SO YOU THINK YOU SHOULD SLEEP

I should be asleep right now. Or at least trying to be asleep. As it is I haven’t yet washed my face or taken out my contacts or downed my sleeping vitamins or taken my antidepressant. Oh, wait–are you so new around here that you didn’t know that I knock back some Wellbutrin XL every night? Even though I’m a yoga teacher and I’m supposed to keep my body pure and devoid of—gasp—chemicals? Yeah, bitches, I take a drug despite eating righter than I let on, doing boatloads of yoga, and even teaching that mind/body nonsense. I’m quite proud of it too. Proud because it’s damned responsible self care to down those lil’ white pills daily. Harp on me about it. I want you to. Because I will take down your self-righteous and potentially undereducated ass. (Huh, didn’t know ’til just now that I am feeling really feisty.)

Anyhow, I ain't sleeping but I should be. My hair needs to be washed, I haven't packed yet, and early tomorrow Jim and I are boarding an airplane, since, unlike the paranoid and pretentious disaster of a human being I was married to during my genius years, James isn’t afraid to fly. The handsome mister and I are heading to Los Angeles for a couple days. Day one is for hanging with Internet Jessica, Internet Jeff, and The Boy. And Day two is for going to a taping of So You Think You Can Dance. Because Jim is really damned in love with me and knows how to make magic. While I'm not the fangirl type, I love Cat Deely with all my heart. I shall not seek to, like, interact with her, seeing as I’m afraid of everything. But I get to witness my fave show go down. More than enough.

Instead of even trying to snooze I’m enjoying the sound of cute Jim snore and Sophie sleep-moan, listening to Chopped, and thinking these thoughts—

• You can’t wear heels or open-toed shoes to SYTYCD. So it was very nice of Jim to rush me to the Rack tonight for some pointy-toed flats that will work with my orange dress.

• All my problems could be solved if I’d just internally rotate my hips. That’s how insignificant my problems are.

• Everyone has a mirror face. Turns out mine is the same as my disappointed face.

• I love animals. I wish them long, healthy, happy, happy lives. 'Cept when they interrupt my sleep; then I feel differently. At 6AM some months ago a bird was pecking at the eaves outside our room. Jim was already up and downstairs, so I texted him, There is a bird outside our window. Please go kill it. I can’t be held responsible for the things I wrote when Woody Woodpecker stole my sleep. 

• Sponge Bob is not, in fact, a kitchen sponge that got chucked in the sea as debris and came alive. He is a sea sponge that just looks suspiciously like dish-washing sponges. Cameron teaches me the important things.

• I do not talk in my sleep. Except this one time Jim told me I said, “You can’t play with that in here. You have to take it outside.” So when he sleep-talks he says he loves me and that he’s proud to be my husband. He’s even said, “You’re just so delicious.” (What?) But when I talk in my sleep I reveal my full crossover into stepmotherhood in a house where fireworks are standard, waterfights common, raw eggs used for revenge, and where, for fun, we put children in human-sized hamster balls—in which, guys, they could, like, die if we don’t let them out (so I made sure that when they got those for Christmas they got pocket knives too).

• A couple weeks ago I decided that since I took six years of French in high school and college it's ridiculous that I don't speak any French. I'm therefore fixing that. My first few lessons made sure that I know how to say “I understand a little French not very well” and “Do you want to come have a drink at my house?”

• The Tory Birch fragrance smells like CK One. It smells like 1994.

• When your secondary degree is in writing don’t ever use the casual phrase, “I could write a book on—” such as, “I could write a book on how no housekeeper in the world is worse at making beds than ours is.” Because people will say, “Okay, do it.”

•••

Bonus: a couple more shots from the family shoot we did with Ash a few months ago—

I call this one “I Swear He Likes Me Back”:

And this one “Frame that Shit Stat”:

TRAVELING YOGI CAMPER

Danielle, this one’s for you. We've never met, but Whit said that according to your reading of my blog the Ellikers are still in Hawaii. Good point. That would be one long-ass vacation. Though Josie was pissed we had to come home at all, I was thrilled to be back in Sparks. I like my real life. I prefer it to vacation. Probably because my real life includes vacation.

While we didn’t end up getting to skydive in Hawaii like we wanted—apparently skydiving companies have ditched the Big Island (something to do with cost)—we did go on a helicopter tour and saw lava. We did go to a black sand beach. We did go swim with dolphins. Well, Jim and the kids did; my leave-the-animals alone self sat in the boat and got knee-weakeningly seasick. We did climb rad trees. We did hike around and see waterfalls. We did strip off our clothes and jump off rocks into a pool of water that very well could have but kindly didn’t gift us leptospirosis. Don’t worry, we didn’t strip off all our clothes; we were in our underwear. Which, yes, yes, itself actually is cause for concern.

Dunno where Ben and Jim were at the time, but Dustin, Josie and I were scrambling around some rocks at Rainbow Falls and saw teenagers jumping off lil’ 20-foot cliffs. Dustin was like, Oh, I’m doing this, which was convenient for him seeing as he was the one of us three wearing a swimsuit. He jumped. He climbed back up. He said it was fun. Josie and I were jealous. Josie and I were not at all sure what to do. Do we jump in our clothes? Do we go in our underwear? Oh dammit, I guess we do. Before stripping down to my stepkid-scaring lacy underthings I looked at them both and said, “As your technical stepmother, I apologize.” 

That same afternoon Josie and I brilliantly decided to trek down what has to be the, like, at least fourth steepest road in America, and when it occurred to us collectively that the further we walked down the further we’d have to walk back up we turned around took the hardest walk of our lives back to the Waikoloa overlook parking lot. We side-stepped with jazz hands. We walked up backwards. We bear-crawled on our hands and feet. At one point Josie started hallucinating fauna. Guys, we almost died basically. 

Since we survived I can say it was a good trip. It wasn’t where this spoiled white lady would have chosen to go, but Jim brought me a fresh-squeezed beet juice every morning from the nearby shop and I got to go to Bikram four times. Homegirl got what she “needed.” She can label the vacation Good.

Shit’s happening, Dear Reader. At this moment I’m writing from the Palms Place in Vegas. Jim had to come see his people down here and I came along so we could make a weekend of it. Sweet Cameron covered my Saturday class. Dunno what we’d do without that lil' nugget of a yogi; he’s also caring for the doggies seeing as—wait for it—Dustin moved out yesterday. Tomorrow, the boy is starting the next leg of his flight schooling in Utah. Yes, spreading wings. Only literally. Therefore better than everyone else.

So yoga. Last week I taught seven classes. Between Bikram and Power I probably took nine, but I don't so much tally that anymore. Teaching seven is the most I’ve done in a week so far. I know I’m a decent teacher. But I’m a new teacher. It’s gonna take forever to just graze good. A bit ago I passed the little 100-class milestone and it still feels like every class is my first.

One night last week when I got home from Bikram—as sexily sweaty as ever—Jim and Ben were watching Star Wars Episode II. I sat and we watched for a while, me answering Ben’s questions here and there because I was raised by a legit Star Wars nerd, and then Dustin got home and went we full out, talking technology, story line, comparing to LOTR. At one point I looked at Jim and said, “Your family is a bunch of geeks.” His lack of pride was confusing. 

Hey, so Jim took me by a camping ground last Saturday. (Had to retrieve a trailer. Don’t confuse yourself thinking I was actually camping.) It was nothing like what I expected. The campground was basically a big parking lot winding through the forest where people sit around all day and tell their kids to go play with sticks. Our neighbors at home aren’t as close as these camp sites were. I thought you went camping to, like, get away from it all or something? Apparently it’s actually just congregating closer with people you don’t know and coming to terms with being filthy. ’Til now my reason for not camping was that it was outdoors. But my relationship with outside has been improving of late. Now my primary reason for not camping is that it looks stupefyingly boring and if I want to get uncomfortably close with other stinky humans I can just go to Bikram. Which I do every day. So it’s as if I camp every day. I’m a camper. 

FLEXIBLE SCHEDULE

• Sometimes I play messenger at home. The other night I told Josie, “Hey, public service announcement: if you don’t get on top of your laundry your dad is gonna lose his shit.”

• Apparently my hair color has been hiding my dosha. Last Tuesday a student said that since he can now see my roots it all makes more sense—my dark hair was misleading, and now that he can tell that my hair is actually lighter and more consistent with my complexion it's evident that I’m a Vata. (Prayer hands and a bow if that made sense to you.) My actual concern here: you are examining my roots? Wednesday’s hair appointment couldn’t have been more welcome. Evidently it’s time to schedule them even closer together.

• I got a food dehydrator that hasn’t stopped humming since I took it out of the box. Kale, apples, potatoes, pineapple, and bananas over the weekend. Next up, mushrooms and tomatoes. I’m a dehydration pro in the hot yoga room and will be in the kitchen too.

• Dustin’s greeting to me lately: “How’s retirement?” Lotta yoga. I “retired” a week ago. I took class and taught Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday. So retirement looks an awful lot like pre-retirement just without a day job that was, quite honestly, making me miserable. Now I have a flexible schedule. Get it? Flexible? Yoga? Oh forget it.

