It's Only A Paper Rose

I'm grateful that I have no particular difficulty with fireworks; I wouldn't want to have people shooting them off every night, but once or twice a year doesn't really bother me, and I genuinely enjoy the more artistic displays. Towards that latter end, we decided to head down to the park to watch the Saddle and Cycle Club's (yes, we have an honest-to-god country club in our neighborhood, dating back to the 1920s when this area was a tony suburb of Chicago) annual fireworks display. They were gracious enough to invite the plebeians to watch from the beaches and parks nearby...you know, the ones that are public property. So generous!

After literal years of talking about it, Brian had finally nabbed a small grill to do a cookout. So yesterday morning, we bundled up the car with the grill and charcoal and bags of chips and utensils and blankets and a cooler bag with approximately 50 pounds of various meatstuffs and salads and ice packs, and drove all of five blocks to the lakefront park, intending to unload and have me drive back/walk down (parking at the park is difficult on any nice day, but absolutely insane on holidays)...only to discover that the police had blocked off the parking lot, likely to manage traffic flow. Well, at least we didn't go too far out of our way, heh. We pared down our supplies some and I dug an old wheeled luggage bag out of the closet to pack up the cooler and we managed to trundle everything down on foot; Jamila came down to meet us and helped us unpack everything. The weather was lovely - humid, but not unpleasantly hot, with a nice breeze to keep the smoke from the fireworks and cookouts moving. Most of the families around us were Hispanic; Brian commented later that it was nice to spend Independence Day surrounded by immigrants.

Brian's food was predictably excellent; Jamila got a great picture of him in front of our tiny grill. She also documented our excellent burgers and one of our gigantic beef ribs; and, at my spur-of-the-moment request, did her best Baby Groot impression). I spent most of the time sprawled on our blanket, reading and occasionally reapplying sunscreen; at one point our friend Erin stopped by and we chatted for a bit, although unfortunately her dog was feeling poorly so she wasn't able to stay for the fireworks.

Possibly my favorite part of the day, aside from the fireworks show, was dusk; the crowds were starting to go really wild with the fireworks, so everything was getting noisy and flashing, but amidst the chaos there were comparatively tiny fireflies coming out, blinking hopefully at the colorful displays. You keep those aspirations high, fireflies!

Hello, fellow book nerds! Last Wednesday was a bit nuts; Brian and I were scrambling about trying to get all the last-minute preparations done for our trip to Washington state, only to discover that our pleasant evening flight had been delayed into an overnight flight thanks to thunderstorms shutting down O'Hare. (Thanks a lot, Chicago weather!) We made it eventually, although we had to shell out no small amount for Lyfts as transit wasn't running that late/early...ah well. The past week has been full of robot fights and gigantic waterfalls and a quick visit with the goddaughter and walks with my mother-in-law and driving. So much driving. And more later today. Washington state, why do you have to be so huge. >.>

And, of course, there has been reading!

What I've just finished reading

The Heiress Effect, by Courtney Milan. Incredibly generic covers aside, I've found this series to be one of my favorite period romances. It does suffer somewhat from the common "Regency romance that's basically modern people living in the trappings of the period" problem, but the characters are so well-drawn and likable that I enjoy them anyway, even if they're ultimately a little forgettable (except, perhaps, for Free and her Suffragettes! in book 4).


What I'm currently reading

Come As You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life, by Emily Nagowski, Ph.D. (Yeah, I'm reading roughly a million other books right now, but I bought this intending to read it right away...almost exactly two years ago, if the receipt is to be believed. :P In any case, I finally picked it up off my nightstand and brought it along for the trip.) If you're interested in sociology and sexuality, this is a fascinating book - far more interesting than Future Sex, for all that it's more science-based than memoir. Nagowski's big reveal (er, spoilers? She talks about it in literally the first chapter) is the accelerator/brakes model of sexual arousal, where rather than an on/off switch, eroticism is mostly a matter of context. So we react sexually when there are enough turn-ons present in the environment (say, presence of an attractive partner, sounds/sights of other people having sex, relaxed and receptive mood) and relatively few turn-offs (say, crying children, an unappreciative audience, history of sexual trauma, general life stress); ergo what we think of as "sex drive" is really as much a question of what's going on in the person's immediate surroundings and in their life.

