I saw the greatest bumper sticker of all time when I was 18.

Driving to my busboy job in the summer of 1994 I had a Beatles album on full blast. I had recently discovered the genius of the Beatles and (like most people with music sensibility) determined them to be the BEST BAND IN HISTORY. I still feel that way. When I pulled up to a red light behind a pick-up truck, I saw IT. Then I never saw IT again. Until this morning.

I’ll get back to the bumper sticker thing in a sec. I’m not good with transitions, so indulge me this digression.

I’ve never done yoga. Well, that’s not entirely true. In college I borrowed a Kathy Smith Yoga Basics VHS tape and tried her routine a few times in my fraternity house. In 1996 yoga was not trendy. But Kathy Smith was buxom and perfect-looking so I didn’t get too much flack from the guys in the house. I lost interest quickly, however. It’s too distracting to see a 10 with a breathy voice bending all over the tv. I was only 19, for chrissakes. I couldn’t handle that.

Almost 20 years later I decided to try yoga again. But this time not in a crowded frat-dorm with half-empty beer cans littering the coffee table. I found a studio around the corner from my place in Chicago that had a good reputation.

So, this morning, I put on a workout outfit and headed out. When I pulled up to the yoga studio at 9:30am, I almost missed IT.

The yoga studio was in a 120 year old Chicago three-flat. There was a lush garden that you walked through to get to the door. I was buzzed in and a woman dressed entirely in white greeted me. She told me to grab a mat and a cushion. I asked, “Uh, do I wear socks?” She told me that most people didn’t.

In the studio there were icons of famous yogis on the wall. The hardwood floor creaked like many Chicago apartments. The woman in white sat in the front and put on new age music. She assumed the lotus position and told us to grab a mantra card.

We started the session with a chant. I can’t exactly remember the words, but it was near identical to the chorus of Across the Universe.

Jai guru deva om.

I think we were giving thanks to God or something. I involuntarily started singing the Beatles song in my head even though I was supposed to focusing on my third eye. That mantra plus the bumper sticker were too much and I chortled. I closed my real eyes in case anyone was looking over, wondering what was so funny.

I didn’t mention that this is a Kundalini yoga class. I should have read the course description in advance but I chose not to. I had checked out the reviews of the studio online and they were overwhelmingly positive. I’m a big believer in trusting reviews and then not reading anything else. It’s a nice way to build surprise into your life as an adult. Trust reviews and then go in blind.

However, I did know a little bit about Kundalini, but by total accident. Some time ago I wrote about when I relax my head moves around on its own. In searching online I kept coming across a phenomena meditators call kriyas. It’s suggested that Kundalini is a powerful energy and sometimes, when awakened, makes the head shake like one is having an epileptic seizure (kriya). I filmed a video of me doing it, but it was too freaky to show you. Here’s the exact same thing happening to a woman meditating. The difference between her and me is that I’ve never meditated or done yoga.

My only point of reference for Kundalini was this head-shake video, so I assumed in the class I’d be sitting cross-legged with my head bobbing all over the place dropping in and out of trance.

Well, it turns out that Kundalini yoga is hard. And the opposite of peaceful. It’s basically the heavy-metal of yoga, and I suspect the word Kundalini translates in English to “What are you, a pussy?”

First, there is the breath of fire. It’s the Kundalini signature move. Using just the nose, breathe in and out as fast as you can. Try it for 20 seconds. Now, double the speed and do it for three more minutes without stopping. Now add in some core stomach exercise like scissor kicking your legs at warp speed. Don’t forget to sync your breath with the kicks. Oh, and don’t pay attention to your mind when it commands you to quit. Or your burning muscles. That’s not the Kundalini way. Push through like a warrior.

