Thank you to those who have sent good vibes and good feedback. I’m so grateful for your support.

The nature of the blog has also served well to keep me motivated to stay engaged with other intentions for 2010 – I’ve continued to Move More, and even Eat (a little) Less, resulting in net loss of a few pounds, and supporting a general net gain in positive life satisfaction. I like this math.

Even though February is a short month, which might make daily posting seem easier after a 31er, I’m going to ratchet down the posting days this month to just 4-5 posts per week on weekdays. This should allow me to focus on both casting my net a little further via other social media and improving the quality of my posts.

One of the more surprising revelations this month has been the tremendous amount of spam comments I’ve received. In fact, I don’t believe I’ve received but one legitimate comment. Although, I’m actually quite fascinated by spam and spammers and their relentless creativity for finding new ways into our inboxes, just once I’d like to check those comments and find something real.

So this leads to my “special favor” to ask of you: If you are true friend or fan, or if you even just happened to “stumbleupon” this post and you happen to know the name of the band and/or song from which I’ve borrowed the title of this post – please leave the answer with a real “comment” for me.

It would be a sweet and beautiful Karmic Coincidence if I could get 31.

Yipes! I’m late for Hoop class, and it’s a bit of a walk. I must publish and run.

One of my favorite moments from Burning Man 2009 was arriving at the Opulent Temple to the spectacular madness of Infected Mushroom. (Warning to my webby friends, on this side of the looking glass, this site is a usability nightmare. Why do music groups and DJs insist on weird for weirdness sake?)

I’ve been listening to and dancing to the electronic/DJ music scene for a number of years now, so I was completely blown away by their live performance – vocals, guitars and all. And after four days in the desert at that time, I thought I might actually Becoming Insane myself.

Insanely Opulent Temple

I didn’t choose an Infected Mushroom song for my “tea-dance” today because, like a lot of electronica songs, most were longer than my 5-minute water boiling window would allow.

However, I was super psyched to be reminded of this smile producing Karmic Coincidence:

• Infected Mushroom’s breakout album title – Vicious Delicious!

It takes about 5 minutes to boil water for a cup of tea at my house these days in the depths of winter when the water comes from the tap just warm enough to be considered liquid.

If you have your handy-dandy hula-hoop, uhm, handy, hoop it up until the whistle blows.

According to my handy-dandy DirectLife gadget, I burned about 25 calories during those five minutes. (I repeated the five minute test a few times to get an average read.) Sometimes it’s just enough to complete the goal for the day.

127% for the day

Unfortunately, I also listened to Mrs. Robinson while I hooped. Now I can’t get cupcakes out of my head.

If I walked all the way to one of these places, do you think I could squeeze a cupcake in my pantry without regretting it?

I’m still partial to cupcake pioneer Warren Brown and his CakeLove New German Chocolate.

Oh, look all in-store purchases of Lemon Coconut cupcakes proceeds go to the Red Cross for Haiti.

A delicious way to help Haiti

I know where I’m going now.

How about you? Coo, coo, ca-choo.

When you’re a small, start-up “homepreneur”, intentionally or not, if you’re lucky enough not to be wearing that hat yourself, the ITG is probably your husband, wife, partner or roommate. If that’s the case, chances are at some point you’ve experienced moments of domestic discontent when technology at the ol’ SoHo isn’t quite as quick and easy As Seen On TV.

Perhaps, you’ve secretly wished you could either fire the entire department or hire a customer service intermediary trained not to mock, smirk, roll-eyes or talk to you like you’re a child. Well, the VP of IT @viciousyoga, who has held the position for almost twenty years, has undeniably earned his tenure, so firing is out of the question. However, during a recent prolonged and bumpy total Snow Leopardization of the Hoffman-Ingber household, there were definitely a couple of days when I would have paid a significant sum to avoid a few of these scenes with my own beloved resident Nick Burns.

That’s why we both laughed so hard while we watched the most recent episode of our new favorite TV show, Modern Family. (You can watch the full episode there on abc.go.com. However, ironically, if you’re on a Mac and use Safari and have survived your own Snow Leopardizing, abc.go.com does not support OSX 10.6 at the moment, but Firefox will work.)

Raining on the Snow Leopard Parade

Like Phil Dunphy, the love of my life has recently expressed an interest in purchasing a souped up home theater. Since I can see 2 broken DVD players, an AIWA mini stereo without functional CD or cassette, a VCR (that works!) from 1985 and about 7 remote controls from where I sit, I can only imagine how much fun that project will be for me.

On the other hand, I also could not have imagined the ultimate customer service excellence I experienced after my last post. I was truly surprised and delighted to discover that between hitting the “publish” button and brushing my teeth and jumping into bed with him, my dear ITG had worked his ninja hacker magic on the interwebs, logged in to my computer and stealthily placed in my iTunes full MP3 versions of all of the Lullaby Renditions of Nirvana, even though I was once again barely making my self-imposed daily deadline of posting by midnight.

