Yoga

Strength. Grace. Balance. Flexibility. Stamina. Power. Elegance. Yoga. It makes me feel beautiful, ugly, fat, skinny, flexible, stiff, pliable, sexy, not-so-sexy, stressed, and relaxed, all at once, all at the same time.  It’s exhilirating and intimidating. I love every second of it; I love challenging my body to balance, twist and turn in ways that few others can achieve.  I’m getting back into the swing of life, and one of the things I’ve enjoyed most is yoga.  As I was doing yoga last night, for the first time in months, I thought of all those aforementioned emotions and feelings I felt during my session.  I just needed to pass that along, thanks for listening.

For my faithful readers wondering where I’ve gone off to, well, my life got quite the upheaval in 2008, and completely turned upside down a few months ago.  I don’t want to jinx anything, but so far, it seems for the better.  I haven’t been able to bring myself to blog, even though I should have, because I’ve had so many emotions, thoughts, feelings rushing through me all at once.  I couldn’t quite figure out how to express it all in one sitting, so I didn’t even try.

I’ve got a few passing thoughts though, and perhaps down the road I’ll elaborate more. For one, there’s quite a debate about getting a master’s degree online, and getting one IRL – that is, In Real Life – in-person, if you will.  I have had the fortune (but currently paying it back…) of experiencing both. Contrary to what most may think, I actually had a closer-knit group of classmates getting my library degree online than I did with my classmates in person while getting my computer science degree.  While part of it can be attributed to the nature of the classes themselves (you can’t have as many lively discussions and debates on how your animation is portrayed during your Flash presentation as you can with say, a banned book), most of it is, quite frankly, what you personally put into it.  Much like anything else in life, your results are the product of your efforts. 

Secondly, Apple’s released some new iPod stuff – one of which is the purple Nano.  And yes, it’s being shipped on its way to me now.  And Dell also has a 15 inch laptop available in a very girly purple/flowery cover.  So it seems the business world is hearing my pleas of “TAKE ALL MY MONEY NOW!” and bringing the purple out. 

I had a few more thoughts that I was thinking, but they seem to have gone into hibernation for the evening.  It is, after all, almost 3am – an early night for me!

It seems I gave myself an early birthday present – I swore I’d blog again, for my birthday – and my own present’s arrived a few days early.  How thoughtful (and surprising) of me to treat myself so early!  Happy Birthday to me! And to you, my dears, thanks for reading on with me.

PURPLE DOG

You must click here: A Portrait of the Artist’s Grandmother’s Dog, ‘Jack’. « Doodle Beasts

Do eet.  Do eet now!

Duh!

So I’ve been using Meebo (www.meebo.com!)  for …I don’t know how long now.  And it’s FABULOUS.  Simplifies life in the way of not having to install or download anything ever.   And you can access practically every IM chat available from this one interface, from everywhere and anywhere there’s a web browser.  And talk like a pirate even when it’s not Talk Like a Pirate Day.  (Do /pirateon to get piratespeak!)  And WHY I only just discovered this morning that I can make the entire interface purple is beyond me. 

Life is complete.  And I love Meebo a little more.

Yay Kelly Clarkson!

So I saw Kelly Clarkson in concert last night over at Mohegan Sun - they sent me free tickets, and they were in the second row off the floor – not bad! I may or may not be a gambling addict, they sent me a $40 gift certificate for dinner anywhere, and last night I blew it on a $42 filet mignon at Todd English’s Tuscany…and I have to say, it was worth it.  They also gave me $10 to use inside the arena, so my friend and I got M&Ms and a Sangria.  I love my Mohegan Sun, and clearly, they love me too.   

Back to Kelly – she’s a GREAT performer – she has this amazing, strong voice and she’s not afraid to use it.  She played a lot of songs off her new album, My December, and it’s mad angry stuff with a more rock feel, and I love it.  I feel guilty that I didn’t even pay to see her – so tonight or some time I’ll be off to buy her CD, and also Jon McLaughlin’s, who opened up for her – he’s a great singer and an amazing pianist as well – you can see big things for him down the road.  The last song he played, Indiana, really reminded me of Elton John, singing and playing so passionately.  

Back to Kelly, part deux.  She talked a lot in between her songs, and she seems like a really down to earth, sweet person.  I love that she’s strong enough to ignore what the media is telling her to do – lose weight, do more radio-friendly songs, etc.  All I know is, Kelly, you’re a beautiful strong woman, and you keep doing whatever the hell you damn well please, girl.  Do what makes you happy, and we’ll be there cheering you on.