• I legally changed my name to Romo-Elliker. Megan Romo-Elliker. Up until now my hyphenation has been informal. But it’s official. (Fish fish, Tanya.)

• Benjamin’s sweats were getting short so Jim dropped in at Old Navy and snapped up a few more pair. Problem is, he got Mediums and those were the size of the ones that are too short. So I exchanged ‘em for Large. Ben tried on the new sweats and they were way too big. “Medium is too small,” I said, “And Large is too large.” “Too bad there’s not an Extra Medium,” he replied.

• Vanilla almond butter.

• When talking with a friend about how she plans to one day live off the grid, to give up internet and phones, my immediate response was, “But how will you go online to order your life from Amazon?”

• The other night I was chatting with a fellow Juice Boxer and he asked after Jim. “Where’s that adoring husband of yours?” I told him that Jim works out every weekday at 5AM so I don’t expect him to come to late classes. “He loves you,” he told me. “I know,” I replied. “I can tell when he looks at you. I saw you look at him and him look at you and I thought, ‘That man has a twinkle in his eye!’ You guys look so in love.” Aw. We are. It makes people nauseous.

• Last week I met the fluffiest Bernese Mountain Dog in America. Her name is Maya and she is as big as me.

• My Lola sister came in for the weekend and left yesterday. She was here to hang. We dehydrated things. She took my vinyasa class. (Which I totally crushed, by the way. Afterward a student told me that because of my enthusiasm he tries things that he otherwise wouldn't and he's loving it.) She, Jim, and Dustin went to the GSR and played poker. She came with us to Ichibahn to celebrate Dustin and Nathaniel’s birthdays. She helped me transfer all the stuff out of my soon-to-be-gone work car into our other car. It was relaxing yet productive and completely delightful.

• Convenient how Jim already had a car for me. Forward thinker that he is, he got the thing last year with this very scenario in mind. Wife may quit job. Will then need own car. This car can be that. He’ll drive his truck and I’ll take the little car. Done and done.

• I've got some kind of yoga-clothes disconnect going on in my brain. On Thursday I forgot to put something to wear in my yoga bag, so I used the back-up clothes that I keep in my car. On Friday I forgot my yoga bag altogether and I hadn't replaced my back ups so I borrowed clothes. And yesterday after class I was nearly home when I got a text telling me that I left the bag of my sweaty shorts and top in the dressing room. I wonder what fun apparel screw up awaits me today.

• I wrote “mushroom fluff” instead of “marshmallow fluff” on my grocery list. My subconscious wants me to make nasty smores.

• Some evenings I ask Jim, “Do know what happens tomorrow?” “What?” “Breakfast!” I rise to eat.

CHIPS AND SMIDGES

• My breath stinks right now. Onions. And whatever else those wizard Mexicans put in their crack salsa. After yoga I met Jim and Dustin and his lady friend at Miguel’s for dinner. I polished off a basket of chips single-handedly, consumed at least a pint of salsa, made a quesadilla disappear in seconds even though there was a smidge of guac on the tips (ick), and then battled Jim for the last bites of fried ice cream. Yogis eat, people. We eat like nobody’s business.

• I have a bald spot in my left eyebrow right now and I don't want to talk about it.

• Lately—and justifiably methinks—my arms are my pride and joy.

• Something very important has happened. I found jeans that fit. I am 32 years old, and I finally found jeans that fit. I’m short, I’ve got thighs, and I do not have any chest to speak of. It is therefore a royal pain in my ample ass to find me clothes that fit. If pants are short enough they’re too tight through the thighs. If a shirt fits around my waist it’s too baggy in the bosom. Enter Banana Republic Petites. All my work clothes that fit without alterations are BR Petites. In a blow of brilliance I realized that those people make jeans too! I now have three pair and Goodwilled all of my ill-fitting denim. 

• Today I got new perfume. My mom got a new knee. 

• Last week it was a year since my sweet James made a Tiffany box descend from the sky in yoga class in order to ask me to marry him. We were already happy together. We're happier now. He makes me feel secure and protected. He feels loved and supported. We complement each other. We're partners. He is my best friend. Please God, never let him die.

• I startle very easily. I get so far in my head that Jim will bang on the walls and stomp his feet up the stairs so that I hear him coming, because if he doesn't and then walks in the room without my having heard him, I scream. “But you don’t live alone,” he’ll tell me. This is true. It is also irrelevant. Yesterday I apparently forgot that there is a mirror on the wall in the closet, peripherally glimpsed the shadow of my own reflection, and screamed.

• Ben had a bad dream this morning and when he came in our room frightened—as kids do—and told me about it he said that he dreamed that “there were bad men in the house and they were teleporting out.” I was torn between sympathy for his distress and delight that an eight-year-old used the word “teleporting” straight out of a dead sleep at 5:30AM.

• On Sunday I tore through my closet for ten minutes looking for this one bra. I found it on me.

• To answer everyone’s absolute favorite question of late: No. Despite the line local church leaders have been fed, absolutely no one mistreated in the infidelity disaster has received even an attempt at an apology from Mark and Carrie. Not wronged spouses. Not kids. No one. So probably don’t believe that made-amends garbage. It’s garbage.

• Yesterday my dad texted me to say that he “nearly worships” my husband because he “is a warrior.”

• My grandma did the whole boat-from-Ireland-to-America-and-signed-the-leger-at-Ellis-Island thing. It’s not infrequent I’m told, “You look Irish.” No shit. I’m pail as paper. My hair turns reddish even when it’s dyed brown. Most of those splotches on my skin are freckles. I dig The Chieftains. I look dynamite in green. Notwithstanding, I forgot that it was St. Patrick’s Day. 

• I have a hair appointment tomorrow. Hence by law today was my very best hair day.

EXCERPTS

• Today the doorbell rang at 4:30AM. When Jim came back upstairs after dealing with the door I asked who? what? He told me, “It was the security guard. Dustin left the garage door open last night.” “What a jackass,” I said. I didn’t mean Dustin. I meant the guard. Seriously? 4:30AM? That’s your company’s policy? It’s two and a half hours before daylight and you think it’s a good idea to ring a damn doorbell and wake people up? 4:30 isn’t exactly prime robbery and rapery time. I think we were gonna be okay until one of us left for work.

• The phone-as-a-hotspot thing is a boon for someone who doesn’t work in an office. I’m online! Wherever I go! Mostly! (Don't forget I live in Northern Nevada where in some places because it's so remote we actually use carrier pigeons.)

• Usually I keep Soph’s coat really short. Yorkies have hair not fur and I don’t want her hair to get tangled and matted. But when I took her in to be groomed this weekend I told Brandi to keep her long and just trim around her eyes and paws. She looks like a lil’ ewok when her hair starts getting long. It’s a fun change, and now Dustin won’t see her with the short, short cut and say in his special, reserved-for-dogs-under-7-pounds-voice, “Sophelia where did your hair go? Who made you look so ugly?”

• On the afternoon of January 5th I got to pet a live raccoon. He was on a leash and when I reached out to touch his surprisingly soft coat he came up on his hind legs and put his charmingly creepy raccoon hands on my knees. “Oh, I’m so sorry! He’s getting your nice slacks dirty,” the handler said and pulled him back. “My pants look better with raccoon handprints on them,” I told her. And then I texted Jim, “I got to pet a raccoon. This is going to be a good year.”

• On Saturday while I was at yoga training Jim and Katelynn spent the day up at Heavenly in South Lake skiing in what little snow we’ve got right now. Just the two of them, a little daddy/daughter date. Lucky Katelynn. Still, as an adult, daddy/daughter dates are the best. Even if it’s just down to Sonic to get a soda I relish the time that I get my pa to myself. Cute as can be, these two had a great day:

I recognize the relationship that Jim has with his adult daughter. It’s like what I’ve got with my dad, which is a good, good thing. We love having Katelynn and her husband over whenever we can. My dad (and my mom!) feel that way too, especially now that they have a son-in-law they respect and know adores their daughter. We see that in Nathaniel. He adores Katelynn and has her very best interests in mind. He’ll protect her from distress in any way he can. We love that. Katelynn trusts her dad. As a daughter with a dad I love and respect and admire and trust and all the good things, I love seeing Jim and Katelynn get to enjoy that same fulfilling relationship.

• Saturday evening we spent with Jim’s other adult kid. Dustin turned on a documentary about Ed Templeton, an influential skater and artist—in fact, there’s some of his work printed permanently on Dustin’s body. Both Jim and I were enraptured. Skate language is basically not English and I love learning about that world. Saturday night my dreams were about Ed Templeton and his wife, Deanna, and then all day Sunday I had the song “Mr. Templeton” in my head and I was thinking about the rat in Charlotte’s Web.

