I am sort of kidding about this, but the more I think about it, the more I think there is something to it. The doshas are one of a zillion different frameworks out there for making sense of the play between mind, body, and the rest of the world. And now I know: Vata is my dosha of misbehaving, and also the dosha of underpants.

As for my actual misbehaving today, I took a nice long time getting myself moving this morning, sleeping in with wonderful, gorgeous dreams that have no business on a reputable blog, or this one either. But, oh, there were… things. Dream things. My vata garments for the misbehaving day were purple, as were my seasonally inappropriate open-toe shoes. I shirked the mountain of work before me this afternoon in favor of painting my toenails and talking with an old friend for an hour and six minutes. (Hi, Josh!) I tried very hard to buy some festive underthings, but it just didn’t work out. I stopped at Target for sanitizing wipes, and spent some time perusing the undie bins, but alas the stash was somewhat disappointing. For one thing, many of the funkier styles are either thongs or have seams up the back, and I just cannot bring myself to wear anything engineered to give me a wedgie. Call me old fashioned, but as far as I am concerned, wearing a thong is like putting a middle school bully in my pants.

I write about underwear a lot. Well, I like it. And shoes. In fact, with fabulous things on beneath and below, I think I could very happily wear the same jeans and shirt every day (Ok, throw in a vintage sundress from time to time. With fabulous underthings and shoes. That, too. Is it summer yet?)

And so another Misbehaving Tuesday draws to a close. Vata is balanced, and it is time to dig into some of that work before I go back to those gorgeous dreams.

Unfortunately, even the sleeping in this morning was not quite as satisfying as usual, mostly due to a deeply icky sex dream. The image of doing some one I find unattractive in appearance and odor is tough to shake. (Although, when I was in tenth grade, I had a dream that a boy I liked kissed me and burped in my mouth. Not only did the dream thoroughly cure me of my crush, I still remember it twenty years later and think of it every time he pops up on facebook, whereas the image of this morning’s non-amour probably will be gone by tomorrow.)

I suspect that my day started this way due to the way yesterday ended. I have been on an MTX kick on and off for the past six months or so; I was having a rough day yesterday, and just like when I was younger, Dr. Frank took the edge off. Last night I was looking up something or other about the band, linked to Dr. Frank’s facebook page, and there it was. Frank Portman in glasses: black-rimmed, rectangular glasses.

For the record, I think celebrity crushes are stupid. Even when I was in junior high and other girls had pictures from Tiger Beat taped inside their lockers and on their bedroom walls, I didn’t. Well, maybe a few, just to fit in, but I thought it was kind of silly. There were cute boys all around. Why swoon over a piece of paper?

There are two exceptions to this for me: early 90s John Flansburgh, which is really just a wholesome kind of wanting to hang out on South Street all afternoon and then get a big hug at the Gallery before getting on the R3 to go home kind of crush, and Dr. Frank. I dug MTX in a big way long before I ever saw a picture of him, and then I saw a picture, and yowza. In every possible way, my type to a T, if you’ll pardon the pun.

So, last night I saw the picture and my brain stopped working for few minutes. When it resumed operation, I realized that I have a new problem: now that I have seen a picture of Dr. Frank in rectangular, black-rimmed glasses, there is nowhere else for me to go. I will never see anything hotter than that in my life. I tried to think of something that reasonably, I might see in the course of my lifetime that would be hotter than that, and came  up with nothing. Maybe one or two unreasonable things, but nothing likely. It is the gold medal of hotness in my world.

With nowhere to go but down from that experience, of course an icky sex dream followed. As for the rest of the misbehaving, during my regular errands I lingered in Target longer than necessary and bought some orange underpants to go with my orange pants, and did it all while wearing my misbehaving socks.

Picture is unrelated: Misbehaving of a different sort. At the Smile, Hon reading last Friday.

Here is the dream that began my decade: From the window of a beach condo I was watching rising water. Something broke, or there had been a storm, and the water was rising quickly, up to the windows, sea brown, and shining orange off the surface. Although I was looking through a window I could see it all rising, beyond the walls, beyond the building, over railings and balconies. First I worried, then I just watched. As the water rose, it froze; in the distance frozen waves were suspended over the orange surface. Some one with me opened the window and walked out on to the frozen ocean. Was it safe? How long does it take for a flood to become solid, to freeze below the surface? I stepped out onto the ice…

All day yesterday I tried to get myself quiet and reflective about the end of the year and the start of the next, but it just didn’t happen. Too much static, too much smoke. So maybe later today, after a long, hot shower, I’ll decide what I want to see out beyond the frozen waves this year.

1. Sometimes, the truth sucks, but it is still ok.
2. I am ready for whatever is next: absolutely certain that things are about to change in a big way, for the better.

Related, maybe:
1. I applied for eight jobs in the past two days, with at least four more to go for now.
2. Not feeling the misbehaving today.

Unrelated:
1. At Whole Foods I walked past a woman describing someone as having a “duckfit.” After lighting on the visual for this expression, I decided that I must incorporate this term into my lexicon.
2. On the way back from Whole Foods, I dropped my iPhone down into the unreachable place under the driver’s seat. Immediately, the phone dinged with email. When I got to a stoplight I got out of the car to retrieve it, even though I was less than five minutes from home. Yes, I would say I am addicted.
3. Since the eye doctor said my eyes are fine, I have been considering getting a pair of reading glasses just for when I get the blurries after reading for a while. I tried on a great pair today, but I am concerned that even though I am not a guy, I might find myself so sexy when I wear them that I won’t get any reading done. They were really quite fetching. I guess the good news is that when I have on reading glasses, I can’t really see myself clearly in a mirror unless it is right in front of my face, and what are the odds that I will both be trying to read, and have a mirror eighteen inches from my face?

