Yogi in L.A.

Handstand 2010 Update!

2010-05-16T18:41:00.000-07:00

Well, it's five months later, and I am proud to say that on Friday, I stood in handstand for about ten seconds (with help getting up against a wall from the teacher). It's a start! I also stood in headstand (again, with teacher's help) later that class. I'm very proud of myself. It's hard for me not to lose it while upside-down. I can't wait until I can do it myself! Stay tuned for more...

Handstand 2010!

2010-01-04T15:19:00.000-08:00

This is the year I learn to do a handstand.

I have been avoiding this pose for the seven years that I have been practicing yoga because I am afraid of falling on my head. A natural fear, yes, but one that has prevented me from moving forward with my life.

Crazy, huh? Not really. Being upside-down changes your whole perspective. The first time I tried this was as a child, in a gymnastics class. I did the handstand against a wall, but coming out of handstand, I whapped the back of my head on the wall. The next time I attempted this move, I had my husband hold my feet while I placed my hands on the ground. Seeing everything upside-down literally sent me into a panic attack and I began screaming uncontrollably. When I got back up, my husband said, “Please don’t ever ask me to do that again.” I haven’t.

Another few years went by where my practice dropped off. First, it was because of wrist and neck/shoulders pains caused by an inadequate writing posture. Then, I got lazy. But recently, I’ve been returning to my practice after a back injury (too much writing and non-exercising) forced me to look at my physical—and mental—states of affairs. I have reached the conclusion that I am in bad shape.

This year I am devoting to returning to a regular yoga practice, but I also want to add handstand to the list of things I’d like to achieve. Not that yoga is a goal-oriented practice, because really the goal is just to move, flow, breathe, and nurture myself during asana practice. But having the goal of handstand will be a real marker for me to see how much I’ve grown by the end of the year. At one point, yoga had given me such core strength that I remember lifting a table with one arm. Now, I am so weak that just the thought of holding my entire body weight up in the air is exhausting to me. I am humbled each and every time I unroll that mat and realize I have to do the baby steps version of every pose because my muscles have atrophied.

I’m at a point in my life—my 33^rd year—when I know it’s time to reevaluate my goals and strengths and, yes, my weaknesses. Turning things on their head is what needs to be done right about now. I’ll keep you posted!

HAIKU

2009-04-29T15:59:00.001-07:00

I taught this lesson in my adult basic ed class this morning. The haiku that were produced were beyond my wildest dreams for students whose first language is generally not English. Have you written a haiku lately? You have one more day in April (National Poetry Month) to try it. DO IT!

HAIKU

(pronounced “Hi – Koo”)

Haiku is a form of poetry that began in Japan. People in Japan and across the world have been writing haiku for hundreds of years!

The idea behind haiku is that you say a lot, but use only a few words.

Haiku poems do not necessarily rhyme. Instead, they set a mood or portray a feeling.

The entire haiku is composed in 17 syllables:

The first line contains five syllables.

The second line has seven syllables.

The third and final line has five syllables.

5-7-5.

Here is an example:

Old tomcat sitting (5 syllables)

Watching autumn leaves blow by (7 syllables)

Wishing they were mice (5 syllables)

Here are some others, by famous haiku poets:

One fallen flower

Returning to the branch? Oh, no!

A white butterfly

-Moritake

Here the grey cow comes

Mooing, mooing, and mooing

Out of the morning mist

-Issa

Ashes my burnt hut

But wonderful the cherry

Blooming on my hill

-Hokushi

Notice that most of them are about something in nature.

The best haiku have natural subjects, but are really about the nature of human behavior.

For example, this is a poem about fruit...

Oh! I ate them all

And oh! What a stomach-ache

Stolen green apples

-Shiki

…but also, it is about desire and remorse.

Can you find a second meaning in these poems?

What a gorgeous one

That fat sleek huge old chestnut

I could not get at

-Issa

___________________________

Ah! I intended

Never never to grow old

Listen: New Year’s bell!

-Jokun

___________________________

Angry I walk home

But standing in my garden

Calm old willow-tree

-Ryota

___________________________

Now…

Are you ready to write your own haiku?

Happy 2009!

2009-01-09T14:30:00.000-08:00

Well, the myspace blog thing just isn't working out...turns out, it's really not that easy to get people to read your blog! Better for listening to people's music. In any event, check it out (or my other myspace page that's dedicated to my book), but in any event, I'll keep you posted here as to the oh-so-exciting goingson of my my life so you needn't go any further. Hoo-fucking-ray.

I MISS YOU!!!

2007-09-04T13:48:00.000-07:00

I'm not exactly sure who "you" is, but I sure as hell miss you.

While the connections with friends are good on myspace, I really miss this interface.

I'm torn between two worlds.

Maybe someone can convince me either way.

Sitting Here in Limbo

2007-07-31T13:39:00.000-07:00

Yogi in L.A. is moving to (I know, I know) Myspace!

Please be patient and check back often while I figure out how everything works and how to make a blog happen there.

I decided to do it so more people can know about and enjoy the tasty goodness. Also, Brad Listi was pretty damn convincing.

Read my profile of Blue Turtle Seduction in this month's issue of Relix...on newsstands now!!!

Awesome. Thanks for hanging in.

Infinite love,

J-Ma

Countdown to Seattle

2007-06-26T23:18:00.000-07:00

Four days until the great Northwest. I'm burnt out from school and work. The weekend of partying and obscene eating may have contributed -- but oh, was it necessary. Check out the crew at VenicePaparazzi.com (Venice Fest, June 24th photo galleries / Bondi BBQ). We earned legendary status at Scarboni's in Santa Monica; we're still not sure why. Could have been the ridiculous bill and the fact that members of our party continued to add things to the tab in the middle of the meal like, "uh, gimme one of those three-pound lobsters, a glass of port, and a cappuccino with a shot of espresso in it." This, apparently earns one several $25 coupons for future meals at the restaurant. Good to know.

Went to Govin Dass's yoga class on Friday with Sara. I felt lonely and strange in a class that used to be the highlight of my week. I have not prioritized yoga and meditation and have lost a great deal of my core strength. But I'm ready to get back into it. Om namah shivaya. Om namah shivaya. O migod I'm tired.

Kynd Music / Right Action

2007-06-07T19:45:00.001-07:00

Read my review of the "Of Course" cinco de mayo festival in Arcata at KyndMusic - RightAction

Yogi in L.A. is sick. I'm taking the day off tomorrow to nurse myself back to health before another week of work, school, and my second career. Plus, this week is graduation and six of my students are passing on to high school! I feel so proud, even though they were the ones who did all the work and passed the test.

Twenty-three days until I see my mom!!!

Writing School

2007-05-24T19:47:00.001-07:00

Once upon a time, I used to think I was a good writer. That's before I went to WRITING SCHOOL, which ironically has convinced me that
1. I actually suck and have no talent
2. The market is impenetrable and I'll have to be on Oprah to sell a few copies of anything
3. I may have to whore myself to get an agent
4. My chances of winning the lottery are better than my novel making it onto the NY or LA Times bestseller list
5. Any idea I have or ever will have has already been done, produced, crashed and burned, and no one is reading printed material anyway and the floor is crumbling out from under the publishing industry anyway so i might as well just bite it and buy into the print on demand e-kiosk market that will soon be in every starbucks in america.

Mmmm, chai.

Finally....Love and Coco's Internet Debut!

2007-05-22T00:13:00.000-07:00

Love and Coco

She lives!

2007-05-21T23:44:00.000-07:00

Another semester of school has begun...this time a one-month intensive on THE BUSINESS OF THE BUSINESS: Marketing yourself in today's literary market. Henceforth (is that the word I want here?) I have been reticent to market myself in any way. The Emily Dickinson in me prefers to think that I'm going to sit in front of my typewriter boozing it up like Alan Alda in a Woody Allen film, hoping desperately to be discovered soon after I kick the can. But, I've decided that I'd rather tear it up in this life, and make a shitload of money while I'm still alive. So...now when Milton asks me what I'm doing (duh...I'm at the computer...), I tell him I'm making us millions of dollars. You know what Goethe said: Begin it, greatness, magic, blah blah blah--just give me the check. Apparently my new attitude of my writing as a commodity and not an art form is working: I'll have my first piece in a national magazine soon! An article I wrote on a band, Blue Turtle Seduction, will be published in Relix Magazine's August issue. Hooray!

And another hooray...Milton and I just celebrated our ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY! Here's where we were one year ago yesterday:
Married in Topanga

and here's where we were one year ago today:
Brunching at Sierra la Mar...

...and relaxing in the infinity pool at Post Ranch Inn, Big Sur.

Now, as my father so kindly pointed out today, I'm "neither a bride nor a newlywed," I'm just an "old lady." Love you, Dad. Because the crow's feet didn't say it already. Another Hallmark moment c/o the Bashew family.

"If I don't do, nothing does." -Kerouac

Love and flowers and roses and sugar sugar sugar sugar,

J-Ma

p.s. Check out Cara's stint in the Savage Love column.

She emerges from semester two relatively unscathed...

2007-04-23T00:32:00.000-07:00

...and with ten pages of a screenplay and a 46-pg. book proposal!!!!

Thank Jesus. Normal life can resume shortly (after I hand them in tomorrow).

The latest cat names of the household are (some are oldies but goodies):
1. Crusty Butt
2. Jealous Girl
3. Fluffy Boy
4. Buddha Boy
5. Squeaker
6. Complainer
7. Snacker
8. Cuddle Monkey
9. Dread Boy
10. Biter

I'm free! I'm free! (For three weeks, then it starts again.) But, I'm free!

J-Ma

The One-third Life Crisis

2007-03-21T21:16:00.000-07:00

Lately I have been going through some massive changes, physical and otherwise, related to my turning 30 in four months. I'm just going through what my friend Sara calls the "Quarter Life Crisis," I thought. But that's based on the idea that it hits at 25 and you live until 100. Well, that would be great to live to 100, but I'M GOING TO BE 30 - which means that if that were one-fourth of my life, it would be based on the idea that I will live until 120. While that sounds appealling now, it may not once all my friends and family have passed on. One-fourth of my life is OVER. And not just sort of over, really over. I'm actually probably, if I'm lucky, one-third of the way in, baby.

OH, Okay....

2007-03-14T23:51:00.001-07:00

Well I realized today that my insanity is stemming from the fact that I will be THIRTY in a little over four months. This fact is affecting me much more than I thought it would. Mostly I am ecstatic about making it this far (those of you who knew me from 1995-2001 probably are, too). But certain, odd things are changing. For example, I suddenly feel the need to start wearing a bra. My boobs aren't bigger or anything, I just feel...conspicuous, like that woman Elaine hates on Seinfeld. I even--and I know, it's unbelievable--ordered some from Victoria's Secret over the weekend. Which, by the way, was a trip:

Ring, ring.
"Thank you for calling Victoria's Secret. This is Kim; I'll be shopping with you today."
ME: "Shopping with me? Don't you mean taking my order?"
KIM: "I have the catalog here and I'll be shopping alongside you. Which page should we start on?"
What is she, my best friend?
ME: "Um, OK, page 33. The linen 'Easy Fit' pants. Size 4. In white."
KIM: "Oh, those are so comfortable. Would you like to get that halter top she's wearing to complete the outfit? It's soooo cute together."
ME: "Uh, no thanks."

During our conversation, "Kim" tried to get me to buy every item on every page I looked at. I couldn't believe it. What I could imagine, however, was some poor lonely soul who has no backbone or friends calling Victoria's Secret, thinking that she's going to be spending $100 and actually winding up spending more like $800. This, by the way, is nothing compared to when I call my bank now -- who has had the BRILLIANT fucking idea to outsource their customer service:

Ring, ring.
"Hello, [Bank Name Here]. How can I help you?"
ME: "I ordered a new debit card and you sent me one with my OLD NAME on it."
HER: "Oh, I'm so sorry. Please can I put you on hold, Miss?"
ME: "Fine." Wait at least five minutes.
HER: "OK, Miss, please thank you for your patience, Miss. Thank you for holding. Yeah, when did you open the account that you changed your name on?"
ME: "OPEN the account? I have no idea. I don't know; seven years ago or something?"
HER: "Oh, I'm so sorry, Miss, thank you, can I please put you on hold? Please, thank you."
Wait another five minutes.
HER: "OK, Miss, thank you for your patience. We really appreciate your patience being put on hold; we thank you for that. Please, Miss, at what branch did you open this account?"
ME: "Look, there's nothing wrong with my account, and my name is correct on my statements, you just mailed me the wrong card. Can I talk to someone who speaks ENGLISH, please?"
HER: "Oh, OK, Miss, thank you very much. Can I please put you on hold, Miss?"

It goes on like this. At one point, she is on the line with me and we are waiting for a slow computer to make the changes. So she makes SMALL TALK with me:
HER: "So, you're in California...how is the weather in California?"
ME: "Oh, it's very nice. Very sunny and warm right now. Where are you?"
HER: "Oh, I'm just here. In Indonesia."

Outrageous.

OK, my eyes are bugging out of my head. It's clearly time for bed. Sweet dreams, all.

J-Ma

Getting Better All the Time

2007-03-13T16:37:00.000-07:00

Wise words from the Beatles. Well, things are finally looking up, after a few difficult weeks of them looking way down. My master's program has been a source of frustration, as I wasn't able to register for the class I wanted to take--a class that was one of the major deciding factors when I chose this program in the first place. Apparently, with all the shifting of administrative responsibilities since our program director "retired," all my email, including notification of registration, was sent to an old email address that I no longer use. I've also been discouraged because I feel like I'm putting out feelers into all the wrong places, and I'm impatient to get published. It has been driving me crazy that I balance a schedule of work and school and marriage and still manage to keep a few friends (God bless them) and my "writing career" is not going anywhere yet. I know things are out of balance when I feel pressured to make a decision about "where my life is going." My life is here! Who cares where it's going? So today, I had to ask myself, "why?"

When I look at my life, I see that anything I've really wanted to do, I've done. Anything I've ever said I wanted, I've received. The key has been vision. The only times I haven't succeeded have been when I wasn't clear about exactly what I wanted. I keep saying, "I want to have a writing career." Then why do I panic when I think about giving up my day job? Because I know if I sit in my apartment in front of a computer all day, I will go insane. I like my job. I need my job. I don't want to be writing all day. Maybe someday, but not now. This is a process that has to develop organically. When trying to break into this business, I have to find a balance in my life, or else I will burn out and despair. Not good things.