Like he’s done a zillion times over his long career as my CIO, co-CEO (Experience Officer), co-CPO (Parenting Officer), best friend and, yes, Head Cheer Leader for all of my endeavors, he set that box around my heart on fire. I didn’t even have to ask.

So, even if it’s legally ill-advised to make out with your IT Department, consider sending them or him or her a thank you note next time some random upgrade that you think has nothing to do with you seems to go off without notable disruption to your day. Or maybe just because most days you can get most of your work done most of the time.

They’ll love you for it, even if they won’t marry you. It’s a hell of a job, and it’s harder than it looks.

Thank you, ITG. You’re the best. Even when it’s complicated.

That’s what we who are prone to exaggerate say when we’re really tired.

That’s what we who ignored our fairy-godmother’s warnings about dancing after midnight, not once, but twice on a weekend, say on Sundays.

I’m dead.

Something that I’ve always found to be a little ironic about yoga is that one of the best ways to rejuvenate yourself is to spend a few minutes “doing” Corpse Pose.

Savasana, although it may look like just lying around on the floor, is actually one of the most difficult yoga poses.  I’ve heard more than a few yoga instructors say so. That’s probably why I too often skip over it and jump back into my day even though I know I should end each practice with at least 5 minutes or so of the pose.

A couple of tricks I’ve learned that are helpful for deeper relaxation:

1. Try relaxing each part of your body individually
2. As you concentrate on relaxing (is that an oxymoron?) each part, imagine your muscles unwinding from your bones like ribbons. Or, as I imagine – like mummy wrappings. Mummies are dead.

Here’s something to listen to while you relax. This came my way, thanks once again to the always brilliant Joe Grossberg.

Man, I wish I could figure out how to get this on my iPod. I LOVE this.

Where's your mother?

“Spinning” class takes on a whole new meaning with Stranger than Paradise. It was a pleasure to watch this duo interact on the decks.

I’m not a big fan of myspace sites. They’re so ugly and badly designed, but DJs seem to like them.

DJs Navbox and Rosario are Stranger than Paradise.

Looks like they’ll be up to similar antics again on February 12. I’m not so sure about me yet.

So much fun, even I might stick with it. I’ve wanted to learn for several years. It’s been my “intention” to do so, but 2010 is the year!

I listen to a lot of electronica music and started seeing hoop dance performers at shows. Since that first show I thought, “I want to be that girl.” Here’s one of those girls I saw at Burning Man 2009. I was at both the FreQ Nasty and Bassnectar shows. Unfortunately, I never made it to the Hoop Jam.

Thanks to a little Karmic Coincidence (KC) – my friend, neighbor, and belly dance troupe pal Sharon sent me an invite to today’s class, and just to make sure I signed up, KC arranged an encounter with our other mutual friend, neighbor and troupe gal, Melissa, clear across town at a random Starbucks I’d never set foot in! I hadn’t seen either of these lovely ladies in a very long time, so I thought, “Okay, I can take a hint, Hoopin’ is my destiny.”

I thought I’d get a little jump on the class and grabbed my daughter’s hoop. I was mortified to be utterly unable to hoop it up. My 10 year old was visibly disappointed and dismayed, since I do generally have the rep for otherwise shaking the proverbial booty quite well, despite not doing so as often as I should. She could keep it going forever, but my hula hips just weren’t having it.

After considerable frustration, I googled “how to hula hoop” and was delighted to learn that when it comes to hula hoops, size does matter. I was hoping that this would be true and that I was not doomed to hear the constant clatter of my hoop on the floor.

So when I got to class, I picked one of the larger hoops, and what do you know? First try, I came out swinging and kept it going for a good long spin.

Surprise!ingly, we learned a number of other cool moves in this first class. Here’s a peek – from my very own instructor, Surprise! aka Katie Desmond.

And guess, what – she’s also a Yoga Instructor! Very cool. I’m totally psyched for the next 4 weeks.

.

The feature list sounds very cool. I was particularly excited about being able to set up your own session from 1-36 minutes, and especially enjoying thinking about 1-5 minute sessions because, um, I’m lazy and distractable if you haven’t figured that out yet.

However, I have to admit I paid my $0.99 mostly because I like the look of it. It’s really a beautiful app.

I think they should make a YogaRelax/Bejeweled mashup.

Then I might be more inclined to spend 55 minutes working at it.

Is nirvana the ultimate high score for yoga? I’m sure it takes a few more levels and more than 41,270 points.

I better get my ass up and move it some. So far today I’m working on a very high score for relaxing.

I was just going to repost MDFWP and shut the hell up, but I haven’t learned that one yet.

