yoga

Based on the advice of a beautiful woman, I recently attended a yoga class. This makes sense, because every other time in my life I've decided to try a new experience, it was because of a woman; like waterskiing, plucking my unibrow¹, kissing, and getting super nervous about that and pulling over to the side of the road and puking my guts out.²

After being thoroughly insulted by my male friends for even considering such heresy, I made my way to my fancy gym (that is, Virgin Active³) to take part in a yoga class.

I entered a cool dark room, and found a half dozen people lying silently on mats. This obviously comprises Ashtanga, or, "the way in which we scare the jeebies out of newbies". Trying hard to fit in, I found a mat and attempted to nonchalantly lay down on a floor with a bunch of heavily-breathing strangers.

After a few moments a woman came in and began moaning.

I find I am at a loss for words to describe my feelings at this stage. Let us just say I had identified all possible exits from the room.

Luckily, she did not pull out a knife and ritually disembowel us. Instead, she turned on the lights and ran through some cursory introductions, quickly identifying me as a complete idiot, then moved on to describe self-esteem-boosting poses like "downward-facing dog", or "fat dude who sits at a desk all day long and can't suspend himself contorted in mid-air with one arm and collapses in front of the petite females balancing with ease who have not just drenched their mat in sweat", and the pose I was instructed to maintain for the balance of the class, "child".

All in all, I'd say it was a successful discovery of yoga. Maybe it will encourage me to be more like my old yoga master pseudo-roommate and ex-girlfriend's ex-boyfriend.⁴ For example, I could start drinking soy, hemp, and human milk.⁵

Eh, maybe not. 2% is fine for me.

1. Judge me as you will. Maybe we can chalk up my unmarriedness to my feminine grooming habits. Though, for the record, this all started when Sadie, my beautiful desk neighbor in sixth grade, suggested it. She is long married, but her memory lingers.
2. Let us never speak again about The Incidents.
3. When I told my good friend the name of my gym she started laughing and said, "you must be the only one". And yes, this came after the time I suggested we date and she suggested I keep a very long distance away from her.
4. If the post does not make this clear: I love that man like a brother. And boy, did we have some great conversations (about her, and other things).
5. In fairness, he only discussed patronizing a restaurant in which it was served, but he discussed it with such promise and vigor, that I can only assume he has now indulged his declared delicacy.

reasons to not pursue women

So today my two buddies Adam and Scott are visiting, and they have been asking me why I don't pursue certain women. In order to assuage them, I have compiled a list of reasons I have not pursued, or have stopped pursuing various women.¹

I feel like I need to confess these items to move forward with my life, and hopefully overcome my deep superficiality.

And yes, these are all one hundred percent true. And no, this is not the full list.