Spring is in the air FINALLY and things always seem better when the weather is warmer. Neither Milton nor I ever thought we would live in Tinseltown, and we often talk of running away into the woods of norCal. But you can't beat 90 degrees the first week of March. You just can't.

Namaste and all that good stuff,

J-Ma

Out of the Blue, Into the...?

2007-03-07T17:05:00.000-08:00

Well, let's hope it's into something that resembles spring. This winter has been difficult for me. I think back to last year, when I was working at night, and realized I used to spend a considerable amount of my days in the sunshine. I also used to exercise quite a bit more, biking to and from Santa Monica for yoga class several mornings a week. Now, basically, I wake up, go to work, then go to either school or home - both scenarios involve me sitting indoors in a room with no direct sunlight for the rest of the day. I realized that something was wrong after I had meltdown on Monday night because my car can't hold coolant. Meltdown over coolant. Not good. Milton's understatement of the year: "Sweetheart, I think we need to re-evaluate the way we're handling some things."

Spring break coming up soon. Milton and I have crazy travel plans for the next few months. In April we head back to the site of our honeymoon, Sycamore Mineral Springs. Cinco de mayo takes us up to good old Humboldt for the "Of Course" festival. My friend Amy gets married at the Mandalay Bay in Vegas in June, and July will take us up to Seattle for my friend Cara's wedding. Massive amounts of travel. Plus the fact that we just got back from NY and NJ a few weeks ago, where we basically had the Metuchen reception for our wedding. Everyone who couldn't come out to Topanga last year was there - pretty amazing. Milton and I feel so much love and support from everyone. I got to drive Milton past the house I grew up in...my father gave him a tour of M-town including a Tommy's Pond drive-by...we didn't make it out to the Menlo Park Mall but we did take the NJ Transit train back to the city on the day we flew out of JFK (never again, btw) and he got to see the bowels of Jersey through the naked tree trunks of Edison, Woodbridge, Rahway, Elizabeth, and Newark - What a trip!! I feel like a cycle has been completed, and I can finally move on. I said last time I went to Jersey that I didn't want to go without my husband ever again, so it felt really comforting and right that he was there. He survived Jersey! His parents came out from the city and survived my family reunion of sorts - no small feat. The best part of all of this is that while we were taking our family photo, a small aura appeared on the side of my face in one of the pictures. When we zoomed in on it, it became very clear that it was a circle with a prominent white outer ring and a translucent center - a perfect cirlce, and so not a speck of dust or something (Rett). Anyway...my grandmother! Verona Matilda. Able to join us after all. I find this all very interesting and moving, and will post the picture when I actually upload my own photos.

Speaking of...I may have - and this is speculation because it seems to have gone away or is back in hiding - discovered a THIRD gray hair. By no means a landslide, given that the first two emerged at ages 27 and 28, but another nonetheless. I liked the first two because I felt...distinguished. Now I just feel old.

All right, screenplay time.

My Sweet Husband

2007-01-22T14:46:00.000-08:00

INT. L.A. APARTMENT - NIGHT

WOMAN sits sullenly in a lounge chair in the living room. She is almost in tears. HUSBAND sits across from her on the couch. He notices her dismayed look.

HUSBAND
What's the matter, baby?

WOMAN
I have a screenplay due on Monday, and I haven't started to write it. It has to be a comedy. I don't feel like being funny.

HUSBAND
Why don't you use your idea from that comedy class you took last term?

SOUND OF LIGHT GOING ON in WOMAN's head.

CUT TO:

INT. WOMAN'S OFFICE - MOMENTS LATER

CLOSE UP ON WOMAN'S hands

as she furiously types on keyboard. The ideas are really coming now.

PAN BACK TO:

WOMAN sitting at computer. She doesn't know the new computer program she is using, but she's figuring it out as she goes.

DISSOLVE TO:

INT. L.A. APARTMENT - NEXT DAY

WOMAN and HUSBAND are sitting together on couch. HUSBAND is reading the completed script.

HUSBAND
I knew you could do it, sweetie.

WOMAN
Thanks for the support.

NARRATOR (v.o.)
Of course, it didn't really go this way; there was actually some pouting and moping and cursing...but this is Hollywood, and we can do whatever we want!

FADE OUT.

What Would Wellesley Do?

2007-01-11T18:40:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, when I'm sitting in the computer lab at USC, I look around and wonder, "What would the computer lab at Wellesley look like right now?"

Answer: The computer lab at Wellesley would be completely packed, whereas here at USC, sagebrush is practically blowing past at odd intervals.

Great Shakes Quote

2007-01-10T15:55:00.000-08:00

Courtesy of Edith, a dedicated volunteer in my Wednesday class. Apparently, the more things change, the more they stay the same:

"Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war
in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor
for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword
It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind
And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch
and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed,
the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of citizenry
Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism,
will offer up all of their rights unto the leader, and gladly so
How do I know? For this is what I have done...I am Caesar!"

-Billy Shakespeare

The first week of juggling graduate school, professional life, and marriage continues. Last night I had a bit of a freakout, wondering how in the hell I'm going to do it all. Contrary to anything I may have said or to which I have eluded in the past, I am not Superwoman. I'm just trying to fulfill my commitments, get a degree, and not go into tons of debt. Milton is also trying to make me promise not to demand a baby until I'm at least in the home stretch of my Directed Research project. We'll see.

Which brings me to my classes....Screenwriting, I could take or leave, but Advanced Nonfiction Book Writing is going to kick butt. I can already see that I'll probably take it more than once. The instructor is Noel Riley Fitch (I know, I can't escape the Fitches), who is an American-ex patriots-living-in-Paris biographer - Henry Miller, Anais Nin, and Hemingway, to name a few. She has also written a bio on Julia Child, which I cannot wait to read, entitled Appetite for Life. That will have to wait until I've finished the fourteen other books that wait in the wings in stacks on my bedstand, collecting dust and providing nice launching pads for Coco, who likes to walk on my head and knock rocks onto my forehead in the morning as I lie in bed, wishing the alarm were part of a bad dream through which I might somehow manage to sleep.

I digress. I still haven't had Technical Writing, which I assume will teach me how to write all kinds of mindless copy and work for peanuts. Gotta love it.

Ratdog. February 9, San Diego and February 10, Ventura Theatre. Ratdog will also perform a Valentine's Day show in SF and will headline the Gathering of the Vibes festival in CT on August 9th:

"I woke today
and felt your side of bed
the covers were still warm where you'd been laying
you were gone
my heart was filled with dread
you might not be sleeping here again
but it's alright 'cause I love you
that's not gonna change
run me around, make me hurt again and again
but I'll still sing you love songs
written in the letters of your name
and pray the storm to come
for it surely looks like rain..."

Namaste,

J-MA

"A man ends by becoming what he thinks." -Ghandi

Happy Weird New Year

2007-01-08T13:39:00.000-08:00

Back at school today...started work back at school, starting classes later today. Turns out the director of my program left under mysterious circumstances and therefore a portion of one of my classes has been cancelled. On one hand, I am stoked, because I didn't want to have to come to campus 3 days/week, but on the other hand, he was the poet and he started the program, so I feel a little cheated since I won't be able to take class with him now.

Anyway, editing job will be over next week. That will be a relief. I've enjoyed the work but I need to get to writing, not reading other people's writing and asking, "Why am I not getting paid to write?" DUH, Joy...because you're not SUBMITTING. A-ha! Sometimes it takes a while for the lightbulb to flick on.

2007 has been bizarre thus far. My friend Hiedi had a baby 6 weeks early. Her name is Marley Rose, and she is 4lbs. Her tiny fist fits around half of my pinky finger. She is darling, and I live for the time I can hold her again. On the flip side, I also found out that 2 people I know passed away, and another person with whom I work just told me today that she has an aneurism. This is proving to be the year of balance, which I suspected it might be. Keeping things in check, because you never know what's around the corner. Oh, and health. Yeah, there's that...Last semester was a nightmare, but I've learned that there's always something else to do, so saying, "...but I have to do my laundry," rather than take a yoga class or see daylight or even walk around the block, for Christ's sake, isn't an excuse anymore. I've also come to the conclusion that my clock is ticking. I feel like I don't have any time to waste. So there's no excuse for not going after exactly what I want.

I'm wearing a Kali pendant around my neck these days, to remind me to be fierce.

Now if I could only get that necklace of men's heads...

Kindness and love and all that other good crap,

J-MA
"She had never even guessed that she could get what she wanted in this life simply by asking for it." - Janet Fitch, about Josie Tyrell in Paint It Black

Back to the '80s

2006-12-19T00:58:00.000-08:00

Just a little treat from the Ziggy Marley show here last week (photo by E.B.)

So, only in L.A.do you see, while jogging along the beach, a movie set on the bicycle path spotted with about 50 women in bikinis, albeit it was a whopping 50 degrees here today. Which I will take, considering the rest of the country is either frozen, drowning, has no power, or finds itself skidding across three lanes of black ice on the Mass Pike. Yes, I'll take southern California any day.

Vacation rules. I'm still editing but that work is minimal, and I'm finally able to read and just chill out. I realize that for my next semester, I'm going to have to do some serious planning of my time - scheduling in things like exercise and meals. Because when I'm in the thick of it, those are the things that tend to fall by the wayside. A reorganization of priorities is in effect for next semester and beyond...I need to just go for it, and get on the ball and get somebody to pay me to write something! How hard can it be...? I must make it happen!!

On another note, I have partial hearing loss from my Saturday night jaunt up to the Viper Room in Hollywood to see the last show on the L.A. Guns 20th Anniversary Tour...with the Bullet Boys opening...let me tell you, front row at the Viper Room mosh pit, not somewhere I'd ever think I'd find myself. Actually, the scene was pretty tame; just a bunch of chicks from Bakersfield, guzzling cans of Budweiser they had smuggled in so as not to pay the $12 price tag at the bar inside. It was great! I wore my tightest jeans and a tank top, Milton wore a tye-dye. We stuck out like sore thumbs in Hollyweird, where we passed a woman on the sidewalk who was unable to walk because she couldn't make it another step in her high heels after dancing all night at the Standard (where, P.S., there is a half-naked chick IN THE WALL who hangs out behind the glass and gets ogled all night). Anyway, the show was bitchin' and much thanks to Tracii Guns who styled us out for the evening.

Hopefully, my new song, "Big Book Thumper" that I recorded with Tracii, will be up on the Guns' website soon. I wish I could post it here, because it is hilarious, if I do say so myself. Does anyone know how to post music files?

Oh My God, I Actually Did It

2006-12-07T00:39:00.000-08:00

I FINISHED MY FIRST SEMESTER OF GRADUATE SCHOOL!

Now I can return to doing normal people things, like:

1. care for my physical self, instead of spending ten hours a day hunkered down in front of a computer screen
2. have sex more than once a week
3. see sunlight
4. resume my yoga practice without feeling guilt that I'm not working on "THE ASSIGNMENT THAT'S DUE THIS WEEK"
5. read
6. get to bed at a decent hour
7. eating while sitting down, not running across campus or behind the wheel of my car
8. visit friends
9. hell, I might even get waxed this weekend.

Hallelujah!

Another Week, Shot

2006-11-17T19:30:00.000-08:00

It is also my goal to complete a headstand, or a handstand, sometime in my life. I have been trying but petrified for some time now. Once I tried it on our deck, with Milton holding my ankles. He had my legs, my hands were on the deck, I wasn't going anywhere, but I screamed bloody murder and nearly broke my neck trying to get down.
After I righted myself, Milton said, "We are not doing that again anytime soon."

There is nothing better than coming home from an insanely busy week and curl up on the couch with two cats who are soft and furry and who love you very much. That's what I did today, as well as get caught by my husband indulging in yet another viewance of a Tyra Banks makeover show. I can no longer hide what obviously has become somewhat of a guilty pleasure. Or maybe, since we don't have cable, it's just the only thing that comes in besides the news. Yes, the latter. Sounds much better.

Last night in my fiction class, Ms. Fitch called my scene (in which a bassoon-playing, emancipated minor baby dyke cutter chick in Boston has it out with her negligent, crazy, alcoholic mom in the Green House restaurant in Harvard Square) RIGHTEOUS. The scene also contained mention of buying an eight-ball in Jamaica Plain and a drunk sister-in-law (Wellesley grad) trying to kiss this poor girl in order to welcome her to the family. All of my classmates, although they also liked the scene, must think I am completely off my rocker. Which, I totally am.

Cara, this one's for you:
Yourself: Wired
Your partner: Understanding
Your hair: Longest
Your Mother: Wise
Your Father: Changed
Your Favorite Item: Nano
Your dream last night: Fleeting
Your Favorite Drink: Tea
Your Dream Car: Functioning
Your Dream Home: Spacious
The Room You Are In: All-purpose
Your Ex: Multiple
Your fear: Headstands
Where you Want to be in Ten Years? Novelist
Who you hung out with last night: Writers
What You're Not: Subtle
Muffins: Delicious
One of Your Wish List Items: Time
Time: Mocking
The Last Thing You Did: Poopied
What You Are Wearing: Black
Your favorite weather: SoCal
Last thing you ate: Perogis
Your Life: Full
Your mood: Satisfied
Your Best Friends: Scattered
What are you thinking about right now: Blessings
Your car: Luxury
What are you doing at the moment: Decompressing
Your summer: Over
Relationship status: Fused
What is on your tv: CDs
What is the weather like: Balmy
When is the last time you laughed: Now

Help Give Me a Facelift

2006-11-06T17:15:00.000-08:00

Cause, you know, this is what I need to be doing right now...

It's time for me to get into this century and post some photos. But I don't have any.

Do you know me? Do you have pictures of me? Do you have pictures of you?

I want them.

Your Manager Says to Shut Up!

2006-11-06T16:33:00.000-08:00

This, folks, is what I'm paying $5500/semester to do. Part of it, at least.

******

My favorite Simpsons episode, which to my delight aired late one night last week, would be known immediately to any regular, psychopathic Simpsons fan as the one in which Marge develops a gambling addiction which Homer anthropomorphosizes as “Gamblor.” All characters are at their unabashed finest as the Simpsons pull through yet another set of circumstances that threatens but fails to disassemble their family unit.

The town of Springfield legalizes gambling in an attempt to raise money for its schools. With Marge at the new casino most of the time and therefore unable to wield her rubber dishwashing-gloved fist on the home front, Homer is in charge. Anyone who knows the least bit about Homer’s persona knows that it’s not long before chaos ensues. Garbage piles up and rancid food from inside the refrigerator attacks. The pets turn ferule and from behind an overturned couch which serves as a fortress, Homer aims a BB gun at the front door in case of intruders. He resents with plenty of grumbling his inability to spend the evening drinking down at Moe’s.