• During the documentary Jim and Dustin sprawled on the sectional and I lay spread eagle on the fluffy shag rug on the floor. I wore my long puffy down coat, yoga clothes from earlier in the day, and my gray Sorel boots. I looked like a cartoon. For Christmas Jim got me the cutest snow boots in the history of Ever and sometimes I have to wear them around the house because the weather is too nice for snow gear and the boots are too perfect to just gather dust in my closet.

• Whenever I finish an audiobook and the recording says, “Audible hopes you have enjoyed this presentation,” I reply, “I have! I really have! Thank you!”

• I admit this with a certain amount of shame . . . I say kill all the coyotes, hawks, and owls. I am a vegetarian because I love animals. The animal that made me this way is my small dog Sophie. I love her more than anything else not human and more than nearly all humans. There are coyotes behind our house. There are hawks that fly over the yard. I sometimes hear owls at night. And I hate all of them. My creature is tiny enough to be stolen by those big predator birds and nasty coyotes. That happens around here. I like my critter more than I want them saved. I know how bad that sounds, but she is my person. 

• I suddenly love beets. I credit my spiralizer. This super simple recipe in particular. Now I’m trying to learn more ways to prepare beets. I so far prefer the golden beets merely for the fact that they don’t stain my hands. (No, I'm not going to wear gloves.) When we stopped by Whole Foods after yoga yesterday to stock up on beets—and Halo Top!—Jim put the root vegetables in our cart and asked me what they taste like. “The ground,” I replied. That night Dustin took a bite of my beet dinner and said, “It tastes like dirt.” Yes, I agree. But sophisticated dirt.

BLOGASANA

• I have decided that I can’t teach the Juice Box Warm & Mellow yoga class without Jim there. As usual, he’s spoiled me. While I’m out in the lobby talking to students before class he makes sure there are enough props for everyone and works on the room’s temperature. Afterwards he stays to clean up. Last night after I finished talking to students I went into the yoga room to do post-class tidying and it was all done. My sweet-as-pie someone took care of everything. He only gets to come to my classes on the weeks that we don’t have the kids. When we do I’m on my own. Without him I’ll have to, like, work.  

• At Juice Box Yoga—a Bikram method stuido, my friends—the last Friday class of each month is a music class. Bikram yoga is traditionally done without music. The only music you hear during the really unpleasant 90 minutes is the nonstop melodic commands of your yogi bootcamp instructor. This last month’s music class was the purview of Cameron, my yogi co-conspirator, and he made it all 90s music. Team, those are my jams. I sang along to NSYNC and Backstreet Boys and Smash Mouth and Britney Spears and I bounced to the beat in awkward pose and tree and, well, all the postures, and then when I came out of class I told our famously friendly front desk staffer, “I just spent 90 minutes back in high school. I was, like, in the back seats of cars making out with guys and skipping class and everything.” While I’m sure all the students enjoyed the class, I’m as sure as I can be that no one enjoyed it more than me. It was my era. I knew all the words. After class my Jim said, “Thanks for being so hot,”—Well, um, thanks and you’re welcome—“and young!” If knowing all the words to 90s tunes means I’m young, I’ll take it. There are some definite benefits of marrying a man a few years outside my generation.

• It’s so cute how my Maps app thinks that I know what way is south. Start out going south on 4th street. Is this 4th street? Which way is south? Do you mean left? Right? I’m asking for your help, dammit!

• Josie and I are going to be acrobats. Also we want a pigmy penguin. In theory. We don’t want to have to care for it.

• The other night Jim, Dustin, and I were in the kitchen talking and Jim mentioned someone and Dustin said, “Wait, do we hate them?” It’s a team mentality in the Elliker house.

• I've been bending and such on the mat for the last decade but today is my five-year Bikram yoga anniversary. I’m a thing made of choices that led me to what I am. I’ve made those choices consciously. While I may not be happy with how I look or how a particular project is going, and I know I’m a work in progress, I always like the actual person I’ve chosen to be. I’m this me on purpose, and Bikram Yoga has been one of the very most important elements of making this right-now person. Yoga overall has given me much—some patience, confidence, acceptance of vulnerability, and respect for limitations, etc.—but Bikram yoga has given me the most. Perhaps that’s because I’ve given most of my time to my Bikram practice. Bikram yoga gave me a pile of people that I can confidently call my yoga family. It’s given me opportunities for growth. It’s made my body into something I can live with (and something my husband loves). It’s smashed my inhibitions. Because of Bikram yoga I love to sweat and live to try again. 

• Work’s been rocky this week. It’s the start of a new quarter, my partner and I have a new list of doctors to call on, and the office addresses in our database are all effed up. We know where to find most of the docs on our lists and we fix the addresses as we go, but I just got assigned doctors up at the lake and those addresses are a mess. I was talking with my partner yesterday about what a joke this week has been, trying to get our jobs done and failing ‘cause we can’t find everyone we’re supposed to see, and I told her that for some of the doctors I’ve resorted to googling them and hoping the most common address in the search results is the lucky one. “It’s so primitive,” I told her, “but what else have we got?” I like how I’m calling the entire world in the palm of my hand by way of my phone primitive. 

• Last night I came out of the yoga room after teaching the Warm & Mellow class and said to Kaitlin, the front desk maven, “I just made that class my bitch.” And I really did. For my last few classes I’ve been feeling like I just suck at teaching. Like, what the hell am I doing? But last night was awesome. It felt good in the room, like cues were making sense. I made the students laugh while enduring some really uncomfortable postures. At least half the class—we had 22 people I think—were new to this class. A fair few were new to yoga altogether. After class students told me that that hour was exactly what they needed. One sweetie hugged me. And when they left they said, “See you next time.”

• Wait, do you want to come to my class? Do! Come stretch and such in my smells-like-effort home away from home. It’s a bargain ($10 drop-in) and you can check out the Juice Box schedule by clicking here.

I AM NOT GOING TO YOGA TODAY

• I live in a fireworks household. If you root around enough you can always find some something that spews colored flames and sparks. But last night I decided that I hate them. Around 11PM some neighbor set off a green-hued mega bomb whatchamacallit and scared the eff out of our dogs. Soph buried herself under the comforter, smooshed her body against my back and shook for 10 minutes. Gus dove under the bed and whined. I think he slept there all night. Stop scaring my beasties with your pyrotechnic tomfoolery, you hoodlums. 

• On NYE Jim and I went to my friends Dana and Norma—Dorma’s—last class in their 365-day Bikram yoga challenge. I am a sucker for unique yoga goals and experiences. Glow yoga. Music-themed classes. Weirdo poses. Workshops. Challenges. It takes a significant schedule conflict for me to bail on some singular yoga event. There were 48 people in class, and only half of us were around for the post-class photo (and one of us—Jim—had already put on his shoes and didn't want to take them off to go back into the yoga room), but here you go—some of my people. (In the purple shirt standing next to me is Marilynne. We are yoga twins.)

(Nice capture, Kaitlin.)

• Carpet and upholstery cleaning and protecting: costly. I’m a fantastic mark. When the cleaning techs note my wide-eyed fervency for spotlessness they see dollar signs. Upsell! Upsell! And because I don’t know a damn thing I’m like, “Uh, okay, here’s my debit card. Do as you will.” They see on my account that my last bill was huge. They think, “Great, she’s used to giving us all the money.” And then because I can’t do math I overtip them.

• Yesterday when I was in the hot yoga room waiting for my 6:30 class to start I thought, Wait a minute—when this day is done I will have spent about four and a half hours doing some kind of yoga something. That was not my plan. While I felt bamboozled I've never been accused of moderation. I took a power class in the morning. I was then at Juice Box to take a Bikram class. And then after the hot one I would teach the Warm & Mellow class. It's getting absurd. I decided then that I would take off Friday. No yoga class for me today. Cameron and I have to review some stuff for training tomorrow, but I’m not going to class. I’m not. I mean it. 

• It’s the samples Sephora sends that sell me. Oh, I need something I can get at Ulta while I’m out and about. Ah, but they won’t send me samples of shit I don’t need. And I want those samples. I’ll say this though, when there is something I need or want, samples do the trick. There are so many products I like in my in my medicine cabinet that came by way of me trying a sample, digging it, and buying the potion.

• When Jim was cutting holes in the sheetrock above the sinks in our bathroom he discovered that because of some pipes he wasn’t going to be able to install the medicine cabinets as low as we wanted. (His wife is short.) I told him not worry. I am accustomed to having to stand on my toes or scramble onto the counters reach stuff. That is the life of a below-average[-height] human.

• I am never more popular with the dogs than when I have a bag of Skinny Pop popcorn.

• My brain is just yoga mush. Mostly Sanksrit mush. Parivrtta Surya Yantrasana. Ardha Chandrasana Chopasana. Svarga Dvidasana. Baddha Utthita Parsvakonasana. Marichyasana. Apanasana. Ganda Bherundasana. Devaduuta Panna Asana. Deviasana. Mandukasana. Please tell me you stopped reading by this point.

• I showed Josie Eka Pada Galavasana. She’s her sights on it. The girl’ll have her own flying pigeon before you know it. What I love is that she cares about form. When we play with the posture she pays attention to alignment direction. It gets my safety-oriented heart singing.

