A little over a month ago, my friend Melissa told me about a type of yoga called anti-gravity.  What is it exactly pray tell?  I hadn’t a clue either and, instead of explaining it to me, Melissa told me to google it.  At first I was annoyed with the fact that she would not just explain it to me, but upon googling it, I realized why.  It’s not that it is difficult to explain: you just wouldn’t get the same effect as seeing a visual of it.  In one of my rare moments, I am providing a picture below (there are very few times when I have a picture accompany a post) :).

Anti-gravity yoga, also known as aerial yoga, does in fact take place in the air, on a hammock that hangs from the ceiling to be exact…or so they call it.  (I personally, feel like it is just a piece of fabric.)  Think of the circus.  Think the dancers that climb up long drapes of fabric that are attached to the ceiling and do tricks on them.  Have you got the picture?  While I have yet to take a class, I’m pretty sure that I won’t be doing anything as advanced as that on them…also, I am scared of heights, and although it doesn’t look like you are far up at all, the idea of hanging from the ceiling on a piece of fabric just doesn’t quite seem normal to me. 

I forget why we never ended up taking a class; it could have been because our schedules weren’t matching up, which is quite common with Melissa and I, but in any event, I have resigned myself to take the plunge and take a class (hopefully with Melissa).  The studio that we were going to go to, as it happens, is a lot closer to my place than I originally thought.  I have passed by it many a time and not even realized that it was there…or perhaps I was just not looking for a yoga studio at the time and it was washed away from my memory (there was a time in my life where I denounced ever practicing yoga again…the idea of practicing it is a very recent revelation).  Though the idea of hanging from the ceiling by fabric isn’t exactly appealing (I have never been one to want to bungee jump, although part of me does want to take a trapeze class…and yes, you can take those in New York; Carrie did it on SATC and there are a few places), the unappealingness kind of makes it appealing, if that makes sense.  The last time I can think of that I did anything remotely crazy was almost two years ago when I was vacationing at Lake Tahoe with my mother and sister, and we parasailed.  I was terrified to do it, but I knew that I would regret it if I didn’t, so I pushed myself.  I don’t feel the same fright with anti-gravity yoga, but I am a little apprehensive about it, and it is definitely not in my comfort zone; which means that I have to do it while I still can.  I feel like every once in a while you need to do something that is drastically different from what you would normally do; it’s how we stay alive, how we keep growing.  If we never challenged ourselves what would be the fun in life?

Aside from the hour or so of hanging in the air, anti-gravity yoga is supposed to be a good workout, and it helps your joints decompress, which is another plus.  Unless you are someone who frequents the chiropractor, that doesn’t happen a lot.  I have been to the chiropractor only a handful of times and am not a fan of the back cracking (specifically the neck cracking)…I felt like my neck was being broken off. 

Because of my fabulousness at planning schedules, I will sadly have to wait two more weeks until I defy gravity, but I feel that it will truly be worth it. 

Last weekend, I spent some time at my father’s place, as he was in the mood to play around with my computers and I do not have internet at my apartment on purpose, although I am starting to rethink it.  I had gone out the night before with my good friend Z, and I was exhausted but thankfully not hung-over at all.  I should not be seen when I’m hung-over, not only because I’m nauseous the whole day and have no patience for people (not that I tend to have patience anyway, though surprisingly, I am the most calming person in a stressful situation), but also because I just look awful: my skin has this pale-sickly complexion to it and my lips are a bright red.  The funny thing about my relationship with my father is that, whenever I am in the least possible social mood, that’s when he’s in the most and vice versa.  It’s actually kind of amusing.  Saturday, he was in the mood to hang out for hours and I…I just wanted my bed; I literally fought the whole day to keep my eyes open: no amounts of food or caffeine fixed my problem.  Ever have those days?  I’m generally tired because I’m a terrible sleeper, but there are just some days where I should be at home and in bed…or at least dozing on my couch.

My father left the room at one point, saying that he had something for me.  When he came back, he plopped a thick binder in front of me.  I looked at it, feeling as if I was supposed to know what it was, but I didn’t recognize it, so I opened it.  As it turns out, it was one of my old binders from high school, the contents of which helped me to deduce that it came from my junior year…mostly.  I decided to briefly go through it, page-by-page; there was some interesting stuff in it of which I will look at it more closely before deciding what to ultimately do with it.  The one thing that stood out to me the most though, was two “journal” entries that I had written in the midst of all the school pages: it was from my sophomore year.  I glanced up at my father, wondering if he had read it or not, but decided that I’d rather not ask him, seeing as how it was from so long ago that it really did not matter…then I poured over it.

Automatically, my mind drifted back to that time period in my life; I had to be about fifteen or sixteen when I wrote those two entries.  That wasn’t the easiest time in my life; in fact, it was probably the hardest.  Twelve years ago my life took a dramatic change.  I remember everything that happened then, but reading those two entries felt as if I were reading that of a stranger’s.  It’s weird; I remember the emotional pain that I was going through at that time, but at the same time I guess, maybe I don’t quite remember as vividly as I thought.  The girl in them was so distraught and intense, and so not the me that I know today, that I barely recognized her.  I’m not sure if that is a good thing or not…maybe it is a good thing.  Maybe that’s how you’re supposed to remember the past: feeling detached from it.

