Julia, the cat

the bitch was staring at me and she's on my lap so that puts her face like 2 inches away from mine.  and I KNOW she wants to rub her nose against my chin and proceed to rub the rest of her face against my face.  and i'm already breaking out from that mcdonalds two days ago.  and its like her nose is wet and gets my face wet and then she rubs her furry face where her wet nose just was and now I have cat snot and shedding fur around places on my face that i typically prefer to breath out of.

and so this feline looked at me and i had to cough and i didnt turn away and i ended up coughing in her face.

dont feel bad for her. she would have done the saaaammmme exact thing to me. i cant even count on all my digits (toes included) how many times my face has been the receptacle of dog/cat sneeze.

little known fact

i like peeling oranges.

i find it really relaxing to do while watching a movie. there's just something calming about it.

i wish i could peel oranges while reading a book. i think i'd read more if i could.

currently watching: Winter's Bone
which reminds me of mom's side of the family, a lot.
peeled: 2 oranges

I need some glasses.

Chip and I were talking about lasik and how we've heard good things but, on the other hand, we've heard bad things too.

Me: I'll get lasik when I'm 50 years old and have nothing to live for.

Chip: No, you'll get lasik when you're 50 years old and you realize you have nothing to live for.

Ha! I  love Chip.

picture tuesday

There's a few things wrong with this picture. The kitchen color scheme.  There is that guy wearing the sleeveless t-shirt in a not ironic way.  Not to mention the fire hazard of the paper towels sitting on the stove.

Do you see that one cat (kind of closer to the man) staring straight into the camera? 
I can't tell if it's a plea for help or if the cat actually likes being there and is giving us a I know I'm in a sea of fools take over the world look.

never trust a big butt and a smile.

If I met this guy in a foreign country and he was a murderer, I would probably be murdered bc I would trust him.

direction of energy

talking more about the senses....

i don't want to downplay the senses as these five narrow slits our physical body has as tools to observe the world with.  the senses are very important.

but i still think they can be distractions.  and not just distractions from our spiritual self but also distractions from one another.

in yoga one of the yamas is brahmacharya. its strictest form is complete celibacy. i'm not sure of the full scope of brahmacharya but something always stressed seemed to be that yogis didn't want men wasting their male energy through ejaculation.  

that is a little overboard to me but i do think there is a lesson to learn about direction of energy and maybe how you use your time [and perhaps another one on moderation as well, fellas]. [tyson lost a lot of fights when he was whorin it up].

i'm focusing more on direction of energy. if you want to really stress something, you minimize other things.  compare/contrast. creatures of comparison as a coworker puts it. 

if i want to taste something better, i might turn off the tv.

if i need to see better while i'm driving, i turn off the radio. (a lot of people do this when they're lost)

if i want to hear what someone is saying, i shut my mouth and stop thinking of the next thing to say.

if i need to tell someone something, i stop whatever else i'm doing.

if i want to feel, i close my eyes.

manage your body. you only have so much attention to divert.

still learning

I don't talk a lot about teaching yoga or yoga philosophy.  Mainly because I don't know wtf I'm talking about half the time because I have 75% of the beginning of the idea and I don't quite understand the end. Or I have a hard time transitioning from the base to the final result of the thought.

But I am starting to understand how our senses can be distractions.  And how they can mislead us at times even.  You think your eyes and your hands and your ears ARE reality.  And I'm saying they can obfuscate truth.

Take for instance your eyes.  Without getting too much into the science part of it (see also: "mainly because I don't know wtf I'm talking about half the time ...), your brain is presenting something different than what your eyes actually see.
I've read that we "learn" to see just like we learn to walk. Our brains form images based on pattern recognition.  Pattern recognition is why car drivers run over bicyclists or motorcyclists.  We just aren't used to seeing them on the road so when they are on the road . . . we just dont see them.
Also, your eyes can only see about 2 degrees of your view clearly.  The eyes are constantly scanning to send the brain a sharper idea of what's going on.  You get a clear picture of everything from the brain flipping, rotating and putting everything in a nice little package for you.
Just the definition of optical illusions should tell you the eyes can only do so much with reality.  [There's even a theory out there saying our brains are actually "perceiving the future" since there's a 1/10th lag in the eyes seeing and the brain making it into an actual image.]
Even if I'm wrong about the eyes, most people would agree that a large part of what we see is actually our brain's interpretation of eye data.

