Random Summer

Our Bodies Our Selves

I first heard of the Bodies exhibition on the yoga teacher training course I did last year.

"It's all about the FASCIA!" said Jo, our anatomy teacher. She fed us an orange and told us to pull out the vein-y bits. "That's like FASCIA!"

She raved about the Bodies exhibit, because you could see all the FASCIA. Ever since I've wanted to see it. Those classes left me yearning for some actual information about the physical structure body, beyond FASCIA. It's been in town since last summer, but I just never got around to it.

Lo and behold, into Jivamukti walks Michelle, a woman I took the teacher training course with.

Beautiful.

We see the show.

The interesting thing about fascia, according to Jo, is that it weaves throughout the body, but also extends beyond so as to interconnect you with all things and people around you. This is why we feel fear or are attracted to someone. FASCIA.



According to this theory, then, I should not have been at all surprised to see this:



I worked on the promotional campaign for this product last December. They talked about doing this kiosk, and we convinced them there was not enough news to make this a newsworthy event.

Michelle and I go in, natch, we get a hand massage, smell the chocolate fountain--all too weird--when suddenly this woman jumps into a kind of warrior pose and yells at us, "Wanna do yoga?"

Our answer was an emphatic no, agreeing in no doubt thanks to our telekinetic FASCIA connection. Rock on BODIES. Just not in crap yoga.

Greeted by this vista

I took my bike for a spin around the tip of the island.





Mmhhnn.



Wait, was that a rat dancing with an ape?



Was that supposed to be a museum?



A turkey?!?





The fish market is closed. Thank you Mr. Presidents. Or Mrs. President. Ya never see that to pluralize Mr, do ya?



Is that a bronze of Stalin up there?

What's not to love...

2 frustrating shots

You can't see these at all, but beholding these things made me happy.

Hell Yes! Reads the rainbow-colored sign on the New Museum.

And here was a man dressed up in a Pink Panther suit. No idea why.


There is no place I'd rather live--New York is as third world as any big city in a third world country is first. I am, for the first time, right at home.

I only hope

That this photograph catches a genuine expression. That the words have not been added to the side of the van via PhotoShop for effect.



This had to be one of the most gruesome articles I've seen in, Christ, since I subjected myself to the hideous movie Knocked Up. The subtitle tells you everything you need to know: The case for settling for Mr. Good Enough. This is so wrong on so many levels, it will probably take several posts to plumb the ingenuousness.

The author of this article has a sperm donor baby, then decides she'd like some help. Suddenly she finds herself willing to take it in the form of Mr Good Enough. If indeed she does manage to wrest from him the physical and financial support she specifies needing to bring up baby, brava! I know plenty of single moms who started out with Mr Good Enough.

Say they do make it to the teen years. What then? What if, god forbid, she's actually fallen in love (or at least in love with the habit). He may just look at her and think, "Hmm, I could do better." And he probably can. Certainly he'll have more options than she will in her, by now, late 40s. He might even spawn another mewling infant.


What is with women that we place our self-esteem on our relationships with others? I don't mean just primary sexual relationships, I'm also talking about family (even offspring!), friends, co-workers. We can accept we are not our job titles. We are not our bank accounts. We are not clothes...but suggest that we are not the sum of our relationships? Scandal!

It is precisely this kind of thinking that makes us feel as if we must have relationships. Makes us settle. Then it turns around and destroys the relationship, because the relationship becomes the thing that's important, not the person.

"But I sat in 12 degree weather week after week so I could be the designated driver for him and his buddies after watching them yell at football players," a friend told me recently, vaguely stunned that after all the putting up with Mr. Good Enough he just wasn't into her the way he used to be.

The whole world wants intimate love. This is not some uniquely female, heterosexual paradigm, as the writer of this piece suggests. But my intimate relationships can be no better than my relationship with myself. The trick is to rise in love, not fall. I can't muster up enthusiasm for that trip with Mr Good Enough. Luckily, I like myself enough that I don't feel I have to. I also like myself enough to know I will probably act in ways that are counter to these beliefs. I forgive me already.

Did anyone notice?

Jesus took the night off...

Me 'n Gabe, Part Trois

I thought that lately he'd been a little, well let's say distant. Some would say absent, but that just sounds so, ya know, final. Though here, some might use the word truthful.



But I get it now. He's doing a new TV show! Scamp. You can't hide forever, these are 13-episode deals at most! I mean, Congratulations and all the luck in the world on your success! I want nothing but the best for you. And me. You know. Us. xxx