Like Three Shots Echoing in the Still Night

I went away to an ashram for two days with one of my favorite friends in the whole wide world, Mindy. She came up from DC and before we caught a ride up to the Catskills for two days of serious yoga, meditations at dawn and Ayurveda food, we proceeded to a movie theater to watch Sex & the City. It seemed only too apt. I said to her that the only thing that would make this trip come full circle is if when we returned, we also ate a giant meal of steak and martinis.

When we got out of the movie theater we had exactly 10 minutes to catch the van with 8 ashram bound people, where we immediately had the most un-ashram conversation about a movie that is so dripping with commercialism and western gluttony that we whispered for the entire 2 hour trip.

There’s very few people I’d rather go to an ashram with and get my ass kicked by intense two hour yoga sessions than Mindy. Moreover, there’s VERY FEW people I’d rather be with than Mindy when I go to a yoga class that asks you to do a yoga headstand, a move that I’ve never done, and that is INTIMIDATING as all get out. Talk about a crash course in dealing with one's perfectionism: how about having the teacher come over to assist you, when you're having a huge case of the shyness, only to have three excellent farts come bellowing out of you as the teacher lets you down. Yep, that's right. They sounded like three shots echoing through a dark night, only it was broad daylight and there were people cultivating the SILENCE around you. When I told Graham later, after he recovered from being doubled over in laughter, he said, "I hardly think that's unusual." Considering that the diet was all good for you all the time with a side of beans, I could comfort myself that the ashram followers weren't thinking of me as the "Toot Girl." I was thinking of the guy next to me as THE BREATHER, but that's because I'm new to to the ashram and not as enlightened.

Later, Mindy took pictures of me practicing the headstand on my own in the grass with a wide berth of space for safety sake (hers). Thankfully she did not take pictures of me FALLING completely OVER, only the giggling afterwards:
I have to tell you that it was so wonderful being in the Catskills and waking up to a bell being rung every morning, and then doing two sessions of two hours of yoga a day. It was hard work and relaxing at the same time. Plus, in between yoga, eating, and sleeping, I got to have deep talks and crack up sessions with a friend that makes me want to grab a Bigwheel and head off into the world to kick ass and enjoy myself. Mindy, if you're reading this, you are MY PEOPLE. I adore you so much. Plus, next to my cat Kingsley, you are the DEEPEST sleeper I have ever met in my life:
Well, after three sessions of yoga, let's face it, you're just plumb tuckered out.