• For Christmas Jim got me some more of those Kermit’s key lime pies from Florida. Three actually. (Three!? What am I going to do with three pies?) Good thing they freeze for later. And my parents got me a Godiva chocolate of the month club membership. The people who love me well and know me best know what has my heart. Sugar. 

CRUMBS

• The shoes Jim wears most every day to work are Ugg chukka boots. I think we are now on his fourth pair in the last two years. He likes the the way they feel. I like the way they look. Sophie likes the way they taste. Before we were married I’d bring Soph to Jim’s on my way to work so that she could spend the day with Gus the Labradoodle. Sometimes when I came to pick her up at night we would find that she had dragged one of Jim’s black boots from his closet, down the stairs, and out the dog door into the back yard so she could gnaw on the leather tongue. Even though she's not much bigger than the boot, it’s a habit she made consistent. And only with the black pairs. She leaves the brown ones alone. A few weeks before Christmas I came home to find that my little dog ripped open one of the gifts under the tree. I was annoyed and then delighted. Because among the piled packages beneath the tree, two wrapped boxes were chukka boots for Jim. A brown Rockport pair. A pair of the black Uggs. Guess which one she opened?

• Have I said this before? I just can’t get behind yoga leggings over your heels. It looks like you decided not to finish getting dressed.

• I bought an ultra light down coat and I don’t want to take it off. But when I do take it off I want to stuff its bulk into the tiny bag it came with. So warm! So comfy! So space saving!

• It’s a little bit heartbreaking when the guy who let me go in front of him in traffic misses the light but I make it through. I glance in the rearview mirror and hope that he’s not pissed. But since he's the kind of person who lets other people in in traffic, I’m thinking he's over it.

• Our Ninja blender arrived the other day. That blender’s blade is like its own slasher flick. Whitney suggested that I make little freezer bags of smoothie ingredients so we’re ready to blend at a moment’s notice. “rFozen fruit and maybe some spinach or kale.” Nut job. I’m not doing that. Fruit, yes, but no way on the vegetables. Why make a smoothie miserable?

• My job has perks a plenty. One: our end-of-year shutdown. I don’t work the last week of the year. I get paid for it without having to take vacation time. It’s pretty standard throughout my industry, and when I think about it, a truly terrific plus. It is a great time to whittle down my perpetually-put-off to-do list. (You know, since you could say that drug pedaling isn’t my only job; there’s the designing sometimes, now the yoga teaching here and there, and a long time ago in a galaxy far far away there was the idea of writing.) Also when I consider it I think, “Sheesh, we sorta earned the shutdown this year.” My company is launching a few new products next year. A pharmaceutical product launch is a big damn deal. We retrain on what we already know. We train on new stuff. We go to meetings. We get different managers. Our day-to-day sorta goes belly up. I’m pretty good at taking it in stride, but there are moments when I feel like my brain is shredding. 

• Lots of the posts that flood my Facebook and Instagram feeds are yoga-related. So and so is going to this month-long yoga teacher training in Peru. So and so is going to a 9-week Bikram yoga teacher training. This person is taking three weeks to go on a tropical yoga retreat. My question is this: How the hell? Do these people suddenly not have jobs?

• Halo Top in the freezer spells hope. Hope for the future. Hope for snack time. And potentially breakfast.

REGULAR RIGMAROLE

• Last night I fell asleep watching Star Trek VI: Undiscovered Country. I was on movie six because I had played two through five throughout the day while I worked on a design project. Via my friend, Caryn, the McQueen Orchestra hired me to do a typography print that they’ll sell to raise money for a trip. The concept for the print is sweet and distinctive. And while I can never say that everyone will love the style of what I’ve designed—aesthetic preference is a personal thing—design-wise, it’s tight and solid.

• Five more classes until I’m done with my current 30-day Bikram challenge. It’s not a secret that Bikram yoga attracts two specific personality types: addictive and Type A. I’m both and after my 4:30 class on Wednesday I’ll have done 295 Bikram classes this year. Not too shabby considering that I also started teacher training and do other yoga besides. (Riddle me this, how do I not have a completely incredible body due to all this vigorous yoga? Oh yeah . . . treats.) I just need one more double to be caught up. Vacation and the holiday meant that this go ‘round I had to do a fair few of doubles to meet the 30 classes in 30 days. As I was packing my yoga bag the other day with the multitude of crap I bring when I’m doubling up, Jim said, “Remember when you used to say you’d never do a double?” Oh my. I did. I said that.

When I know I’m doing a back-to-back I don’t put my mat in an extra hot spot for my first class. There are times that’s exactly what I want for myself, but when I know I’ll be spending 3 hours in the hot room, I try to be reasonable. I have a rule that if I want to do two classes I can’t skip any poses in my first class. If I do, I don’t get to stay for a second class. (I made an exception last week when a nosebleed put me down for the whole standing separate leg series. With my teacher’s go-ahead, I stayed for a second class, and I don’t mind saying that I totally tore that one up.) Immediately after the first class I knock back 24oz of water. My habit is to not bring water into class with me, but I do take water into my second class to keep me upright and sort of sane. Sort of. No one who regularly does doubles is even in the remote vicinity of totally sane. 

• I’m on my own today. Jim took Ben and Jo to the 49ers game in San Francisco. Ben’s talked about wanting to go to a game. Jim said why the hell not, bought tickets, put the kiddos in the car, and they went on an adventure. I was back and forth as to whether or not I’d go as well but decided to stay home so I could start on the fundraiser print. (This girl cannot do reading or computer things in a moving vehicle. She will vomit.) This is the time I set aside to work on it, and if I don’t follow my schedule I’ll be rushing to get the thing done at the last minute and my work will suck.

• The house is really loud right now. I’m happy about it. Both the upstairs and the downstairs Neato vacuums are doing their job which means I don’t have to think about vacuuming ever. Come to think of it, I’m not sure I know where the upright vacuums are.

• I spent last evening with an ice pack on my knee. There’s one on there right now. I made the grave error of, you know, kneeling, and the right knee revolted. Dammit to hell. But this is the life I’ve got. One or more of my knees always hurts. It’s not from injury or overwork. It’s genetic. My grandma’s knees sucked. My mom’s knees suck. My knees suck. They have for my whole life. 

When my yogi pals see me backing out of a pose or avoiding it altogether they ask after class if I’m injured. Because I can’t figure out how to make them understand that I have knees that just can’t take what theirs can, I say yes. They say how. And I try to come up with an explanation for why my knees are messed up. My knee cap slipped one too many times during high school cheerleading. I had a lateral patellar realignment surgery on my left knee that I will regret for the rest of my life. I was a weightlifter. No single explanation works. I just have garbage joints. My ligaments are basically bubblegum which means that for tasks like, say, walking, my joints don’t have support enough for stability. The cartilage wears down. That translates to pain. I’m only 32 years old and there is osteoarthritis in one knee. I’m defective.

HIGHLIGHTS

Last blog post: November 6, 2014
Today: December 22, 2014
Time between posts: Roughly a month and a half.
Reasons: Many. See below. 

I am occupied. Busy. My now-life doesn’t look much like my then-life. It doesn’t look much like the holiday season of last year. It looks one-hundred-percent nothing like the holiday season of 2012.

I spent this year’s Thanksgiving at the 49ers game. That is football. It was my first NFL game. We didn’t have the littles this year. Katelynn and Nathaniel were with Jim last year so they went to Nathaniel's parents’ this year. Jim’s mom and sisters have 49ers season tickets. It’s where they were going for the holiday. So Jim, Dustin, and I made a weekend of it.

At 5:45AM on Thanksgiving day Jim and I got in our holiday Bikram yoga class. At 9:30AM I got in my holiday power yoga class. Then we packed the car with brown butter pumpkin cupcakes, lemon bars, and cauliflower tabouli. We grabbed sodas for the road and landed in Palo Alto just in time to swath ourselves in red and join the mass of soon-to-be-disappointed San Francisco fans on their way into the Field of Jeans. 2014's Thanksgiving dinner was a vegan dog—that Jim and I have been craving since (I’ve either contributed to significant improvements in that man or destroyed him altogether)—and diet soda.

Jim planned our hotel to be within a 2-minute walking distance to a Bikram studio so that the day after Thanksgiving I could go take class while the boys went on a long motorcycle ride through the redwoods—or through Endor as Dustin described it. (Dustin rode his motorycle over to SF and Jim rented one there; don’t go thinking those boys were riding nuts to butts. (I learn much descriptive language from Dustin.)) After my sweatfest I spent the afternoon working on yoga class sequencing.

Yoga class sequencing. That’s right, Dear Reader, little Romo is teaching yoga. I’m taking one or two classes a day and teaching a couple a week. While my teacher training won’t be complete until the end of January, for a reason I can’t so much identify, Tanya's seen promise in me, and I get to teach some of the Warm & Mellow classes at Juice Box.