I have a lot of thoughts on this theory. Primarily, Nagowski seems to think it's mostly applicable to women, because their sexuality is socialized in a more complex way; that may be true, but I strongly suspect it's true for a lot of men too, if perhaps to a lesser degree. Similarly, I don't think it's only sex that utilizes this mechanism; laughter, say, is heavily context-dependent, as articulated in the benign violation theory of humor. And the sympathetic/parasympathetic nervous system works in a similar way to generate a whole host of responses to a range of different situations. So I'll be interested to see where she takes it.

The Kissing Booth Girl and Other Stories, by AC Wise. I picked this up as part of the LGBTQ Humble Bundle (it doesn't count as buying new books if it's supporting a good cause, right??), and basically opened it up knowing nothing about it. It seems to be lyrical sci-fi stories with a queer bent; the worldbuilding's been a little scanty in the stories I've read so far, but the sheer human longing at the center of each has been strong and well-rendered enough to easily drive the plots forward.


What I plan to read next

Given that I currently have something like eight books on my currently-reading list, I think I'm going to be best served by finishing some of them before I start to plan more, haha.

I'm just over halfway through my internship, and picked up enough substitute classes to shave off more than a month (it's been less than two months, as opposed to the three-and-a-half it would have taken if I'd only taught my single regular weekly class). I've successfully dealt with a couple of unexpected issues mid-class - including, one memorable week, a confused-seeming woman bursting in through the emergency exit door (!) in the middle of a class, saying something about wanting her free week. (We have signs in the window advertising a free first week; she had found the front door locked and gone around to the side, where apparently I hadn't pulled the door all the way shut after airing out the studio. I gently-but-firmly explained to her that she'd need to come back before a class, through the front. Fortunately she left without incident; it was disconcerting, but happened at a convenient stopping point and I just skipped ahead to the next section of class.)

As with any performative skill, I have a hard time measuring objectively how I'm doing - whenever anyone asks how my internship is going, I say something like "Well, I haven't killed anyone yet, so I guess it's going well!" That said, I do feel like I'm settling into a rhythm of sorts. I'm more confident, at least within the confines of the format. I'm getting better at the more conversational parts, too, although I usually do some journaling and occasionally practicing in the shower to make sure I can convey my point in the limited time window. Somewhat entertainingly, Dominika (my two-levels-up supervisor/former anatomy teacher/friend/person I greatly admire, who also has taught at CorePower for years and knows basically everyone in the community) came to one of my classes...and of course it was the morning that I'd forgotten I was subbing an earlier class and was mildly hungover. Oops. I got out there and taught as well as I could; I knew I wasn't running at 100%, but past that, I couldn't really tell how I'd come off. So I braced myself for some honest feedback...and then Dominika came out and unhesitatingly told me I was already a better teacher than people she knew who'd been teaching for ten years. o.O Well, I wasn't going to look that gift horse in the mouth, even if I felt a little undeserving, heh. Still, that combined with the fact that I regularly have students inquire what classes I teach on the schedule tells me I'm doing something right.

Making playlists remains one of my favorite parts of the job; this week's, however, was giving me trouble. I'd challenged myself to make something more instrumental-focused, since I'd noticed that it was easier to teach when I wasn't having to compete vocally with singers. And I discovered that figuring out instrumental tracks is a lot more time-consuming - it's harder for me to bring a song's hook to mind without a chorus to hum. I ended up working on that one right down to the wire, convinced that it wasn't one of my stronger efforts...and discovered in situ that it actually was one of my best in terms of mood and timing. (Gift horse number 2!) I also had multiple people comment how much they liked it after the three classes I taught yesterday and today; that marks the first time anyone's commented on the music specifically. Combined with the positive feedback I've seen other teachers get on mostly-instrumental playlists, that seems like a strong indicator...I guess I'm going to have to get better at remembering song hooks and start listening to more instrumental music.

So that's the first half done! I suspect the second may take a bit longer, as I have a vacation coming up and also some visitors, but we'll see. The weather has been mostly excellent, so between teaching at Lincoln Square and Uptown and Sauganash, I've been biking all over the far north side of Chicago; I've been packing my little rechargeable Bluetooth carabiner speaker and having a complete blast listening to the Awesome Mix as I pedal against the wind. My thighs are going to be massive by the end of summer.

