As long as Wonkette keeps calling people "Quiznos-stuffed slobs” and “corn-syrup-chugging Hot Pockets monsters,” I figure that it's only fair that I try not being a wheezing lard burden on society myself. Thus, I've been trying frickin' yoga, an increasingly popular DC pastime in which pretentious people get to sometimes literally sniff each other's butts like spoiled dogs who went to Ivy League schools and know how to use iPhones. Yay for exercise as a rich person thing!
Trying to choose a yoga studio in DC is a pain in the ass because there are dozens within blocks of each other, and their websites are all filled with flowers and sweatpants and, for whatever reason, dudes eating fruit. Even Professional Wonkette videographer Liz Glover owns a place, although she caters her classes to important Fashion Celebrities like Lady Gaga and specializes in Bikram, which means practitioners wiggle around in a room as hot as an actual oven until they don't know whether to poop their pants or pass out. When that happened to me on a soccer field in Arizona it was called "heat stroke," but today's franchise yogis call it "enlightenment."
But the Liz studio was far away and I hate walking to get exercise so I decided on a place that's close to home and sort of cartoonishly white, like the lacrosse team of yoga studios. It's near a Whole Foods, a gelato shop and a fitness store where I once saw a guy having a conversation while running in place. I remember that because I was so impressed by his dedication to jogging. Dude couldn't let his heart rate settle even to talk to his friends. What a fun boyfriend he must be! Does he jog during sex? (Is running during sex even possible?)
"Running during sex" is probably an advanced yoga pose. But I'm a beginner, so I'm stuck doing mostly animal stuff: dog, pigeon, eagle, cobra -- pretty much everything but turtle. Never , turtle.
If you get bored with literally going through the motions, one fun thing to do during yoga is concentrate on not farting. If you're like me, you'll probably want to fart about 10 minutes into class. You can't, though, because the room is so small and hot and cluttered that even the teeniest bit of gas would just hang in the humid air, bumming everyone out. So the game then becomes spending 50 minutes on the precipice of farting but without going over the edge. This is very hard to do, but, to my knowledge, nobody's farted in any of my classes. I suspect that's because people in DC are so used to being uptight that standing on their heads while their stomach hurts like it ain't no thang is basically second nature.
Despite the basic ridiculousness of the fad, it turns out that yoga makes you feelgood. I haven't lost weight or gotten huge biceps or anything, but after every class I feel invigorated and clearheaded. I've also met a lot of nice people at the studio, once everybody stands up again. I've so far been spared any talk about their "practice" and macrobiotic diet, but as long as we're just whispering small talk and sipping green tea before class, everything is dandy.
I was walking around town and feeling so good about yoga a couple days ago and talking to my mom on the phone, when I said something like, "I'm thinking of buying a yoga mat."
The moment I'd said it, something growled at me. I looked up to see a furrowed brow and head shaking with disapproval. " Fucking pussy ," he'd said. "What a fucking pussy."
Cord Jefferson's column usually appears Thursdays on Wonkette, unless he turns it in late because he's too busy buying yoga costumes on a holistic website with his mom. Also he is always on the Twitter.
Although that pose does explain how so many politicians are able to get their heads up the ass.
Or say "Fuck You!" when she says "You were very shaky" after the tree pose. Which in my case is more like tree in a hurricane pose.