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At My Gift’s suggestion, I watched “Across the Universe,” the musical based on The Beatles’ music.

I was a bit skeptical, of course — how could other people singing The Beatles’ music be any good? Well, what a trip this movie is. The songs come alive, and the plot is sequenced so you can really see what each of the songs is about.

The overarching theme is how to respond in a world filled with injustice. In the 60s, there was a perfect storm of the Vietnam War abroad and Civil Rights unrest at home. All mediated by technology — TV brought war and rioting right into peoples’ livingrooms. There was no way to pretend it wasn’t happening, and suddenly people were faced with making a moral decision. Ignore it? Fight against it? And if you choose to fight, do you protest peacefully, or take up arms?

It’s interesting, because in the movie, during the song “Revolution” (which takes place in an SDS-like office), they sing:

We all want to change the world
But when you talk about destruction
Don’t you know that you can count me out

but they decided to leave out what’s always been the most interesting part of the song for me — where Lennon sings: “Don’t you know that you can count me out… in… out,” as if wrestling with his choice.

Against this backdrop of social turmoil is the story of a handful of friends, each trying to fashion a personal moral center. The songs are used to explore the question that people faced in the 60s (and today): will you choose to be creative or destructive?

Will you choose violence (political or personal)? Will you choose to tune out with substances (there’s a whole segment devoted to the Merry Pranksters and their electric kool-aid acid test)? Will you choose to make art (and is that an adequate response)? Will you take refuge in spirituality?

Actually, the spiritual side of the Beatles wasn’t called out too much. Just one shot of Hare Krishnas dancing through a subway car. Perhaps the spiritual stuff seemed too out there (unlike chemically induced states of alternate reality! LOL!).

I’ve always loved the song “Across the Universe,” with its recurring line of “jai guru deva om.” Ah well, perhaps it isn’t quite time for a spiritual musical.

Wonderfully, the movie winds up with “All You Need Is Love.” Which is a great song, and the moral of the story — no matter how you ultimately get there.

Okay. Writing it out like that flattens out the affect of the experience. I was all weepy through many parts of the movie, and at the end, it’s totally uplifting.

Here: read Roger Ebert’s review. He’s better at this than I.

I’m just happy this movie is available for young people like My Gift to see. She’s seen documentaries and read about the 60s in school, but this movie makes you feel the 60s.

***

This time next week, I’ll be flying to DC for a few meetings at our Washington office. Did I break down and buy a proper winter coat? Indeed I did. At overstock.com. A $400 Michael Kors wool coat for $150. Go, me!

I’m trying to get my meeting schedule squared away so I can go practice with Tova (and Alfia, if she’s around) at their shala.

I think the Ashtanga community ought to reach out to our president-elect and bring him into the cult community. He looks like he’s cut out for an Ashtanga practice. As does his wife. C’mon, Tova and Alfia! You need to get going on this!

***

Current favorite (almost) raw breakfast:

Chopped fuji apple
Chopped medjool date
Chopped raw walnuts
Splash of soy milk
Cinnamon
Nutmeg (LOTS of it! Yum!)

You can use nut milk if you want to be 100% raw. I’m not highly motivated to make nut milk, and I also have a soymilk addiction that I enjoy cultivating.

Blog slacking, but no time for any other kind of slacking. Work and real life have been super busy.

Just got back from the Learning 2008 conference in Orlando. I love these learning technology conferences, and always come back with a million new ideas. This year, I am dying to design a really solid needs assessment instrument (enthralling notion, yes?). LOL! I know, it’s geeky. I attended a session on current thinking in qualitative research design and it’s got me all hyped up.

One deeeeeelightful surprise in Orlando was practice. Yes, plain old hotel room practice. It was marvelous. It was incredibly physically pleasant (very unusual after air travel), and even more surprisingly, it was effortlessly mindful and cheery. Quite honestly, 99.8% of my hotel practices have been studies in just-doing-it. But this time, they were actually exceptionally pleasing.

No idea why. But I’ll take it.

***

Practicing meant getting up at 4:30 AM in Florida, which is (and I was careful not to think about it too much) 1:30 AM Phoenix time. Ouch.