I walk out of some of the classes feeling like a damn fine teacher. And some make me feel like I should personally refund each students’ fee. The sequence I taught on Saturday night was pretty damn bitchin’, so at this moment right now I’m feeling good about the whole deal. Also: I love doing it. So we’ve got that going for us.

I was telling my amazing Ella-yoga-teacher-friend the other day that much like getting a graduate degree in writing destroyed my ability to enjoy reading (it becomes all about learning something from the read and not just relishing the experience), becoming a yoga teacher kinda ruins yoga classes as a student. You aren’t just practicing in class anymore, you’re also trying to learn teaching stuff from the instructor. Oh, that was a good cue . . . Yes! What a perfect transition . . . And so on. I think that’s the beauty of maintaining my Bikram practice while training to teach vinyasa. Since Bikram classes are all the same and I’ve done a thousand-some-odd classes, I’m able to actually take the classes instead of spend the 90 minutes trying to make mental notes on killer cues and sequences.

It makes me extra grateful that I was able to just be in my power class yesterday and not focus on learning to teach from the teacher. I had the terrific opportunity to take Kim Arnott’s 108 sun salutation solstice celebration class at Pure Yoga yesterday. Yes, ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHT sun salutations. I was completely scared to do it. I thought my shoulders would revolt and fall off with the 108 chaturangas (tricep pushups for the uninitiated), but it felt fantastic. And my shoulders are fine. My hamstrings on the other hand are tender to the touch. 108 chaturangas: okey dokey. 108 forward folds: ahem, not so much.

If you are local, take a class from Kim. While she is a badass yogi herself and a damned hard teacher, she is also one of the most generous instructors from whom I’ve had the pleasure to take class. Her preparation for class is unparalleled, and I feel truly privileged to get to be her student.

I’m fortunate that way. I do a helluva lot of yoga—I’m on another 30-day Bikram challenge right now, because, you know, I just wasn’t doing enough yoga before—and I don’t have a teacher that sucks. The people that teach me yoga work to know their shit and are available to their students. I have so much good in my life and more than much of that good has to do with yoga and the people that come with it.

Also happening lately: Christmas.

Guys, I put up a Christmas tree. That is not something I generally do. Or ever do. But I was happy as happy can be to do it, because, well, this:

At present I’m the most awesome person I know. Jim’s the second most awesome because he didn’t pitch a fit about my putting up a pink tree. In fact, he likes it. I married a man who likes my pink flocked Christmas tree. I couldn’t be luckier.

Part of that good luck is the immediate family I married into. Remember how I said that my life now looks nothing like it did before? Dear Reader, I went to Disneyland. With kids. Some people think that Disneyland is for young children, but they are wrong. Disneyland is for Jim’s 23-year-old daughter Katelynn. You want to see something spectacular? Go to Cars Land with Katelynn. She’s a treat on top of a treat on top of a treat.

While short for me because I had to leave early get back to Reno for teacher training, the vacation was better than I expected. You know me a little. You can guess that Disneyland ain’t my thing. But what with the proximity of our hotel, Katelynn’s infectious enthusiasm, Dustin’s teaching me what makes a good ass on a girl, Josie’s insistence that I pound beignets with her, Benjamin’s love of Star Tours, and the VIP tour guide Jim arranged (read: human Fast Pass for all the rides—dude, he took us in through the back of Pirates of the Caribbean in order to skip the line), the trip was good enough to do again.  I can't believe I just wrote that.

When my mom was in town last week we didn’t have the littles, but Dustin was here and we had Katelynn over for dinner (Nathaniel was at work, good boy that he is), and we laughed too many times for me to remember what we laughed about. I told Katelynn that up until about two weeks ago I was basically terrified of her dry sense of humor, but I’m not scared anymore. That’s progress. Progress she found awfully funny. There’s so much funny when Katelynn’s around.

We have all our young people for Christmas this year. Seeing as we plan to spend Christmas Eve evening eating pizza and go-karting, it shall be a pretty super holiday. Traditionally untraditional. My specialty.

Highlights: complete.
Long-ass update: done for now.
The way things are going: see you in a month and a half. 

COMPOSITE

• Republic of Tea’s Chocolate Strawberry herb tea is a nice way to hydrate one’s self.

• Jim tells me often how much he likes how I decorated the house. My style suits him better than the old-timey traditional look he lived with before. See? We are simply perfect together.

• I am this person all the time.

• I stopped by World Market this morning because I am out of key lime curd. Well, so was World Market. A helper asked if I needed help, and I asked if I was just not seeing the curd I was looking for. He said they were out. Then I spied a big jar on the bottom shelf labeled Key Lime Tart Filling. “Is this like curd?” I asked. “What are you wanting to do with it? Make a dessert?” “Well, no. Make breakfast. I like key lime curd on my English muffin.” “So it’s like you’re having pie for breakfast?” “Exactly. Pie with a whole wheat crust, which means it’s, like, healthy and doesn’t count.” “That’s a really good idea. You’ll love this stuff.”

• While I like to be a knower of things, there are certain things about which I don’t mind being ignorant. One: weed. If it’s your thing, okey dokey. Just ain’t mine. The first time I smelled pot was when the wasband lit up in the kitchen a few years ago. I think I was, like, 29.

• I may know nothing of pot, but I know pretty much all things about candy. I am 75% accurate when identifying things dipped in chocolate.

• My right shoulder hurts. Usually it’s my left shoulder that gives me fits and sends me to the freezer for ice and the drugstore for Advil, but the right one was feeling neglected and decided to start hollering. So I’m doing a really good job achieving balance in my life.

• I live in a place where the people you pass on the sidewalk wish you a good day.

• Exactly how enamored am I with the man I married six or so months ago? Well Jim got a new passport and I made him pause to discuss how handsome he looked in the photo. I got a big eye roll off that one. But good laws he looks handsome in that post office art.

• I was walking into a medical building and saw an elderly woman just standing next to her car parked in the handicapped space. The passenger door was open, she had a trickle of blood running down her forearm, and she looked to be sort of staring down at the floorboards. Only what she was staring at was the man on the asphalt who had fallen out of the car. She had tried to catch him and instead caught her thin skin on the door latch. A big man with a broken back who was heading in to physical therapy rushed over to help. I helped. Between the three of us—a weakling drug rep in high heels, an old lady with blood coursing down her arm, and a heavy man with a broken back—we maneuvered the frail sir into the passenger seat. It was a great show of spontaneous raggle-taggle solidarity, but even as I scrunched down to lift the old fella’s feet into the car, I wondered if this was some elaborate ploy to kidnap, rape, and off me. I should consume tamer audiobooks.

• While my body overall may not be what I wish it was, I will say that the more vinyasa-ing I do, the more awesomer—auto-correct had a fit over that little grammar transgression—my arms get. Don’t ask for a photo. Bitchin’ though they may be, my arms are as unphotogenic as my face.

• I called on an office this afternoon where the sign-in sheet told me that I was number rep eight of the day. Two more drug pushers were queued up in the waiting room. On behalf of the whole pharmaceutical industry, I apologized to the receptionist for the relentless hassle that can be drug reps.

• Regarding audiobooks, I’m listening to Atlas Shrugged. Again. It will only take 64 hours of listening to take in Ms. Rand’s ideological masterpiece. Wanna feel like being a human is glorious? Read that.

• P.C. or not, I must say that smoking a cigarette in your car on the way to yoga seems a whole ‘nother level of stupid.

NIBBLES

• Sometimes it’s unbelievable how freaking old I look. Then I stand in the right light and I’m like, Dayum girl! You got it goin’ on!

• Today in a medical building a sweet old gal offered me a blueberry donut. We saw an oxygen rep taking bundt cakes into an doctors' office—actually we saw her get off the elevator and take the boxed bundt cakes into the restroom with her, which is inappropriate and totally unacceptable; I’m not a germophobic person, but that just ain’t right—and we both said, “I want those.” And when we got in the elevator together we started talking about how we wanted some sweets but it was only 10:30AM and then she said, “Oh my! I just remembered that I went by Jelly Donut this morning and got some blueberry donuts! They’re in my truck. Do you want one?” I was thisclose to accepting. Also—blueberry donuts? Whaaat!?

• One of the medical buildings in my territory is adjacent to an elementary school. I was there during the afternoon exodus and was surprised by how many dads there were retrieving littles. So high five for antiquated thinking, Romo.

• Yesterday after I got home from work/yoga I told Jim that I ran out of water. “What, during your shower this morning?” “No, before yoga. I drank all I had with me. Wait, why? What was wrong with the shower.” “You were in there for-ev-er.” Oh.

• We are in legging season now, bichis, which means we’re on the cusp of boot season. “Megan, what’s your favorite season?” “Fall.” “Why’s that?” “THE CLOTHES!”

• For my birthday last year Jim got me some Birkenstocks I’d been eyeing. I wear them. I want more. And whenever I slide ‘em on I remind myself to apologize to my mom for spending my whole youth mocking her footwear choices. But then I get distracted and forget. So: sorry, Mom.