1. Likes cats
   
2. Too skinny
   
3. Weighs more than me
   
4. Looks too much like my mom
   
5. Says annoying words
   
6. Too serious
   
7. Is more spiritual than me, and I would pull her down
   
8. Drinks booze
   
9. Living with her boyfriend
   
10. Hair is too curly
    
11. Too short
    
12. Too tall
    
13. Asked me to leave her alone
    
14. Laughs too much
    
15. Doesn't think I'm funny
    
16. Won't let me eat food she doesn't like
    
17. Too Republican
    
18. Is scary beyond all reason
    
19. Runs faster than me
    
20. Doesn't run faster than me
    
21. Likes me too much
    
22. Answered an Economics question poorly
    
23. Eats men
    
24. Likes Zoolander
    
25. Talks too much about naked people
    
26. Doesn't like tanks
    
27. Thinks I'm a nerd and refuses to talk to me in any capacity
    
28. Got deported
    
29. Is probably a serial killer
    
30. Doesn't speak English
    
31. Is totally out of my league, even if she does seek me out to talk to me
    
32. Is smarter than me
    
33. Isn't smarter than me
    
34. Asked me how old I am
    
35. Laughed at how old I am
    
36. Plays an instrument too well
    
37. Ran away from me when I tried touching her
    
38. Is white, but thinks she's ethnic (Hispanic)
    
39. Is white, but thinks she's ethnic (Black)
    
40. Went on a mission to get away from me
    
41. Dated a loser
    
42. Made out with 1+ friends
    
43. Is too attractive
    
44. Knows me from any awkward stage of my life
    
45. Made out with a muppet²
    
46. Started dating someone before I could get around to asking her (usually on the order of 2+ months)
    
47. Made fun of my math homework
    
48. Attacked me
    
49. Lured me into her lair and attacked me
    
50. Asked me to stop asking her out, then went on a mission to get away from me (I still have hopes though...)
    
51. Married my brother
    
52. Has a name derived from Chris, or sounds anything like unto it
    
53. Is disgusted by chest hair
    
54. Forces me to massage her
    
55. Eats more than me and calls into question my masculinity
    
56. Is wayyyyy cooler than me
    
57. Likes annoying TV shows
    
58. Can't contribute good athletic, or non-nerd genes to our future children, to balance mine out
    
59. Is a missionary, even if her APs tell me that, "any sister missionary with a serious marriage proposal can be honorably released"
    
60. Is too kind (deals poorly with sarcasm, dry humor, dark humor, laughing at people falling up stairs, etc.)
    
61. Clips her toenails on the carpet

1. Please don't take offense at any of these items. This is not meant as a list of reasons women are lame, but a list of reasons I am shallow.
2. I think this is the only truly identifying item on the list, and if you read this, I am sorry, but I can only ever remember that video, which was awesome, but I always always think of it.

seriously?

This morning I'm looking over some notes for future everyguide posts, and all I can say is: seriously? Seriously? Did I really think this stuff would be funny?

I have ever-so-helpful notes like, "makeup". Really? Makeup? How in the world am I going to write something funny about makeup? The one sole thing I can say is to quote my old roommate who would say, "your makeup doesn't fool me!"

Then I have a line dedicated to my great t-shirt idea: picture this; an image of a fan, superimposed with a big X that says "Not a fan". Great idea huh? Right. How does this make it to everyguide? I don't know.

My other idea was going to be this great post on how to awkwardly hug someone, which was going to be complete with pictures and stuff, until I realized it was going to be even more awkward to ask a girl to awkwardly hug me. AND take pictures. That's like double the awkwardness. Who would go for that? Not a lot of people, I'll tell you that. Most of my conversations with women now are interspersed with hollering of, "don't you dare blog about that!" Like the conversation last night wherein a girl...oh, never mind. Stricken from the record. Which is a shame.

And speaking of awkward male-female interactions and old roommates, I really really wanted to tell the story of my absolutely genius friend who came up with ways to discourage women from liking him. One of them involved inching a finger up his nose until the woman noticed, then pulling it out quickly and trying to act nonchalant. BRILLIANT. The man is genius.

Anyways, before I let you go, there's a dude staying at my place this week, and as I was telling an old friend while on a recent whirlwind tour of the states: there's nothing quite like living with someone to make you realize you're not the kind, generous, loving person you pretend you are when being a hermit.

Every time I walk into the bathroom, the toilet seat is left up. I want to be perfectly and completely clear about something: God created the toilet cover with the full intent of having it used, and there is a tiny corner of hell for people who don't pick up on that cue. Seriously people, do you want the image of a toilet bowl burned into your eyes every time you walk into a bathroom? What happens if you drop your toothbrush? Your contacts? Or maybe you prefer to aerosolize your own poo?

And I really have real posts in tow somewhere, and you'll get them soon, but I've been incapable of beating jet lag this time around, mainly because this time around there's a dude watching me trying to beat jet lag, and of course, the ONE TIME in my life I can't get over it is the time I get dude watching me unable to beat it.

What can I say? Curse the day.