A day in the life.

7:00 am: Alarm goes off. "Canned Heat". Snooze. Again and again.

7:30 am: Get out of bed, panic because I've over slept. Run into kitchen, make Quaker instant oatmeal, put fresh fruit in it. Drink glass of orange juice. Try to do this fast, because yoga starts at 9:30am, don't want to be nauseous. Put food into tupperware containers for the whole day, as fast as I can. Run out of the apartment at 8:15am (when the van leaves). Run back to get the two or three things I forgot, get to the van by 8:20am.

8:20 am: Apologize to van mates for being late, AGAIN, and then either try to sleep or practice the yoga dialogue in the 45 minute car ride through hollywood to the bikram studio. Note to self. Good GOD we're all becoming yoga geeks.

9:00 am: Pull yoga mat off of drying lines outside studio, run into building as fast as possible to try to "reserve" a good spot in the room - close to the doors, far from the heaters. Yo soy pussweed. Sign in to the attendance sheets, lie on mat in the big yoga room while the room heats up, reading my little dialog book, trying to memorize. Maybe find a friend and ask them if they'll let me practice my dialog on them (they stand up in front of you, you lead them through the pose). Note, as I do every morning, that yoga people are SO RIDICULOUSLY HOT.

9:30 am: Morning yoga class. Remember to breathe. Remember to breathe. Why am I here? Why on earth have chosen THIS as a life path? Breathe, breathe.. GOD it's hot... Aw dude, get your foot off my head... oh, sorry miss! I didn't mean to put my foot on your head! I just want ONE GOOD POSTURE. My triangle's okay. Not great, but okay.

11:15 am: Lie in savasana, trying to reroute the energy systems to find strength to sit up. Welcome the cool air, gradually rediscover joy in being here. Get off floor at 11:30.

11:30 am: Lunch. Wait in microwave line for 20 minutes, reheat my AWESOME FOOD! (Thank you, Kris), sit down with fellow students - I try to sit with different people every day and meet at least two or three new people every day, so I don't end up falling into the comfort of a "club". Practice dialog. "Arms back, Look back, Fall back, Way back, Go back, MORE BACK!!! Come up and stop in the middle."

12:30 pm: Back to the big room - sit on the funny little floor chairs in the yoga room. Try to avoid giant sweat pools hiding in the floor. Posture Clinic!!!! Everybody gets in a queue (or a LINE, for you americans..) to go up and recite a pose of dialog. We're still in the beginning - basically, you get up with a microphone in front of the whole class and you've got four students lined up that you're going to direct through a posture (or part of a posture). The dialogue has to be memorized and delivered verbatim, with no improvisation. Furthermore, the primary focus is not on the exactness of the memorization, which we were supposed to have done before we got here, but rather on the delivery, in a very theatrical sense, of the lines. I chuckle to myself multiple times a day - I feel like I've become one of those drama kids in high school... I'm all streching all the time, wearing loose clothes, barefoot, hanging out in a mirrored room with a ballet bar, getting and giving advice on how to emphasize the words in a delivery. I am truly dissolving my concept of "me", because... I LIKE THIS. It's so much fun! I get to make big muscley bodies bend by saying WORDS!!! Tee hee. Little pee breaks here and there.

4:30 pm: Break to get ready for evening class. Run into the yoga room to reserve a decent spot. Run into men's bathroom, try not to laugh at the "naked guys standing around having a conversation while completely naked" thing.

5:00 pm: Evening class. Second verse, same as the first. Hot, hot hot.

7:00 pm: Dinner. Virtually identical to lunch, only colder outside.

8:30 pm: Either MORE posture clinics or Bikram lecturing. There's no way to describe a Bikram lecture. It's this chaotic, rambling, repetetive thing, and right when you feel like tuning out, he says something that seems poignant. In true yoga geek fashion, I've begun sitting right at the front, close to Bikram, so I don't have the opportunity to tune out. He notices it immediately. Also, work on sitting in indian style with a straight back.

11:00 pm or 12:00 pm or whatever: Back to the van! Drive home! Or, more precisely, be driven home. Lots of singing along in the van to the radio, or talking about the lecture or some such. Jibber jabber! So much post yoga energy!!!

1:30 am: Write blog entry, talk to Clodagh, wonder why I'm not tired.

Actually. Now I'm tired....