For the first time ever, I walked out on a yoga class.

I had been up since 3am–I couldn’t sleep and I have no idea why, because I didn’t feel particularly stressed out yesterday or anything. I was just wide awake for no particular reason. By the time I realized my situation it was too late to take sleeping pills, so I just stayed up. I finished that book and then got up and made the girls breakfast. I figured I would go ahead and try the yoga class at 10:00 even though I didn’t really feel like it, because the girls love the playroom there. I figured maybe the class would help me sleep better tonight.

The last time I tried the class it was difficult, but not impossible. It’s Vinyasa flow yoga, supposedly level 1, but after seven years of yoga I knew there was a good chance it would be too much when I tried it. It’s Level 1 for people that live and breathe yoga, not Level 1 for everybody else. In case you’re wondering how that works.

Anyway, it was hard, but I struggled through. I figured it would be the same this time.

Only this time there was a completely different teacher for some reason, whose style was not at all laid-back like the other one. No, this one was the sort that delivers fifteen-minute detailed lectures on every nuance that goes into a pose, and the sort that spends the entire class correcting me. I have had a few of these teachers before. Half the time I know the correct way to do the pose and I simply cannot do it–and they get a little frustrated when their hands on me do not force my joints to go in ways they have no intention of going (and this is sometimes perversely gratifying)–and the other half of the time I have no idea what they’re talking about because they are going too fast or I lost them ten minutes into their dissertation. They go into detail in an amount that only another teacher or teacher-in-training would be interested in. And I get so tired of being corrected. I don’t mind a few times, but correcting me the entire class is irritating. It’s possible of course that I really do suck that bad, but other teachers seem more okay with knowing that at least I am TRYING, and that I actually do it get it right SOMETIMES.

The class was hardcore, with demanding poses that would be hard for me on a regular day let alone on three hours of sleep. I knew things were bad because I kept looking at the clock. My left knee has been bothering me for a few days (yes I know, I feel like a little old lady lately) and was hard to bend, and I got a headache with each downward-facing dog, which doesn’t usually happen. It is my most hated pose but it doesn’t usually make me feel really bad. And in this session the teacher asked for what seemed like hundreds of downward-facing dogs—I had never been asked to do so many in one session, ever. I guess it was her favorite. 45 minutes into it, I felt dizzy and decided I had had enough. I quietly walked out and into the playroom with the girls.

Afterwards I explained to her that I have been sick and out of practice, but I think she was annoyed. She suggested a restorative yoga class.

Which I would have taken in the first place had they offered it. Unfortunately, they only seem to offer babysitting for the harder courses and dance classes, the latter of which I have zero interest in. And I might even show up for a restorative yoga class anyway without the babysitting benefit, but they only have one class and the person who does it was fired, or just left; it was hard to tell from the email I received from the studio what happened but whatever—the bottom line is I am out of luck.

So I guess that’s that.

It’s shame, because I remember how in love I was with the place several months ago when I first heard about their oh-so-rare babysitting option. And the studio itself if gorgeous.

So given all this and how repulsive the idea of getting up at 7am is when I don’t really have to, I will probably not be going to the yoga session at BlogHer. I will be doing my own variation of the corpse pose in bed at that hour.

Here’s a cartoon I drew seven years ago about yoga.

As for the James Frey book: I am still not sure what to make of it. Though I did not think it was written with any particular genius of skill, I liked it and thought it was worth reading. But I am still struggling to figure out the right way to view it, what with the controversy and all. I am still leaning on Frey’s side, because I think the book’s general message overrides the importance of exact jail time. After all, he didn’t pull a Kaavya. But I am not sure what the right answer is, now that I’ve actually read it. Is the guy a shyster? Hard to say. Has he done anything millions of autobiographers haven’t already done with their own memoirs? Probably not.

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