Last Tuesday I had the sort of back-of-the-throat sinus pain that usually heralds an oncoming cold; however, given the option to believe it was allergies, which I've never had (in fairness, May is an especially terrible month for allergies in Chicago), or a cold, I inexplicably went with the former and did not adjust my activity schedule in the least. Three hours of massage, an hour of biking, two hours of yoga, and two days later, I was in full-blown no-energy knocked-on-my-butt cold territory, and missed two days' work at the spa as a result. Eugh. I'm nearly better, aside from a trailing cough, but it serves me right for not listening to my body.

But hey! Lots of reading time!


What I've just finished reading

Sunstone, vol. 5, by Stjepan Šejić. The writing in this lesbian BDSM love story has been a little uneven - though, in fairness, no more so than most romances - but the artwork. Whoa. (It's not explicit, though definitely NSFW.) Šejić has clearly cultivated the high-level comic creator's ability to visualize a scene in an unusual way that contributes to the telling of the story, and several of the story bits that might feel a little interminable in text are rendered in striking and imaginative ways that help communicate the narrator's state of mind. I particularly liked, in this volume, watching Lisa's somewhat fragmented mental waffling illustrated as the falling petals of a nearly universe-sized daisy - she loves me, she loves me not. (Because man, when you're in love and uncertain, it really can take up your whole universe.) And even with its somewhat fanfic-y feel, the character and major plot arcs are all resolved in an emotionally authentic way. I loved it.

All In the Timing, by David Ives. This was a gift from cyrano, and while I enjoyed reading it, it definitely illustrated to me why I don't spend a lot of time reading plays any longer - I haven't cultivated that sense of directorial vision, capable of considering multiple possible presentations simultaneously, and doing so is a lot more mental work than just reading a novel. Still, my benefactor asked for my thoughts, so here they are:

--The concepts behind "Sure Thing" (where two strangers navigate the tricky waters of a coffee-shop conversation on the way to genuine connection, with a gong helpfully sounding whenever one of them missteps) and "Philip Glass Buys a Loaf of Bread" (a musical number playing on the eponymous composer's stylistic quirks and nihilistic sensibility transposed into a completely banal setting) both made me smile, although I wonder how many people the latter would really play to outside of particular demographics - surely lots of theater-goers haven't seen Koyannisqatsi.

--"Words, Words, Words" (in which three monkeys with typewriters serve as a metaphor for the blind human push toward art-making) struck me as a little precious in its conceit, but could work with a good enough director/cast.

--"The Universal Language" (in which a con man sells lessons in his invented "Unamunda" language to a woman suffering from a stutter, only to find such joy in teaching it to her that he falls for his own con) surprised me in its earnestness; I'd thought that I had pegged the collection as rather more postmodern cynicism, but it was oddly touching all the same.

--"The Philadelphia" was more straightforward, didn't outstay its primary joke, and made me genuinely laugh. ("I've been in a Cleveland all week. It's like death, but without the advantages.")

--Weirdly, "Variations on the Death of Trostky", which seems to be the one most people remember from this collection, didn't do a lot for me as written; I think that may be the lack of directorial eye speaking. I felt like I was missing something, whether from the direction or political context or simple lack of familiarity with 1930s Russian socialist philosophy.

Still, on the whole, I enjoyed the collection, and would totally audition for the part of Dawn in "The Universal Language".

An Extraordinary Union, by Alyssa Cole. Luckily this picked up some as the story progressed; most critically, Elle gained some depth of character. I appreciate that she's still prickly and judgmental (and justifiably so, given her history and contemporaneous context), but she gets to be a little more three-dimensionally human as things go on. And the Confederate vs. Union spy plot does a nice job moving things along, as well as giving the romance a sense of urgency sometimes lacking in the genre.