Up until this class, I had mistakenly assumed yoga was just a collection of standing poses where you salute a mountain or bow to the sea or stand like a hanging pine cone. Not Kundalini yoga. We never even made it to our feet. At one point, as a warm up, we sat cross-legged and lifted our fannies up an inch and then dropped them hard on the ground. Of course we were instructed to do this at 300 rpm all while doing breath of fire. It’s a privates destroyer, and my testicles were pretty upset about that exercise. They haven’t spoken to me since the class.

After the teacher destroyed my quads, stomach, and reproductive system, we were allowed to lay on our backs for 10 minutes. She came around and performed Reiki which basically meant touching my hair. I think it has to do with transferring energy through hands, but I didn’t feel anything magical. I kept thinking about how I hadn’t showered yet. I was sure the molding creme and sweat mixture on my coif was pretty gnarly and that she was probably fighting back vomit.

After the laying-of-the-hands she announced it was time to meditate. Kundalini meditation, it turns out, means “hard-core upper body workout.” We were instructed to flail our arms up and down as fast as we could, all while doing breath of fire. I had to stop at least a dozen times within three minutes. I’d give myself a two second break and then jump back in, only to be defeated moments later. The class ended and I was a sweaty mess.

I rolled up the mat that was still wet with my essence and I put it away. If anyone wants to clone me, grab a Q-tip and swab the studio’s purple mat with the flower on it. My DNA is all over that thing.

Did I enjoy my first yoga class? No. I’m not a sadist. But I do believe that it was worthwhile. And doing hard but worthwhile things is one of the best suggestions for a full life.

But, to be fair, even in the midst of all the insane breathing and exercising a few interesting thoughts came up. I got the notion to cook 5 lbs of italian beef and then 5 lbs of Chipotle-style chicken. I had never thought to do either, but when inspiration hits me, I obey. I drove directly to the grocery store.

My house smells like death right now with all the cooking. Plus, I never got around to showering.

I’m not sure satori is in my future, or if I’ll ever permanently open the third eye. But I’m going to keep going back and doing that one and other yoga classes. I just hope I don’t find myself in that one discipline where you blast farts all over the mat. I can do that all by myself, thank you.

photo credit: Side Stretch via photopin (license)

• Episode One
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• Episode Three

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Well, yes, I guess I could have become excited because she’s not exactly unattractive. But that didn’t occur to me in the moment. I jumped up from my sofa and bolted directly into the guest bathroom. My master bath just has a boring walk in shower. It’s kind of fancy, but I needed to soak with a friend.

I’m talking about shared experience.

One of the hardest parts of being single is doing things by myself. I want somebody that watches the same shows that I do. Someone who laughs at the same jokes, and who thinks eating grocery store sushi on a Saturday morning is a fabulous idea.

I’ve heard that the purpose of a relationship is to amplify the human experience. This is done through intimate sharing. It doesn’t mean you both have to be into Norwegian death metal, although if you’ve found each other, good on you. I need someone in my life to pal around with – this is the most important part of a union for me.

I need someone that asks me what I’m writing about tonight. They don’t have to read each word, or any posts, but they have to get excited that I get excited. That’s the secret to a successful relationship. Get interested in the other person’s crap. Not literally.

But, to be fair, some couples seem to survive without much of this. I have a friend who watches college basketball nonstop while his wife trains for marathons. They share none of these activities together. It works for them. Me, I like having someone on the couch next to me while I crank out the Evil Dead trilogy. It’s simply more fun.

Of course time apart is critical. You can’t be up in each other’s jock nonstop. That shit gets old right quick.

As I’m growing older I realize that I want and need a willing partner. I want to learn what gets my woman off and then spend time participating in that with her. If she’s into crocheting, hook me up with some yarn. Wait, is crocheting the yarn thing? I ain’t looking it up.

In my life passion goes a long way. It’s the juice of life and what I live for. I have stopped dating a few women recently because I couldn’t find their passion.

Speaking of, can we all agree that passion fruit flavored anything is nasty? Just a small aside. But, seriously.