Bart is at his enterprising best in this episode. Not to be outdone or excluded from the gambling craze, he establishes his own casino in a tree house in the backyard. The entrance line stretches out the door, and even bullies like Nelson Muntz and his cronies are welcome. All are solidified by their status as the underage and unsupervised children of Springfield. The entertainment is Robert Goulet, who is scheduled to perform at the Springfield Casino, but gets intercepted at the airport by Bart. Goulet is easily persuaded to follow Bart back to the Simpson home, but he hesitates when the tree house comes into view. “This is a casino?” he asks. “I’m calling my manager.” Nelson, who has taken the roll of bouncer, pops upside-down from a tree branch and, shaking his fist, menaces, “Your manager says to shut up!” Goulet’s lounge-influenced performance of “Jingle Bells, Batman Smells,” is the cherry on top of this episode. He takes the stage just after Milhous has failed at a magic act in which the bunny escaped the hat and wreaked havoc all over the tree house. Regardless, in a scenario where he is clearly frustrated by lack of audience support and bullied by Nelson and the threat of a hundred-child riot, Goulet is apparently still taking requests.

Homer takes steps towards responsibility when a tearful Lisa begs him to help her with the school project Marge had promised to make: come in costume as one of the fifty states. Sandwiching her between two mattresses and securing them with rope, Homer, with a hacksaw, carves a crude interpretation of Florida to which Lisa cries out in anticipation of her failure, “I’m not a state; I’m a monster!” However, she does not fail; in fact, the next scene is Lisa and policeman’s son Ralph Wiggum as co-winners of the award, “Most Obviously My Parents Did Not Help Me with This Costume.” Ralph, who does not have a costume or any self-consciousness about standing on stage picking his nose, exclaims, “I’m Idaho!”

Finally, fed up with the chaos at home and hungry for a real dinner, Homer charges down to the casino, intent on getting his wife and housekeeper back. He is a man with a mission, though it’s not clear what mission; he grabs a payphone receiver from someone’s hand and hangs it up, saying, “Can’t talk now.” He wrenches Marge from the grips of the slot machine and she has a breakthrough moment of clarity about her addiction, admitting she might need professional help. True to his simplistic self, Homer replies, “No, that’s too expensive; just don’t do it anymore.” The episode ends with the couple walking off into the sunset, Homer taunting Marge with her own weakness: “Every time I do something wrong, or stupid, it isn’t going to matter…because YOU have a gambling problem!” Things are clearly back to normal.

Marge’s addiction to gambling is not totally out of character. Although she seems demure on the surface, with her perfect coif and sensible shoes, there is another side to Marjorie, the same side that was a straight-A high school student headed for greatness but eloped to a life with Homer. Even she, who is usually adamant about keeping up appearances, indulges in a little guilty pleasure. There’s not one viewer who cannot relate to this episode that parodies our societal addictions and our instinct to lord someone’s weakness over them. Ah, long live legalized gambling. Breaking up families and supporting our schools. Sweet, sweet irony.

I, by the way, am New Jersey.

The Coolest Antibiotic in Town

2006-10-23T14:29:00.000-07:00

I did not go to the Goddess party this weekend...I was sick and spent the whole weekend in bed. I tried desperately to ignore it, including coughing into my scarf as I sat in the front row at Janet Fitch's Paint It Black reading, and forcing myself to go to work Thursday and Friday even though I was coughing and sneezing all over my students.

When I called my doctor to see if I could get an appointment on Friday and told her my symptoms, the nurse called me back and very nonchalantly said, "Don't bother coming in; she's prescribing you the Z-pack and Robitussin with codeine."

I said, "Has she prescribed the Z-pack for me before?"

"No," said the nurse, "but it's just super-strength antibiotics that you take for five days."

We'll see about that, I thought.

When I picked up my prescription at Rite-Aid, the pharmacist knowingly said, "Oh, the Z-pack."

I tried to read his face. "Was that a good 'oh' or a bad 'oh'?" I asked.

"Oh, it's fine," he said, scanning in my other items. "They just blast you real hard for a couple of days rather than having them strung out for a week."

If there are words you do not want to hear coming out of your pharmacist's mouth, they are "blast you real hard with antibiotics," and "strung out." But despite my reservations, I was feeling like such crap that I took the first dose as soon as I got home, downed some codeine and fell asleep.

When I woke up, Milton was milling around in the kitchen. "Antibiotics?" he asked.

"Yeah," I said. "Do you think I should take them? I had reservations."

"Too late now," he said, pointing out the carton where I had pushed out my first dose. "Once you start, you can't stop."

Like Ritz crackers. I knew he was right. Groggily, I read the literature that comes with the medicine. "May cause vaginal yeast infections in some users." Damnit! I forgot about yeast infections.

Panic surging through my body, I immediately dashed for one of the last Brown Cow yogurts in the refrigerator and shoveled a large spoonful into my mouth. "I will not get a yeast infection," I told myself, breathing deeply and visualizing a healthy vagina. (My own, not just any healthy vagina.)

That was Friday. By Saturday, I was not only visualizing healthy sex organs but praying that I didn't cough up the lining in my lungs, or pull out a back muscle coming close. Two hours after my second dose, I felt the infection in my lungs start to clear. Like a miracle. I ate another yogurt and breathed deeply for the first time all day.

My neighbor came to visit on Sunday morning, and saw the pills on the counter. "Oh," she said, "the Z-pack."

What the heck? It was then that I realized I had been prescribed the new fashionable drug of the season of sickness. Suddenly, I felt very cool, very in.

This morning I returned to work. In the kitchen during lunch, a co-worker asked me how I was feeling. I told her I was still in a round of antibiotics, but feeling much better.

"There's this great new thing out now," she began.

"The Z-pack?" I asked.

"Yeah!" she said. "How'd you know?"

I wanted to tell her it was a "cool" thing, but instead I just held up the carton. Day Four. One more day to go.

I have to say, I'm feeling much better.

And now you know, too.

Goddess of the Day

2006-10-16T17:28:00.000-07:00

I’ve been invited to a Goddess Circle next Saturday night. I’m supposed to go in costume as my favorite Goddess. Some I am considering:

Kali Ma (Hindu) – The obvious choice: Goddess of Decay, Death, and Rejuvenation. I would have to paint myself blue and somehow acquire a necklace of severed heads.

Durga (Hindu) – Vanquishes oppression and ignorance. Rides on a tiger; that could be an issue. I wonder if Love or Coco would suffice.

Kuan-Yin (Chinese) – Goddess of Compassion. Hmm. This one sounds good, but in reality, I don’t really like other people that much.

Nut (Ancient Egypt) – Goddess of the Cosmos. Huh-huh. Nut.

Pele (Hawaiian) – Goddess of the Volcano. Beautiful young woman with a fiery temperament. Sounds about right.

Ptesan-Wi (White Buffalo Calf Woman) – Brought the Lakota Sioux the sacred medicine pipe. Need I say more?

Samovila (Slavic) – Goddess of the Woods; fierce protector of all animals. Has the ability to shape-shift into a falcon, horse, snake, swan, or whirlwind. Cool!

Sarasvati (Hindu) – Goddess of Arts and Sciences. She invented writing so that the music she inspired could be preserved.

Sekmet (Egypt) – Lion-headed Sun Goddess. Defender of the divine order, who became so disgusted with people's lack of reverence that she began to eat them. Yeah!

Sh'khinah (Hebrew) – Goddess of Wisdom and Joy; the light that dwells within everything. Well, I am a Rosenberg these days…

Janis Joplin (Texan) – Goddess of the Blues and Rock-n-Roll. Would only require some hippie clothes, beads and some glasses with round frames. I could swing it. Plus, it will give me a chance to sing “Me and Bobby McGee” all night.

Any thoughts?

J-Ma

Afternoon Delight

2006-09-27T16:54:00.000-07:00

TWENTY DAYS?? It has been twenty days since I last posted??

Where did the time go? I guess I have been working like crazy at my new job and completely bogged down in writing assignments for school. I barely see my husband. I am out the door before he is in the morning (unheard of), sometimes not coming home until 10pm. Having no appointments, pressing issues, or anyone grabbing at my sleeve wanting me to pay attention to them (i.e., students, volunteers, other teachers, admin, etc.), I treated myself to watching The Tyra Banks Show. Now before you admonish, the reason is that Love jumped up and sat on me just as soon as I lied down on the couch, and the remote was alllll the way over on the coffee table, so what could I do? If the cat wants to sleep on me for an hour, who am I to stop him? Anyway, Tyra was pretty much just a mind melt for an hour; eventually, I had to kick Love off because I couldn’t, just couldn’t, stomach an episode of Dr. Keith Ablow, Psych.D. The best psychiatry? Smoke a bowl and lie on the couch with your cat.

Happy Therapy!

J-Ma

Well, Whaddaya Know?

2006-09-07T16:39:00.000-07:00

I have suspected that isolation was the key. I find that if I’m in the computer lab at USC, I actually write! There’s no sunlight or food allowed but that’s the trade-off: there is also no construction noise from the addition next door, no Montell show featuring amazing psychic Sylvia Browne, my cell phone does not work down here, and there are no cats taking dumps so foul that I have to stop what I’m doing in order to scoop and take out the trash in order to be able to concentrate (COCO).
Because of course, while I’m out at the dumpster in the alley, I would most likely run into some wayward soul I knew, and wind up chatting about nothing in that way that is particular to Venice. That might turn into a trip to the coffeeshop where I get my favorite Hazelnut-flavored blended Italian soda and continue to shoot the shit for another 15-20 minutes while I catch the last warm sunlight of the afternoon, pet someone’s dog, or get sucked into someone else’s drama.
Of course, right now I am BLOGGING, so I guess it’s all in how you look at it.

Anyhow, my classes this semester are Writing Humor with comedian Shelley Berman (Up in the Air; A Hotel Is a Funny Place), Nonfiction Article Writing (and apparently some SOAP OPERA writing thrown in there, too) with Madelyn Cain (First Time Mothers, Last Chance Babies; The Childless Revolution), and a Fiction Writing Workshop with Janet Fitch (White Oleander; Paint It Black). Hopefully I'll learn something and won't ever have to work for anyone else ever again, I can just sit in a dark room drinking cup after cup of coffee, send out manuscripts, and collect paychecks through the mail. So far, that's the goal.

To Adele, My Dear Toyota Camry with Whom I've Been Through So Much:

2006-08-31T11:34:00.000-07:00

You have served me well for the past 16 years.

But now the fateful day has come. You’ve done what my husband and I have been expecting you to do for the past two years…you’ve gone ahead and blown a head gasket, whatever that means. Yes, last night you sent the temperature gauge rocketing into the red even as I chug-a-lugged up Topanga Canyon Boulevard at dusk last night, with the heater on full-blast, caressing your dash and pleading with you, “Come on girl, just a little bit more!” And you didn’t let me down. You made it to the first safe, wide shoulder, even if it was a remote dirt path still outside the town of Topanga. You smoked a little but didn’t blow up, and waited patiently with me for Malibu Towing to show up and tow you back down the mountain. And you went along for the ride like a champion, even as I got the tow truck driver’s whole life story on the way to the Shell station in the Marina (after losing his mother and his brother within the past two years, he’s now in the middle of a divorce from a rage-a-holic and trying to get custody of his three kids) – you trailed silently along behind us, as if in your own funeral procession.

I’m sad to say it, but I don’t think I’m going to feed another 2K into you, because you keep eating my cash and continuing to degenerate. You now usher me into a new stage of my life, buying a new car – something that for years I have not faced because, frankly, it scares the shit out of me, namely because it involves taking out a huge loan just as I begin graduate school.

However, this will also mean that I do not have to clench my teeth every time I go over a hill, wondering if this will be the incline where you explode before I reach the apex. It means I won’t have to check your coolant every 40 miles. It means I won’t have to worry about whether or not you will start when I’m coming out of class downtown at 10pm. It means I won’t have to turn up the radio to drown out that clinking sound. It means I will probably have air conditioning in my new car – a definite plus for Los Angeles, and an area in which you have let me down as of late.

But, let’s remember the good times. How I loved you so much that I named you after the first person to give me liquid. And not to mention that miraculous day when, after I got hit in a rain and fog storm in Passaic Park, NJ, you straightened out your own bumper by the time I made it back to New Brunswick. How you also miraculously refused to start on more than one occasion when there was no way in hell I should have been operating a motor vehicle. How you taught me a lesson when my father asked me not to park my car on the street in downtown Metuchen because someone might hit it coming around the corner, and you allowed yourself to get plowed into the very next day. How you also managed to get hit in Nutley, NJ, just after my dad had asked me not to drive you any long distance until we could get the engine fixed. How you got me to Las Vegas from Long Island and then refused to start so Denise and I had to spend an extra day at the Mandalay Bay. How you barely made it up the grapevine back to Los Angeles, doing 30 in the slow truck lane with the heater on high. How you gave me the hint to take my grandmother’s antique sewing machine out of my trunk because later that day you knew you would be broken into in Silverlake. How you allowed yourself to be hijacked by The Big Book Thumper, clearly demonstrating his inadequacy as a friend. Were it not for these moments in life, where would I be?

Thank you, Adele, for a real good time.

Take a Load Off

2006-08-29T13:09:00.000-07:00

I LOVE GRADUATE SCHOOL!! I’m almost a week into my classes at USC and I have a ton of work, but I don’t really consider that work, I see it as a duty to my soul, what keeps me alive, sane, and human. In a shocking move for me, I met a colleague-turned-friend at a Starbuck’s on Miracle Mile yesterday. We talked about why we get so frustrated teaching at the school. We agreed that there are cycles in life that need to get completed, and only when we have learned the lessons of a particular situation can we move on to the next one. My friend asked me how I felt about knowing that I never had to go back to the job again. “Aren’t you just SO happy? Doesn’t it feel like a huge weight has been lifted off your shoulders?” For all the bitching I’ve done about that job, it took me a few moments to feel out my true emotions. My feelings are mixed. Yes, I agreed, it does feel like a weight has been lifted. On the other hand, it is a relief to put in the past the fact that I invested so much energy into the students and the program, and got little return or respect from them or the administration. It was frustrating to go in every day and juggle all of those responsibilities, more paperwork and discipline than actual teaching. I have to admit that I have had a wall up for more than just the past few months, a wall that protected me emotionally, and one that caused me to feel detached. I certainly don’t feel sad about leaving the job. I learned the lessons I needed to learn: I learned to assert myself more; to demand respect; to juggle 35 personalities at many different academic levels; to manage an age range of 16-50, give or take a few years on either end; and to teach two classes (sometimes three) at the same time, having only 20 books in the classroom. I learned that I love teaching, but I don’t like babysitting or policing. I like it even less when I know I’m doing more work than most of the teachers who are making at least ten dollars an hour more than I am. So, yes, to answer his question, I do feel like a weight has been lifted. Not just because I’m not working there anymore, but because I am now clear on what it is I need and deserve in a job. And that gives me a lot of power, the power to choose my situation and be in control of my life.