In the dream I was standing in the living room of an apartment. There was a man in one of the bedrooms with a burn on his chest, screaming from the pain. A nurse with a tub of wet gauze walked into the bedroom to tend the wound. I went into another room because I couldn’t handle the sound of the screaming, but I could still hear it in the next room. I went outside to look at the ocean, but no matter where I went I could still hear the man screaming.

Still a little chilled thinking about it.

This morning I woke up filled with intense gratitude after a dream about my high school boyfriend, the kind of gratitude that made me want to look him up, and every single one his friends until I find him, just so I can tell him how fortunate I was that he was my intro to the world of romance. Without going into great detail about the dream because it is boring, in the dream we were reacquainted and I was happy as can be to see him again and know about his life, on the same kind of high that I have been riding lately. I woke up thinking that he was the ideal first boyfriend – sweet, devoted, crazy about me, and happy – and that I am incredibly lucky to have had the experience. I thought on it a bit more, that reuniting with that kind of love and good will was what fed the high and brought out this very happy, loving, grateful part of me, and that conversely there are times that I have chosen relationships -romantic and otherwise- that were stimulating and exciting, but also punishing. It turns out that the buzz from the really good stuff is way more exciting that the excitement from the not so good stuff.

Really, though, this is about the relationship I have had with myself over the years. All week in my classes I have been talking about ahimsa, and I have been knowing about ahimsa very deeply and well enough to write to essay that I am going to paste in below, but this morning, I GOT it. Really got it, viscerally. Ahimsa toward myself blows out all the fear, and without the fear, kindness to others is effortless and light, just the way it was in the dream, and the way it has been in flashes here and there over the past few weeks.

More on the Eight Limbs of Yoga – Ahimsa
The first of the eight limbs of yoga are the yamas, the “don’ts” of an ethical life. There are five yamas, the first of which is ahimsa, non-violence or non-harming. In the broadest sense, ahimsa means avoidance of causing physical harm to living beings, humans and critters alike. However, there is far more to the practice of ahimsa; it also applies to emotional harm, spiritual harm, or any other kind of harm.

It can be troubling to examine how each of our actions relates to ahimsa. Every action can contribute to suffering in some way, from the origin of the clothes we buy to the food we eat, to ignoring the needs of a spouse or friend, or driving aggressively. While awareness of the impact of our actions is extremely important, sometimes it can leave us overwhelmed, forgetting about the practice of ahimsa toward ourselves.

The physical practice of yoga is a safe means for examining the ways in which we cause harm to ourselves with our thoughts and our expectations. Where does the mind go in a difficult posture? Do you get mad at yourself for not being able to achieve your ideal? Do you push yourself to the point at which you harm your body? Do you accept the posture as it is in your body? Or is it during difficult postures that you check out, adjust your clothing, take a drink of water? Do these thoughts, ideas, and expectations serve you, or harm you?

Over time, as we examine our thought patterns in the postures, we begin to recognize these patterns when we come off the mat. Sometimes we need to push ourselves into difficult situations in order to “find our edge,” but other times we push ourselves as punishment or as a means of atonement for a perceived shortcoming. We overwork the body because we think we are unattractive, we overwork ourselves because we think we don’t measure up to some arbitrary standard, we overcommit because we think people won’t like us if we say “no,” we over-schedule ourselves because we fear the truths that will arise when we are well-rested and centered. On and on these stories go. Sometimes our stories serve us, but when they become habit, automatic and unexamined, they cause suffering.

Many people come to yoga solely for the physical benefits of the practice, but over time come to appreciate the benefits of exploration of the turnings of the mind. When we understand our mind, we are able to practice ahimsa toward ourselves. As we practice ahimsa toward ourselves, we develop a deeper understanding of the nature of suffering and liberation from it, which we can then extend unconditionally and without reservation to other beings. Once we understand it, we can give it away.

The lingering gastritis (from back in December) had me on Prilosec for several weeks, and then Aciphex for the past month. The Prilosec sort of worked and the Aciphex REALLY works, but not without having just about every non-fatal side effect available. The excessive gas and weight gain have been particularly noteworthy. The fine print might as well read: Warning! Some users may become profoundly unattractive as a result of taking Aciphex. Please consult your physician if symptoms last longer than aaaah! Could you maybe just read this in the dark? And light a match while you’re at it.

Anyway, the pound a week weight gain has really pissed me off. Despite tripling my physical activity (and them some) and getting my diet right back where it should be, I’m still gaining. I thought I was done with weight loss mode, but alas, here I find myself in weight loss mode just to keep it to a pound a week. It sucks, and I am hoping that once I get off this stuff maybe I’ll get some retroactive benefits of all of the weight loss behavior. Also, complaining to the internet has to make this better. It just has to. Otherwise, why would so many people do it?

So, as of yesterday, my dose has been halved, and in another couple of weeks (pounds?) I hope to halve it again and shortly thereafter be completely free of it. In the mean time, COMPLAINT.

In related news, last night Scott and I heard an add for an allergy medication with the most awesome side effect information ever. “Extended use of [whatever] may cause dry mouth, strange taste, dizzyness… and so on.” Does that mean if I take this stuff for allergies, I may start wearing polka dots and plaid together? Or develop a strong urge to put Elvis wallpaper in my bathroom? Now, those are some side effects I could handle.

*pun intended.