The final post of 2008!

I'm the first to admit that New Years' Eve is a totally overrated holiday. Every year that I try to plan something awesome and fun, I end up asleep or on the subway at midnight, or in one case, bedridden with tonsillitis in London. This year, i.e. tonight, I'm working at the Hong Kong, serving up scorpion bowls in the wee and first hours of 2009.

But one thing I do take take seriously is New Years' resolutions. And I've decided that the problem with them is accountability. We all make resolutions, or at least most of us do, but we keep them to ourselves. This is so that when we eat a half-bag of microwave popcorn and watch Cheers reruns at 3 a.m., like I did last night, no one can say "Gee, Katie, remember how you resolved to eat more nutritiously, be more active, and go to bed at a reasonable hour?" Instead, you can quietly fail and no one is the wiser.

So I'm putting my resolutions on this blog for all (i.e. my 9 readers) to see. And I'm giving you permission to nag me if I break them in the first six months of '09.

1. Do more yoga

All-One Yoga in Allston is a 5-min. walk from my house and they have a student discount, so really, there is no excuse. Plus, my ineptness probably gives others hope and confidence, so it could be argued that my presence in a yoga class serves a greater good.

2. Create a daily writing schedule and stick to it

I'm one semester into grad school and while I'm writing more, I'm still not writing every day. And I should. I should get my ass out of bed at a reasonable hour and write.

3. Submit to literary magazines and journals

I'm sure I'll get rejected my first few times at bat, but I need to at least start attempting to get published somewhere other than on this blog.

4. Eat better

I offer yesterday's food log as evidence: 1 cinnamon raisin bagel with cream cheese, 1 coffee, 7 beers (I went to a free tasting at the Harpoon brewery!), onion rings, fries and mac 'n cheese at Roadhouse (shared among 4 people...don't judge), 1/2 bag of microwave popcorn, 4 graham crackers with peanut butter spread on them

5. Pay off my Capital One Visa

Seriously, the interest rate is like 26% or something. I resolve to get rid of this card every year and but can't seem to get the motherfucker out of my wallet. I don't even use it, but with the accrued interest, I can't seem to pay it off.

I think 5 is good number of resolutions. I could go on with a minor list of easily achievable things (like mail back the Ulysses S. Grant biography manuscript that I decided not to copyedit back in October before the author presses legal action), but this feels like a solid "to-do in 2009" list.

Happy New Years'!


(maybe resolution #6 should be to stop using lame stock photography on my blog....)

Start where you begin

One of the best parts of moving to a new city is that you can reinvent yourself. You can make a decision to be a certain kind of person and your new friends won't know you've changed. For instance, I have recently decided to become a woman who does yoga regularly. This transition would be much more difficult if I were still in Brooklyn, where all my friends know how graceless and lazy I am.

I now am a member at All One Yoga studio in Boston. I even bought a mat. I am a woman who owns her own yoga mat.

Here's my issue with yoga, though -- the stuff the instructors say to you during class. They say things that would only make sense if you were high. Which I don't think you are supposed to be while doing yoga. Today my instructor Mary said encouragingly to the class: "Start where you begin." Say wha? Should I also end where I finish?

Sometimes I feel a little like Morales in a Chorus Line describing acting class. I tried super hard today in my Hot Hatha class to "find the center of my center" but I'm just not convinced I actually did.

Some of the poses also need to be renamed. Here are my suggestions:

Child's Pose = Hangover Pose

Downward Dog = Backdoor Pose



You've Got to Be Fucking Kidding Me Pose

The other people in class can be problematic too. Today I was stationed behind two girls that I will call Hotshot Bitches.

Wait, shit, yoga is all about peace and positive energy and relaxation. I take it back. They are not Hotshot Bitches who show off how flexible they are and go into the poses before the instructor even names them. They are not like that at all.

There's also usually a token male in the class and today was no exception. Token Male was also the loudest breather in the room. He sounded like he was trying to extinguish the Olympic torch with each exhale.

There was, however, one person in class that I felt very positively about: Girl Who Was Even More Hopeless Than Me. Bless her heart, she kept falling over in simple poses like Warrior 1. Tree pose? Fuggetaboudit.

But the most embarrassing part of today's class came toward the end, when we were finished with standing poses and were on the floor. At one point, Mary told us to lie on our stomachs and place our hands under our bodies near the pelvis.

Think about that for a second.

Now, as I mentioned on this blog, I already have anxiety dreams about accidentally masturbating in public. So this pose was really weirding me out. Then I was supposed to lift my legs or something and press my hands somewhere (the floor? my crotch?) but I was so worried about it looking like I was having an intimate moment that I totally failed. And due to my angle on the floor, I couldn't even sneak a peek to see what the Hotshot Bitches were doing.

Maybe tomorrow's Vinyasa class will be better. For now, I'm going to find the center of my center the way I usually do it: