Hot Yoga Doesn’t Tolerate Angst

I’m back from a lovely hot yoga session with my friend JM.

To be honest, it was a long, dreary day. It was raining, and naturally I didn’t have an umbrella with me. After making it through a shift at the hospital, I wandered woefully into the cruel downtown streets.

My life is in disarray, I lamented to myself. Where am I going? What am I doing with myself?

I noticed a Cultures and ordered myself a frozen yogurt. I perked up a bit, and thought, “Aren’t the little things in life lovely? I’m like a ray of sunshine!” I made it about twenty steps before sinking back into my former state. It was hard staying so cheerful when everyone else was still so miserable from the rain as well. No one was moved by the rain sodden girl with an ice cream cone.

Dejectedly, I headed to King and Bathurst to the Moksha Downtown Yoga Studio for a 1 1/2 hour session. Resting in savasana (corpse pose – aka lying down) in the beginning of my practice, I nearly fell asleep. I got carried away thinking about some things that have been on my mind, and the heat on my skin felt good after being soaked to the bone from the rain. Free to relax and be still, I wanted to angst; I wanted to spend my 90 minutes lamenting over life.

Our instructor arrived, and I stared intently at myself in the mirror. My instructor told me to clear my mind, but I was resolute in defying her. I wanted to think about everything that had been eating away at me. We went into the tree pose, which involves lifting a leg. I couldn’t balance.

The thing about hot yoga is that it really forces you to take care of yourself– it’s very physically demanding, especially compared to “regular” yoga. With hot yoga, I have to make sure I eat properly and drink enough water during the day before my session, or else I get dizzy and want to pass out/commit suicide. There’s no half assing it– I’ve tried desperately chugging a bottle of water right before a practice after not having much during the day, and you can really notice the difference. So, physically, I had prepared myself.

But I forgot. If you’re not focused, you’re going to be a disaster.

My balance is generally pretty good, but today, I just couldn’t do it. I kept thinking too much. My mind wasn’t clear. Wobbling, I thought to myself, Ingrid, get your head in the game.  I started preparing myself for a High School Musical inspired pep talk. I’m serious – a Zac Efron/basketball montage was starting to play in my mind. It’s–

And then I nearly fell over. Embarrassed, I realized I couldn’t afford my ridiculous internal monologue either. My action had to be immediate. It was strange. For the first time in a long time, I was forced to just… get to it. No emotional reaction, no resentment, no thought– I didn’t have time to think, I just had to do it. For once, I had no choice.

During the next hour, my head was actually clear for once. It was really, really nice. After what’s felt like two months of continuous turmoil (mostly because of graduation), I was able to calm down for an hour and to really appreciate that thing that everyone has been telling me to appreciate for ages: the present.

I feel like I have a bit more strength now. Cheers to that.

http://www.mokshayogadowntown.com

State of Deterioration

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. This is is my friend AC’s fridge: symbolic of the state of our souls.

It’s the last week of school– the last week of my undergraduate degree and there is a good chance I’ve lost my mind. I just checked my mark for my Titus Andronicus paper and managed to wrangle an A-.

Despite this vague mark of intelligence, however, I’ve been a wreck. For example, I’m trying to read Cymbeline right now for my test tomorrow. There was a line: “My lord, your son drew on my master.”

It took me forever to figure out what that meant. I thought to myself, “His son drew on his master? Like, a drawing? Metaphorical drawing?” I finally figured out the line was, obviously, referring to swords and not crayons.

What the hell is going on with me?

This has been going on for about a month now. For example, I was going to go to Starbucks and, in my confusion over which one to go to, ended up looping the entire Southern portion of the Yonge subway line, only to end up at the Bay and Bloor Indigo Starbucks.

I’ve been trying to pump myself up in this last week by blasting High School Musical 3′s “Now or Never.” Zac Efron, move me.

Demon Days

Long time, no blog entry. Exams, etc. You know the drill. For those of you who tease me about loving Starbucks, there is actually a Starbucks complaint today, so get excited!

This entry today is basically a melodramatic “Why is the world the way it is?” breakdown. It was probably sparked by the constant, gnawing graduation stress that has been eating my soul. Nothing extreme happened today, but the fact that everything was so mundane is probably what made it that much worse (i.e. foreshadowing the rest of your life).

My day started off pretty well, actually. I woke up tired, but had a good coffee and panini with my friend CT. I finally tried the Chicken Santa Fe sandwich from Starbucks (delicious) and I love the feeling that I get when coffee perks me up. Afterwards, CT and I were walking to class, and he made some joke. I didn’t laugh at first, but then I randomly started to giggle.

