baby, you're sailing away

my body is coated in a sweat like some sort of subhuman slime, dripping into my eyes and hitting my feet with a sort of cartoonish plop. i reach my arms up high over my head, my biceps aching, my triceps tearing, and bend down slowly, vertebrae by vertebrae, watching myself in the mirror until i have no choice but to look down and just keep breathing.

i haven't been this peaceful since some balmy new york night in july, when it seemed everything finally made sense.

ladies and gentleman, meet bikram yoga.

no, this is not something else i signed my life away to at the "mind, body, spirit" festival a few weeks ago. i've actually flirted with the idea for a few years now, romanced by the idea of all that sweating and stretching and finding zen in the third ring of hell. i remember thinking, sometime in ithaca, probably during the nate-fueled nervous breakdown of senior year, that it might be a nice christmas present. that was two years ago, about this time.

now i'm here, and while i won't deny that i was a legitimate mess after nate, i also knew that that was just practice from some greater life crisis, an assembling of tools of tricks and experiences for when it really felt like i was circling the drain.

ladies and gentleman, meet australia.

but this time, i did the yoga. i signed up for an introductory ten days of unlimited use for $19, which i could have easily just spent on a couple vodkas back when drinking seemed like a good idea. i think my ten days end sometime next week, and then i'll probably fork over (on credit, considering my current cash flow situation) another couple hundred for twenty more classes.

i need this class. i need that feeling, after ninety minutes in a room that teeters just barely on becoming unacceptably hot, pushing my body and my mind way past both their respective comfort zones (a theme, really, of my time in australia), of absolute peace, immobilizing calm. by the end of every class, i'm laying down on my towel and mat, drenched through with sweat, staring up at the ceiling, feeling somehow at peace with the heat, with my job situation, with my entire life. last night, i was laying there, thinking, "i could just stay here, and none of it would matter."

but i was really fucking thirsty, so i got up after like five minutes.

i need this kind of, well, therapy, to be honest, because somewhere in the next few days, depending on certain factors, i'm making a pretty big decision. i'm not getting into it here yet, except to say that it's time. once i know, i'll post something about it.

so a few things until then:

tassie was good. of course, i've come to realize that i hate having to tell people about my vacations. jay astutely noticed this when i went to thailand in '06, and admits he still doesn't acually know how it was, because my response was always a weary "oh god, it was fine, i don't feel like talking about it." so tassie: it was fine, the weather was nice, the scenery was pretty, the people were fun, i'm happy to be back in civilization. i know, i'd make the worst travel writer, which isn't good, because i plan on stretching the truth when i return to new york with possibly no relevant job experience since july '08 and say that i've been working on some travel writing project while in australia. (read: i wrote a blog every week about how insane i was going.)

but i promised pictures, so i'll put up a picture or two. or maybe not.

also, i will still be writing up a fine review of that "mind, body, spirit" festival at some point in the near future. i promise to limit the number of references to crying in public to a minimum, only because i didn't.

that might be all i have in me right now. i have to dash to work soon--for two hours. don't even get me started, i'm stressed about it enough as it is and i don't know if my body can handle another night in a row of yoga.

who am i kidding? i'll totally be there.