This is why I hardly write about these things.  I just get all wordy and complicated and it's not very eloquent.

My senses convey my reality but not the reality.  Images ... our visual reality ... is constructed within.

The life lesson for me is that I try not to assume I know everything.  And so I think it's nice to close the eyes sometimes.

Back to yoga ...
At the end of every yoga class, I ask everyone to close their eyes.  From doing this small action, their breath softens and their mind slows down.
I had an aha! moment (See also: Oprah) during yoga when I closed my eyes.  I have always been told I was a spiritual being in church and by mom.  But it was while my eyes were closed where I actually felt the strongest affirmation of a spiritual being stirring inside me.

The eyes remind us of a lot of truths.  But I think they distract us from a few as well.

I'm reading a book.

I'm reading The History Of Love by Nicole Krauss.  She's married to Jonathan Safran Foer.  I had no clue. He's the more famous author and I'm reading his wife's work without ever have read his.

Anyways, here's some word for word excerpts or something like it.

At times I believed that the last page of my book and the last page of my life were one and the same, that when my book ended I’d end, a great wind would sweep through my rooms carrying the pages away, and when the air cleared of all those fluttering white sheets the room would be silent, the chair where I sat empty.

There were rumors of unfathomable things, and because we couldn't fathom them we failed to believe them, until we had no choice and it was too late.

What is larger than life? To sit in the front row and look up at a beautiful girl’s face two stories high and have the vibrations of her voice massaging your legs is to be reminded of the size of life. So I sit in the front row. If I leave with a crick in my neck and a fading hard-on it was a good seat. I’m not a dirty man, I’m a man who wanted to be as large as life.

There are passages of my book I know by heart.

By heart, this is not an expression I use lightly.

/quotes

I love the last one. Taking something we say quite a bit "I know this song by heart!" and dissecting the words to their actual meaning.  "by heart" "know" "we"
I don't know what I'm really trying to say.  I feel like my head is filled with half thoughts or almost there thoughts most of the time.
All of the time.

kthxbye

steal this look

But what about the belt? What about the belt . . . 

Watching football w my stepdad and mom yells this from her bedroom

Me: wow, Michael Turner has a big ass.

Stepdad: all muscle. there was a football player that had 36 inch thighs.

Mom (from the bedroom): 36 inch penis?! I saw a sideshow at the circus where the guy had a 20 in long penis.

MY HAIKU: the word of the day is PALLOR

gray, luke cold day.

like my grandma.
she's probably gray now.

since she's died she hasn't gotten any sun in 4 months.

WHY IS THIS SO HILARIOUS TO ME?!

@TheWhiskeyWorks

What to Watch

I'm really pumped for Black Swan even though I'm not a huge fan of Natalie Portman (like, I think she peaked in The Professional).

I was checking out the trailer for I'm Still Here ...


I want to watch this too.

Okay. Bye now.

Animal Post.

GRRRR YOU SCARED.

Because there are two of them.

I just want the windows and the dog.

Annnnnnd maybe the rug/couches.

This would not go in my house since I hate birds irl and that would make me be living a lie.

I dont want to live a lie. 

The Not Animal Post for today.

I'm going to really invigorate my blog and, you know, post and stuff.

Here are thoughts from my tumblr.
So these arent new thoughts.  They're old thoughts I've copied and pasted.  We do this all the time in conversation; I'm doing it online.
Also, I highly suggest tumblr.  Its the laziest form of blogging after twitter.

This is water.  Its pretty.  See?

These are cute chocolate candy bars you can use for wedding favors.  I just would hope they use good chocolate on the inside and not shitty chocolate.  What does the outside matter if the inside is cheap?

IKNOWRYTE?

I made up a word from looking at this picture.
GUITARM.
You like?

I dont know if I could sit in the thing on the right.  It looks like it would go all beetlejuice on me and trap me.  