He said, “See? At first you think it’s lame, but then you think about it and it’s hilarious.”

I tried to suppress my laughter, and put on a cool smile and lowered my eyes in a casual, flippant manner. My hair was probably fluffed in the process.

“Whatever,” I drawled, lifting my cup of coffee to my cold face. It’s something I do quite often– it feels nice when it’s chilly outside. But as I shot CT a nonchalant, aren’t-you-silly look, a volcano of coffee spewed out of the mouth of the lid and covered the left side of my face.

CT nearly fell onto the road, his face alternating between laughter and amazement, and I started to laugh at my uncontrollably awkward reaction. Then I went to class, and I aced an in-class essay I had been worried about. Things were pretty great so far, even despite the weather.

But then my professor decided to make us watch “L’amant”, based off of Marguerite Duras’ novel. Normally when I watch a traumatizing movie, I’ve been forewarned so that I might brace myself. I had no such preparation for this film, and after witnessing most social taboos in heightened detail for two hours straight, I left feeling disturbed and isolated. It was a good movie, but I was absolutely not in the mood for it.

A few things went downhill from there, and things probably would have been different if the sun had been out. My feet were cold and wet, my body hurt from carrying around my laptop all day, and I was so tired.

I met up with my friend AC for dinner at Whole Foods, and had a laugh here and there. I was essentially trying to power through the day. Some time passed, and I decided to go to my beloved Bay Bloor Indigo Starbucks for another americano. They were handling something behind the bar, and one of the baristas jumped and let something go. It was some sort of item covered in small ants. She looked at me, and instead of freaking out about how that must be some sort of health violation, I smiled sympathetically.

They disposed of whatever the hell it was, and she made my drink.

I asked for soy milk on the bar, and she handed it to me. Hmm, it was brand new and unopened. Usually when that happens, the baristas are super nice, and shake it for me, and warn me that it’s full and that it’s probably going to spill all over the place. Well, no matter. I knew to be careful anyways. I poured it in, and tasted my drink.

It was really weak.

I’m really no coffee expert. Everyone’s always saying how this and that place has great coffee, but honestly, I’m pretty flexible and even I thought that this was bad. After hesitating for a moment, I asked that barista if she could re-make my drink. She paused, and said “Okay” neutrally. I thought to myself, At least she didn’t sound annoyed…

“Sorry,” I offered, and she avoided my eyes and shrugged.

I saw her pour the shot of espresso in, and then she began to fill it up with hot water. To my surprise, she stopped half way and plonked the drink onto the bar.

“Uh…”

I glanced at AC, wondering why on earth she left so much space.

“Should I…?” I looked at AC. AC nodded. “Um, excuse me, could you top it off a little bit?” She stared at me. “Could you add a bit more hot water? It’s…”

She nodded, grabbed my drink, added a second’s worth of hot water before shoving it back at me.

Hey, I’m sure dealing with those bugs was traumatizing, but really? What are you doing? I haven’t had a bad experience at Starbucks in a while, so this was really disappointing.

I’m trying to stay positive anyways. I’ll stop procrastinating now and get back to my essay. It’s always something small and random that lifts me out of crappy times like this.

AC just now: “Ingrid, my brain hurts. It’s telling me to stop putting things in. …That’s what she said.”

I totally lol’ed.

As you can see by now, this entry had nothing to do with the Gorillaz album – I just thought Demon Days sounded cooler than Bad Days. IY out.

Making Food Pretty

The Winter Olympics had me reminiscing about my days in Whistler, so I pulled out my old pictures from last summer. It was then that I stumbled upon this heavenly steak tartare that I once had the pleasure of tasting. Embarrassing part: I can’t remember the restaurant’s name. Horrible of me, I know. But ______’s version of steak tartare is in the Top 5 of the Best Things I’ve Ever Eaten list. They served the dish with these hot, crispy edged starchy cakes made out of deep fried rice, and the contrasting textures and flavors still makes me weep inside a little bit. I’d go as far as to say that’s one of the main reasons I miss Whistler in the first place.

If I’m forced to move aside from the subject of flavor, though, I really liked the plating. In general, I’m very interested in dining, decor, and food styling. We can approach things at random, strictly out of utility, or we can approach things with thoughtful care and passion. I believe that food is so much more than just a necessity. My mother taught me this. Most of my interest, and what I’ve learned, in terms of food was due to her influence. My mom never took any courses on design or cooking. She manages the statistical team at a major pharmaceutical company, so she’s not obviously artistically inclined. But despite her technical and analytical background, she raised me with the belief that everyone can bring a little art into their life. Here are a few of her food styling basics I’d like to share.