Last Monday Rob (re)posted this brilliant “My Distraction Free Writing Program” via Frageelaytwit via terrybain via brilliantorange:

terrybain:

brilliantorange:

1. Get a pen.

2. Get some paper.

3. Fine, you baby, use your computer.

4. TURN OFF THE INTERNET.

5. I SAID TURN OFF THE INTERNET.

6. Open a program. Start writing.

7. SHOOT ANYONE WHO TRIES TO STOP YOU. WARNING SHOTS ARE OKAY.

8. If silence isn’t ambient enough for you, try the following:

Lou Reed – METAL MACHINE MUSIC

George Winston – December

The Carpenters – Gold

Miles Davis – Kind Of Blue

Remember, kids:

Formatting is not writing.

Font size or type is not writing.

Research is not writing.

Writing is writing.

Good luck!

What he said.

Also: Turn off the fecking internet already.

It’s only available for Mac, but OmmWriter is a lovely way to accomplish this. I keep stealing Dan’s MacBook to work on essays and fiction.

And work in plain text (that’s what Notepad produces for you Windows folk, and TextEdit for the MacHeads).

Plain text is the lingua franca of file formats. You can easily go from plain text to Word, HTML, whatever.

Yeah, right. Nice thoughts. Although I have to credit the article for ultimately acting as the the final catalyst to get me to start this thing, here’s a list of distractions I came up with as a result of this post -

1. I actually downloaded OmmWriter, and it is quite possibly the coolest, most beautiful app I have ever seen. And, duh! it’s an “Om” writer.
2. During the first use, however, it also provides just enough distraction to fool around for a good 40 minutes while you try to decide or imagine what would be your own perfect personal settings for the ultimate writing-without-distraction ambience – the next time you use it.
3. My 10 year old daughter came home and started doing homework in the same room. She wanted to know what I was doing when she heard the music and typing, so I had to do a complete demo of all the features for her.
4. I told her to stop being distracted and do her homework. I started mine too.
5. I wrote nearly the first paragraph then decided for some reason I really needed the internet. I realized that I didn’t know how to escape OmmWriter. I couldn’t escape OmmWriter. I hit a magical set of keys and my recently Snow Leopardized MacBook produced the spinning wheel of death and eventually crashed.
6. I now long for and fear OmmWriter. It was so beautiful. I found the perfect settings, but I think that lonely tree is there just to steal my words. The crash may have something to do with the fact that I had 5 windows and 32 tabs open in Firefox, because, well you’ll get the picture…
7. I started writing directly in Wordpress.
8. I did not heed the suggestion of writing in TextEdit. I hit “save draft” after number 5. It took me to the Wordpress login page. It lost my words. I rewrote Numbers 2-5. I’m sure they were better the first time.
9. I wonder why Terry Bain says, “fecking internet”. I imagine it said with a Scottish or Irish brogue. I realize I don’t know how to spell “brogue”. I look it up. I wonder if he’s Irish or Scottish. I wonder why I assume Terry is a he. He has a twitter post on his widget about shoe size. I wonder if he wears brogues, because I’ve just learned that brogue is also “A heavy shoe of untanned leather, formerly worn in Scotland and Ireland.”
10. Copying that definition from dictionary.com has changed my font. I fight the urge to change it back because “formatting is not writing.” I’m glad I won the battle because I realize the CSS overrides the edit view.
11. I think about how awesome the George Winston December album is. I’ve always loved it. Wait, that’s not true. It’s the Autumn album I love. (Why would that brilliantorange character suggest you listen to christmas songs to write. That’s just stupid.) I (used to) play the piano and have written some songs almost as good I think. I wonder why I have no Windham Hill music on my iPod. I know I have the CD somewhere. I wonder if I have any Philip Aaberg. I used to. I fell in love with a boy once at his concert. Later we kissed in the rain. I reconnected with him recently on LinkedIn. He lives in “the other Washington.” It was a long time ago. I’ve been in love with someone else for 20 years.
12. I realize Told or Known is an anagram for Rod Knowlton. I think anagram has two N’s. Google and Wikipedia tell me I’m mistaken. I’ve never been able to spell. I suspect I have a slight dyslexia. I remember that Richard Branson and someone else really cool supposedly has dyslexia. I decide (once again) it doesn’t matter that I can’t spell.
13. Yesterday TK posted something about a Yoga Sign. I think it’s “a sign.”
14. Today he asked about a “woobie”. I knew the answer, but someone already posted it. Both my kids and I had them. I wonder if it’s genetic. We all sucked fingers. I wonder if TK knows I’m stalking him yet. He’s very funny.
15. I wonder if I go to the trouble to find the December CD if it could possibly be any better for writing than Bonobo – Dial “M” for Monkey. That album title cracks me up, but really anything by Bonobo will do the trick. I can listen to Noctuary over and over.
16. For reasons I can’t quite put together at the moment I realize I’ve been planning to write a post about Monkeys.
17. I think of the pose – Hanumanasana – Monkey King Pose. Holy crap. I can think of nothing more awful and painful.
18. I can think of nothing more vicious.
19. So it seems like I can stop procrastinating now.
20. And just WRITE