What I’m saying is, I can see some pent up karmic angry energy in that chair from its former animal.  Who wants to sit in a corner for the rest of their life?  I’d rather be 6 feet under or in someone else’s stomach … where a dead thing should be.  Not in some rich asshole or trendy hipster’s house.

The latter in this case.

Dont get in the back of that thing, little girl.
No candy is worth your virtue.

Alternate caption: BEWARE PEDO WAGON
Modern day version: white van, no windows

I need this when I teach yoga.  But I need my right arm to actually say “left arm” because when I lift my right arm, its actually everyone else’s left if I’m facing them.

ZzzzzZZZzzzzzzzz
Thanks for sharing, Niki.

Yes I really did send this to Oprah.com. I dare you to say something.

Dear Oprah, 


We were playing Cranium and I picked Oprah Winfrey. The other team put "Humdinger" as the most points. So I chose to hum over acting or drawing, whatnot and my team had to guess Oprah Winfrey through my humming. I started to hum the old Oprah Winfrey theme show music. And no one knew what I was humming! Basically, do you guys have an mp3 or youtube of the old Oprah Winfrey show theme song? I cant find one anywhere and I'm frankly disappointed in the Internet and its lack of all things pop culture (the Oprah theme song music should be in the Smithsonian for Pete's sake). My friends still dont know what I was humming. But they DID guess Oprah. Someone guessed "Scientology" and I did a *kinda* hand motion. Then someone else said "Tom Cruise!" and I got more animated (bc of the couch jumping thing). And then RIGHT when the buzzer went off, Kynslie said "OPRAH WINFREY!" and we got the points which eventually led us to defeat the other team in Cranium. Anyways, mp3 please! Everyone thinks I'm crazy! (It goes like this: Duh duh DUH duh, duh dum. Duh duh DUH duh, duh dum. Repeat, ad infinitum.)

Sometimes you have to meet the psycho halfway

I got in an argument with a real person but they didnt know I was mad at them; it was all in my head. So its not like I'm talking to myself but, on the other hand, the other person wasnt aware of this situation so maybe I was talking to myself?

Either way, I've declared they have a small penis so I win.

I watch way too much Biggest Loser

My dream.  Real life.

There's this overbearing swim coach that scared the kids.  They swam circles in the pool.  He wouldnt allow them to hold on to the sides of the pool.  And it was a deep pool.  He was barking orders while treading water.  And he was having a hard time keeping his own head underwater.  You know why?  Because he was incredibly obese.  I dipped my head underwater and saw him drop underneath the surface.  He was this big circle (think Willy Wonka Veruca Salt after the blueberries shape; just round, like a blown up balloon).  He had this thin innertube right under the largest part of his circular stomach.  It could only barely bring his chin above the water.  His arms were short stubs because the circle of his torso had enveloped the top 3rd of his upper arm (this is why fat guys have short penises.  You're welcome).  Since the bulk of his weight was above the innertube, he had a hard time staying upright.  He was kind of like those balloons in the Macy Thanksgiving parade, teetering right and left and front and back.  Since he's the fat guy in the pool, he's embarrassed so he's wearing a t-shirt. Its tight and he's also wearing striped red shorts that stop at his upper thigh. He flails his little arms to get his head back above water and starts barking orders to the scared 5 year olds once again.  

He doesnt know I'm there.

  

Then I wonder why he's even there in the first place.  Why is he around kids and water?  He seems so angry and out of place.  He isnt the right size and can barely keep his head above water.  

I get visions of his past.  He was an amazing swimmer.  Won competitions. Lightbulbs flashing.  Friendly. Happy.  

I'm a big fan of The Biggest Loser and time must have passed because the swim coach went on the show.  He's a normal sized person and happy again.  And I want to take his swim class to learn how to swim and to be around one of The Biggest Losers.  He sees me outside while we walk to the swimming pool for the group lesson.  He is average weight and looks fine on the outside but I have the impression his stomach is a saggy grandma boob with an innie instead of an outie (and by outie I mean grandma nipple).  He's maybe late 30s, early 40s.   