So, even though my friend was out of the tub almost the minute I got in, it meant a lot to me. Sure, it’s silly and goofy and childlike. And it certainly doesn’t mean anything in the grand scheme of our friendship. But the fact that we both spent a minute doing something together made this night more enjoyable for me. That’s a marker of a good friendship.

My last girlfriend recently called me the most selfish man she’d ever met. And maybe she has a point. I write a humor column all about the wonder that is I. That’s sort of selfish. But, she’s wrong mostly. I looked for her passion and tried to dig it out over a year. It was buried, or at least I couldn’t find it. I’m not putting her down – she’s a lovely woman. But I realize what I need now in a partner.

Thank you for reading and letting me indulge my passion. Now, go on and read one of my other posts where I tell a fantastic fart joke. I’m passionate about those, too.

Didn’t happen.

Looks like I’ll just continue to trudge along writing about my daily life. You seem to like that best anyway. The good news is that the book is essentially done. The first draft is complete and I need to figure out what Amazon needs to greenlight it. Probably some editing. I decided not to do the whole book in Comic Sans font, by the way. If you’re not familiar this is the most reviled of all the fonts. I still think it would have been funny. But, Times New Roman, you old classic bastard, won over my heart. Actually I think Word just defaults to that and I shrugged – good enough.

I’m back suckas! So get ready for more of the same.

Today, on the bus home from work, I stood next to a woman who was eating sunflower seeds. She looked normal without any sort of obvious mental condition. I mention this because she was clearly batshit crazy. My suspicion is a personality disorder and definitely a narcissist. I came to this conclusion as I watched her crack her sunflower seeds from mouth to hand and then deposit the shells directly to the floor of the bus. It was  magnificent.

I couldn’t stop staring at her. She was a hell of a lot more engaging than the movie  Lincoln, I can tell you that. Sure, she didn’t free the slaves or anything, but watching her teeth and hands  mesmerized  me. Well, she did free the meat from the shells, that’s for sure. I think the inside of a seed is called the meat. In fact I’m pretty sure it’s considered a “meat” in the food group thing. Or maybe I made that up years ago and didn’t remember. I don’t have an editor and I’m not about to fact check. I roll raw, people.

Also, you don’t see a lot of chicks downing sunflower seeds. That market is generally reserved for high school baseball players who don’t have the cajones to try out some RedMan – the chew of champs. It’s like when I see a woman smoking those cigar cigarettes. You know – the thin, small brown ones. I respect the unladylike-ness of it. By the way I should report that I work in kind of a crappy area of town.

Actually, that’s not true. The neighborhood is fine. It’s completely changed over the past decade or so. Just nobody thought to tell the pimp clothing store next to us. I’m not kidding. They sell real pimp clothes. It’s amazing. And awesome.

I will say though that watching someone deposit their shells directly onto a bus floor made me both angry and sad. Angry that some poor schlub will have to clean up this bitch’s mess. Probably the nice driver who said hello to me as I entered. Sad because it’s a subtle reminder of depression. You can’t look at it without getting a little bummed out. After the bus ride I jumped on the subway onto a new car that already had black marker all over the windows where some shithead had tagged it. He was nice enough to write the f-word a few times, too. Depressing.

Now, I never pick up my dog’s poop. This is my thing. My dog is seven pounds and it dries out within a day and who cares, right? I’ve come back after a few days and you can’t even see it anymore. But that’s not the point. I’m depositing shit-shells on the floor and not picking them up.

I think you can sort of judge a person by how much depression they cause in others. If someone saw my dog taking a shit, me congratulating her on being a “good girl” and then simply walking off, they might get upset. So, I’m causing some bad feelings in others and simply because I’m too lazy to pick up what a big dog owner can’t get away with. Now, I’m proud to say that’s pretty much my only vice that affects others.

And, unlike the seed lady I’m ready to change. No more will I let my dog’s poop go uncleaned! I will pick it up. I pledge this to you. Word is bond, yo.