The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood. Hrmm. So many mixed feelings on this one. asakiyume brought up some very cogent points about how it feels like a very specific and limited dystopia - although there's some discussion of how it affects other groups (largely through deportation), the focus is by far on educated middle-and-upper-class white women, and reflects a very specific fear of their social worth (and, thus, their privilege) being reduced down to that of baby-making machines. Which seems almost quaint in retrospect - as she pointed out, if anything, what's kept women subservient (in our culture and in others) has been not a lack of fertility, but an abundance of it; higher education and social autonomy for women is linked strongly to access to birth control.

That's not to invalidate the underlying fear - given the persistent volume (if not necessarily numbers) of the conservative movement, and the high placement of some of its more extreme members, it's understandable that the Netflix series has become popular - but it does seem rather blind to how its dystopia would be received by women of different ethnic or social groups. (There's no mention as to what, if anything, has happened to black women, for instance. I pictured the narrator's friend Moira as a lighter-skinned black woman, although I don't think there's anything in the text to support that. Nor is there much differentiation in social class - would a poorer woman already used to being largely looked down on embrace her role as a Handmaid, given that it comes with a certain cachet?)

There are some touches here that ring true - I especially liked the portrayal of a culture that promises women freedom from predatory sexualization under patriarchal guardianship, only to have those same supposed guardians be the one doing the predating. But for every detail that felt "right", there were others that brought up far more questions - who, for instance, does this dictatorship even serve? How does it fit into global politics? Who are they fighting? How did they even get into power in the first place, absent some kind of major disaster? I realize that our narrator's limited viewpoint means some of these questions naturally would go unanswered, but I have a feeling osprey_archer's Society for Improved Dictatorship would have some choice words for these people.


What I'm currently reading

A Talent for Trickery, by Alissa Johnson. In a weird way, this is turning out to be the opposite of An Extraordinary Union. The female protagonist is charming and well-drawn from the outset, but both leads are getting bogged down in a lot of Feelings About the Past, which, while certainly a valid part of romance (especially between two thirtysomethings with a history), doesn't make for a particularly dynamic plot. Most of the actual plot developments have been fairly external to the characters, which isn't necessarily a problem, but here has had the result of making the female lead especially a passive reactor in her own story - something that's frustrating to her (given that she's a former con woman and not used to passivity) as much as me, the reader. I do like the theme of how people's lives and priorities can change over time, but I hope things pick up here as well.

Future Sex, by Emily Witt. "Internet dating had evolved to present the world around us, the people in our immediate vicinity, and to fulfill the desires of a particular moment. At no point did it offer guidance in what to do with such a vast array of possibility. {...} It brought us people, but it did not tell us what to do with them." Even beyond Internet dating, this seems to be the thrust of the book so far - Witt writes about her desire for connection, but seems patently uninterested in forming any kind of actual personal connection with anyone she encounters. I think asakiyume hit the nail on the head last week when she pointed out that going into any kind of relationship simply looking to get your needs met is a recipe for failure, since a relationship should be about what you can do for the other person as much as what they can do for you; this definitely adds a pathetic (in the sense of "pathos" as well as the more common definition) dimension to her search. I'm waiting to see if Witt will show any insight on this point, although I admit my hopes are not high. Luckily it's not a terribly long book.


What I plan to read next

I'm going to need a new audiobook to replace The Handmaid's Tale. I'm eyeing Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life, although I want to read a bit more of her work before I tackle the biography - I've read a bunch of her domestic-humor writing (which is notable in how it's been dismissed as trivial, despite the very real thread of psychological horror and fear in losing one's personhood to 1950s domesticity...or maybe that's just my interpretation), but little of her outright horror other than "The Lottery". I have a copy of The Sundial I ordered more than a year ago (!) that I've been meaning to read...or maybe I'll use one of my Audible credits to nab The Haunting of Hill House or another of her works. Suggestions?

After years of dismissing it as "yoga for masochists" or "yoga class in hell", I finally took a Yoga Sculpt class Monday - a couple friends of mine are in teacher training and I wanted to support them. The format is sort of a yoga/boot camp fusion - you do some poses to warm up, and then you add free weights and start using the various poses as bases from which to work various muscle groups. And believe me, they work you *hard* - I thought I hated horse pose before, but horse pose in a regular yoga class is nothing compared to horse pose + reps for five times the length.