The swimming pool (as swimming pools tend to be) is around this complicated rickety, wooden structure we have to maneuver around.  It looks dangerous.  He climbs up, over, and through this structure with an air of 'fat guy I cant do this' hesitation.  Though it takes him awhile, he does it.  I know a regular guy without the fat guy past could have done it faster.   

Then its my turn. I get to a bridge with missing parts.  I have to jump from one small part to the next.  I see the swimming coach come to help me. I want him to go away because I dont want the bridge to stress under his weight. He's still large because of his height . . . and that remaining skin that I'm sure is under his pale Hawaiian shirt and khaki shorts.  I remind myself that he's a Biggest Loser and cool. So I let him stand at the other side and encourage me to get across (though I find it really annoying and start not looking forward to the swim lessons).  We also climb down this other structure and finally get to the area in front of the swimming pool location.  He starts chatting me up and I can tell he's into me.  I dont want to go on a date with him.   

Then I wake up. 

Ummm, wtf?  I have not had a dream that I recall in a long time and this is the one I get?

The Lovely Bones was stupid.

So I tweeted three times in a row about The Lovely Bones.  Read from bottom up.

• 
  

  nikiverse The Lovely Bones: Plus I was watching it with my parents and they woudlnt stfu about how they had that wallpaper growing up. less than 20 seconds ago

• 
  

  nikiverse The Lovely Bones: If I were dead Id avenge my death, do pottery with Patrick Swayze. Not live in some pothead, Lisa Frank wetdream.1 minute ago

• 
  

  nikiverse The Lovely Bones: If I wanted to see What Dreams May Come again, I would shoot myself but thats besides the point. Susan Sarandon was great! 4 minutes ago

Straight copy/paste.  If what I need to inform the Internet involves more than 2.5 tweets, blogging would be a better option.  So here I go.

As the tweets show, I thought Lovely Bones was a bit ridiculous.  I've heard great things about the book ... but the movie makes me wonder if Alice Sebold honestly thinks a 14 year old being murdered and hanging out with other murdered dead girls is the best way to show us the discovery of one's sexuality?  I mean, I guess its "A way".

Which brings me to Peter Jackson.  Didnt he direct Lord of the Rings?  After seeing the movies, I just dont get the BFD about that trilogy.  I mean, yeah, their own language.  Elvish.  Call me normal but I dont get it.

Back to The Lovely Bones.  from imdb.com

Mark Wahlberg replaced Ryan Gosling just days before shooting began. In preparation for the role, Gosling had gained 20 pounds and grew out a beard. However, he vacated the role due to creative differences. Wahlberg, who had just completed shooting The Happening (2008), another production in Pennsylvania, became available just in time to accept Gosling's role.

I wonder what the "creative differences" were?  We all know that Mark Wahlberg used to be a white rapper so I'm sure he ALWAYS has artistic integrity in the forefront of his mind . . . thats probably covered up by a backwards facing ballcap. Oh, I think underneath that wifebeater there's still old Marky Mark underneath - who would sell his soul in a minute to revive the Funky Bunch.  Can you feel the vibration?  Feel it feel it.

Ryan Gosling's abs >> Mark Wahlberg's abs

Sidenote: I did like My Sister's Keeper.  Read the book too!  Cried during both.

excerpt from At the Mystic Aquarium by Patricia Fargnoli

She lets out a cry that rips straight through
and her mother snatches her up, snaps at me in anger.
Sorry. Sorry. I say again and again
as I try with no luck to struggle to my feet,
straining against the dark and the gravity,
thinking how hard it is to rise
from the downthrust of weight and age,
aware of shame's bloodrush, tears beginning
as if I were the hurt child, the one who needed saving.

how can i post about popped collars and herpes when you just updated about your wife's operation?

Cant you seriously update everyone about that around noontime?  Why at night when I am ready to inform the masses about my musings do you have to post something so . . . important and serious?

Who is the jerk in the following situation:
Man 1: My wife just had an operation.  We get the results back in 3 hours.
Me, 2 seconds later: Is it just me or do guys wearing popped collars end up having an STD in 2 years?

If you said Man 1, you're a horrible person.
All you other killjoys can suck it though bc I BRING UP A GOOD POINT REGARDLESS.