I did buy like 500 biodegradable baggies and I’m ready to rock. Can wait to feel my dog’s first conjure of black magic. If I throw up, I’ll take a photo. And not clean it up.

You have to really hunt to find either.

There are a billion crappy Mexican restaurants, a McDonald’s down the street, and 37 Subways within city proper.  Yet, to find a shop that will make you a deli sandwich with pretzel bread is impossible.  Here’s how difficult it is to get pretzel bread.  Even Auntie Anne’s doesn’t sell them and they’re the only pretzel game in down.

Go around the office (or, for those of you who just stay at home, talk to the pets) and ask if others like pretzel bread.  You won’t hear a “no”.  If you do that person is clearly a zero and probably thinks those shortbread Girl Scouts cookies are the best of the bunch.  (Samoas are the right answer, by the way).

How is chicken shawarma not in every Denny’s and TGIF restaurant?  They both serve crappy steak and tons of fried food that all tastes the same.  Why not just add a new menu item and call it…

The Most Delicious Chicken You’ll Ever Have – Trust Us, It’s So Good This Long Name Should Be Even Longer To Discuss How It’s Perfectly Seasoned, Served on a Bed of  Delicious  Yellow Rice That Nobody Quite Knows The Name of and Also Some Hummus With Red Dusty Shit On Top and a Cucumber Salad of Sorts.  This Is The Official Name Until Our Marketing Team Comes Up With Something Better.  Don’t Worry – They Coined The Awesome Blossom.

By the way, you know how you’ve been eating the same crap at Subway for 15 years?  On the taste scale is a 5.5.  But it’s reliable.  Except those rare times where they accidentally get a sliver of red onion that hijacks its way in with a tomato.  You can throw that onion into a coworkers hair and still taste it on 60% of  the sub.  If they really want to re-energize the brand, come out with a pretzel role.  It won’t be in the “6 Grams of Fat or Less” club, but those subs suck anyway.

You would buy a pretzel sub from Subway.  You would order chicken shawarma at The Olive Garden.  Write to the Pretzel Growers Association and tell them to bump up the marketing budget.  We have all those terrible pistachio ads – which is stupid because everyone already knows pistachios are the best nut in town.  It’s shawarma and pretzel bread’s year.

Shame your deli counter manager when he says he doesn’t have pretzel bread as an option.  At Chipotle, laugh loudly at the guy working the pinto beans and say, “What do you mean that you don’t have a pretzel tortilla?  Lame!”

You now know what must be done.  Accept the mission.

photo credit: yummyporky via photo pin cc  |  photo credit: migrashgrutot via photo pincc

If you don’t know the story of how I met Jessica through this site, you can read that story here.

Now  that I think about it, driving for twelve hours to come visit is a bit surreal to me.  It was only a year and a half ago that my wife divorced and moved across the country to the west coast.  Here’s another thing – I have never left a girlfriend.  They have all left me.  Now, it’s not like I had dozens of serious relationships.  Only four or so in my life.  But they’ve all left.

I’m not worried about Jessica taking off.  I’ve been in therapy and various support groups for over three years straight, and worked through a lot of the issues that would cause me to attract women that leave.

Okay, enough emotional claptrap.  This is a humor blog, for chrissakes!

So last night my girlfriend awoke and saw this.  Since she didn’t record it with video I’m going to explain what was happening.

I, dead asleep, with arms crossed, was tickling my upper triceps with light fingernail brushings.  Then, I moved to my forearms doing the same thing.  Next I went to my ears, and then the sides of my face.  She said it was amazing that I had such precision in my movements. I then did my thighs and then stopped.  This was over five minutes long.

I have written before that I wake up regularly with my forearms in the air lightly tickling them.  The feelings is nothing short of pure ecstasy.  A 9.9/10 on the pleasure scale.  I told this story once to a woman at a dinner party and she basically leapt across the table to hug me, as she thought she was alone in this craziness.  The rest of the dinner party was thoroughly creeped out.