Keep on rockin’ in the free world.

J-Ma

Cue theme from "Rocky"

2006-08-08T23:02:00.000-07:00

Let the countdown begin (or, rather, continue…I have actually been counting down for the better part of 2006):

SEVEN MORE DAYS AT WORK!

Yes, folks, not only are we in single digits but we are entering the homestretch with enough speed to smoke Carl Lewis.

I feel like a kid again.

In fact, quitting this job and starting graduate school…I may actually feel younger now than I have ever felt in my entire life.

Happy Birthday, and...Where the Hell Have You Been?

2006-07-17T18:19:00.000-07:00

Yogi in L.A. is now 1 year old! And I'm still the only one who reads it. I, also, am on the eve of another birthday...29! Have I done all I said I would in the last year? Last time I posted...10 May 2006....Holy Shit! Wedding must have taken up a little of my time... Trying very hard to stay IN THE PRESENT and not project past the next few weeks at my job teaching teenagers to when I start my graduate program in late August. But...I'm so excited! I can’t believe I’m actually going to be sitting in a classroom that’s for my own edification and not for my teaching credential. I’ve already nerdily begun reading some books off the reading list. I’m working on a few projects lately and it seems like they are all dangling in the air, with nowhere to go; hopefully school will help me put the pieces together…
What has been incredibly inspirational and soul-feeding is meeting with my neighbor, a fellow writer, on Fridays. Every Friday at one o’clock, usually after spending the morning writing in preparation, I climb all four flights of stairs up to her roof (across the street) and she is waiting for me inside her apartment, door ajar and table cleared for our work. This being Venice and all, the weather is usually killer and the windows are cracked to let in the cool ocean breeze and the midday sunlight. Sometimes the music from the performers below gets too loud and distracting, and we have to close the window for a bit while we work. She goes right over to the kitchen counter as soon as I get settled and begins making a French press pot of coffee, from Groundworks beans she already has ground and keeps in a tightly-wrapped bag in her tiny refrigerator. She does not have one big refrigerator, but two small, dorm-style fridges that live underneath her counter. She froths soy milk, which has been purchased expressly for me for this purpose, and soon I have a steaming café au lait in a shallow but largely diametered mug in front of my face, tinged with sugar and made almost perfectly these days to satisfy my insanely particular taste.
Then, we get down to work. Literally, we bring something to the table that we have written. Last Friday I brought my refurbished vignette, “Cake,” for perusal. It needs work. (I’m not working on it. I’m blabbering about this. I’m actually avoiding it because I don’t think I have time before I go to work. I’ll get to it later today. I’m liking this morning schedule. Some writing is better than no writing…?) Anyway, we read whatever it is we have brought and there are no criteria for the critique, we just go with whatever strikes us. Does something seem like it needs more explanation or background information? Does something seem unbelievable, and does that serve the purpose of the piece? It can be nerve-wracking to have someone else read your writing, but I guess that is the ultimate name of the game: putting yourself out there, bare bones and all naked and exposed, for someone else to ultimately, judge. I think we do a good job of staying honest even if it means we know the other is going to have a lot of work to do on the piece after our meeting is over.
Then the fun part begins. After we’ve gone over whatever is new, we then choose a topic and free write for about twenty minutes to a half hour. It’s easy to go over time when you aren’t thinking about it, when you’re completely absorbed in creating. Every other week we trade off the responsibility of choosing the topic. Reading our on-the-spot blurbs to each other is hilarious, now that we know the other’s typical writing styles and preference for characters and/or setting. So it becomes humorous when I see my neighbor's archtype character appear and reappear, week after week, and she always catches my sly asides and subversive social commentary that I slide between the lines. We are getting to know each other on a completely different level than on which I have known anyone else before. Getting to know someone through her writing is like entering her house through a back window. (Don't go there.) An upstairs window, one which you must stand on the roof of the side porch and swing yourself from a storm gutter to reach. It’s a relationship that requires total honesty with the other if there is to be real growth as both artist and friend.
The whole meeting lasts less than two hours; sometimes we go over depending on our schedules for the rest of the day. We both leave with a task for the next meeting: fix this, edit that, add more to _____, clear up that murky section. I go back down onto the street, usually thinking about eating something crisp and refreshing, like a salad. Anyway, I’m inspired. It’s nice to be there to give my neighbor feedback, and it’s nice to hear her laugh at things I wrote but didn’t even perceive as humorous at the time. It’s a cool way to start the weekend and is now serving as a deadline and somewhat of a driving force for the rest of my week.

The Taxman

2006-02-06T01:54:00.000-08:00

It’s 5:45 on a Friday evening in January. I’ve just slammed back my second shot of tequila this hour in my taxman’s waiting room, a residential living room in an unassuming, West Hollywood apartment complex. From a twelve-inch TV in the middle of the room drones an E! True Hollywood Story on Ricardo Montalban. This is no place for a child, yet there is a ten year old boy sitting across from me. He has just asked me, if I were fighting in a war, would I prefer a sword and shield, or a gun and bullets. He would, of course, use the sword, he tells me, “Because if you use a gun, and you run out of bullets, you’re dead.” He has a good point. I can’t argue with that.
***I’ve been here for just short of two hours now, boozing with Chris who mans the front desk (and quite meticulously, I see), and perusing not one but two rolls of photographs of the two full grown rabbits and a black and white kitten at various stages of play who belong to Mike, who has up to this point been handling my return. I’m here today to further stall the IRS from garnishing my assets (not that I actually own anything) from a 2002 miscalculation, of course, on their part. I have come to realize that my taxman, John Trunzo, never makes a mistake. Or, rather, if he did, it could only have been because it was April 14th at 2 a.m. and he was nodding off in front of the computer screen, still not to the end of his 20+ hour day. And, if that were the case - and there is no indication that Trunzo has ever made a mistake – I’m sure he would personally verbally assault the unsuspecting IRS rookie who did the audit into a crumbling mass of a man who rued the day he thought his cozy new government job would bring him anything but pain and misery.
***I’ve been listening to him berate clients for two hours from behind a door down the hall, and soon Trunzo emerges, a fifty-something and newly-white haired man who still has the spark of middle age, the sense of humor of someone who has seen everything, and who definitely has put on a few pounds since I started coming to him, three years ago. He’s in socks, wearing grey sweatpants (the only bottoms I’ve ever seen him in), and a red oversized T-shirt that proclaims, “Chick Magnet,” in Archie and Jughead-type cartoon lettering. I’m tempted to laugh, not at the irony but at the appropriateness. If you have not already run, screaming, out of the office or been frightened into submission, you can’t help but be attracted to this man. He says what everyone else thinks. Today, before we can even get our pleasantries out of the way, he’s already on to an obscenity-laden tirade about how Chris can’t even follow simple instructions and most certainly can’t alphabetize worth a shit. That, I think, could have something to do with the fact that Chris told me he had already thrown back 7/8ths of that Sauza bottle by the time he had offered me any.
***I figure out, by the way he is telling the child that he’s going to stick his foot in his ass that the boy is his son. I can see that John takes a “tough love” approach to parenting. Basically, he takes the “tough love” approach to anyone to whom he doesn’t take the “tough shit” approach. What John complains most about is not the numbers, not even the IRS, but the stupidity of other human beings. It is clear that if everyone just did everything John’s way, the world would run by a clockwork efficiency; if all the stupid assholes went where they belonged – straight to hell – he wouldn’t have to teeter on the brink of a coronary from January to August each year. John is so popular that it’s possible you may have to get an extension that precludes you from filing until he can see you, perhaps months later than tax day. And to compute your wait time at the height of the season, add about six to seven hours minimum to your scheduled appointment time. After that point, John is either seeing double or shouting homophobic slurs at an irresponsible client who obviously did not follow instructions carefully enough. If he absolutely cannot continue that night, you receive a sincere apology, gratitude for your patience, and a request to return the following day at today’s appointment time. And you may well still sit there for another six or seven hours.
***But there is usually plenty to pass the time: beer in the ‘fridge (help yourself), pizza on the way, walls papered with signed photos of celebrity clients (of which there are many), Republican party tsotschka, and enough photos of his four children to put any grandparent’s collection to shame. A muted pastel rendering of Reagan hangs on the wall, an American flag plaque graces the doorway, and in the entranceway a 50s-stye poster of a cheery man holding out a mug invites you to “Have a nice big cup of Shut the Fuck Up.” And this is to say nothing of the company you keep while acquiring slight bedsores from the zebra-striped velour couches: musicians, actors, porn stars, and other sundries of lower tax-bracketed Hollywood High Class – not to mention those with at least one Whiskey-A-Go-Go gig under their studded belts.
Times are changing, though. This year, John has moved his office to a more subdued setting – the as of yet blank-walled apartment next door. He has relegated the conservative political memorabilia to his bedroom-office, and gone are the zebra couches and posters of a nodding-out and slumped-in-his-chair Keith Richards. Where once Trunzo would glare at you – er, greet you – as you walked in the door, Chris now sits at a new and improved wood-paneled front desk, and even the coffee table magazine selection has escalated from People and US Weekly to Time and Vanity Fair. John has been in and out of the office, fruitlessly searching for seemingly nonexistent papers and phone numbers, and I haven’t heard him use the word “jackass” for about ten minutes now. I even sense a hint of giddiness when I invite him to my wedding in May, and he tells me the date we have chosen also happens to be his birthday. He thoughtfully considers his attendance, and advises that, contingent on what kind of food we will serve, he may attend.
***See, visits to Trunzo’s office have been an annual date for us for three years. In fact, doing our taxes was one of our first activities as a couple. John will only take you on if you come in via referral – and only from a client whom he considers to be reliable (read: pays). Milton brought me in way back in the beginning of our relationship; I guess he figured if I could handle an April visit to the Taxman, I was breeding material for sure. And I, forever drawn to the bizarre and unexplainable, was grateful for the chance to experience what most people probably think only happens in movies. A trip to Trunzo’s is case in point that truth is really sometimes stranger than fiction.
***The kid’s black Chuck Taylor high-tops dangle halfway to the floor, and suddenly he announces, while furtively glancing to make sure his father is not listening, that a History Channel special he saw claims they found an ancient battery in one of the Egyptian tombs, and asked, did I know what that meant?
“They actually used machinery to build them instead of slave labor?” I guess.
“No,” he drops his voice. “It means aliens helped them.” Again, checking to make sure the office door is still closed, he declares, “and I believe that.”
“Could be,” I allow, just as a new couple enters through the front door. Chris has gone home for the weekend so Trunzo, coming forth from his lair, advises them they will not be waiting long and, as if remembering his presence in the apartment, scolds the kid for the ever-elusive, “not doing what I told you to do.” The kid looks at me for assurance that I will keep this conversation a secret, and trails off into another room, on task. I wonder how many times he’s heard the f-word today.
***The couple takes my place in the waiting room and Trunzo escorts me into the office, past a rack of an obscene number of plastic and rubber shark toys and a bumper sticker that reads, “I ♥ LIBERALS,” in big letters and “…who are underneath my car’s tires, who were on their way to the polling place” in smaller handwriting. This fits in nicely with the bathroom’s framed 2004 Admission of Defeat letter from John Kerry’s campaign headquarters, which has a big “Ha-Ha!” scrawled across it. John kindly offers me his own seat and takes over my tax burden at once. I somehow feel comforted that I’m in good hands, even as he chortles his way through a laundry list of dumb things his 28 year old blond girlfriend has said.
***“I asked her, ‘Do you know what a Naval Destroyer is,’ and she said, ‘No,’ so I told her, ‘It’s a hula-hoop with a nail on the inside!’” He shakes his head in dismay. “She thought about it for like five minutes,” he says, slapping his knee, “then she said – get this - ‘Well, not necessarily; I mean, it really depends on how big the nail is. And a hula hoop is round, so couldn’t it also be called a Back Destroyer?’ How big the nail is! Can you believe that! I told her, ‘As big as the ones they used to hammer fuckin’ Jesus Christ onto the cross!’”
***I notice, though, that John has hung a crucifix above his door frame. He chuckles for a good few minutes, wiping his eyes which are wet with the tears of amusement that only come from laughing at someone else’s misfortune. He is incredulous at her stupidity, but somehow it is obvious that there’s love there, albeit Trunzo-style.
***As the laughing subsides, he asks in all earnestness if there will be fruits of our nuptials, and I think, as I look at the hundreds of family photos on the wall, we should be that lucky: to raise four children and still manage to keep it real. Surely, John’s kids will never get manhandled by life, not if he has had anything to do with it. When he has written my appeal letter, it is arranged that I will return in a few days to sign some paperwork, but in the meantime I should feel confident that everything is being taken care of and I shouldn’t expect to have to give any money to those bastards.
***“Hey, tell Milton that I’m really happy for you guys. That’s good…If you can find someone else in this world who you can live with…” he trails, and I know by this that we have his blessing.
We are lucky. We have each other, and a life full of rich experiences. And, apparently, the best Taxman in Los Angeles. It is now well after 7:00, E! is now onto Scott Baio, Trunzo is yelling, “Next!” and he’s done with me until next Tuesday, when I am promised an easy in/easy out with no wait time. The incessant whirring of the document shredder is eclipsed by the ensuing loud censuring of the couple that was in the waiting room, and I shake my head as I close the door and head back out onto the street. Why can’t everyone just do what they’re told?, I think. Life would just be so much easier for all of us.

