yoga is just another word for death

something has gone terribly wrong. i appear to be in the midst of some sort of metamorphic phase. no longer do i skulk around, pale and blobby like a revenge blancmange. now, like some sort of healthy blancmange (is there such a thing?) i rise early, and potter along to this curious thing called a gymnasium! i do a circuit! i drive through the pain! i put up with perkiness! i hobble home and have a half an hour swim!


clearly, something is very very wrong.

actually, i'm not that healthy. i still consider a toasted vegemite and cheese sandwhich the pinnacle of australian breakfast foods, and i still toss back the white wine on a regular basis. and i still do things that a normal person would perhaps not do.


like bikram yoga.


bikram yoga sounds like a fantastic idea on paper - its yoga in a very very hot room, so you sweat and get flexible. brilliant! so off Lizzle and i tottered, to Crown Street. i was sunburnt, in a sort of jackson pollock styled way - splashes of red and blisters across my shoulders. it was about nintey billion degrees.

the first sign that perhaps this wasn't what i thought it'd be was when we had to take off our shoes and leave them on the steps. perhaps it's because of that sex and the city episode where Carrie has her manolos stolen, or perhaps it's because i really really dislike that whole patronising western orientalism thing (Edward Said explains it better), but i began to feel nervous.

the next thing that was wrong was all the people in the underpants, with smug grins belying their flexibility. this threw me off so much that i stumbled over a cat. i won't go into the women's changing room, suffice to say i hate changing rooms with a passion.

the third thing that made me slightly suspicious was the smell of the bikram room. it smelled like old sneakers. there is no way this can be good for you. we took up our places on the floor, and waited for the lesson to begin.

it took about fifteen mintues before i had decided that this was a dumb idea for dumb self righteous granola eating freaks (....had i had granola for breakfast that day? oh dear) the man in front of me had a placid expression on his face as he rained sweat. the boy behind me was wearing the tiniest pair of hot pants a man has ever donned and i really should have been focusing more on whatever pose i was supposed to be doing, but i didn't. and then i got dizzy, and then i had to leave to be sick.

the instructor made me come back. she announced we had another half an hour to go. we twisted and stretched our way through a whole bunch of poses that i think were created purely to amuse onlookers. we did some weird breathing thing that is probably more harmful that she made out (i think the word de-tox is code for dangerous) and i struggled to remember who was the bastard who suggest this to me in the first place. my mind searched and search and then i realised.

rosemary. my old boss. queen of eccentric women over fifty. ugh. i would have to hunt her down and turn her carcass into a wall hanging. or at least put her in this room with me adn see if she could really do it, or if she'd been lying. the thermometer read 45 degrees. i was going to drown in my own sweat, and possibly the man in front of me's.

then it was over. we made a hasty retreat after talking to a couple of other people, who said things like "this is my third lesson - it doesn't get any better!" cheerfully. i was filled with a dull sort of rage - why do people think that putting themselves in pain is a good idea? how does it make you a better healthier person? nggh.

Lizzle wants to go back, in a few months after we've done some 'sane' yoga thats not in a hot room. i'm not so sure. to me, bikram yoga seems like the sort of thing one does just so one can say they've done it. like heroin, except without the constipation.

anyway, in order to recover from the bikram yoga and new age music (gross) we went and saw Revolutionary Road. which was fantastic and beautifully put together in everyway. i bet Kate and Leo wouldn't do bikram yoga. they probably go hiking.

so. in conclusion, the new years resolution to get fit is slowly but surely happening. the new years resolution to try and do less things that will make me angry, as well as trying to do less things that could be bad for me, well. i'm working on that. maybe by next year.