I believe this light tickling thing is symptomatic of Sensory Processing Disorder.  I’ve written about this extensively, and how I get so much pleasure and comfort from that lead apron at the dentist that I looked into buying one on Ebay.  Then an animal hospital graciously donated a lead vest, gloves, and neck protector.

So, while we don’t have video of me lightly tickling myself, here is a photo with all my heavy lead things that us SPDers love so much.

Try to top that in weirdness,  readers!

Okay, obviously I was kidding – I’m sure you were ready to punch me through your computer screen right into my sack.

The truth is that moms work damned hard.  I know that my mother was busting her fanny just raising us even when she wasn’t working a day job.  And there were only two of us kids.

Moms are often the bad guys too, especially if they’re home all day.  They’re the primary disciplinarian, and the kids end up with resentment because you told them they couldn’t watch a Pixar movie before making up the bed.

Okay, I hope to have sufficiently persuaded you that I actually think mothers are awesome, hardworking, and rarely get deserved credit.  My mom cried during brunch today because I came home to visit this weekend.  That’s a good mom.

But what about those of you with shit mothers?

Certainly there’s got to be a few floating around, right?  Hopefully you don’t have one.

Well, those mothers should not get a free pass.  If you were a bunk mom your children should be able to call you up the second Sunday of every May and shame you.  For you, it will be known as “Shitty Shaming Day.”

And then the rest of us with great moms will get together and buy you some chocolate covered strawberries.  That way you get to unload on your bad mother AND have a delicious snack.  I think that’s fair.

—-

Hi Joan, how was Mother’s Day?

Great!  The kids flew in, took me to brunch, gave me a mani/pedi in the living room, and then presented me with the entire All My Children seasons on dvd autographed by Susan Lucci!  Oh, and Linda, how was Shitty Shaming Day?

Well, my daughter called from London.  You remember Sally – she moved overseas because, as she puts it, “I hate the USA knowing that you live there.”  She’s mad that I called her fat from age six until seventeen.  For Shitty Shaming Day she phoned up and just screamed the c-word over and over again.  My son mailed me his dog’s feces and a fork.  He didn’t explicitly say it, but I’m assuming he wants me to “eat shit.”  Still mad that I told him every time I cried it was because he was bad.

You really didn’t benefit from the addition of Shitty Shaming Day, did you?

I did not.

—

So for all you lucky enough to have a great mother, I hope you made her feel special.  And I have a tip for you – call her up on a random Thursday next month and tell her what a great job she did raising you.  Trust me.

Some chicks gave me a position with their website!

AimingLow is a fantastic humor website (seriously), which is collection of funny writers doing what they do best.  Effacing themselves through embarrassment.

They have published several of my pieces over the past few months.  I’ve attempted to slime my way into their collective jean shorts (or “jorts”)  through repeated begging.

And unlike my online petition to be considered for Jet Magazine‘s “Man of the Year” they have actually paid attention.

I join an elite group of writing warriors called the “Comic Relief Roster.”

It’s kind of like being the head of the JV volleyball squad.  You’re not varsity, but you’re still spiking the ball once in awhile.  There may be an opportunity down the road should I endear myself to their readers, and become a staff writer.

I’m very excited, and clearly bragging.

If you’re a blogger, you need to get to AimingLow’s Non-Conference near Atlanta in October.  I’ll be there along with some of the funniest bloggers online.  Basically it’s a conference without all the extraneous crap – you actually go there to learn real strategy on how to build an audience and network with other bloggers.  Also, it’s free, which is unheard of for a blogging conference.

Okay, I’ll keep you updated with AimingLow starts publishing my stuff.  I have something in the hopper already for them that should go live in a week or so.

I can’t stress enough how great this website is – check it out and read the posts.  Amazing writers.