Keep on Rockin' on the Freeway

2005-11-20T23:55:00.000-08:00

A few days ago, it came to my attention that my employer, a major unified school district in the Los Angeles area, has failed to pay me for almost half of the hours I worked last pay period, and as a result, I am now (incorrectly) ineligible to receive healthcare benefits. Although I spent 88 hours in the classroom last month, my “assignment” in somebody’s file cabinet in a big building downtown says I only worked 40, hence my ineligibility. Failing to pay me and taking away my right to healthcare would have royally sucked, if that were the only thing that went wrong. However, not only did they fail to pay me, but they created a huge clusterfuck when they put the wrong amount of money into my bank account in the morning on the 10th, and then TOOK IT OUT before it posted to the account. (Apparently, this is because I have agreed to have my paycheck “automatically deposited,” which somehow gives them the right to stick their toe in the water and swish it around a little. I guess this is the true price of convenience these days; perhaps it’s time to *rethink* that move). So, having checked my balance on the morning of the 10th, all last weekend, I spent money that wasn’t even there, and was only alerted to this fact days later by letters from my bank, telling me I had five days from the date of the message (3, by the time it actually reached me) to deposit damn near a thousand dollars before they closed my account due to insufficient funds.

A thousand fucking dollars! Not all of which consisted of my blissfully ignorant (and oh, how blissful!) purchases, but also overdraft charges and returned check fees which they happily racked up while completely (and, if I may say, chickenshittedly) taking advantage of said ignorance. (COME ON, you’re my fucking *bank*; don’t tell me you couldn’t have reached me by PHONE before this got out of hand). But I do have to say that after committing the greater part of Friday to being the squeaky wheel in my local branch of my bank (“Can *somebody* help me? Does *anybody* work here?”), they did reimburse all the fees they had charged me. So thank you, Washington Mutual, and while I still think your advertising is sexist and ageist and has been, in the past, more than just slightly offensive to my intelligence, I will keep my money in your bank for a little while longer because this kind action on your part did manage to ease what was an otherwise trying day for my belief in the goodness of humankind. Go, bank!

Now, I haven’t even scratched the surface on the ramifications of the clerical fuck-up that has caused me to deal with undue physical and emotional stresses (as if my job teaching “last-chance teens” weren’t stressful enough), but you know what? Although the situation sucks and it’s a HUGE pain in my ass, I realize how lucky I am if this is my only problem right now. How did I turn this situation around? I didn’t. Lynyrd Skynyrd did.

The 10 freeway flowed smoothly from where I got on in Santa Monica to where we eventually slowed to a bumper-to-bumper stop-and-go, about five miles down the stretch. It was nice to cruise for a moment, and I opened my roof and side windows to let the warm sunshine and the “Hello! It’s 80 degrees in November” Santa Ana winds comfort me while I was sitting in traffic, next to a man on a Harley who had “Motherfucker” emblazoned on the back of his helmet. Only one thing to do, I thought, as I turned on the radio.

I tuned in at that key moment, right before the song starts, when one second of dead air space before the first note seems to stretch far beyond the actual time it takes for a second to pass. Then, it began - that familiar, melancholic guitar that sounds like an in-heat alley cat, and before the first words were sung, I realized that I was getting treated…to a “FREEBIRD” in its entirety. Yes, that’s right. A song that begins with a lamentation of a relationship that has run its course and ends with a proclamation of soul liberation; “I’m as free as a bird now, and this bird you cannot change.”

So, there I was. Nowhere to go, nothing to do except soak in the sunshine pouring in through my sun roof and blast some Skynyrd through my speakers that sound like a small being is crouched inside of them, crumpling newspaper. Nothing to do but bang the steering wheel in time to the crescendo, belt the lyrics and not care what the speakers sound like or who is laughing at me from the passenger seat of the truck in the next lane. Nothing to do but bask in the true sentiment of this great country we call the United States of America: I am what I am; don’t ask me to change! Free to be, you and me, baby! Keep your laws out of my pussy and I’ll keep my foot out of your ass! (Oops; where’d *that* come from??) Nothing to do but revel in the belief that the soul is free, even if we *are* sitting in traffic on our way to the corporate office of whatever, to stand in lines and wait for elevators and take care of whatever business we need to take care of in order to make out little worlds go ‘round…Life is fucking GOOD, people! There are PALM TREES here. IT’S EIGHTY DEGREES IN NOVEMBER!!

For a brief, blissful moment in time, I was able to transcend my situation, and reside in a musical space where the dimension of time and the direness of life don’t exist. The music was recorded probably almost 30 years ago, and yet it played such an integral part in my reality in 2005. I felt a stroke of goodwill towards the others on the freeway. Hey, this could be a solution for the LAPD in their attempt to capture the freeway shooter(s)! Throw a little Skynyrd in the tape deck and watch that ill intent melt away like an ice cube on a good old boy’s forehead on a summer day in Alabama. There’s also no saying that this couldn’t work with other bands as well! May I suggest some of my favorites: Bob Marley and the Wailers, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Janis Joplin, the Allman Brothers, Phish, any band involving Jerry Garcia, and of course, the Beatles (with the obvious exception of “Happiness Is a Warm Gun”).

There is a Grateful Dead song called “Franklin’s Tower,” which contains the lyric, “When you get confused, listen to the music play.” Now, this is advice that I have taken to heart and have used to get me through some times when I couldn’t tell my ass from my elbow (figuratively, of course). I am not ashamed to say that any confusion I may have had about what is important in life was relieved by a 70s rock anthem. What was revealed to me (during that seven-or-so minute dramatic, adrenaline-fueling rush that speaks of being true to one’s self despite difficult circumstances), was the message that one way we can do that is to honor the way we are RIGHT NOW. Nelson Mandela said that if we become all of which we are capable of becoming, we give others the freedom to be who they are as well, thus raising the consciousness of the entire planet. Most importantly, we have the power to enjoy every moment of every day, even if it sucks. Even if it *really* sucks. We owe it to ourselves and everyone else with whom we come into contact. We all have the power to manifest our own realities by believing that ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE.

So, thank you, Uncle Joe Benson (or whoever you are with that semi-rasp that occupies syndicated classic rock stations nationwide), because hearing “Freebird” totally made my day. In fact, it made my whole weekend. Now, I’m not saying that I’m not still pissed and may not still try to sue the shit out of my employer if I don’t get what I’ve worked hard to earn. Not saying that at all. But that moment of that afternoon was nothing less than unabashed, pure joy and in fact, I have several times, in writing this, paused to let some of those hopeful and proud lyrics pass through my lips. I am sitting next to an open window, so perhaps those words have already passed into another part of the universe, and are making someone else’s day a little bit better than it was before.

Namaste,
J-Ma

If I leave here tomorrow
Would you still remember me?
For I must be traveling on, now,
'Cause there's too many places I've got to see.
But, if I stayed here with you, girl,
Things just couldn't be the same.
'Cause I'm as free as a bird now,
And this bird you cannot change.
Lord knows, I can't change. Bye, bye, it’s been a sweet love.
Though this feeling I can't change.
But please don't take it so badly,
'Cause Lord knows I'm to blame.
But, if I stayed here with you girl,
Things just couldn't be the same.
‘Cause I'm as free as a bird now,
And this bird you'll never change.
And this bird you can not change.
Lord knows, I can't change.
Lord help me, I can't change.

I can’t change
I’ve got to fly – FREEBIRD.

lyrics copyright Lynyrd Skynyrd

Too Much Joy

2005-11-10T12:07:00.000-08:00

There is too much joy waiting
to be recognized
to overlook it
in search of something that’s not even there,
anyway.

Joy is found in:

Milton and Coco,
snoring in tandem.
Love, chin down
on the living room rug.

Her little body
rising and falling as she is breathed.

His whiskers when we play the
mouse-on-a-wire game;
the way he lets me know he wants
to play-
(yells at me the minute I walk through the door)

Writing in the morning,
writing at night.

doing yoga,
breathing.

Breathing down into my belly,
expanding me in all directions.

Life is filled with”expand-abilities”

and each moment is all
it is.

There is calmness in the center
of all this crazy shit.

Breathe to bring yourself
back to this moment,
where there are
lovers, animals, babies,
friends, and families just waiting
to be loved.
It’s all anybody wants,
to be loved
and be able to give love

Taking and receiving,
in and out, just like a breath-
one full breath,
the only real thing we have.

J-Ma c. Oct 2005

Poems

2005-11-10T12:06:00.000-08:00

The Mine

The miner looked at me,
His face was a plea.
His life was as hard as the stone that he mined,
At night he would drink at the company owned bar,
Returning all the money he had just been paid.

His wife was bruised and battered,
A victim of the mine!
She had lived in Shimoken
Since 1969.

She was the daughter of a miner,
Her mother had known,
The mine transcended time and people,
The sole goal was coal,
Their lives, a name on the company role.

I left knowing time couldn’t change the mine.
Their children would soon replace them in the hole.
And the generations will stay,
Until the coal company goes away!

Epitaph

The mine came crashing down,
The miner’s body will not be found.
He lies 1 mile beneath the ground.
He died in that hole!
His life, 1 dollar 50 per ton of coal!

Copyright Milton Rosenberg

An Invitation

The door is open,
Will YOU step through?
Love, Light, and Peace,
Laid out like a Feast.

Real enough to be Afraid,
Not just getting laid,
Or making it – like a beast.
But a Feast!

A Feast,
For the soul,
Not a Patch
For the hole,
But a fusion of wholes.
A meeting of souls!

To Grow,
And Learn,
And Nurture,
The essence
Of each other!

And when the Fire is lit,
Will you fan it with your love?
And find the greatest heights,
Your life has ever known?

And will you remember?
To live,
And love,
And grow,

Together.

Copyright 1/20/03 by Milton Rosenberg

Déjà vu

Who’s that knocking at my door?
Have I seen that face before?
Hours tick by and then again,
Déjà vu has struck again.

Déjà vu, a wondrous sense,
Think of the trauma it could prevent.
A waking dream, vivid and clear,
Déjà vu makes tomorrow near.

Am I Psychotic or am I Sane?
Déjà vu continues to reign.

Copyright 1981 Milton Rosenberg

True Religion

2005-11-10T11:57:00.000-08:00

True Religion

You CAN be
in two places at once;
hell, you could be in
THREE!
(or more)
all at once,
filling out each moment.

Smash through the ego,
break the mirror into a thousand pieces
with your mighty fist.
Watch your face dissolve
into myriad tiny shards, and look –

There is no one there to look at.

All that is heard is
the Breath
Slow, steady, rhythmic,
filling out the moment
for better or for worse.

Then, like a light through a prism,
True Self emerges,
the True Religion.

J-Ma c. Oct 2005

Humble Beginnings

2005-10-25T12:33:00.000-07:00

This December will be my three year “yogaversary”- I have been practicing with some degree of regularity for three years. The urge for change struck me as I entered my mid-twenties and had that wonderful realization that I am never getting any younger in this life. I was feeling lost, and wondering when life was going to get better. Why wasn’t I happy, I wondered. I had moved around the country countless times, searching for the city/person/image/drug that would fill the hole I felt in my soul. But deep inside, I knew I wouldn’t find true happiness outside of myself. I knew I needed to discover a non-palpable form of fulfillment. A little angel (someone I worked with) suggested I try yoga. That sounds interesting, I thought, usually about the time I lit up a cigarette on my front porch in the afternoon and wondered, “is it too early to start drinking?” Yes, one day I will take a yoga class, I vowed.

My brain told me that I was looking for a way to not get fat. But my conscience, in its infinite wisdom, knew I was embarking on an evolutionary path of self-discovery. The first few times, I brought my roommate for support. We chose an afternoon class, to be absolutely sure we would wake up in time. Eventually she moved out of town, but I persevered; I was the one who was always at least 5 or 10 minutes late, running in after some kind of traffic or parking crisis, and cringing at the noise my sticky mat made as I unrolled it in a room filled only with the sounds of deep, yogic breathing (think a room full of Darth Vaders)! I persevered, but mind you, I went straight from flipping people off in the car on the way over to humbly trying to hold my composure through "downward facing dog." I probably smelled like an ashtray, and I was definitely the one sweating so profusely that my mat looked and behaved more like a Slip-n-Slide than it did a tool to keep me grounded. The first year of navasana, “boat pose,” I seemed to be the only person on my side of the room who could have made a milkshake on my midsection from the insane way the muscles were shaking as they struggled to hold longer than 5 seconds.

Those first classes were lessons in self-consciousness: “Good Christ, we’ve only been here for a HALF HOUR??”; “What am I going to do after class is over?”; and “Oh my god, can the guy behind me see my underwear poking out of these pants?” What I hadn’t yet learned was that nobody cared what I looked like or if my undergarments were showing, or if my body accidentally relieved itself of some excess wind during sivasana. It took awhile to adjust to my surroundings and the new people I was meeting, who had a distinctly more positive and accepting worldview than anyone I had ever met. I asked myself, aren’t the more experienced students bored? Why haven’t they moved on to the next level by now? But, slowly but surely, my life began to transform, and I was able to find my own answers within.

Cigarettes tasted horrible as I knew I would regret smoking them the next time I took some deep breaths in meditation. Drinking became undesirable; I wanted to get up in the morning and start my day with class, not sleep until noon and wake up feeling like crap. I began to feel parts of my body that I had shut myself off from for years. I felt a little bit taller a lot more confident in situations from which I used to shy away. I began to see my life as a blessing and an adventure, and not as a helpless atom in a random orbit of some force whose gravity controlled my destiny. And the “next level” that I thought would eventually achieve has not been in another, more advanced class or a more intense physical exertion. The next level for me is how much further I can go in my understanding of gratitude, patience, and love. The poses are a time for me to actually be with my own body and mind and not try to stuff, block, deny, or shut out whatever is occurring in the present moment. It is a redirection of all my energies which are now working for, rather than against me. I learned to trust my body's natural instincts and listen to it when it told me it needed to rest, work harder, breathe deeper, or shine more. Now, when class ends, I can’t believe that an hour and a half has gone by (and I know nobody cares about my underwear)!

In reality, that first year was about getting to class; if I made it there and unrolled my mat, that was a feat in itself. There have been classes where I arrived exhausted, crawled into a fetal position, and woke up halfway through the class. As memory starts to fade with my old age, I can remember very little from those first classes, or even that first year. But I do remember loving the way the late afternoon sunlight filled the room and infused the collective energy of at least fifty or sixty people gathered for a sacred purpose. I loved how my mat was less than a foot from my neighbor’s and yet, because of the single-mindedness of our purpose, we were only mildly aware of each other’s presence throughout the class. I remember the way the sun set just about the time we finished our standing poses, and by the time we hit the resting pose we had been ushered into the evening tinged with the colors of the western-setting sun. And I remember the calming voice of the instructor, who assured us, beginners and old-timers alike, that this is a process with no end result, and that ultimately, the journey is the prize. I just had to trust in that sentiment, and keep showing up on my mat, even though at times I felt like the biggest freak in the room! I hope I always stay a beginner at heart, with something new to learn around every turn of the infinite road ahead. Namaste.