On the day I flew home, I got up at 1:30 AM (AZ time) practiced, attended the last day of conference, made my way to the airport, and got myself home. The Cop picked me up at the airport, which was lovely. Particularly since he was in uniform (I love the uniform!). Not in his squad car, though, even though I requested it (also requested he have the lights and siren going, but he nixed that). Anyhow, by the time I walked into the house, it was 8:30 PM. In other words, I’d been awake for 19 hours. Anyone who knows me knows that I am not good at staying up past my bed time. I can stay awake for 17 hours, but push me a minute past that, and I am very unhappy.

All I wanted was to fall into bed.

But then I opened the door to the house, thinking about poor Tyler, who was being transitioned to a new food and suffering a bit, according to The Cop, in terms of… um, loose outputs.

Oh my God. The stink when I opened the door to the house!

I knew whatever had happened was bad. Thank goodness Ty was confined to his crate. I walked into the bedroom, to be greated by a poo-covered (and I mean covered), excitedly wiggling puppy.

There was no option but to open the door of the crate.

Of course, he jumped all over me.

Hmmmm, I wondered for a moment. Is there any way I can just ignore all of this ’til tomorrow and just go to sleep? Uh, no.

So it was poo dog bath time, followed by more projectile pooping (in the back yard, thank goodness), and a night of disturbed sleep as the little fellow rolled around in his crate and made occasional requests to go outside again.

***

Yesterday at work, I tried to keep up with what was going on, catch up on things that’d fallen behind while I was away, and refine some of my notes from conference. All while feeling like a zombie.

Today will be more work madness.

At least Tyler is feeling better. Poor guy.

Bring on the weekend!

Holy piriformis, Batman!

Seriously, my piriformis was angry today. Or maybe it’s the gluteus medius? I don’t really know. I’ve been too busy to try to look things up and figure it out.

Work has been insane since last Friday. We are rolling out a new program and there are all kinds of customer satisfaction things to think about, and then there was a programming glitch — well, not a programming glitch, really, so much as a human logic glitch. The programmers did their job just fine. The people who were trying to figure out the logic of some of our initiatives (including me) came up short on the “figure out every possible permutation” challenge.

So starting Friday morning, and continuing on until close of business Tuesday, I was locked in a room, thinking and re-thinking three strings of logic that couldn’t, in the end, be reconciled.

But it was fun, you know, getting the headaches.

While all my other work, already on absurdly tight deadlines, backed up.

***

I practiced valiantly each morning, though. When work is that crazy, morning practice is all about getting it done and moving on. Which is fine. In those instances, the practice is a surface upon which “real life” is anchored. During those times, practice and life aren’t integrated. Which isn’t — I suppose — optimal, but so be it.

I have a slip of paper here that I found in the yoga room this morning. On it, a note-to-self: Sometimes practice is all about the processing and transformation of despair.

Interestingly, we use the practice to *generate* despair, too. I mean, in the end, I imagine practice can be a despair processor for life-in-general. The funny thing, though, is that we generate all kinds of angst around the very practice itself, and then use that to refine the processor. Kinda funny.

***

When you are both alive and dead,
Thoroughly dead to yourself,
How superb
The smallest pleasure.

Bunan 1602-76

***

I just went out on the patio, realizing Tyler was being too quiet. Managed to sneak up on him: he was lying there with a little pile of dirt between his paws, which he’d taken from a planter and was happily eating. Nothing better than lying in the sun, eating some dirt. He looked up guiltily when he realized I was there. He is so freaking cute.

Now he’s here on the couch, trying to get hold of one of his favorite things: a hair tie. In this case, the hair tie I’m wearing.

***

Tyler is now on an elimination diet to try to pinpoint what, exactly, he is allergic to. The Cop brought him to his favorite vet in the world, which involves close to a two hour drive time (each way!). She is running blood tests, and in the meantime, an elimination diet.

And to top it off, Tyler is eating a vegetarian elimination diet. Brown rice, pinto beans, tofu, some green veggies, apples, carrots. That’s it.

The difference in his health is astonishing. His skin is no longer all pink and angry; he doesn’t scratch relentlessly; he sleeps better. He is so much happier.

Last night, I gave him some flax oil, and he had an allergy attack. I looked at the kibble we were feeding him. Yup. Flax. We’ll see what else the blood tests tell us when they come back.

The beauty part of this diet is that I am making huge pots of rice and beans. We keep all of the dog food on the middle shelf of the refrigerator. Maxine has always had a raw food diet: ground meat and bones, chopped veggies, raw eggs. Now there’s a tupperware of beans and one of rice and a container of tofu.