• Makes me nutsy when people review a movie or a book and talk about how strong a female character was as if that’s out of the ordinary.

• I’m startlingly pale. Like, oh-my-is-that-girl-okay kind of pale. During the summer, as an act of service, I use a self-tanner because when in swimwear my skin color makes other people uncomfortable. This is strange because I practice Bikram yoga which means that my year round workout wear doesn’t provide much more coverage than your average bikini. Apparently I only care about protecting the peepers of people who see my pale skin in the sunlight; those who see it in fluorescent light are on their own.

• I got my little office on wheels an oil change. When the car dudes are all done with their procedures they take me out to my car and show me that this cap is tight and that viscose stuff is full and this light is off, and I stand there thinking, I drive the thing. It’s a fleet car. Do I have to know about all the stuff under the hood?

• I don’t have a lick of fashion sense. My sisters got that. Instead I have formulas. My work formula = interesting blouse (may include ruffles, ties, bright colors, patterns, etc.) + pencil skirt + mid-heeled shoes. And I just mix and match the hell outta what I’ve got. In the winter I add a belted trench and swap the shoes for boots. Bam. Effort averted.

• When I enthusiastically bailed on my juice cleanse I wasted some money. While I do have a juicer gathering dust in the pantry, it was much more convenient to have someone else acquire the fruits and vegetables and do the juicing and equipment cleaning for me. So I ordered a 3-day cleanse from Jüs for $150. After I picked it up and brought it home, I told Jim that maybe if I liked it he would want to do it too. (That is where I let my crazy really hang out.) An equally enthusiastic fan of paying other people do tedious stuff for him, Jim asked what I paid for it. I said, “Uh, perhaps more than I think I should have spent. You guess.” One of his talents is correctly guessing costs and odds. Of course he'd nail it. “$270” he said. Considering I bailed 4 bottles into an 18-bottle plan, I’m thrilled he was way off. 

• Remember when I had the privilege to perform a wedding? The anniversary was Sunday. These two are just as adorably infatuated with one another now as they were then. May we all be as in love as Evangeline and Andrew—Evandrewline.

• My planet was an ugly and disappointing place in the years before I learned about Ctrl+Z/Command+Z.

• Some days Jim roasts potatoes for dinner. When he does he leaves a little bowl of the crispy treasures out on the counter for me to find when I get home from yoga. I found them. I ate them. I want more.

LITTLE SOMETHINGS

• The yoga teacher training thing I’m doing starts this weekend. When an email with our homework arrived last week it occurred to me that this might actually require some effort. Part of the homework: reading chapters from an Eckhart Tolle book. I am reading Eckhart Tolle. I hereby welcome y’all to The Twilight Zone.

• Jim and I love that Dustin lives with us. And in saying that I do mean that I personally love having him and not just because it makes me happy to see his dad enjoying having his son around. Dustin is considerate and hilarious and is therefore a treat.

• I've said before that different yoga necessitates different types of mats. Mats for Bikram need to be able to stand up to rivers of perspiration and not hold onto the rancid sweat funk. Power yoga mats need to be durable. Power yoga mats, like, say, a Manduka, do not belong in the Bikram yoga room. They are so dense that they soak up the sweat. And then they reek. Earlier this week I was next to a guy in class who uses a dense vinyasa mat for Bikram yoga. Now I hate him. When we got to the floor I identified where the fetid smell was coming from. I started inventing new ways to breathe through my nose without actually taking in the stink. I spent the mid-class corpse pose fantasizing about spilling bleach.

• When Jim brought me flowers the other night he apologized for not doing it more often.

• I can’t stand the abbreviation “veggies.” Really, it’s gonna kill you to say vegetables? (If you’re reading this and thinking, “Yikes! Have I said ‘veggies’ in front of Megan?” as I know some of my friends do when they read this kind of thing, please know that I have no recollection if you did and you don’t need to try to avoid using that word around me. I really am going to make it through either way.)

• Today I had Jim listen to my knees as I moved them. They are total shit and have the crispy crackle of plastic wrap. 

• The other night as we were putting away the groceries Jim told me how there had been some hiccups in the online ordering system, and instead of the grocery people bringing out his order like they were supposed to, he had to go into the store. He told me about the nettlesome interruption in his day when the personal shopper called to say that they didn't have the quantity of ClifBars that he ordered and would it be okay if they just gave him what they did have. We’re jabbering on about these immense inconveniences and Dustin says, “Do you hear how stupid you guys sound? ‘Ugh. I had to, like, go into the grocery store!’” He wasn’t wrong. We sounded exactly as stupid as I sound when I complain that this housekeeper doesn’t tuck in the flat sheet on our bed like I like.

• I walked into a doctor’s office that I’ve been calling on for seven or so years and when the receptionist greeted me with, “Hey, tiny!” it didn't feel wrong. I am tiny and being tiny isn’t a bad thing. I’ve always been one of the shortest kids and I finally like that about myself. But if I were big and she said, “Hey, fatty!” or “Hey, giant!” it would be inappropriate and I’d be devastated. The first is an acceptable term of endearment. The other might get you killed.

• In this house there isn't a door closing off the master bedroom from the bathroom, just an arched opening. When Jim gets up early and has to turn on the lights he doesn’t want to wake me. He solved the problem with a handsome barn door. It is eight feet tall, gray, and finished with a high gloss. He skipped yoga class on Thursday so that he could install it as a surprise. I love coming home from class to a house smelling like varnish. A scent of love.

• Hi, Captain Amy.

LITTLE MORE THAN JIM REALLY

• The tree in the front yard at the rental house fell over during the new residents’ first week. It rotted. I’ve had that house for seven years, and it wasn’t until new people moved in that the tree decided to give up its ghost. Tacky timing, tree.

• When I see a “Galt/Rearden ’12” bumper sticker or something like it, I think, “Ah, there you are kindred soul, there you are.” But pretty much all other politically-minded car stickers, no matter their sway, make me think, “Go home, get a razor blade, use it scrape off that dreck, and if you slip up a couple times and slash your precious opinionated fingers, well, you deserved it.”

• We watched Chitty Chitty Bang Bang on Sunday, a movie to which I know every word of every song and most of the dialogue in between. It was a 2:12 sing-a-long. For me. Later that night as I was rubbing Jim’s back while he fell asleep I said, “You know how I’ve commented that if I ever want anything from you I know that this time of day is always the right time to ask because you’re feeling so loved, and you’re so happy and basically desperate to make me feel equally loved?” He hummed a yes. “Well, sweetheart, I’d like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Please get me a flying car.”

• Today I saw a fellow who bore more than a passing resemblance to my husband, and I wanted to approach him and say, “Hey, so while the goatee thing is working for you, have you ever considered a closely-trimmed full beard? And maybe some black plastic-framed glasses? You could get younger chicks that way. You know, if that’s something that interests you.”

• Last week I round-brushed my hair for the first time in probably five years. When I had Kitty pixie-cut my hair so long ago I threw out the round brushes. I bought a new one a few days ago. I used it. Rather than messily blowing out my hair and then ironing it all back in place, I used the round brush and then just touched things up with my flat iron. Oh my the difference! So bouncy and manageable! Then I went to yoga, sweat my 'do flat, let it air dry, and looked like myself again. It’s okay though. Jim likes my hair “wild.”

• Put your toilet lids down. At least do it when you’re taking a photo of the bathroom. It turns my stomach when I see home improvement or real estate photos of a bathroom and the toilet lid is up. I’m a lid-shutter. It’s at least once a day that I walk past the half bath downstairs and have to detour to close the toilet lid before I can sally forth.

• Jim routinely asks me to marry him. I came out of yoga the other night and there on my car was one of his red business cards stuck in the driver-side window. On the blank side he wrote, “Will You Marry Me? Love, Jim.” He turns over in his sleep at night and mumbles at me, “I really want to marry you.” It’s like that all the time.

• It’s smart of Lululemon to include their signature reusable bags in every online order. They’re good bags. I can’t help but use them. Thus I do their advertising for them. Nice of them. Nice of me.

• Lightweight bikes are so yesterday. Evidently Jim’s 35-minute ride to work on his 30-pound commuter bike wasn’t hard enough. Last week he did is problem-solving thing and doubled its weight with a 30-pound barbel strapped to the back.

• I'm antsy to watch Sesame Street. I just finished listening to Street Gang: the Complete History of Sesame Street, a book that was 85% blisteringly tedious and 15% gripping. The gripping bits are compelling me to give my Netflix account a break from The West Wing and fire up some once cutting-edge preschool-age educational television.

• James took the kidlings to Great America (four hours from here), so I’m home alone-ish. They're amusement parking without me because of a piece of advice from a friend who is a step-kid: give the kids alone time with their dad so it won’t feel like they’ve lost him. Last week we all went to the ropes course at Squaw (where I lost my footing on some sky bridge thing and whacked my ankle all bruisey) but this week the children and their pa get to do their thing without me. Which means I have basically no distracting excuse not to file all the garbage lingering on my desk. Wait, I could write! Snort laugh. As if.

