Under the bamboo leaves

I named my blog for the stinkwood, or ailanthus, in honor of the species' weedy resilience—and in particular the hardy specimen overhanging my back 400 (sq. ft.). But today I was struck by the evergreen beauty of another plant, my potted bamboo, which looks dewy-fresh even in the bitter cold of today's snow.

Novelty item

Now here's a dilemma—and a solution—that people who've never had breast cancer are unfamiliar with. This morning I was getting dressed and couldn't find my boobs. Fortunately I have several pairs, so I'm wearing my denim ones (home-made, need I say?) today. And later I found the ones I was looking for—mislaid in the wrong drawer. If I'm late for work, I wonder if I should say, "I was looking for my boobs." Or not.

Horoscope harmony

I love my horoscope today—"There's one simple way to make the next few weeks of your life easier: Let go of all the things you can't control ..."

Distractions from the mat

Anyone who's taken a yoga class knows that in addition to the Sanskrit and the esoteric concepts, you have to be willing to accept a good deal of jargon. For the most part, the jargon resides in the preliminary patter and has to do with instructions like "Set your intention for the practice," and it has remained fairly consistent over time.

Lately, however, I've noticed a couple of new verbal tics that have crept into the vocabulary of more than one teacher, making me suspect that they're all drinking from the same chai.

A couple of my teachers have begun adding the intensifier "a lot," as in "Firm your outer arms in—a lot." And another trope that keeps popping up is "brighten," as in "Brighten your back leg" or "Brighten your stretch."

I certainly don't want the language of yoga to be dry and dead, and I enjoy a lively turn of phrase. But though there's nothing wrong with these self-conscious flourishes,  I find their iteration across classes somewhat distracting. They take my mind off the pose and set it to wondering about the interconnections in the yoga community. How do these little verbal fads develop and spread? Who's taking whose classes? Why is she using that precise figure of speech? Is there a special meaning I should be deriving from that instruction?

A well-wisher

I had such a sweet moment with my Astor Place hair cutter on New Year's Eve. Astor Place is one of the cheapest cuts in town, and I go there because with my short, short post-chemo hair, I need to get a cut every six weeks or my sparse locks part, revealing my pink scalp. Sad but true. So over the past four years or so, ever since I got some hair back, I've been going to Lenny, a Russian-speaking Brooklynite. We don't have a whole lot in common except that we get together 10 times a year to focus on the problem of my hair. And he performs his weird miracle: I leave with more hair than I came in with, even though the floor is thick with my gray locks.

This time when he was done, he looked me in the eye and said, "I have one wish for you, and I hope it comes true: I wish you health." It was so lovely and so sincere, it broke my heart (and my wallet, since it prompted a 100% tip), and I don't know whether he even knows my name.

Green blood

I know that red eye is caused by the camera flash illuminating blood vessels in the eye. But what causes green eye? Cats don't have green blood. Or do they?

My big fat new year's resolution

In yoga class today, the teacher asked us to set our intention not just for the class but for the year, in other words to make a new year's resolution. So I decided that rather than make a resolution to change, I would resolve to accept things as they are.