The Cop was kind of horrified the other morning as I made my lunch before work. “Are you eating the dog’s food?” he asked, as I pulled tubs off the middle shelf.

“Yeah! It’s great!” I replied. Very handy.

***

And now Tyler is fast asleep beside me, lying on his back with a length of climbing rope clenched in his teeth.

Had to be in the office by 7 AM. Egads, this is ridiculous. Got up at 3:30 with Tyler. Fed him and amused him until he keeled over for his morning nap. Then I did a crim Ashtanga practice. To navasana, then intermediate to ustrasana. Then closing.

Here’s the deal: I have to face the fact that I have been systematically overadjusted over the past few weeks and am now feeling the effects. None of this is the teacher’s fault, the system’s fault, or my fault. Everyone was just being enthusiastic and devoted.

Nevertheless, I’ve had too many deep adjustments and my body is pretty tweaked.

Piriformis = shot. T12 = shot.

Ah, well.

The crim week is well-timed, and has been useful. I was being adjusted so much that I started to think my practice sucked. Which made me work harder. Which brought more adjustments. Which… blah blah blah.

It’s been nice to go to classes I have no investment in and just see myself in a mirror. Everything is fine, I don’t need to try so hard. All the striving is “working,” if being the flexible person in class is the goal. It’s not working if being balanced and free of pain is the goal.

I am going to take some time to be even MORE crim. I am going to get a mirror in the yoga room so I can assess my alignment, and I’m going to spend some time doing awareness work, and if I go to Mysore practice, I am going to request spoken adjustments rather than hands-on adjustments.

T12 pain sensation brought me to investigate chiropractors on the company health plan. I go to chiropractors every couple of years or so, when I need a few sessions to fix whatever I’ve done to myself.

Selected the chiro closest to the office and made an appointment for the next day. Last chiro I went to was not amused that I’d messed up my back by doing a little ricochet fall while rock climbing. Seemed to think I should bag the climbing and schedule twice-weekly chiro sessions to go on into perpetuity. How would it go with the new guy? I wondered.

Well, I guess I’m gonna call the new guy Disco Doc. Why? He’s a smooth-talking fellow who is straight out of one of the upscale martini bars here in Scottsdale. Lots of off-handed, clearly well-rehearsed one liners. Gold chain to indicate alpha status. (Though if you indicate alpha status, you are automatically disqualified. Seriously, that’s the rule. Make note.)

He seemed disconcerted by my explanation of the pain. (“It’s not too bad — I pretty much only feel it when I backbend or put my feet behind my head.”) Suggested humans aren’t meant to do such things. I find this a little distressing. Shouldn’t Disco Doc, of all people, have a deep and abiding respect for the strength and flexibility of the spinal column?

No matter. He cracked my back like a pro, and that’s really all I care about. The nightclub-quality patter can be overlooked. Unless I ever go into an appointment and find him wearing leather pants. If that happens, I’m outta there.

Anyhow, freshly cracked, I presented myself at the front desk to book my second session. “Oh, he won’t be here,” the receptionist said, sadly. “You’ll have to see the other doctor.”

Things are going my way.

***

Yup, so the T12 hurts, and the right piriformis. Primary on Friday wasn’t horribly painful, but I felt distracted by the sensations that just feel odd until I go deep enough to find the painful cream filling. And it was extremely hard to relax in supta kurmasana as Muscle Man pulled the knot of my legs tighter.

Next week is a full week of very early mornings at the office. A number of different conference calls and webconferences and presentations for different groups — all of which start anywhere from 7 to 8 AM. Plus, I have to factor in a half hour to prepare whatever technology we’re using to broadcast. So, yoga practice will be… um, different. As soon as I saw how my schedule was panning out, I told my boss I couldn’t possibly skip practice 5 days in a row. She was quite sympathetic. Suggested I practice at some point during the work day, seeing as I’ll be coming in so early.

I’ve scoured the schedules of some nearby studios and will do a combination of Anusara and Bikram classes next week. Ought to be good blog fodder, for one thing — will also give me a break from the, uh, repetitive stress of Ashtanga, brush me up on alignment (Anusara) and offer some heat therapy (Bikram).

When I first started considering my crim week, I felt like I was betraying my religion. Now I’m feeling pretty excited and amused by the whole idea.