Needless to say, that was pretty much the longest hour of my life. Afterwards, I almost felt drunk on the endorphins - my balance was off and I was super friendly towards basically everyone. (Not quite to the point of slinging an arm over people's shoulders and slurring "I love you, man!", but close.) Definitely type II fun, heh.

Now, a couple of days later, I'm still sore but considering doing the teacher training for it - making playlists is one of my favorite aspects of yoga teaching, and unsurprisingly, the playlist is a big part of keeping the energy going. I already have roughly a zillion ideas - what about a Awesome Mix class? Or a Broadway musical themed class? ("My Shot" is sort of a gimme, but I'm laughing out loud just thinking about using Book of Mormon's "Man Up" for the last big push at the end when everyone's dying.)

Whether or not I do the training, I'm trying to decide whether I want to start doing Sculpt classes regularly - it's a real challenge, and I admit I'm a little nervous about the potential for injury. But on the other hand, I feel like now's a good time in my life for anything physical - I'm more active than I've ever been, I don't have any significant physical limitations, and frankly, that won't last forever. I don't have any particular fitness goals - I'm not trying to get ripped, or get a six-pack, or run a marathon or GoRuck event - but I like the feeling that I can do more now than I've ever been able to in the past; I've reached the point physically where the standard yoga classes are great for maintenance but aren't really a challenge. It feels like it might be worth the investment to push a little harder, just to see what I'm capable of.

It's amazing how much "I just finished three weeks with all of two days off and no relaxation days in any of them" feels like "I'm fighting off a cold", except without the sniffles and coughing. Not that I'm complaining, but I suspect I've learned my lesson about scheduling downtime, heh. At least until the next time I have a busy period following a long quiet one.

What I've just finished reading

Yesterday was my first SOMA day in three weeks, so while I've gotten some reading in here and there I haven't finished anything. I'm nearly done with a couple of books, though!

What I'm currently reading

What the F, by Benjamin K. Bergen. I'm not sure if the repetitive style is easing off in later chapters or I'm just growing used to it, but it's bothering me less as we go on. Some of this might be due to the proportion of new information I'm encountering - I found the section on profanity as parts of speech, and the unusual rules it follows, particularly fascinating. ( Cut for profanity, duh. )

Being a giant nerd who loves overarching patterns and rules, but loves finding exceptions to those patterns and rules even more, this kind of thing is absolutely delightful to me.

The Scarlet Pimpernel, by Baroness Orczy. Oh noes! Marguerite, having betrayed the titular hero of legend to the representative of the corrupt French government in order to save her brother, has finally realized that he was, in fact, her seemingly-brainless fop of a husband all along! (Er, spoilers? I mean, the book's over a century old at this point...) Now he, on a mission to save another Comte, races headlong into a trap! Can she get there in time to save him - or, if all goes wrong, at least find him in time to apologize and accompany him to the gallows? I think the modern critics who've compared this to superhero stories aren't far off - the level of subtlety and nuance in the writing is about on par with earlier comic books, haha. Still, it's good clean melodramatic fun - sometimes you just want to cheer the beautiful maiden on against the evil and corrupt government, especially when one's own government seems determined to fulfill that same role.

A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeline L'Engle. I read this one roughly a bazillion times as a kid but haven't touched it in more than a decade, and I'm surprised at how accurate my memories are of some of the lines - lots of other books in that category I find I've misremembered. Something that jumps out at me a lot more as an adult is how trusting Charles Wallace is of Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which - and even more so, how trusting Calvin is of all of them and the Murry family, despite having barely interacted with them prior to being invited to dinner. And yet, I totally feel his exultant joy in having found a clan of people with whom he fits in; combined with the more adventurous/less risk-averse mindset of a teenager, I can completely understand how he'd be down for a cross-universe adventure on the strength of a gut feeling of belonging. Still, the part of my brain that's all "Informed consent! That's important!" is shaking its head more than a little, and thinking it's lucky that the three W's were ancient beings fighting for the good of the universe, and not (say) representatives of the Sea Org.

What I plan to read next

Totally up in the air at the moment, but I strongly suspect it'll be from my shelves/Kindle storage - I've already broken my "no new books" rule once recently, haha. (I read them when I was a kid! That makes them old books, right??)