 Oh.  And the best part of the Kelly Clarkson concert?  It was practically all in purple. 

Sorry for the sideways photos, I’m not at a computer that has photo editing.  ^.^

I hate complicated pants.

Today I’m wearing one of my favoritest pair of pants ever.  They’re purple (duh) – but it’s the fabric that makes it.  The entire fabric is covered in a gorgeous embroidered floral pattern, with beads and sequins sewn in everywhere.   The downside?  Letting any part of the pant touch any other part of the pant.  Case in point:  I’ve been sitting for the last half hour with one leg under my bum, and I was just about ready to stand up, and tried to move my leg out.  Except now the beads and sequins have hooked on to each other, and I am now stuck in a permanent half-lotus position.  (I can’t just break it apart you know, these were expensive pants. )  On the bright side, I’m really good at balancing on one leg (hooray yoga classes!), so I don’t think my boss will mind if I go work the circ desk now standing on the one leg.

Damn You, Apple! (or, Ode to Purple)

I honestly believe that if companies made their stuff in purple, it would fly off the shelves.  Why?  Because people who LOVE purple are seriously obsessed with purple.  (Can you tell?)  I go out of my way to find stuff in purple.  Even if I don’t need said object, if it comes in purple, I’ll buy it.  I am the EASIEST person to shop for at Christmastime.  Last year a coworker bought me two bags of this purple sparkly straw crap that you use to fill gift bags with – I was fascinated for hours.

People who like the color red or green don’t openly admit their love for the color.  You never see anyone walking down the street with a yellow cell phone, a yellow purse, yellow wallet, yellow coat and yellow shoes on.  And yes, I spent $250 just to get a $&#(*&)! purple cell phone.  (You can too, dammit, click here.) Orange.com has absolutely nothing to do with the color orange, but try www.purple.com.  It makes little sense, but does it really need to?  There is no, as far as I know, Brown-licious store in New York.  There is, however, Purple-Licious, located at 89 South Street Seaport, Pier 17.  There is no bluestore.com to satisfy your cerulean needs, unlike www.purplestore.com, where everything there is purple.  (Sidenote: GNOMG, Lothiriel is going to be so sorry, but I just discovered their “A Purple Wedding” Link)

So WTF.  Why then, doesn’t Dell make their new Inspiron laptop line to include the color purple?  I just bought a new laptop from Alienware, and you can bet your life I would have bought a laptop from Dell instead if they had friggin’ made a purple Inspiron laptop.  But no.  They went lamesauce and made it in every other color.  BROWN? What?  Who is gonna buy it in brown? (If you did, let me know.  And I am sorry.)

Which brings me full circle to where I was going in the first place.  When the iPod craze first came out in 2001, they started in white.  Then they did black.  Then pink.  (Companies seem to assume that making everything in pink and blue will satisfy customer desire…that’s another tangent for later.  WTF.)  And through all the iPod generations, never purple.  I also never had the desire to purchase an iPod either to begin with – I don’t have time to listen to those things – if I’m in the car I use my Sirius radio (I don’t care what you say Loth, I love it.), if I’m at work I go to Yahoo! Music, and if I’m at home, well, the music gets blasted from my stereo or my laptop.  So where does an iPod fit in my life? Nowhere.  Yeah the argument is, I can use it at the gym (ha ha) – but the last time I was in the gym was a few months ago, and I only like going to the classes anyway, so my head can’t be plugged in because I need to hear the instructor tell me when to kick.  Plus, my previous non-purple cell phone was the Motorola SLVR - which pretty much had a built in iPod (waiting for that to come in purple…it’s already in pink.  There goes that pink thing again!)  Add that to my long-standing I-dun-lieks-Apple mantra, and you have an iPod-less chick.  Which, for the last 6 years, never ceased to shock people.  Poor Loth, I think he’s been itching to buy me an iPod for whatever reason for so many years now too.  But I swore that I would never ever purchase an iPod unless it came in purple.  That would be the breaker for me.  And six years quietly went by without a purple iPod in sight (SNAP-ON COVERS DON’T COUNT!).  But the day has finally arrived.

I am the proud, albeit confused, new owner of a purple iPod shuffle.  It’s been sitting in my purse, unopened, unscratched, since last Thursday.  I have no idea what I’m going to do with it. 

But it’s really shiny and pretty and purple.  And that’s what counts.

Who knew I could talk so long about purple?