2005-10-14T12:55:00.000-07:00

Just starting the day, realizing how fortune I am. I get to wake up, ride my bike along the Pacific coastline, take yoga class, bike home in the sunshine, walk across the street, get coffee, chat with my neighbors, check my garden, and sit down to write. True, I have a bunch of things I’m “supposed” to be doing right now, but they are all self-imposed. Nobody’s breathing down my neck saying, “Have that report on my desk by five o’clock,” if you know what I’m saying. May I show my gratitude in kindness to others today…we’ll see how that goes; it’s only 11:45 AM and, let’s not forget, this *is* Los Angeles.

What was I saying last time? Oh, yes, I was complaining about my witness to the state of classrooms in California. The pain of which is actually a blessing in that it has led me to look beyond the horizon for alternate employment and more education for myself. I have decided that I need to WRITE for a living. Wait, this is such an important revelation to me that I have to give it its due:

I HAVE DECIDED TO WRITE FOR A LIVING!!!!

Not teach, not wait tables, not answer phones at someone else’s place of business, but WRITE. Use this noggin for more than just banging against the wall. (Any tips on where to start, by the way, would be much appreciated.) Considering I have been writing for over 20 years, you would think that this decision should have come naturally. I attribute the fact that it has taken so long to one and only one reason: complete ignorance about what it would take to actually make a living as a writer (and, possibly, a little bit of laziness).

I have said to myself for years, “One day, I’ll be a writer!” Ironically, this has kept me from actually being a writer. (Ironic in the incongruity-between-what-is-expected-and-what-actually-occurs-way, not the 1990s pop singer Alanis Morrisette style: “It’s like rain on your wedding day…It’s like meeting the man of your dreams and then meeting his beautiful wife…” (That’s not irony, Alanis; that just *sucks*.) Anyway, the signs were everywhere. I mean, literally, I saw a sign last year that read:

The Secret To Writing
Is Writing.

That really hit me in the gut. Right about that third chakra area, about 2 inches below the navel, where my yoga instructor tells me all of our human potential is stored. That’s pretty heavy, but think about it; it’s the center of our being, the deepest place to which we inhale, the place we stuff with food when we feel lonely or sad, the place that feels the ickiest when we have to do the thing we fear the most. (“Butterflies in the stomach” didn’t just come out of nowhere.)

Of course! The secret to doing anything is doing it. How could I have been thinking that “some day” I would somehow be a writer, if I never dedicated myself to the craft with any regularity? (Now, to be totally honest, I have had this romantic Jim Morrison/Jack Kerouac, “live fast/ die young/create masterpieces off-the-cuff” fantasy about how art was created and how an artist should live. Obviously, this really didn’t work out too well for me; instead of creating masterpieces I was immobilized on a couch somewhere, stoned out of my gourd, watching “Half-Baked” for the umpteenth time - and let’s not forget: Morrison was found dead in a bathtub and I think Kerouac drank himself to death in Mexico…oh wait, maybe that was Burroughs…) What I do know, and this is from keeping a three-years-and-counting yoga practice, that it is the small things we do in daily life that add up to the major events we perceive as achievements later on.

This is in the vein of “the best things come to those who wait.” Except, this is, “the best things come to those who are diligent, committed, and patient along the path.” And I say “we” here because even though it is the understanding to which I have come through my own practices of asana and meditation, I believe those truths to be the deepest and therefore, universal, on some level. “Get Everything All at Once!” is the usual message we receive from advertising and television and is an easy trap to fall into, since all we have to do is plug in our computers, hop on our instant internet connection, surf at the speed of light, punch in our credit card numbers and something is ours to own. Or, call on the cell phone, jump in the car, jet across town as fast as possible, hop on a nonstop flight and show up in a different country in a few mere hours. But the best things, the creative things, the truthful, real, and most valuable things cannot be bought or even achieved instantly. They must be cultivated. A writing practice, a yoga practice, or whatever it is you do that brings you solace and equanimity - that journey is, ultimately, the reward in itself. Whatever material things are manifested as a result is just a bonus to the fulfillment of the deepest needs of your soul.

So, keep practicing! You never know when you may be called on to use the skills you are honing. This takes a lot of faith, but I have faith in you!

May you manifest all the good things you need and find peace in all that you do.

Namaste,

J-Ma

Thought for the day:

The moon is reflected in a cup containing water;
the cup is broken and the water runs out;
where does the reflection of the moon go?
The reflected moon becomes, at the destruction of the cup, the one moon whose rays spread over the sky.
Similarly, the soul, when fully liberated from imprisoning desires, becomes omnipresent like the Spirit.

-Paramahansa Yogananda

True Freedom

2005-10-12T12:52:00.000-07:00

Just got back from the coffeeshop where I chewed off my neighbor’s ear for about half an hour about the conditions at my place of employment. Now I feel bad, like I’ve totally depressed him for the rest of the day and psyched myself out for work later this afternoon. It’s difficult for me to be objective when I think about the school, just because I’ve run up against so much stupidity by the administration, even though I know they’re just playing their part in the whole drama that is the California educational system. But here are some of the things I have observed during my teaching "tenure":

Books
I have, on average, 26 students who sit in my afternoon literature/composition class every day. We have enough books for our use, however, they are not all the same book. Therefore, I have to put two or three kids on one book whenever we read in class. If you have ever tried to manage a classroom of kids, most who have difficulty concentrating for more than five minutes, you know that this is automatically a recipe for disaster. The boys don’t want to share a book because they think that sitting that close to each other insinuates homosexuality. The girls can’t share a book because they can’t stop talking to each other. The material in the books is completely irrelevant to anything in these kids’ lives. For example, a ninth grade grammar book for my literature class. William Bradford, “from ‘Of Plymouth Plantation.’” Patrick Henry, “Speech in the Virginia Convention.” Let me relate to you a selection from the latter:

And judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of the British ministry for the last ten years, to justify those hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and the House? Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately received? Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss.

Patrick Henry
March 23, 1775

I rest my case.

So, rather than trying to create a relationship between them and that material (which, by the way, is part of our great nation’s foundation and therefore deserves a prime space in our regular classrooms), I try to introduce material that they can relate to and make some kind of connection with. What I have found to be successful is allowing kids the freedom to express themselves openly and honestly. To achieve this end, I employ two methods with regularity - journaling and writing poetry, one of which I will touch upon today:

Journaling
Journaling is something that comes naturally to me and I have a chronicle, in my own words, of almost every day of my life from my junior high school years to the present; at this point that is a span of about sixteen years. Luckily for me, my writing was encouraged from a very early age by thoughtful teachers, school librarians, and friends. (Had those same people discouraged my writing at that time, I probably would have taken their words to heart as well, and you might not be reading this right now, and I would surely be a miserable and misguided soul struggling to boost my self-esteem through any number of artificial stimulants, bodily mutilations, or sprees of crime.) When any art is suppressed, it invalidates the artist at the level of his or her heart. I have a notion that some of my kids, though fabulous writers, were discouraged from this useful emotional outlet tool because their style of writing did not match the prototype or form that was expected by past teachers, and therefore, rejected.

So, I create a space for the kids to write without inhibition. I assign fifteen minutes or more several times a week for reflective writing, either freeform or guided by a topic meant to foster introspection. I grade on the number of journals handed in at various points during the semester; I do not grade on grammar, punctuation, or spelling. Therefore, this creates an environment where the students do not have to worry that they will be penalized based on structure and can focus solely on content, their own truth of the moment. When one writes one’s truth, he or she is free to move on to the next lesson, unburdened by the thoughts or unreleased emotions from the past. Once the truth is on paper, there is no need for the mind to carry around that extra load, and true liberation is achieved! Perhaps this is better illustrated in the words of our good old friend Patrick Henry, “I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!”

Until next time, when I will continue my rant -

Namaste,

J-Ma
Today’s Thought of the Day:

From a carving on a garden rock:

Be Good to Your Self!

Getting What We Came Here For

2005-10-07T13:27:00.000-07:00

We all have expectations for the things we want. Somehow, we are thinking always, “this is the desired outcome, and I will accept nothing that stands in the way of what I want.” Wanting to achieve the goals we set for ourselves, we ignore or shove aside the things we think do not matter in the realization of those goals. But, how do we know that what we want cerebrally is really what we need physically and spiritually?

A few weeks ago, just as things were getting going with being back at work and back on a schedule, I woke up with a severe neck cramp and could not move my head even one inch to the left. It felt like a fist had all the muscles in my neck in a Kung Fu grip. Now, I have felt this tension before, and even had quite similar injuries. However, I used to take muscle relaxers to release my neck whenever this situation came up in the past. They would release the muscles but also put me in a stupor for a few days. I guess that’s how I used to deal with stress when it got to be too much. I knew this time that drugs would only be a bandage on a situation that needed to get resolved, not covered up momentarily. I knew instinctually that I must learn to deal with the issue in order to move on to my next lesson and phase of my life.

My instinct immediately told me that this injury had come on because of some unreleased/unresolved anger I had not fully felt and explored, and so it was stuck in my upper back in the form of tension and manifesting itself in my life as generalized anxiety and sadness. Well, I knew certain situations made me angry, but I had never really felt anger. What does that even mean? All my life people have told me not to be angry. Well, guess what? That made me even angrier! Telling someone not to be angry is like telling them that what they are feeling is not appropriate or valid.

Anger shows up as a red flag, a little bell that rings when we perceive we have been wronged or think something is unfair. Expressed constructively, it can be a tool for communication and change. That nagging feeling that something is not right can actually help us to identify what would make us feel better in the situation. And what would make us feel better sometimes is to physically express that anger – not in a destructive but a constructive way. What is the difference? Destructive means we turn the anger in on ourselves – “he must not listen to me, if he can’t even remember to put the seat down, even after I’ve asked him three times!...I must not be worth it.” You turn the anger inward towards yourself and allow yourself to be consumed with anger towards that person whom you feel is doing you wrong. Your anger here is not constructive; it is destroying you like poison from the inside out.

Unfortunately, this happens whenever we harbor resentments or aren’t able to articulate (for whatever reason) what we really want or need. So, do we want the other person to suffer? We may feel like expressing ourselves on the physical plane. But it is not constructive to resort to physical violence, which includes any type of physical manifestation of this anger – hitting, slapping, choking, “spanking,” etc. (If you believe that hitting a child in any way is an appropriate punishment, how would you feel if your boss just planted a few on your rear end the next time you miss a deadline or take a few extra minutes on your lunch hour? It sets a poor example if you, the parent, must resort to using physical force rather than solely giving love and trusting that a situation will work itself out. It shows loss of self control and undermines your authority as role model and mentor. Children learn whatever it is we teach them – they are not born with an inborn ability to distinguish right and wrong – they learn more from our example than from our “teaching.”)

Why, then, do we FEEL like we want to choke the living shit out of someone when they “make us” angry? First of all, no one has the ability to make you angry except yourself. No one can possibly know what all of your triggers are and what they should and should not do all of the time. Just as no one person can satisfy every single need you have, no one person can know how something is going to make you feel. So you must let that person know when you feel something is unjust, and give them the opportunity to respond and make adjustments based on respect and communication. I’m going to assume here that we are dealing with people who WANT to respect and communicate with us – that makes things a lot easier. This is about us, here, not them. Our reactions, not theirs. It is our duty whenever that little bell rings to a) determine how pressing it is that we react, and b) if we deem it important and will feel uncomfortable otherwise, we let that person know what we perceive to be the problem. There is a quote from someone, I can’t remember who, that reads something like this: “how can I fix it if I don’t know it’s broken?” It is our duty as human beings to allow other human beings the gift of grace in respect and forgiveness. If someone knows she/he has wronged us, she/he has the opportunity to amend the behavior in some form of graceful accommodation. We’ve all heard the adage that tells us it is our duty as humans to forgive; it is also our duty to allow others the gift of forgiving us. When we express the injustice, we are creating the space so that real honesty can take place, no matter how uncomfortable the confrontation or how difficult the resolution seems to be.

Your body tells you what you need if you are open to receiving that message. I know that when I allow myself the gift of relaxation and don’t allow anxiety or negativity to invade my sphere, the pain disappears from my neck and shoulders. We have one life and one body this time around; we need to listen to it when it communicates with us and learn to trust the instincts that alarm us to feelings that can be catalysts toward behavioral change and hence, spiritual growth. Honor yourself.

Love,

J-Ma

Thought for the Day (for anyone who has come up too fast from standing forward bend):
I was smelling flowers in the yard, and when
I stood up I took a deep breath and the blood all
rushed to my brain and I woke up dead on my
back in the grass. I had apparently fainted,
or died, for about sixty seconds. My neighbor
saw me but he thought I had just suddenly
thrown myself on the grass to enjoy the sun.
During that timeless moment of unconsciousness
I saw the golden eternity. I saw heaven. In it
nothing had ever happened, the events of a
million years ago were just as phantom and
ungraspable as the events of now or of a million
years from now, or the events of the next ten
minutes. It was perfect, the golden solitude, the
golden emptiness, Something-Or-Other, something
surely humble. There was a rapturous ring of
silence abiding perfectly. There was no question
of being alive or not being alive, of likes and
dislikes, of near or far, no question of giving
or gratitude, no question of mercy or judgment,
or of suffering or its opposite or anything.
It was the womb itself, aloneness, alaya vijnana
the universal store, the Great Free Treasure, the
Great Victory, infinite completion, the joyful
mysterious essence of Arrangement. It seemed
like one smiling smile, one adorable adoration,
one gracious and adorable charity, everlasting
safety, refreshing afternoon, roses, infinite
brilliant immaterial golden ash, the Golden Age.
The “golden” came from the sun in my eyelids,
and the “eternity” from my sudden instant
realization as I woke up that I had just
been where it all came from and where it
was all returning, the everlasting So, and
so never coming or going; therefore I call it
the golden eternity but you can call it anything
you want. As I regained consciousness I felt so sorry
I had a body and a mind suddenly realizing I
didnt even have a body and a mind and nothing
had ever happened and everything is alright
forever and forever and forever, O thank you
thank you thank you.

This is the first teaching from
the golden eternity.

The second teaching from the golden eternity
is that there never was a first teaching
from the golden eternity. So be sure.

