Squashed

Life has felt a little bit like the above, lately. 
...
Bedtime.

Pet Peeves

Doesn't Happen

Yoga Bitches and 'chos

I've been doing yoga for 4 or 5 years and I recently bought a Groupon for hot yoga. Before now I'd only taken two hot yoga classes and wasn't sure I loved it, but I figured it would be nice to have a sauna-like environment in the middle of the winter. Plus, yoga is expensive, and so if I want to do it at all, I can't be too picky.

The studio's website says the classes are typically between 90 and 95 degrees, but I've read the thermostats in there, and they lie.  Once it was 115, and that wasn't the hottest class I'd ever been to.  It just depends on the teacher and how much they want to crank it.  Plus, the more bodies in there, and the more you are all moving, the hotter it gets. Sometimes it's so hot, it's all I can do to lie down on the mat and pray for it to be over soon.  It gives me some idea what beached whales must feel like.

Even though it's really hot, that doesn't mean it's naked yoga. In fact, much of the time it is a Lululemon fashion show in there, and all the yoga bitches have all their gear on.  Additionally,despite the fact it's 2012, most women want to preserve the idea that we only 'glisten', and wearing less clothing will reveal exactly how sweaty we get, which is, not surprisingly, VERY SWEATY.

^I have yet to see a woman dressed like this.^
 
However, the men in these classes, who I will now refer to only as Yogachos (yoga + macho) are of a different opinion.  To them, 1) it's so effing hot in there, you'd be an idiot to wear any more clothing than necessary, and, 2) Hot yoga with all the hot yoga bitches is a great excuse to show off your hot sexy sweaty hairy speedo-ed body.  I have never seen a Yogacho younger than 40ish, with the median age probably around 55.  Would you want a hairy sweaty dad in your yoga class, leaving giant puddles of sweat everywhere? Didn't think so.

But really, it's not their all-too-visible bodies that bother me, it's their Yogacho attitudes. The classrooms are filled with mirrors, giving Yogachos the perfect opportunity to show off (they generally are extremely muscular and not very flexible=> sooo manly).  It also gives them the chance to look around the room, and make eyes at you in the mirror that say "You checkin' me out?  I think you wa' jus' checkin' me out, honey, yeaaahhhh look at this".  And then do a shoulder stand or kala bhairavasana to show off. 

Because why else would a yogacho do hot yoga, other than to meet hot yoga bitches and show of his hot yoga bod?

Fancy Chair

Chair I saw at the Millionaire's Rejects consignment store.  I'd take it!

November Project Day 29- Cell Phones

It seems nowadays that just about EVERYONE has a smart phone.  I am still limping along on my little brick phone.  I am only able to make phone calls and text and take pictures and such, you know, what phones are designed to do.  Yet I see everyone, everywhere, with their smart phones out!

But the incredible power of the smart phone isn't it's amazing technology- it's the power to completely absorb the user so much so that he/she becomes completely unaware of his/her surroundings.  This causes all kinds of problems, but what I find the most irritating is when smart phone users become so enraptured they forget they have legs or how to move them, or the fact that they are currently standing in a major traffic flow area, and other people have places to be.

(I am not happy with the above drawing- stairs! oof!)
It does amaze me how many people have them, all across social and economic groups.  Paying for a data plan isn't cheap- and will be the reason I will probably not get one for quite some time.  Yet I always wonder how some people are able to cough up those dollahs every month.

P.S. There are "homeless" con artists in Chicago, who actually have apartments and, ahem, cell phones.

November Project Day 28- New Band

November Project Day 27- Bus Stop

Thank goodness now there's Bus Tracker.

November Project Day 23- Winter

November Project Day 10- Cruelty

Taken verbatim from an overheard conversation. Ouch.

November Project- Day 8

Wicker Park Characters.

