chocolate cake! too much good stuff, isn’t that what they say? sorry to all my animal friends, but it’s not often i get to eat that much food and i enjoyed myself. i even had a root beer after lunch and milk after dessert! the m & d dropped me off at home and that was when i hit my wall and went into a sugar coma. took a nice, long nap, i can’t say i feel any more awake, but i’m not hungry at least!

class was interesting. usually the 10 am sunday class is on the smaller side, but it got pretty crowded. a little too crowded, wow was it humid! my teacher warned me before class that the air was thick today. she said no matter how often she opened the door during the 8, it was still super humid in the room. the 10 wasn’t much better because we din’t get the benefit of the open door! i did something i’d never done before today. we just started the floor series and the guy in front of me put his water bottle right in my line of vision. instead of seeing myself in the mirror, i was looking at his *cold* water bottle. grrrrr. i know i should be able to see straight through it, but it was humid—cold water looked so tempting. i guess it was too humid for the owner and he left the room for a bit. as soon as he left the room, i grabbed his bottle and put it behind his mat. i was *not* gonna look at if i din’t have to! i know, i know, but what would you have done?

everybody’s still talking about michael jackson. how are you gonna remember him? how do you remember elvis? do you think about his music or him? which elvis do you think of when you hear his name? 1950s’ rockabilly elvis, ’68 comeback black leather elvis or fat elvis? when i was a little kid, i thought of fat elvis. in high school, i discovered rockabilly and now that’s the elvis i think of, plus all the great songs he did back then! “well, it’s a saturday night and i just got paid, fool about my money, don’t try and save…i’m gonna rip it up, at the show tonight!” oh yeah, kitten, you know what i like. 20 years from now, i wonder what will pop in my mind when i think of jacko. will it be the damage he did to his face or will it be off the wall? i hope it’s off the wall, but who knows. seeing his brothers and all the images of him yesterday make me think of the dead kennedys’ record “plastic surgery disasters.” sad.

i was pouring sweat on the bike ride into practise this morning! uh oh, that’s usually a bad sign. our teacher suggested practising next to the wall on the cool side. taking it easy was the last thing on my mind, i woke up today excited about class! i was really set on having a strong class today. the class before was obviously roasty, so the room got aired out real well in between and class wasn’t that bad. not as hot as i thought it would be, given the outside conditions. overall, it was another rocking class for me! i started feeling a little overheated towards the end so i poured some water on my throat. i din’t touch my water bottle at all during class and it had gotten super cold. oh my god, it felt like ice water compared to how hot the room had gotten, i wanted to jump up on my mat, yell “hee hee,” spin around and do a little moonwalk. that’s how good it felt. total recharge for my body and i finished strong.

i know that’s not how i shoulda done it. i should have had that strong resolve in my mind to not resort to such drastic measures, but, who cares? it’s only yoga. i’ll be back tomorrow for more. see you then! ~m p.s. can i bore you with another hydrangea? hee hee.

i must have listened to off the wall way too much last night—there’s been a lot of punk rock in my day today! pop has always inspired punk, i guess. did you do anything to reflect on farrah or michael yesterday? it was appropriate that i was with my family. i was with them when elvis died and when john lennon was murdered. yesterday we watched the coverage together on cnn while eating birthday cake.

when i got home, i was glad kcal 9 was streaming their live broadcast. i wish they’d do that everyday. stacey butler is the hottest reporter ever. she’s so natural-looking, an anomaly in los angeles television. we went to college together and, not that she would remember me, 20 years later, she’s still the same super-hot stacey.

another day of sweating in the hot room! no one told me i was gross today, that was nice. friday afternoon with puja—yay! a few close peeps and a few anonymous strangers rounded out the class. it wasn’t hot or crowded, but i wasn’t hydrated enough. sometimes i forget to drink as much water as i should when i’m at work. excuses, excuses. i really need to learn to pace myself or even rest a set.

shorty tonight because i wanna get in another off the wall before i go to bed. i’m close to the day when there will be nothing but hydrangeas on the home page, so i can’t stop now!

big day for me. i took the day off work to hang out with the m & d. since it was my mom’s birthday, i was celebrating and slept in late. nice to chillax in the morning before yoga instead of sitting at a desk for a few hours. did the 10 am class and had the rockingest time—i have never felt stronger in a class! our first backward bend in the warm-up felt unbelievable. in the area right below my rib cage on my right, i felt stretching and opening like i have never felt before! oh man, it really felt amazing. that set the tone for my class, every pose felt better than ever before, it was one of those classes where i was so focused and in my body, a really special kind of class that had me smiling as much as i could without dripping sweat into my mouth.

even though i was totally “in the yoga,” i was aware of the woman next to me. she was kinda gasping at the end of every pose, no clue about locking the knee and she threw out her leg like a kickstand to set-up for garurasana. i think she does a lot of other types of yoga. in any case, i was aware, but not really conscious of her until we went to the floor. she said to me “you’re sweating on the carpet.” i looked at her and smiled, i din’t know what to say. then she said it again, like i din’t hear her. “you’re sweating on the carpet. it’s gross.” she added. i kept smiling. to be honest with you, that spurred me on to work even harder—i wanted to sweat more! all of a sudden, the room wasn’t hot enough! i wanted more heat, longer poses, keep the door closed, please! during ardha-kurmasana, she turned to me and said “gross! gross! gross!” by that time, i think the guy on the other side of her was sweating off his mat too. she must have been so freaked, she din’t even wait for leah to end the class—final breathing, turn around and pick up her mat and bolt. “class isn’t over,” our teacher called, but that din’t stop her and someone else from leaving.

i walked into the shower room after class and told the two guys showering what had happened. they started laughing out loud! “had she ever *been* to a bikram yoga studio before?” “i hope she doesn’t practise next to me, i may not sweat on the carpet, but i’ll get it on her when i swing my arms.” that was a first heartbreakers!

alright time to cut it short. i’m gonna think about how amazing farrah was and listen to me some off the wall for a bit. i wanna rock with you! oh hey, this one’s for jiggy. click and enjoy! ~m

farmers market wednesday and you wanna know what? i din’t take a single picture. i don’t know why i din’t feel like photographing anything. i went by myself for the first time in quite a long time, maybe that was it. don’t things usually go better with friends? what about bikram? do you like practising next to your friends? sometimes knowing the person next to you makes suffering a little easier. i’ve had great classes knowing nobody in the room and i’ve had total breakdowns knowing everybody in the room, so i know it kinda doesn’t matter. but maybe a little, don’t you think?

heartbreakers, i don’t wanna cheat you out of a post about my noon class today, but the m & d are in town and i gotta have dinner with them. i hope you don’t mind another hydrangea! i love the delicate colors of this one, but the black bamboo in the background really makes this photograph for me. it also makes it impossible to photograph a lot of really cool hydrangeas! see you tomorrow ~m p.s. hbd to hs!