miscellany

1. You may have noticed that the site was down for a while. Something was wrong that's fixed now, and that's all I know about that.

2. I created a new books page, which I cannot imagine any of you read for any reason, but it now has a beautiful new template and is updatable through Blogger. Now I might post to it more than once every 632 years.

3. Backbends in yoga today:

In Sanskrit, the heart chakra is called Anahata, which means “unstruck” or “unhurt.” Its name implies that deep beneath our personal stories of brokenness and the pain in our heart, wholeness, boundless love, and a wellspring of compassion reside.... In many backbending poses, the heart is positioned higher than the head. It's wonderfully refreshing to let the mind drop away from the top position and instead lead with the heart.

4. Hulk and Smash, I am beginning to suspect, have very rich inner lives.

    4a. They have very specific ideas about the proper feng shui of their tank. For example, the small shell must be in the water dish. I take it out every day and refill the dish; every night they must put it back in, because every morning it's in the exact same spot. I look in at them and they look back at me: "It belongs in the dish. IN the dish. That's the money corner, dumbass. GOD."

    4b. Smash has been climbing to the top of the coral and staying there for hours, outside his shell but not moving. I want to get him a little flag so he can plant it there and claim Mount Smash as his own -- he clearly has some kind of imperialist agenda.

    4c. They eat green grapes but not purple ones.

    4d. I forgot to credit the original pet of RAGE: Lauren's Bella. Perhaps Bella is contributing to Hulk's and Smash's rich inner lives by serving as a spiritual guide.

5. Wow.

6. I went to hear a friend of a friend's band last night at Iota. A woman behind us did that thing when you have to scream to be heard over the loud, loud, loud music, and then the music suddenly stops but you're still screaming something wildly inappropriate and out of context and everyone stares. What she screamed was this: "... licking and licking and-- shit, did everyone hear that?"