Last week was rough. I taught three classes, and while that's hardly a ridiculous workload, this whole getting-up-and-being-vulnerable-in-front-of-people thing is still pretty new; after a couple of busy days at the spa to finish out the work week, I was really noticing the drag on my moods. Specifically, I found I was brooding over sociopolitical trends and possible futures that were very much not under my control and therefore unproductive to speculate about. Luckily some rest seems to have restored my usual more cheerful framing of the world, and I've certainly gotten some reading done in all this time spent recuperating!


What I've just finished reading

The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo, by Tom Reiss. I'm trying to pinpoint what left me so ultimately unsatisfied with this book, and I'm having a hard time. It perhaps suffers in comparison to Chernow's in-depth period knowledge and detailed historical detective work, but as popular biographies go it's certainly solid. Reiss has done his homework, sought out primary sources, and put together a perfectly creditable account of the senior Alex Dumas' life. Moreover, in doing so, he also gives a solid narrative of the arc of the French Revolution, and specifically the state of civil rights among men of African descent in France and its colonies at the time. Things I learned: France proper was the first European nation, post-Revolution, to establish universal manumission and emancipation; the Revolution's initial principles of Liberté, Egalité, and Fraternité were deemed to require it. It's not a fact without a significant asterisk, though; the situation in the colonies, whose primary export was slave sugar, was far more complicated. And eventually Napoleon walked it back entirely, due to both pressure from plantation owners and concerns about France's ability to compete in a marketplace flooded with cheap slave-produced goods. (It turns out that slavery, like most extractive institutions, was perniciously difficult to dismantle.) All pretty fascinating stuff.

And yet, coming away from it, I don't really feel like I have a sense for who Dumas was. Reiss talks at several points about how the future novelist Alexandre Dumas practically worshipped his father, despite (or perhaps because of) the senior Dumas having died when Alexandre was four. But it seems like we spend the entire book looking at Alex from Alexandre's perspective: a giant of a man, who did so many amazing things, suffered an unjust imprisonment and betrayal by his government, and eventually died in what should have been his prime. There's no real sense of intimacy, no feeling of who this man was other than the swashbuckling hero his son (and most of the world) saw him as. Not having access to the same primary sources Reiss did, I'm not sure if this is due to lack of details or merely a hesitancy on Reiss' part to ascribe motive and personality only implied by the text (whereas Chernow would get right in there and offer his opinion, as well as three or four pieces of evidence to support his assertion). It's a much more hands-off approach to biography-writing, and certainly more concise, but I have to admit my preference for the more intimate type, when it's well done - I'm interested in people because they're people, with their own personal histories and foibles and quirks and internal narratives. Their place in history is interesting, but ultimately secondary in my personal consideration.


What I'm reading now

What the F, by Benjamin K. Bergen. Still enjoying this irreverent take on linguistics, but I've noticed a pattern in the text that's starting to chafe a bit. Each chapter is written very much like a talk on the subject - tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them, tell them what you've told them. (Often this pattern also holds section by section, and occasionally concept by concept!) The author is an admitted academic, and perhaps that's par for the course for academic writing, but it starts to feel more than a bit repetitive. Initially I didn't mind it so much, as I was listening and I figured it'd help me if I missed something important, but recently I've noticed my mind tending to drift because I know he'll summarize or rephrase it later. Frustrating, because there's some good stuff here, but it feels more than a bit like we're padding things out to make it to book length.

The Scarlet Pimpernel, by Baroness Orczy. Arguably one of the oldest entries on my to-read list - I've been meaning to read it ever since seeing the 1982 Anthony Andrews miniseries when I was...ten? Maybe? In any case, having just read an actual history of the French Revolution, now seemed like a good time to visit one of the more famous pieces of fiction set in the period. I was surprised to discover that, contrary to usual, they fleshed out the story more than a little for the adaptation - the book begins far more in medias res, and keeps the identity of the titular character secret for far longer. I'm also amused at how clearly, despite the setting, it reads as a turn-of-the-century potboiler; I'm not sure I could put my finger on anything, but there are certain turns of phrase and stylistic quirks that put me in mind of Dickens or Collins. For all that, it's certainly enjoyable enough, and I like that so much of the narrative is being told from Marguerite's point of view.