Jack Kerouac, “The Scripture of the Golden Eternity”

Ode to Teachers

2005-08-22T18:58:00.000-07:00

Apparently, with the facial wrinkles and stray, still-single gray hair, the time has come in my life to start going to reunions. This is a bizarre concept to me because with email and travel these days, it’s hard to think about reuniting with people I communicate with all the time. Which is not to say I was not HORRIBLY freaked out by the invitation that arrived in my inbox with the heading “Ten Year Reunion.” I would assume that this “ten year reunion” invitation probably affects most people the same way it affected me, the first stage of the reaction being, naturally, disbelief – looking intently at the number to make sure that’s really what it says; Step Two: counting on your fingers just to make sure the math you did in your head wasn’t somehow faulty; and Step Three: thinking, and possibly even saying aloud, “Holy Shit!”

I now live 3000 miles away from where I went to high school, and traveling for this event is just not happening at this time. It saddens me because it would be nice to see old friends and reconnect on a physical level. But it seems this reunion is having an effect on me even though I won’t be attending: seeing all those old classmates’ names on the mass emails I have been receiving has really brought back a lot of memories. Couple this with the fact that I am (however painstakingly slowly) studying to take the GRE in a month or two, and now must somehow bridge the distance I intentionally put between myself and algorithms, well, ten years ago! For every formula I must relearn, a flood of memories accompanies it: who taught me the material, how she used to wear (and I am not kidding, here) Victorian HAIR jewelry, how many swigs of vodka he took out of the water bottle he kept in the top drawer of his desk (again, not kidding). I also can recall who was sitting in front of me in the class, who was tapping me incessantly on the shoulder asking me to go to the prom with him (even though I was boycotting the patriarchy, which at that time, to me, was represented by things like The Prom. Subsequently, “the patriarchy” has also been represented briefly but strongly by Walgreen’s, Ticketmaster, Verizon Wireless, and the act of shaving my legs and underarms – but I digress). I remember, and this is a GREAT thing for a teacher to revisit on the eve of another school year, the fact that some days I cared about what I was learning, and other days all I cared about was whom I would be seeing in the hallway when we changed classes in twenty minutes. I considered myself a good student but I was still a teenager!

So, given the struggles I have been having with the Quantitative section of the Graduate Record Examination, it is the math classrooms I have been revisiting in my head. Hands-down, the best math teacher I ever had was my tenth-grade Geometry teacher. She had the personality of cardboard but the nicest manicures. She was all business, and the tone of her classroom led me to strive to complete all Geometry proofs to the best of my ability. This was the class to separate the women from the girls, if there ever was one. (I hadn’t taken “Stars, Galaxies, and Cosmology” at Wellesley yet – which, by the way, was taught by a hippie woman who never wore shoes and sometimes wore a wizard costume. Unfortunately there was a large amount of applied physics and quantum concepts involved in that course, and it being in a darkened room and in the “just after lunch” slot, I found it difficult to stay awake. I didn’t do my best, needless to say. But I appreciated the costume. And climbing up the ladder late at night to see Mars through a wicked good telescope – AWESOME.)

A math class in which I and many other students had some difficulty was ninth-grade Algebra. Well, I think the class was algebra but I don’t remember any material actually being taught. What I DO remember is the teacher sitting at her desk (she never stood), gossiping with the high school Driver Education instructor, not only about other teachers and the school board in general, but about former and current STUDENTS! Due to "budget cuts," the Driver’s Ed teacher was also a Health Education teacher. He once gave me the valuable information that I would be able to tell exactly when I ovulated, because my ovaries would make a noise that resembled a “ping!” sound. And when I, who had been menstruating for about four years at that time, questioned the validity of an outdated textbook and a male instructor making this claim, it was met with the assertion that a “real woman” (read: someone who wasn’t so involved with athletics) would be in tune enough with her body in order to hear the moment of “ping!” when it happened once a month. Now, if you’ve been paying attention, you probably noticed that the board of education supported a curriculum that waited to teach Sex Ed until approximately 5-3 years after the average student hit puberty. Hel-LO, people! What’s wrong with this picture? But let’s leave that alone for now, for even more disturbing is the fact that in that class, the instructor also used an educational tool he called “The Idiot Ball,” which was actually an old tennis ball he kept in the top drawer of his desk and which he would throw at you if you made a dumb comment or asked a stupid question. You HAD to let it hit you, and then you HAD to go pick it up off the floor and sign your name on it with a black Sharpie marker, so that subsequent classes would see your name – as if the memory of being pelted with a ball in front of your peers wasn’t enough to scar you for the rest of your life.

Senior year Calculus also comes to mind. A transcript of an actual class period:

“Everybody see what I’m sayin’? Let’s try another one…how about ‘.001.’ Let’s see if we get somethin’ even better…do that one for me. This is a slow way, compared to the ‘Power Way’ in the book…Let’s take it out as far as we can, as far as it’ll go. Remember, the better approximation, the better you’re gonna get. You guys gotta talk to me; I don’t know what you’re getting. How many guys don’t get that, so I can see where you’re at? You gotta get the tangent, you see what I’m sayin’? The quick method eliminates having to test it super-super close...So let’s try ‘delta.’ Now, the trouble I don’t want to happen is you guys not makin’ sure you get the stuff from yesterday. This is the calculus way, so stay with me. I’m gonna write this down so we all understand it. OK, here’s my ‘X’; here’s my change in ‘X’; just dump it in here. All I’m doin’ now is the algebra. Christie, ya with me? Uh…should I knock these out? No, I better not; sorry about that. Sorry, guys. What cancels here? Alright, now, as delta approaches zero, what term do we knock out? That’s what zero means…Is that OK? This was a little off, and most of the time that would be OK. If you subtract this minus this, that’s the top half of this formula, and THAT'S the theory behind it…Every once in a while you’re gonna get there and say, ‘I don’t even KNOW what I’m doin.’ And in a couple months, you’re gonna go, ‘What IS a derivative?’ Stan, you gettin’ this? OK, Bill, give us the length of the latus rectum…Wait a minute. I’m lookin’ at the numbers, here…they don’t seem to make sense…Put in ‘3’ for me; you guys have calculators…Somethin’ seems strange to me…No, Stephen, we can’t just skip it…What we did is right – so, why….how can we be that far off? Somethin’s not matchin’ up, know what I’m sayin’? It just doesn’t…make sense. OK, find the slope at ‘one’ anyway…oh, I see what we did wrong.”

(That being REAL and all, I think I dropped this one in lieu of Study Hall once the Wellesley Early Acceptance letter graced my mailbox.)

Though I couldn’t wait to “get out of high school,” these memories are now humorous in retrospect. And, being a teacher, I now look with less scorn at those individuals who dedicated their days to making sure I wasn’t ignorant for the rest of my life. Recently, in a teacher credentialing class, the lecturer drove home an important lesson through a demonstration. He asked the class to think of the best teacher each of us had ever had. The room buzzed slightly as people got their own mental pictures of someone who positively influenced them. There were some smiles and murmuring of fond memories. I had a few teachers in mind and a few classes I actually enjoyed, but they all kind of clumped together, like clay kitty litter. Then, the lecturer asked us to think about the worst teacher we had ever had. The energy in the room immediately exploded as the memories of horrorshow learning experiences stood out from the rest, and we scrambled to outdo our neighbors with who had the most degrading, embarrassing, or humiliating experience in school. While most of us could dig through the brain to find some pleasant memories of school days gone by, none of us had any problem immediately accessing the memories of a teacher who in any way disrespected us in the name of abuse of power. This was a great exercise for a teacher-to-be: it demonstrated that if you betray a student’s trust, he or she will always remember it, and it could shape the course of his or her education for years to come, possibly even forever.

I see it in my own students all the time. Kids who have had less than great experiences with teachers or school arrive in my classroom with huge attitudes and massive psychic fortresses around them, erected in order to keep me out. I have to remember that school was sometimes even tough for me, even though I was a good student – I can’t imagine how it must be to go through a school system that rejects you from the get-go because it has you labeled as learning disabled, or more commonly, a behavior problem or lazy or ignorant. Labeling or in any way categorizing students is doing them a disservice in all respects. What I learn is that I need to look beyond the surface of my students in order to see what’s really going on with them rather than assuming I know where they’re coming from. Sometimes I think their attitudes spring from disinterest or defiance, but when I look closer I find out they don’t want to participate because it will take them several minutes to read a sentence out loud, or it’s three o’clock in the afternoon and all they had to eat all day was Coca-Cola and a bag of Red Hot Chee-Tos. Or their brother or their cousin got shot yesterday. Or they want to get out of their neighborhood so badly that they’ve just enlisted and will probably be going to Iraq after they finish training at Parris Island, where they will be going right after they finish my class with at least the required “D.” Add on basic teenage image-consciousness, wearing “Baby Phat” clothing when “G-Unit” is what’s in style this week, knowing you have to walk home through gang territory tonight when you get off the bus, feeling sad and confused after a fight with your significant other, and/or thinking that your broken English will elicit giggles and judgment from your classmates if you speak out loud.

So, to the teachers of the world: Be strong! Be patient! Thank you for all your hard work and understanding! Here’s to another semester of love and service – Namaste.

In the name of Love, and after 16 years, STILL listening for that “ping,”

J-Ma

How about you guys? Any great best/worst teacher stories out there? ANYBODY out there??

Today’s Thought:
“The job of the human being is to radiate, through the finite self,
the infinite light.” –Yogi Bhajan

Call for Submissions

2005-08-01T15:34:00.000-07:00

I would like to begin posting original works of poetry on this site, mine and others (*shameless*, I know). If you have a poem, please send it to: yogiinla@gmail.com

Preferably, I would like to showcase works with themes of consciousness, positivity, and inspiration.

Get out your pen! Open the floodgates!

God

Driving a road alone.

The only one in the car.

Driving the car.

No radio comes in here.

No cell phones

work here.

75 mph

Up,

Down.

An RV tailing me at 70 mph.

A yellow Fortuna school bus

passing me

and never looking back.

God's Country.

Where it's you and

GOD

whatever that means.

Strangers' faces.

Douglas Firs.

Driving through Humboldt

County.

Meditating

(third eye) -

that landscape.

Tibetan chanting.

Buddhists.

Compassion.

Showing love with

no concern

for One's

Self.

That is where God is -

in silence,

in stillness

in rejoicing with others

in no fear,

trapped in no worry.

Knowing that whatever will be,

will be.

Just acknowledging this

here on Earth

begins the unfolding

of the Lotus,

blooming brightest

and most full

when life seems

deepest

and darkest.

When fear puts your

mind in a cage -

wanting to believe,

but stuck

in insecurities.

Then,

God blossoms like the

Lotus flower

and you see how God has

unfolded throughout your life,

always coming through,

Goodness always prevailing

when times seemed

most despondent.

"You left me standing

in the doorway, crying...

I've got nuthin' to go back to now-"

Bob Dylan said that.

Speaking of God.

What Happens to Your Mind in the Dark?

2005-08-01T14:35:00.000-07:00

This summer, I took a 3-day backpacking trip with two of my girlfriends, one of whom is an avid hiker who has conquered the Appalachian Trail (or, “A.T.” as it is referred to in the elite cliques), and the other, a generally inexperienced hiker, like myself. I have done day hikes in the past but never an overnight. Let me tell you, my first experience in the Great Outdoors was extremely humbling.

The “Lost Coast” – sounds daunting, yes? Well, that’s because it is. We began our journey in Eureka, and drove down to Mendocino through grove after groveof majestic California Coastal Redwood trees and forests of Douglas Fir. We turned onto the unpaved road off the exit to Shelter Cove/Black Sands Beach and found ourselves driving 2 hours up a dirt road (12 miles total) to the trailhead at Saddle Mountain. Now, the winding, rocky, steep drive up the mountain in a full-size rental sedan was enough to rattle me initially as I realized I had no control of whether or not we went careening off the side into a canyon of deciferous trees. OK, “rattle” is perhaps not the word; I believe I was covering my eyes in the backseat, whimpering and crying like a baby while my companions consoled me from the front seat, smoked cigarettes, and talked about their childhoods. Meanwhile, I’m back there thinking I could die any second now. We’re talking unpaved, winding, one-lane, puddle- and pot-hole infested podunk country mountain road, here. Like, we had to get out every fifteen minutes or so to navigate the driver over the deep and wide rifts in the road so we didn’t get stuck there until someone happened to come by (IF someone happened to come by). We bottomed out I don’t know how many times and I kept looking out the back window to see if we were trailing gasoline behind us. I guess words on the map we got from the Camping Bureau like “mountain,” “peak,” “ridge,” and “range,” might have tipped us off to the type of adventure that lied in store for us. However, with an optimistic devil-may-care attitude and assurances of “I’m in pretty good shape, right?” we seemed to overlook these telltale clues and somewhat disconcertingly found ourselves chasing the sunset, skirting a steep ridge at 4000 feet at 8:15 PM the night we arrived.

The trail was frought with bear and mountain cat scat (Hiker for “shit”), which did not please me as I wondered where we would spend the night. Answer: in the pitch blackness on the side of a mountain, 5.7 miles up the trail and far, far away from any other human. We set up camp next to a downhill running stream just as the sun was setting on the eastern sideof the King Range National Conservation Area. To our left, Black Sands Beach. To our right, miles of beautiful Mendocino backcountry. What might have been a dream wilderness experience for some was extremely difficult for me. Despite the beauty, the next 9 or 10 hours were spent in anxiety about which animal would be the first I needed to fight off, as I felt we were at the mercy of whatever creature or situation that decided to present itself (I’ve never seen “Deliverance,” but I’ve heard enough about it over the years, thank you very much). There is an alien vulnerability in knowing that you have done everything possible to discourage animals from coming into your camp (storing food in locked, scent-proof bear canisters, cleaning up camp immediately after eating, eliminating 100 ft away from the site, etc.), but if an animal wants to come through, there is really nothing you can do about it. The more advanced hiker in our group gave us some advice before we headed off on the trail. She said, “You need to think like an animal,” meaning, you need to be present in that survival instinct and own the fact that you may have to do anything in order to survive – and be OK with that. (I believe her exact words, as she brandished her walking stick, were, “If it’s the cat and me, someone’s going to die – and it is *not* going to be me!”)

Accepting the loss of personal control over the environment requires having faith in all of your abilities to handle any situation with neither fear about the future - “What will happen if a bear attacks? - or regret about the past - “I should have bought a bigger can of Bear Repellent!” (I know, I thought it was a joke, too, but stores *actually sell* this product – giving me faith that “Mitten Sock” might catch on one of these days). Lying on the side of a mountain in a small tent, on a slant, on rocks, in the dark, it became apparent to me that anything could happen and if or when it did, I would not have time to think, “how will this affect me in the long run?” I would just have to take instinctual action. Trust in one’s own instincts is quite different than trusting decisions after you’ve had time to mull them over for a few days. Trusting your SELF means trusting that your intuition will guide you when there is not time to deliberate. Trusting yourself means trusting that your inner self, the one that exists even without physical form, is divine and will exist even if you lose this body here on planet Earth. Basically, facing death and transcending that fear.

Personally, this concept scares the shit out of me, as it takes away any safety net I have made for myself by constructing a world of my preferences and comforts. Feeling so vulnerable so deep into the wilderness (which, now that I look back on it, wasn’t *that* bad) made me examine and hence want to change how I deal with situations in my daily life, specifically issues of control and avoidance of things that make me uncomfortable. For example, if I know that a confrontation with someone might result in a disagreement or the loss of a relationship, I tend to avoid it, not wanting to have to go through any pain or discomfort. Nature confronts you, and you must react in the moment. No time for fear, anxiety, etc. , which drains the experience of the Now, the only real experience that exists.

After the night from hell, in which two of us got no sleep and were jumping at every little noise outside the tent, we made an executive group decision to leave the ridge the next morning because of heat, blisters, and general crankiness (hint: summer is NOT the time to hike the mountains, even if they are coastal), but we continued to see the great Northern California coast and many more redwoods and hiking trails via the old stand-by, Car Camping. We fought off mosquitoes, walked on a beach of black sand, bathed naked in a creek, and shared a meal and a campfire with people we had just met.

Spending a night in the wilderness was an invaluable experience, though, and I do recommend it - “hiking in” a few miles (preferably with no elevation change, if this is your first time) and camping out with no cars, RV hook-ups or cell phones – total self-sufficiency and carrying everything you need on your back. Nothing can compare to the sounds you can hear atop a mountain of in a forest of Sequoia Sempervirens (ever-living giant trees!) It is so peaceful and quiet that the silence takes on an almost physical form; its presence feels tangible, cushioning. You can hear your own heartbeat as if you were in the womb – of Mother Earth. The death, decay, and rebirth of the evolving ancient forest nature forces you to realize how insignificant and vulnerable you are in the grand scheme of things. Trees fall every day. An animal must kill another animal for survival every day. What we have, the only thing we really have, is the present moment, and how we consciously treat ourselves and others in that moment. What in your life is worth the worry? Nothing, unless of course you are fighting to the death with a cougar, in which case, give ‘im hell!

Life is truly precious, and if you don’t feel that, then take a drive up Saddle Mountain Road in a full-size rental sedan. I hope you freak out. It was one of the best things to ever happen to me.

Namaste,

J-Ma

Today's Thought of the Day

"A man ends by becoming what he thinks." -Ghandi

ALERT: Shameless Rant Ahead

2005-07-18T10:17:00.000-07:00

Ah, the much-anticipated, never-duplicated birthday…Today I feel blessed that I have so many wonderful people in my life that care about me and love me. I feel quite loved and that’s always a good feeling!

This morning got off to a rough start, and if you don’t really know me that well, you are about to find out how insane I really am. It’s no wonder that I’m a Cancer – once I get something in my craw, God help you if you ever want it back. Same with situations. My boyfriend and I (yes, living in quite a bit of sin) were awakened by a telephone call at 7am from the parking attendant in the lot where we rent space for our vehicles. Here’s the deal: we get an ultra-good rate on 2 parking spaces because every now and then, Hollywood wants to come to Venice and use our lot for the Food Service tables, trailers, dressing rooms, etc. So, when Hollywood comes to town, we need to vacate the lot the night before, and we get reimbursed for any days that our cars are homeless (read: we have to park on the street, which, in Venice, is precarious at best, for many reasons).

To make a long story short, we were reprimanded by the parking attendant because this was not the first (or second) time we failed to move our cars, for whatever reason. We were threatened with getting towed, with an overtone of threat that we may not be able to keep our spaces too much longer. But, while I am annoyed at the phone call, my real beef is with Hollywood (and that’s quite an insult, considering I’m a vegetarian).

Hollywood basically thinks that they should be able to come in to any place or space and people should be falling at their feet to have them film in that location. Well, let me tell you what it’s like to have your neighborhood invaded by about 50 twentysomething hipsters sipping lattes, talking on cell phones, and wearing sunglasses (??) at 7am (who are these people *talking* to at 7AM??) Believe it or not, it’s not all peaches and cream. First of all, they kick me out of my parking space, which literally puts me out on the street (and if you’ve ever tried to park in Venice, you will know that you could feasibly drive two continuous miles around a five-block radius and still not find a spot). Without a parking space, you literally need to leave yourself at least one half hour to find parking – forget about coming home for lunch, if you know what I’m saying. Hollywood also blocks off streets, closes down convenience stores, all to the tune of thousands of dollars for whoever owns these places, but of course at my inconvenience.

Somebody once told me that the only reason people hate or get angry at something is because they see something they don’t like reflected in that thing. Does that make sense? Let me try to apply it to this situation. Perhaps I don’t like Hollywood because there is something about it that reminds me of myself that I don’t like. Perhaps it is the complete ego-driven behavior of everyone involved that disgusts me so much. Like, “Get out of our way; we’re here with shitloads of money and equipment.” Homeless man walking onto the set and bothering the actresses? Give him twenty dollars and tell him to go buy some hamburgers. Too many people driving by? Pay the police to set up a traffic barricade. Yet when I complain about it, I realize I am only complaining because my own ego-driven existence is being displaced. Perhaps I resent the fact that they can wave money in people’s faces and that is supposed to make everything okay, and I still count out coins every time I want a cup of coffee. It’s such a bizarre, parallel universe. People throwing huge amounts of money into pretending.

But as always, moralizing will not help me here (nor anywhere else, really). I have some other things to think about. For instance, I’m getting ready to hike in Northern California in the next few weeks, something I have wanted to do for awhile and just now have the time and money to do so. It will be like a remedy for all the trappings of this city. And when I get snuggled in next to a Redwood, nothing else really matters anyway!

How are you doing with the positive thinking? Any pitfalls? Any success stories? By the by, I’m working with Blogspot to figure out a way for you to comment on these posts without having to create an account – I’ll keep you POST-ed (ha, ha).

Breathing, Breathing, Breathing,

J-Ma

Today’s Thought for the Day

One of my favorite Zen koans:
“Tanzan and Ekido were once traveling together down a muddy road. A heavy rain was still falling.
Coming around a bend, they met a lovely girl in a silk kimono and sash, unable to cross the intersection.
“Come on, girl,” said Tanzan at once. Lifting her in his arms, he carried her over the mud.
Ekido did not speak again until that night when they reached a lodging temple. Then he no longer could restrain himself. “We monks don’t go near females,” he told Tanzan, “especially not young and lovely ones. It is dangerous. Why did you do that?”
“I left the girl there,” said Tanzan. “Are you still carrying her?”
-Paul Reps, "Zen Flesh, Zen Bones"

Nirvana and Other Joys

2005-07-11T12:44:00.000-07:00

I have a birthday coming up. I’m about to turn 28 in less than 2 weeks. I’m really excited about this birthday, because it means an enormous amount of growth has occurred between last year and this. Let me explain. With 27 came a sense of dread (of the “Oh, my God, I’m not ever getting any younger, am I?” variety). In fact, I went back and read my journal from last year and my first entry on that date was a quote, which any Nirvana fan will instantly recognize:

“I’m worst at what I do best, and for this gift I feel blessed.”

Deep thoughts by Kurt Cobain. Who, incidentally, killed himself at 27. (Other untimely deaths which occurred at the age of 27: Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, and Pigpen of the Grateful Dead.) All of these people gone by 28. Coincidence? I think not.

I view 27 as an age of reckoning, perhaps the age that permanently puts adolescence in the time capsule and rolls out the welcome mat for adulthood. This year brought with it not only my first gray hair and recognizance of actual wrinkles around my eyes and mouth, but also a feeling of not being able to bounce back quite as quickly from things that didn’t even faze me just last year. Forget about be-bopping around the globe - I’m talking about staying out past midnight, here. For the first time in my life, I realize what a blessing RESILIENCY is, and ELASTICITY: not just physical but also emotional and spiritual resiliency. Being able to pick yourself up one more time than you have fallen down and finding an impetus to begin again, even if you must start from scratch.

My outlook on this coming birthday is JOY and EXCITEMENT. Now, perhaps that’s because I’m on holiday right now that I’m able to have this good attitude. While I’m sure that’s a contributing factor, I suspect that it can also be attributed to ACCEPTANCE. Acceptance of all things bad and good and the realization that if I allow myself to get upset over something like getting older, I will never be able to enjoy the finest things each year has to offer me. 27 truly did bring me Nirvana – through the gift of TRANSCENDENCE – changing something I feared into something that I welcome. Yoga (here’s the shameless plug) is allowing that process to unfold for me. Here’s how:

Every time I go to class, I make it an experience. Many times I have raced through town in my car, trying to make it to class only 10 minutes late. After a few times, it became evident to me that that’s not how I wanted to approach my practice. So now, I choose to ride my bike. It requires a lot of extra time, but for me, there is nothing so fine as to be able to get where you’re going with two wheels and a handlebar. It makes me feel like I’m a kid again, only this time, it’s even better. Being a late bloomer in all aspects of my life, I didn’t ride without training wheels until I was 8. Even then, I would watch with envy as other kids in the neighborhood were already riding around with NO HANDS. I am proud to say that it only took 20 years, but now I am able to ride with no hands. And I can still only do this on my way home from yoga. I attribute this to balance and confidence that it took me this long to develop. No shame in that game, though – we get older and we keep trying and I hope when I’m 75 I’m still scooting around town, wherever I am, on a bicycle. And I hope it has a basket. With plastic flowers on it.

Please join me on my birthday quest for POSITIVITY. I have recently begun putting this into practice on a daily basis and let me tell you, it's working! I have been trying to write for years and just now am I actually able to sit down and do it every day. Here’s the formula: Every time you get off track in your mind (i.e., thinking you’re not good enough, smart enough, or nobody likes you), let the thought pass.

Let’s practice: You’ve really wanted to start a new venture; perhaps it’s artistic, perhaps it’s going back to school, starting a new relationship, or (insert your own goal here). Maybe you’re having trouble just making it through your day and you feel like there’s no light at the end of the tunnel. You have doubts and fears based on what you perceive to be failures in the past. You begin to think you won’t be good enough, and you start setting yourself up for failure by quitting before you even start. Can anyone relate? At this point, take a few minutes to stop berating yourself and BREATHE. Know that things can go wrong and they’re allowed to and you’re allowed to make mistakes. Every “mistake” brings you closer to success. Let the negativity pass and know that you are not your thoughts, you are something beyond them, something absolutely Divine. You exist and are worthy of everything, whether you succeed or fail. (Success feels good but that also is just a passing judgment of yourself.) You are who you are, and you are WONDERFUL and just getting better each day you are on this earth!

(In order to remember this, I am going to wear some form of red each day, even if it means tying a string to my wrist [power to the Kabbalists!]. Red, being the powerful, commanding color of the first chakra, the root of all being, I will use it this year to ground myself in this core belief. You might want to try this or wear some other thing to remind yourself of your own intention.)

Try this experiment, even if for only one day: Begin Right Now. Each time you have a negative or doubtful thought about yourself or your abilities, let it pass. Even if you want to strangle your neighbor for taking up those 2 extra inches of your parking space - begin again with the next moment. Choose to live in the present, which doesn’t require regret from the past or fear about the future in order to exist. It just is. You just are. Let me know how it goes! And dust off that old bike and take it for a cruise - just because.

Much Love,
J-Ma

P.S. You can now reply to this blog by emailing me at yogiinla@gmail.com . I am looking forward to sharing your responses (anonymously if you wish), so that others can get inspiration from your experiences. Can’t wait to hear from you!

Today’s Thought of the Day:
What if you slept
And what if
In your sleep
You dreamed
And what if
In your dream
You went to Heaven
And there plucked a strange and beautiful flower
And what if
When you awoke
You had that flower in your hand
Ah,
What then?

-Coleridge

Welcome to Yogi in L.A.!

2005-07-06T18:10:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Yogi in L.A.! Please join me in semi-daily musings on the trials and tribulations of trying to live a yogic lifestyle in Los Angeles. You know, trying to be nice to people and maintain a calm attitude, even as you are giving someone the finger and yelling, "go take a flying fuck, asshole" because they honked at you for driving too slow. Which I have never done.

Some may say L.A. is not the ideal place to try to live in bliss, but I disagree. I look at it as jumping into the lion's den. How can you practice peace, love, and kindness when everyone around you is a hippie? (Not that all hippies are peace and love - I have received some pretty nasty vibes from people in dreadlocks and tie-dye.) You can't. In fact, being around people who are happy all the time is just abnormal. L.A. has a reputation for being cold, fake, and isolationist (have you noticed that there are NO pedestrians? - Everyone is DRIVING). But I figure, in the paraphrased words of Frank Sinatra (RIP), if I can make it here, I can make it anywhere. It's in the daily tests we receive that the real measure of our selves is exposed, and just getting through all the difficult crap in the meantime is actually the most important thing. DIFFICULT MOMENTS PASS! My yoga teacher is constantly reminding us to BREATHE through difficult postures and, just when we think we can't take it anymore, BREATHE some more. Surrender to what is being revealed to you. But, we’ll get plenty esoteric later; patience, now!

As the fates would have it (or just really good timing), I am currently ON VACATION from my teaching gig. For the past year, I have been teaching marvelous, creative, intelligent, savvy, and hard-working adults (and some teenagers) who want a high school diploma. Some of my students go to work and/or school ALL DAY, and then come to my classes in the afternoons and evenings. Most of them had to learn English as another language. I am truly learning the meanings of the words “dedication” and “determination” from them. Also, I now know the lyrics to more than one Tupac Shakur song. Much love and gratitude to my students! See you in September!

I hope that you will join me back here as I muse on trying to maintain balance in a plastic, money-hungry, violent, and oftentimes confusing world. Please feel free to respond to any of the posts if you feel so inclined. Also, if anyone has any advice on how I can make this page more snazzy, please help. And bookmark me. I would hate to be writing for a year and find out that I have been talking to myself for 12 months.

Until next time,
Namaste!
J-Ma

Today’s thought of the day:

“I have had to experience so much stupidity, so many vices, so much error, so
much nausea, disillusionment and sorrow, just in order to become a child again
and begin anew. I had to sin in order to live again. This path is
stupid, it goes in spirals, perhaps in circles, but whichever way it goes, I
will follow it. Many people have to change a great deal and wear all sorts
of clothes. I am one of those, my friend.” -Siddhartha