***

Noodled around with handstands and the wall ropes as the puppy took his mid-morning nap this morning. Handstands are sucky since I haven’t been practicing them at all. This is sad, because nothing makes me happier than doing handstands for my own amusement. I really don’t think of them as yoga; much like headstands, they are just things I liked to do even before I ever took a yoga class.

And wall rope hijinks are great fun. Even though I do always wonder about how well the attachments are holding up.

[wpvideo 0O3QXbse]

***

May take the puppy over to visit my parents today. They live about 40 minutes away. How much of one of the seats in The Cop’s truck will Tyler be able to eat in 40 minutes, I wonder?

People ask me if American bulldogs bark. Not so much apparently. What they do, though, is moan. This video is a pretty mellow example. He can go on chewing and moaning for minutes on end, getting louder and louder. It’s hilarious. One day, I think I’ll lie under my desk at work with a chew toy and make existential moans like an American bulldog.

Feast your ears.

[wpvideo 1fKInfEX]

The Cop was very late this morning, due to a fatal hit and run accident. The dogs and I hung out. For a moment there, Tyler even fell asleep next to Maxine. Usually he spends all of his time nipping at her and tormenting her.

Got a couple of pictures of them — amazing how quickly Tyler is growing. When we got him three weeks ago, he weighed 9.5 pounds. Today, 18.5. If he keeps up this pace, he’ll weigh 126 on his first birthday. Kidding. He’ll top out around 100.

At noon, I decided to make a special treat for myself: broccoli, sauteed slowly until burnt. Mmmmm.

Tyler, who loves the kitchen, is always super attentive when I’m cooking. Here’s a picture of what I see whenever I am at the stove. If he gets tired of waiting, he lies down. ON my foot.

Practice was catch as catch can. It’s hard to practice with a crazed dog having fits nearby. If I could let him into the space with me, he wouldn’t howl and moan. But surely it’d be hard to keep my driste as he bit my hair and nipped my triceps. I assume he will calm down someday. In the meantime, I’m grateful for the shala option. I can get over there Monday-Wednesday, and Friday. Sunday and Thursday practices will have to be more improvisational.

Actually, I have a week coming up (week after next) where I am actually scheduled for meetings at 7 and 7:30 AM Monday through Thursday. Ones I can’t ditch. Ones with attendees from outside the company who will be hearing about some new strategic initiatives. *sigh*

I have to take some time to figure out how I am going to handle this. Get up at 3 AM to practice? Not out of the question, and I’ve done it before — the only catch is that I’ll probably have to sleep in the guest bedroom and do my practice there. If I’m not on the other side of the house, Tyler will hear me and insist upon getting up and starting his morning routine of FOOD and POOPING and CAVORTING! No way am I going to be down with that at 3 AM.

Other options include leaving work early and practicing in the afternoon. Still, though, there’s the CAVORTING dog issue.

I’ll need to spend some time coordinating with The Cop and figure it out…

Fluctuating Mind has a really nice blogroll that I like to catch up on when I have a few moments.

Today’s been a weird day, energywise. Last night, Maxine (the old dog) was restless and paced around, asking to be let out every hour or so. Which woke Tyler, who then wanted to go out, and then wanted to cry when returned to his crate. So we were all up pretty much all night.

Morning rolls around and The Cop gets home from night shift, Maxine goes to sleep for the day with him, and Tyler swings wildly between utter mania and deep unconsciousness. Any time he keels over, I can get something done. And when he is awake, there are some things I can accomplish that actually hold his attention. So far, I’ve completed a presentation for a conference session (during sleep time), cleaned half of the house (during wake time — he’s scared of the dry mop, mildly amused by the broom, and thrown into fits of joyous attack mode by the feather duster), and managed to do a little reading (some during sleep time and some stolen moments during wake time).

During one of his naps, I lay down on his mat with him and fell asleep. It reminded me of when My Gift was a baby. I was so captive to her schedule that I threw myself into sleep whenever she did — just so I could keep up.

Currently work is a madhouse because we have a number of major projects all happening at once, and, most importantly, my right-hand colleague, confidant, and friend is out on maternity leave. Gah! I’m loving interim-managing the design team in her absence, after a good spell of doing primarily strategy stuff, but damn, humans suck up a lot of energy! I’m happy to give it, but need to keep adjusting my own levels so I can stay balanced…

And at home, there’s Tyler — adorable black hole sucking up endless energy. All of this adds up to a revised kind of life for me. I realize how simple my life can be — I get up at exactly the same time every day, do the same practice, head to the office at the same time. Both The Cop and I love peaceful routine.