What I plan to read next

Subject to change, as always, but over this past week I had several bits and pieces of Madelene L'Engle's A Wrinkle In Time series recurring in my mind - perhaps understandably, given that she wrote them during (and often about) the Cold War. This morning I ordered the set off Amazon; I haven't read them in years (and there's a fifth book I didn't know existed!), but I have a feeling the themes will resonate, probably more than they did when I was a kid.

Yoga teaching continues to go well. Yesterday was my second weekly class at Sauganash, and the first time I was so focused on someone's form that I completely blanked out on a cue - in the Sun A part of the sequence, which normally I can teach in my sleep. :P Luckily one of the students was a little more on the ball than I was, offering up "...mountain pose?" when I trailed off, and I laughed and thanked her and found the rhythm again. Appropriately enough, I had just set the intention: new growth, and remembering that new growth comes directly from old growth, so if your practice doesn't turn out how you want it to in this cycle, rather than feeling like you've wasted your effort, remember that it'll help your next cycle be better. Way to give myself an opportunity to practice what I preach, haha.

I think it went over pretty well, especially given the glorious spring weather. There was at least one repeat student from last week, and one new-to-yoga student who was enthusiastic about my teaching. Another girl was clearly not new, and clearly working hard in her practice, even though her body wasn't as limber as she clearly wanted. I gave her a lot of assists and she seemed to find them useful; afterward, she came by the desk and was all "I wanted to give you a hug..." She got a big hug, and I hope she comes back.

I remember, when I had been coming to CorePower for a few months, one of my favorite teachers telling me "I love it when you come to class, because you always try." It seemed a little odd to me - doesn't everyone try? - but I think I have a better idea what she meant now; there's a distinct difference between the students who are there just to move and stretch and the ones who are actively working to improve. (And I'm sure it can change from day to day; God knows there are times when I'm just not up for the sort of painstaking body awareness that improvement requires, and there are teachers for whom specific anatomical cueing is just not their skill.) But it makes me happy to see those students in my class, and it makes me want to be a better teacher so I can help them continue to improve. To that end, I have a sub tonight and one tomorrow as well - lots of practice to continue that new growth.

Almost exactly six months after I began teacher training, I have completed my first day of paid teaching. It's official - I'm a professional yoga teacher now!

It's been a long journey, filled with a lot of work, a lot of anxiety, a lot of learning about community, a lot of growth, and a lot of realizing exactly how much I have grown but hadn't discovered it yet. And now I'm here. Which is really only a brief stopping point - I have so much yet to learn. But it's still a point worth celebrating, I think.

I got this card to send to a dear friend, but hopefully he won't mind me using a picture of it here, as it's perfect to the moment:



Here's to learning, and growing, and doing difficult things we want to do in spite of our anxiety about them.

As anyone who reads the little notifier at the bottom of my posts is aware, I've been crossposting to LiveJournal from Dreamwidth for years now. My reasons for maintaining an LJ account were numerous; partly for the fond memories, partly for the friends and acquaintances who hadn't transitioned to DW, partly for the ease of having a mirror backup.

However, given the recent move of LJ's servers to Russia, and the associated new terms of service, I feel it's time to leave LiveJournal completely. I doubt anything I post is likely to be of interest to the owners, but I can't in good conscience support a blogging platform that forbids "political solicitation". Open and free political discussion is the lifeblood of any democratic society.

After this post, therefore, I'm turning off cross-posting and will no longer be maintaining this blog on LiveJournal. I am genuinely sorry to do so, both for the nostalgia factor and for the connections I've made here. I hope I can convince you all to move to Dreamwidth with me; there are a number of links here with instructions on how to move your whole LJ over to DW. Having done it myself, I can attest that it's a minor pain, but you only have to do it once, and it has the advantage of preserving comment threads and privacy settings. Honestly, even if you don't plan to use DW primarily, it's not a bad idea; backups of years' worth of work are always a good thing to have, and LJ's future is more than a little shaky at this point.

If you don't wish to join me on DW, I will genuinely miss you; I hope we can connect elsewhere. As with all well-structured social networks, the people I've met on LiveJournal have been the best thing about it; I'm glad there's a similarly-structured substitute out there for those of us who like doing longer-form posts than a Facebook or Twitter post allows for.