• Remember when this blog was, like, about more than just Jim? It's somehow become just a string of bragging anecdotes about how sensational my husband is. Today I'm that girl. His fault though. He's just too awesome. 

MITES

• This morning Ben disposed of a lame mouse for me. I walked into the kitchen around 8AM and there was a tiny mouse in the middle of the floor, disabled and so not moving. Therefore, in a blast of allegiance to my gender, I became hysterical. “Okay. Okay. I can do this. I can take care of this. I can handle this. This isn’t a big deal. It’s just a mouse and I can handle it. I’m in charge . . .” and so on as I zipped in circles around the kitchen hoping furiously that a solution would stop me. I came up with a ziplock bag and a paper towel tube. So then I’m standing over the thing trying to figure out how to use the tube to get the vermin in the bag. I can’t, like, bend over such that I’m closer to it! Ben, who is eight, leaves his video game, walks to me, coos about how cute the mouse is, says that he'll do it, scoops up the mouse and puts it in the bag.

• A better name for the pantry is carbs.

• I made ice cream from Werther’s candies. Nailed that smooth toffee goodness. Nailed it hard.

• I went to a lunchtime yoga class and then to the adjacent raw foods cafe for sustenance before heading to my next doctors’ office. I chose the falafel. I have no idea what those hippy dippy frutarian-types put in there, but that falafel wasn’t anything approaching normal or even good. I couldn’t swallow a bite. I trashed the $8 falafel—eight bucks for three falafel!? Did the prophet Muhammad make them?—and went to Qdoba for rice and beans instead.

• I like where I live. Decent weather, not too much snow in the winter, a yoga community beyond compare, people who are kind to each other, friendly doctors’ offices. The qualm I’ve got with Reno is its drivers. Be aggressive! Take initiative! Merge already!

• I’m registered for a vinyasa yoga teacher training that starts next month. Non-refundable deposit paid. In it now. Evidently, I up and do stuff like that.

• When Ben says a prayer and I’m in the room he prays “that Megan will do good in yoga.”

• A fellow drug rep recently changed companies. He left because his manager was an arse. In what way? The guy perpetually belted my friend with his Mormon dogma, criticizing him for living with his girlfriend, always asking when he was going to “pop the question,” etc. Makes me nutsy. Believe what you want, team, but don’t use your beliefs to tyrannize people. For pity’s sake, ya douche, be respectful.

• Is there anything finer than perspiring buckets in a Bikram yoga class. I say nay. But it means we’ve got sweat to deal with afterward. One of my yoga pals’ teenaged son said that her car smells like sweaty balls. She told him that she was impressed that he was flexible enough to know what that smells like and he should therefore join her in class.

• If you haven’t read Ruth Reichl you haven’t read writing about food the way it’s meant to be written.

• This house beeps. The dishwasher goes ape shit when it’s done—beep! beep! beep! beep!beep!beep!beep!BEEP! I finished! I’m the best in the class! Teacher’s pet! Dean’s list! Astronaut! beep! beep! beep! beep!beep!beep!beep!BEEP! When the garage fridge doesn’t get shut tight, it squeals at surprising intervals until somebody soothes it. The washing machine congratulates itself as soon as it’s scrubbed duds clean and the dryer follows up its work up with a succession of beeps designed—effectively—to annoy us into folding submission. And while all these things are first-world obnoxious, it’s the robot vacuums that induce stroke symptoms. They whine at full volume when they get stuck, when they want their dust bins emptied, when they get confused, when they need a battery recharge, when they’re lonely and just yearn for a listening ear. While we appreciate the excellent work these codependent devices do, it comes at a cost.

• When my youngest sister Lo was wee thing she called breasts “beeps.”

IOTAS

• Jim got a new yoga mat a month ago. His old one went on the lam. Holy goodness, I’ve got a husband who needs a yoga mat. Seems the gods grin upon me in perpetuity.

• I asked Dustin if there was anything he wanted me to add to the grocery order. “Normal bread,” he said. Like what? “White.”

• Did you know that a major part of being a drug rep is compliance training? There are boatloads of regulations that drug companies and their reps have to follow, and I am constantly doing another online training on things that I am and am not allowed to do. Believe it or not, using pens and food to buy doctors’ devotion to my drugs is a big ass no-no.

• Lame that there isn’t a teen Wipeout. Josie and I agree that she would be a terrific contestant.

• My boss rode along with me two weeks ago, and after one call we got back in the car, shut the doors, and I exclaimed, “Whoa! This is important! It’s awesome that you’re here for this!” “What?” I held my head still and, from the corner of my right eye, looked at her in the passenger seat and replied, “My hair is caught in the door. This is huge! My hair is long enough to get caught in a door!”

• Jim bought bananas last week that went from beautiful to bad in under three days. So I heaved out my binder cookbook, the one with family recipes and others that I’ve collected over the years, so I could morph the browning nanners into bread. I made two different recipes, my mom’s banana bread and one from a lady I knew in Hawaii. See, in this house we love blind taste tests: one fancy olive oil pitted against another, cheap olive oil vs. expensive, teriyaki sauce or soy sauce on potstickers, bakery-bought lemon cake compared to home-made boxed-mix lemon cake, brand name cereal against bargain. In this contest Jo dubbed my mom’s baked good the winner.

• I told Jim that I can do a pushup. “Of course you can,” he said. I replied, “I mean, like, a real push-up!” “Yeah, of course you can.” “Well, I didn’t know I could do that. I could do tricep pushups all day, but a real, wide-armed, dude pushup? That’s new. And I can’t just do one. I can do 10!” He just looked at me, his eyes saying, “Duh, dummy.”

• When I met one of Jim’s employee’s on Friday I shook his hand and then said, “Oh, whoops. Sorry, I’ve got cotton candy on my hand. So I guess now you’ve got cotton candy on your hand too.” “She is very sophisticated,” Jim told him.

• I’ve had the first two lines of the chorus in Phil Collins’ “Against All Odds” on loop in my head for two weeks now.

• In therapy my shrink gave me a suggestion to which I replied, “That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard!” She is still letting me come back for more sessions, which is magnanimous since I was quite the punk.

• Benjamin’s best friend, also eight-years-old, is the most polite child perhaps ever and has a mohawk, a combination that makes him perfect.

• Gus the Labradoodle:

(Photo by Ashley Thalman Photography, btw.)

He has taken to spending at least half of every day under our bed. He’s there right now. It’s a squeeze getting there, and he has to army crawl to get out.

• My dad called me about a photo that I posted on Instagram. “I’m calling about your lipstick,” he told me, “It’s very red.” “Yes, it is.” “Like what my mom used to wear.” “Yes, Dad. It’s fashionable. She was fashionable.” “Oh, okay.”

• On the way to church this morning Josie mentioned that she needed new church shoes. So during sacrament meeting we bought a pair, and they'll be here Wednesday. Amazon has my heart. 

• Habanero-hot husband has been applying his skills to installing another barn door in the house. This one is in our bedroom, which basically makes it foreplay.

BY THE BY

• My boss called me an "amazing sales person" this week. I have elected to believe her and therefore feel like a million bucks that is under pressure to pull off some miracles.

• I was going through my notebook, the spiral bound thing that holds my life together and is rarely more than 10 feet from my fingertips, and on one to-do list it said "Wednesday--Do not eat." Nearly certain I blew that play.

• My car is really common. It's a fleet car, after all. So yesterday out in the parking lot after making a call in a doctor's office, I walked up to the wrong car and opened the door to throw my drug bag in the back seat. Cigarette smoke smell and giant pieces of sandpaper on the back floorboards clued me in to my mistake. But larger than that--there are people who don't lock their cars?

• Certain things should never be photographed. Beef stroganoff is one.

• Being cute but not beautiful makes you approachable.

• Wearing very high high heels every day means that every day people will stare at your feet and "whisper" to their companion that they have no idea how you can walk "in those things."

• My dinner tonight included a potato poblano hash and a wrap with hummus and quinoa and then a brownie with a pretzel crust. One meal to make me like a room with out a roof. (Happened.)

• When conversation reveals that you are newly married people start glancing at your left hand every few seconds for a surreptitious look at your ring.

• On that, how's married life, Megan? Really effing splendid, y'all. We have fun every day. Our conversations consistently broaden my scope of understanding. I'm gaga for him. He loves the hell out of me. My in-laws are spectacular. I still think his astonishingly loud snoring is cute. (Blessing, that.) He admires my talents and honors my independence. We respect each other. All the people everywhere agree that he is adorable.

• Here are a few of Amazon's current recommendations for me:

Malden smoked sea salt
Black lava sea salt
Calvin Klein thong
HydroFlask ice cube trays
Double-sided origami paper
Chiyogami paper
Low-odor chisel tip dry erase markers
"Made in 1964" t-shirt
The book Little Quilts: 15 Step-by-step Projects for Adorably Small Quilts
MiaBella balsamic vinegar

• The way people cooperate in a 4-way-stop style when traffic lights go out leads me to think about the concept of maybe having a little bit of faith in humanity.