November Project Day One

Last year I attempted to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days- an undertaking otherwise known as NaNoWriMo, which hopes to get us all off our lazy asses and write the novel we have inside us.  I made an honest effort and wrote about 13,000 words, but meandered around with several characters and very little plot idea.  I have been writing other stories and sketches this summer and fall, which has been a very useful creative endeavor, but there's part of me that thinks the 'novel I'm meant to write' won't actualize itself until I've got a little more life experience.

But, not wanting to lose out on that NaNoWriMo creative energy, I decided to try my own project this year.  I have decided to draw and post a small comic, sketch or character idea EVERY DAY for the month of November. The objectives for this project are:
1) Exercise the creative muscle- use it every day.
2) Practice and develop a technique/ form/ style of illustration or comic drawing.  What type of paper, materials, etc, work best for me?
3) Generate ideas for other projects- what I post here does not have to be finished and polished (there won't be time: also a tenet of NaNoWriMo philosophy)
4) Maybe build a small portfolio (maybe?)
5) Prove to myself this is something I can DO!  Just get up and doo it.

So, here I begin (one day behind schedule).  "It would have been weird if it weren't Halloween."

Hip Coffee Shop

China and Recycling

Wow, wow, wow. Serious internet toboggan this afternoon that began last night at Foresight Design Initiative Green Drinks. The topic was "Art and Sustainability", so of course I was interested (and also the founder of Foresight is an Obie alum), and so I went and listened to members of Chicago-based Filament Theatre Company discuss their journey to become a sustainable theater company. I met an artist there who does performances using trash, and looking at her blog led me to My Plastic-Free Life.com, where a woman has dedicated the last 4 years to almost completely eliminating plastic from her daily life. She challenges others to analyze their own plastic consumption by collecting, photographing and blogging a week's worth. I want to take this challenge, and I'm hoping my sister will do it with me (we live together).

I feel very fortunate to have gone to Oberlin where the awareness of living sustainably was rampant, and at times even militant. Other students knew a lot more than I did, and I credit co-ops and my friends Margaret and Jake for their influence. Now I know how to compost, and not to flush after peeing, among other things. But I realize that not everyone has this experience, and aren't as inclined to change their behaviors and buying or flushing habits. Living in awareness of the environmental choices I make is very important to me, and I want to spread the awareness, but I often struggle to be a very convincing activist. I trained my parents to take fabric bags with them to the grocery store, and bought my dad a home water carbonator for Father's Day (it's awesome!). But I had trouble 'converting' my previous boyfriend, and currently my sister, who doesn't think my "hippie" deodorant is worth the natural sweat (antiperspirants contain aluminum tri-somethings that are a known carcinogen). I feel like this is something I could write more about.

Yet, in a further slip down the internet slope:

Crazy, right? I knew that a lot of the US's recycling went to China, but seeing the images themselves is something else entirely. I spent five months in China during which time I drank the tap water (after boiling, of course). I didn't want to buy purified bottled water, which would result in piles of empty plastic, yet now knowing what was in the water I drank makes me feel a little gross. What will I do next time I'm in China?

Jesus Loves You

Shooting from a grey day in Chicago

Daumier Sculpture

When I was at the Art Institute of Chicago over break I was strolling along in this most AMAZING museum and came upon a collection of Daumier (the 19th-century French artist who did many caricatures in drawing, lithograph and sculpture) busts. This series was made by the artist in clay and then later has been cast in bronze by various methods by museums hoping to prolong the life of the works. Each bust is a caricature of a different political figure of the time; the name of the series is "Celebrities f the Juste Milieu". I just love these heads! They were also displayed in a very pleasing way- to make it look like the busts were sitting in a political house with raked seating. The expressions and exaggerations of each of the heads are so comical and endearing. I am interested in attempting to make some of my own caricatures or silly characters in bust form.

These photos were just what I found on the internet- unfortunately I did not have my camera with me!

Garfield Park Conservatory

Went to the Garfield Conservatory today- a free nature park with greenhouses as well as outdoor gardens. I know lots of people won't look at photos of plants, myself included, but I thought the lighting on these few turned out quite nicely. I'm using a Nikon D50 this week, on loan from my photographer uncle! Thanks Dan!