Yum & Yuk

Real talk: 21 Tips to Keep Your Shit Together When You’re Depressed.

So, I started doing hot yoga again, about two weeks ago, after a few years off. It is, basically, blowing my mind. I think about it when I'm at work, and I miss it when I am not able to go. In the past I did Bikram, which I loved, but this time I'm doing Baptiste (Power Vinyasa), basically due to proximity to my house and a good first month membership deal. Anyways, it's awesome. It's like therapy and meditation and exercise and a spa treatment (all the sweating!) at once. And, when there are people walking around doing adjustments, it's also sort of like massage. I'm seriously hooked, especially heading into winter. On the consumerist tip, I will also report that these are the most amazing hot yoga pants I have ever worn. They are def thin, if that bothers you (they are leggings, not pants), but I love love love them - soft, a great length (I'm short - 5'3" - and they don't bunch up. I did order a little larger - M - than I maybe NEEDED to, but I love the way they fit), a little lose around the ankles, and a perfect waist band. Not cheap, and sort of weird patterns, but whatever.

Image: source.

Solitary confinement's invisible scars

Making the rounds, and for good reason: The Logic of Stupid Poor People: "What we forget, if we ever know, is that what we know now about status and wealth creation and sacrifice are predicated on who we are, i.e. not poor. If you change the conditions of your not-poor status, you change everything you know as a result of being a not-poor. You have no idea what you would do if you were poor until you are poor. And not intermittently poor or formerly not-poor, but born poor, expected to be poor and treated by bureaucracies, gatekeepers and well-meaning respectability authorities as inherently poor. Then, and only then, will you understand the relative value of a ridiculous status symbol to someone who intuits that they cannot afford to not have it."

And a little something to make you smile.

"According to Rabbi Bunim of P’shiskha, everyone must have two pockets, with a note in each pocket, so that he or she can reach into the one or the other, depending on the need. When feeling lowly and depressed, discouraged or disconsolate, one should reach into the right pocket, and, there, find the words: 'For my sake was the world created.' But when feeling high and mighty one should reach into the left pocket, and find the words: 'I am but dust and ashes.'"[Thanks to Rev. Pam, UCC Ashland, for yet another beautiful sermon, and for still guiding me from afar.]

“Enlightenment is absolute cooperation with the inevitable.” - Anthony de Mello (from Tara Brach's article Absolute Cooperation with the Inevitable)