Things are a little different right now, though. Which is fine.

And all of this brings me back, in a roundabout way, to Fluctuating Mind’s blogroll, where I read a couple of posts that are just perfect for today.

How do you practice when no one’s watching?

How do you practice when you have other responsibilities?

Can I blog? Not so much. He jumps on the keyboard, he lunges at my chair, he grabs the leg of my pants and tries to run off with me.

Tyler is adorable and ALWAYS up to something. Something that includes chewing.

***

I want this suit. A lot.

***

Going to go check out an “Ashtanga mix” class this morning. A mix of poses from different series. Music. Laughter. The hilarity of defeat (one assumes). The British Director and Sanskrit Scholar will be there, too. Ought to be fun.

I go into work at noontime today. One of the managers tells me she’s having a bad day. She looked at her hand when she was typing and realized the diamond was missing out of her ring.

The ring is beautiful, a combination wedding/engagement ring. Avant garde design, with a pressure setting. The metal of the setting has two finishes, one matt and one shiny. And a detail line of small diamonds. The main diamond was from her husband’s family. She felt really bad about losing something that had been in his family for so long.

She’d looked all over the building, in her car, across the parking lot. By the time I got in to work, she’d given up. She’s quite calm and philosophical, so she was busy coming to grips with what had happened.

As she told me the story, I flashed on a memory of being in one of our conference rooms, talking with her and another manager. I recalled looking at her ring from across the table and being curious that I could see the detail diamonds flashing, but no reflection from the main stone. I thought it was an optical illusion of some sort.

It took me a minute to remember what day the meeting had taken place and which meeting room we’d been in. I didn’t say anything to her, but took a stroll over to the room, recalled where she’d been sitting and looked under the table. There, sure enough, was the diamond, exactly as I imagined.

It was very cool — unravelling all of this from a little fragment of perception.

I went back to her desk.

“Close your eyes and put out your hand…”

“You found it!”

She was so happy. What a nice way to finish up on my last day before vacation.

The gym experiment (go to the gym at noon in order to GET AWAY from work thoughts/emotions) was interrupted on Wednesday and Thursday, because I attended an offsite strategy planning meeting. Will get back to the gym tomorrow.

The only catch, really, is that the gym is loud and busy. Not crowded-busy, but energy-busy and visually-busy. No doubt that was part of the design of the space, and the energy that people bring to the space also contributes.

***

Raw food diet goes along nicely. I have always been a slacker cook, so trust me, I’m not making all kinds of fancy raw meals. Salads, fruit, smoothies — those’ll do just fine. I did roll some avocado, carrots and cucumber in sheets of nori for “sushi.” That seemed kind of purposeful and civilized.

Current project involves sprouting quinoa. It’s a delicate job, since the grains are so small, and I live in the desert (where everything dries up at a frightening rate).

And here’s a question: I’ve been tracking my intake using the CRON-o-meter. A very handy tool. What I’m seeing, though, is that if I eat a big serving of kale, I am off the charts on vitamin A. Seriously off the charts. Is this something to even be concerned about?

As far as effects of the diet: I was surprised to have detox effects, because my diet wasn’t bad to begin with, but there you have it. A really bad headache a couple of days in, and then a few days of intermittent headaches. They’re gone now, though.

On the up side, it is amazing how different my body feels. I don’t quite know how to describe it, except to say that there is a dramatic reduction of inflammation in my system. How this “feels” goes like this: when I wake in the morning, there are no… well, no stiff or “lost” areas. Hmmmm. This is hard to explain. Usually there are spots that feel “fuzzy” or “puffy” — kind of like they’re giving off a physical static — I’m thinking of my knees, my finger joints, and often my shoulders. I actually don’t know that I would have noticed that the fuzziness/inflammation was there, truth be told. I only know now because I’ve noticed it missing. The other spot is the abdominal cavity. You know how some days the abdominal cavity feels clear and responsive and raring to go during practice? And other days it’s kind of puffy and sluggish? Yeah, it’s straight to clear and responsive each day. Likewise my mind.

***

Books: The Granularity of Growth and Kundalini: The Evolutionary Energy in Man.

Diametrically opposed? I think not.

But maybe that’s the raw food and yoga practice talking.