2005 was the last time I spent Christmas with my whole family. That year, I gave my father something I knew he would love and could appreciate - an entire case of Snickers bars.

My father had spend the past 10 years struggling with a degenerative brain condition called Lewy Body… Read full post »

Hello, lovelies! I have been away for a long, long time.

In the last year and a half, I have been very busy! I lost 70 pounds(!) with a healthy diet and exercise, and lived abroad in India for six months, while my very patient and devoted husband waited for me… Read full post »

Hello, Open Salon! How are you all doing? I hope Spring is treating you well.

I offer some notes from the abyss of PhD exams land.

First off, I've been cooking a lot lately - simple, wholesome, healthy food. I am no longer eating refined sugar, which I think has contributed… Read full post »

This morning I am making oat groats.

Actually, I should say...

This morning I am making OAT GROATS!

It's kind of exciting for me. Oat groats don't have the instant satisfaction of my regular morning bowl of thick cut oats, but they have a different kind of satisfaction. Several, actually, today,… Read full post »

It's been a while since I last updated. Still nursing an injury, and still not posting much due to life being incredibly busy. But I figured I'd share a little gem of a meal that has been great for my busy evenings.

The star of this meal is the spicy black… Read full post »

I have been down with injury and unable to do yoga, and busy with school and work in the meantime,  so this blog has kind of fallen out of use. Kind of like my gym membership.

I'll try my best to update soon, but I'm afraid most of my mental power… Read full post »

I will perhaps write more about this later. But I've been watching the superbowl ads on Hulu.com, and thus far what I've surmised from most of them is that Super Bowl fans are sexist, idiotic jerks. 

Seriously, if this is what advertising companies think of you, why would you want to… Read full post »

Today is day 31 of my new yoga practice. I've done yoga in some form or another almost every day, and that to me is something of an accomplishment.

I jumped back into practice today with Shiva Rea's Yoga Shakti DVD set (Retails for $29.99). If you only ever buy/… Read full post »

On Friday night, a friend of mine was killed in a freak accident. She was dancing in the surf on the beach after a party, and stumbled in the sand when a wave knocked her over. Then a big wave surged forward and grabbed her, and a rip tide pulled her… Read full post »

Well, it's Day 24 of yoga, and I have to say, the last few days I've been hanging onto my yoga wagon by a thread.

I've been examining this, and there's a few contributing factors that I'm hoping to learn from, and by extension, possibly help others to think through. So… Read full post »

I'm going to say something a bit controversial. 

The reaction to the new iPad in feminist circles is a sign of the last frontiers of misogyny - internalized or otherwise - in America.

Items in Feministing and also in Salon have feminist and feminist-sympathetic writers s… Read full post »

It's been storming like crazy here in the SF Bay Area. This morning I woke up to the sound of thunder rattling the windows. It was mighty and impressive, and put me newly in awe of nature.

The last couple of days have been busy - the school semester has gotten… Read full post »

The migraine was gone today, thankfully, and in true Sunday brunch in the Bay Area fashion, my husband and I took his best friend out to dim sum for her birthday. We have a great dim sum place near us… Read full post »

I just realized it's been 14 days since I restarted my yoga practice.

For those of you just joining me, I'm a 34-year-old, tall, fat, and (my husband says) beautiful woman who started doing yoga about 20 years ago, but stopped about 3 years ago. Who knows why I stopped - I think… Read full post »

Just wanted to give a quick shout-out to Heidi at Chai and Yoga for her migraine recovery sequence. I finished it just a little while ago, and it was really helpful in helping my body as I get over this migraine.

Yoga is so, uh, flexible. Meaning, there is a sequence for… Read full post »

Yesterday morning I started getting the feeling that something wasn't right. Given that I have a history of migraine denial (which basically consists of me saying to myself, "I'm not the kind of person who gets migraines, this must be something else." I also do this with food allergies, which means… Read full post »

Yesterday I failed. I mean, in terms of doing yoga. I was busy all day, and had a late dinner with a friend, and our talky talky talky selves stayed up until the wee hours discussing his new girlfriend, my grad school studies, and lots of other stuff. I came home… Read full post »

If you've been living under a rock, then you might not know that Haiti was struck by a major earthquake, and tens (some say hundreds) of thousands of people are feared dead. While there are people risking their lives to try and save others, some people are trying to capitalize on… Read full post »

I had a longer post planned. In this post, I was going to write a brilliant and cogent analysis of the portrayal of and reaction to menstruation in our culture and in ancient India, and talk about the lack of consensus about whether one should do inversions (that is, anything that… Read full post »

Yesterday was and today is going to be very busy. This is when my mettle is really tested. Last night I was laying on the floor of the living room at 10:30 p.m., after a very long and full day of activity, and realized I hadn't yet done yoga for the… Read full post »

A quick post because it's Saturday, and I've got a lot to do!

This morning I slept in, and when I got up I did a short yoga routine. I was feeling stiff from last night's craptacular yoga class (yoga is not meant to be done while tense - if your… Read full post »

Just got back from the "Candlelight Yoga" class at my gym. And I'm hurting, not in a good way. I'm also still tense, and trying to let go of it, because in the end, it just doesn't matter that much, right? 

I wrote out a long essay about how craptacular the… Read full post »

I've been a great yogini (female yoga practitioner) for the last five days. This morning I got up and after doing some simple stretches unrolled my yoga mat, popped in my Tandava CD, and began with surya namaskar (sun salutation). I could only do one full set today, and it felt… Read full post »

If you want to try yoga at home, all you need is a sticky mat, really. They're available in all kinds of places for all kinds of prices. Beginners might want to get a thicker mat, so you have more padding for your hands, knees and back, and if you're over… Read full post »

It's day 4 of this yoga thing, and while I have a long road ahead of me in terms of sticking to it, it's been helpful to write about it every day.

NOTE: There's an update about today's practice, including the sequence, below. 

Last night my husband and I went to… Read full post »