• The chipper CVS clerk: Do you have a CVS card?
The me: No (lying)
The chipper CVS clerk: Well let's get you signed up for one--
The me: If I have to sign up for one more card I will poke out eyes. Maybe mine. 
The now wary CVS clerk: I'll just scan the store card for you, ma'am . . .

• I take pride in being able to walk in high heels without looking like an idiot.

• Money makes me happy. I'm not ashamed of it, and I really couldn't care less that joy in such sounds shallow.

• My name badge is my security blanket. I sort of don't know how to do my job without it.

• "Entitled" is the filthiest word.

• Jim and I just spent an entire dinner out talking about construction companies' estimating processes and billing practices.

ODDMENTS

• I made drug calls in Yerington and Fallon today. I wrote more wedding thank-you notes during lunchtime. But the part of my day that gave me the greatest sense of accomplishment was at the very beginning when, while getting dressed in our closet, Jim mentioned that he needed more shirts for work, and less than 20 minutes later I had five work shirts and six t-shirts ordered and on their was to our pad. I genuinely consider efficient online shopping one of my most significant talents. Not only do neither one of us have the desire to go shirt shopping, we just don't have the time

• If you're in the shower and you unknowingly put a replacement razor head on upside down, you'll find yourself naked and perplexed, confused as to why the brand new—overpriced, I'm just sure of it—razor totally sucks.

• Mally-sister, her dashing beau Nicky, and long-long-long-lashed wee one, Sy, are gonna be in the states next month. I'm muchly looking forward to seeing them. A year between viewings is too long.

• I'm married. In case you forgot.

• My hair stylist is too pretty.

• I love that Dustin drinks tea.

• My Jim is never happier than when all his kids are in the house. That happened Sunday. Nathaniel and Katelynn came over for dinner and games and Dustin got home from work just in time for food. There was tri-tip by James, quinoa salad and roasted vegetables by his wife, and a couple key lime pies courtesy of Gay, Jim's sweet and stylish ma, making the food nearly as enjoyable as the company.

• Scattergories is a Peterson family fave, and the Ellikers have graciously adopted it too. Play it with Katelynn sometime. Really, do.

• Ben and I have been indulging is Suess lately. Oh Say Can You Say? No, not really, but I sure do try.

• So I married a man with kids. It's bound to come with in-home challenges, sure (she said in the manner of one uttering the greatest understatement of ever), but one of the most challenging of challenges is putting up with the unsolicited step-parenting advice from all people everywhere. I certainly don't claim to know what I'm doing in this new familial arrangement, but I only have so much RAM to work with. It's not personal, but if you're giving me "parenting" advice, there is a more than decent chance I won't recall a word you say. Unless, that is, you yourself were a step child; in that case I'm listening very closely and will try very hard to remember what you tell me.

• Jim orders his pizza with light cheese and extra sauce. Waiters usually get it wrong.

• Sometimes when Jim is talking to me I have to ask him to repeat what he's said because I spent the talking time distracted by how handsome I find him.

• The JiMeg merger's complete and I'm moved in and have an office and am basically settled, so I have to get back to my writing now.

• As a test case, Jim switched out a standard electrical outlet for one that that includes two USB ports. Those things are pretty much as revolutionary as gym bags with special shoe compartments; there should be more of 'em.

• I am busy.

• Longer hair smells filthier faster.

• When I was married to the wasband I called myself The Sequel, since I was a second marriage. On a similar thread I call Jim The Upgrade.

In. Absolutely. Every. Single. Way. Imaginable.

So she—me—is pleased.

CLIPPINGS

• I really still don't get the point of hashtags, and it doesn't bother me. I think I like being a dunderhead on this one.

• Yes, I do have wedding photos to share. Many. They are just what I hoped for: terrific shots of our family with sweet moments of the bride and groom here and there. Teaser:

• My hair smells celestial. Rah-rahs for Rahua.

• The number of doctors' office calls per day during which I assure medical office staff that they don't need to worry about me by telling them that "I wait for a living": all of them.

• The Saint Mary's Medical Group South Virginia office hasn't had urgent care services for a year now; they're just primary care providers. Despite the, like, full-on year they haven't been urgent care and the excessive, large-print signage saying that they don't provide urgent services at that location, there is never a time that I'm in that office that someone doesn't come in for urgent care and leave pissed when they are directed to a different location. Not one time, and I'm in there every week.

• What's strange: having a husband who is employed.

• What else is strange: having a husband. Dear Reader, I'm, like, married and stuff. I was getting after myself for a lack of productivity when it comes to writing and art junk and then it occurred to me that I'm technically a newlywed, so how about it's fine that I'm not super productive when my husband's around because I just want to be were he is and that usually isn't in my office writing or designing.

• Oh, that too. I have an office. With a big blue barn door. Jim remodeled to create that space for me. My husband-guy makes stuff happen. That's unfamiliar.

• Back to the thing about having a husband that's got a job: Today I had Jim's Hydroflask in my car, so I dropped it by his office. My husband has an office! And his wife has a job! Last week Jim had a meeting in Carson City and I was working south too, so we met for lunch in downtown Carson. The newness of such an experience wasn't lost on us.

• High-heeled nude sandals are the solution to my every work wardrobe question.

• It's been months a-many since I've worn pants to work. Which sounds saucier than it is.

• Abs are a bit sore today. No, not from yoga—though my practice is daily and sweaty and lovely lately, thanks for asking—but from laughing. I laugh so hard with Jim's kids—last night his two oldest and his son-in-law; there are plenty of times that Dustin's sense of humor has had me on the floor, knees too weak with laughter to hold me up—that my stomach muscles get a workout.

• Remember how my husband proposed to me in yoga class with a ring that descended out of the sky? Sigh. Swoon.

SPECKS

• Push-up bras don’t work if you don’t have anything to push up.

• Basically I get out of bed so that I can go eat my gummy bear vitamins. Once I’ve done that I’m like, “Well, that was a productive day. Let’s go back to bed.”

• On Saturday Jim walked around Virginia City with a green head tucked under his arm. We were there for pizza with his family and while meandering past tourist traps of all sorts, I spied a green glass head wearing a hat for sale. I tapped it’s nose and told Jim, “I want to get one of those.” “Well then let’s get you this one,” he said, picking up the display and taking it inside. Moments later, I had a green head of my very own. “Everything’s for sale,” he told me.

• Mine is the most dysfunctional gaydar of all time.

• I like to write, but I loathe writing bios about myself. Which is strange because, as a general rule, I looove writing about myself. I’m sort of the only thing I know how to write about.

• It is safe to be honest with my James because he doesn’t jump to conclusions.

• Cameron and I tried rock climbing. I failed. So we will go take a class and try again. Cameron posits that since there’s a chance we may get stranded on an island or need to survive somewhere someday this is a skill that may come in handy at a future time so getting proficient is just good sense.

• Josie has been denim shopping lately. The other night she was looking for a tape measure and when I asked what for she said she needed to know how long her legs are. Let me remind you: she is TWELVE. I am THIRTY-ONE. She’s, like, four inches shorter than I am. You see where this is heading. I know my inseam, and so I had her find her hipbone and we matched it to mine. My hipbone is only about a half inch above hers. “Hey, you can wear 12-year-old clothes!” she said. “That would be true,” I replied, “were it not for my lady hips and thighs.” I told her we were now fighting seeing as those are the legs I signed up for in heaven, and God went and gave them to her. Jim was ROTFL. Yessir, I wrote that.

• Cake.

• What with all my yoga stuff and work junk and personal laptop and girl tools and toiletries I require to reconstruct myself after yoga, it’s not uncommon for me to leave in the morning hauling 40lbs. worth of gear. I know because I have weighed it.

• 18.5% of my body is fat. That sounds like too much, though I know it isn’t.

• When I sit next to Jim in his truck or even in the passenger seat in his little car, he wraps his right arm over my knees and tucks his hand into the top of my boots.

• If I made a list of all the candy I eat in one week, it would be far too embarrassing to share (this coming from a girl who has no problem writing an essay about a trip to the gynecologist and sending it out for publication; apparently my shame threshold is uncommonly high). Yesterday day alone—all before noon, mind you—we’ve got white candy melts, an Airhead, Grapeheads, and a York Peppermint Patty. An entire week’s list would look like a candy shop inventory.



• Anyone had those Jolly Rancher carmel apple suckers? Are they good? I nearly snatched one from a basket by a doctor’s desk today. Then I remembered I’m supposed to be a professional, and I kept my grubby little hands to myself.

• I do not know where the big bruises on my shins came from. I never know where my bruises came from.

• Sunday night while we were eating dinner Jim asked me, “What’s a common misconception about you?” Hands down, most common of all? That I eat healthy. “Vegetarian” isn’t synonymous with “healthy.” At least not in my case.

• Why am I always cold after pounding a lot of water even when the water’s at room temperature?