brain-pretzels

the community college where I am a lowly library specialist offers a free yoga class, taught by students in the yoga teacher training program. this semester it was actually scheduled on a day when I could go, so I went, every Friday. and I liked it more than I thought I would. during our first class, the instructor said something about leaving behind all our expectations and opening our minds to whatever experience, whatever reality, and whatever ability we were about to find within ourselves or around ourselves. every week we had a different student-instructor telling us similarly inspiring things as we focused on our breathing and stretched ourselves into various poses.

I still don't picture myself as a hard-core yoga-girl. yoga is not a huge part of my mental self-image. in fact, sometimes I feel a bit fake about it, like I'm not as dedicated as someone who really loves yoga ought to be, you know? but maybe that just means I haven't quite let go of all the expectations. you expect yoga-girls to be extra slender and extra flexible. you expect them to be summery and vegan and conscientious. I'm not. I might never be.

so what?

last March I sat down for a few moments behind a small desk in a house in Nottingham, and I played this videogame called Portal. friend Chris had been selling the whole concept of this game to me for months and months, convinced that I would love it. convinced that it would be the key to toppling once and for all my generally snobby attitude towards gaming.

'the puzzles!' he said. 'the quirky humor!' he said. 'it's all so you,' he said. he told me all about GLaDOS, and the cake, and the portal guns.

he did not tell me about the evil laser-shooting robots. or the toxic slime. and of course the first handful of levels don't have those, so I was fine. and I do like Portal, still, even though I have died at the bottom of toxic puddles and been shot to death by evil lasers more times than anyone could count.

today I'm stuck in the middle of the very last level. it's taken me six months of few-and-far-between Saturdays to get this far, and it might take me just as long to finish the game.

I still don't picture myself as what you'd call a gamer, despite the fun I have been known to have had on various neighbor-boys' xboxes back in the day. there are expectations about those kinds of people too. pale. twitchy. anti-social. obsessed. I'm not like that. or am I?

so what?

either way, it's useful to look at the world a little bit differently sometimes.