Those are the only two journal entries that I have from that far back because I had to turn them in (yes, that’s right).  Part of me is glad of this, but part of me wonders, if I did have them, would I still feel the same detachment that I felt by reading those two, or would the feelings and thoughts grow on me and engulf me once more?  I will never know the answer to that, and it’s probably for the best…although this experience has made me want to read as far back in my journals as possible (yes I still keep a journal) to see if I remember being in those situations.  It’s funny how the mind works sometimes…

Today I seem to be experiencing technical difficulties with my blackberry.  First, it was freezing on me as I was trying to shop on the Bloomingdales website (perhaps that is a sign that it is not the best idea to shop via cell phone?); it literally would not let me scroll through more than two pages of shoes before feigning exhaustion and just doing nothing.  I’m not sure if that means that I was supposed to buy one of the shoes that graced those two lonely pages…none of them were all that great, or too pricey for what I think a ballet flat should cost (I would never spend more than $100 because, honestly, within a year maximum they end up in the garbage with a hole). 

The second thing that it did was tell me that my blog account didn’t exist.  I literally went into it and found nothing there.  Of course I started to panic because it didn’t make sense to me, but then it fixed itself with that.  I haven’t tried using the Bloomies site again yet, but I sadly expect that it will still give me the runaround. 

The third, and last thing so far that it has done today, was give me duplicates of some people in my address book.  At first I thought that it was just for facebook friends, because sometimes that has happened, but it wasn’t.  It was just really random duplicates.  And what was even odder was that, certain people that I had deleted were back in.  One person in particular that hadn’t been in my phonebook since the summer popped back up, while someone whom I omitted a few months ago remained deleted.  I wonder if that means that I am supposed to contact this person and see how he is…I will have to ponder this a while before making my ultimate decision, but most likely if I do, it will be through email with a detailed account of the transpired events.  Hopefully that is all of the weird things that my blackberry will do to me today and it will go back to being its awesome self.

I feel like, no matter how much I want to see something, I always end up waiting until the last minute…especially when it comes to museum exhibitions.  Last year, I had ample time to make my way to the Upper East Side, fling myself onto the steps of the Met, and attend the Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty exhibit, but sadly, I waited until one of the last weeks to do so.  I think one of the problems with living in New York is that, there are so many things to do that, you tell yourself, I’ll go tomorrow, or next week, and before you know it, you have missed your opportunity.  Had I not waited so long to see Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty, I might not have gotten stuck on a two-hour line (which, thankfully moved enough so that I was only waiting for scarcely little more than an hour), and a claustrophobic second hour as I walked through the exhibit itself, more often than not barely moving, and reduced to tiptoeing just to be able to catch glimpses of some of the items on display.  I bought a few postcards and the exhibition catalogue (my first coffee table book), and walked out of the Met into several downpours, desperately clutching my purchases.  By the time I got home, all was thoroughly soaked (me that is), except for my museum bag.  I threw on some dry clothes, opened a bottle of wine, and poured over the content of the catalogue in its entirety; I had gotten a decent view of part of the exhibit, but I was not by any means satisfied with my experience.  It was then that I vowed never again to leave my museum goings to the last minute but, like the next-day hangover that is bound to follow an all-night excursion where you vow never to drink again, this was not the last of my tardiness.

My latest exhibition tardiness commenced around three months ago, before the exhibit even opened.  By accident, I had found an exhibit in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, I’m not sure if it was for Picasso or Van Gogh because the museum was going to have overlapping exhibits on both of them.  One, or both of them was going to close in May, so, planner that I am, I figured that I had plenty of time to go.  I brought it up to the guy that I was dating at the time, who thought it was a good idea but wouldn’t commit to a date; we broke up a few weeks after and I never did bring myself back to Philly.  I am not a huge fan of either of their works, though I feel like you can appreciate an artist’s style even if you are not fond of it (especially when that artist is Picasso or Van Gogh).  I do have a reprieve for Picasso though; there is a gallery on Madison that will be exhibiting some of his paintings starting at the end of this month in conjunction with another painter.  None of those though, are the exhibit that I have once again become tardy to.

The exhibit that I have been dying to see is entitled Documents pour artistes.  Over one hundred photographs by the French photographer Eugène Atget are on display, with the city of Paris as the theme.  This exhibit is appealing to me for a few reasons, the two prominent being that I love photography and I’ve always wanted to go to Paris.  In one of the reviews that I read on this exhibit, it said something to the effect that, going to the exhibit left you with the same feelings as if you had been walking the streets of Paris.  The only unappealing thing to me about this particular exhibit was its location: MOMA.  I have been to many museums in New York: the Met, the Guggenheim, the Museum of Natural History, the International Center of Photography, and MOMA (to name a few), but MOMA has been my least favorite…followed closely by the Guggenheim.  I’m not saying that either of them are bad museums, because they are not by any means, just that I am not a fan of modern art, and they tend to have realllly modern art on display; the Met isn’t like that.  But…it’s Paris. 

Needless to say that it is now April, and the Documents pour artistes will be closing in less than a week….oh, and if you hadn’t guessed, I still have yet to get there.  This all will change on Friday though, as I drag myself to MOMA and finally see my coveted exhibition…I just hope that the lines aren’t anywhere near as long as the ones from the McQueen exhibit.