Sometimes in life, things take you take a weird place, a place you'd never ever think you'd see yourself. Yesterday was one of those days. Bikram, baby, Bikram.

Yep, went to go do yoga in a room intentionally (intentionally!) heated up so that it's around 100 degrees. This is supposed to be good for me.

Yeah, I know, yoga? It's so trendy, so au courant, so disgustingly IN my normal ordinary reaction would be to mercilessly mock anyone even thinking about doing yoga, just on general principle. After all, yoga mats are the new Razar Scooter. All of which is true but I have tried it and I actually liked it. I just haven't done it in awhile due to various reasons (see no money). And as far as trends go, everyone doing yoga is not such a bad thing. Beats the hell out of joining dot.com's.

But Bikram, that's a whole other thing. It's like Extreme Yoga. It's like for people who think regular yoga is too mellow. It's like for people who think regular yoga is for wussies. And I'm a wuss. But my 34 year old body has been telling me for awhile that I need to get in shape, lose weight, and fix my back. I also need something that'll help alleviate stress and make me less cranky. Viola- bikram. It's yoga, but because of how it's done and what you work won, it helps me relax, helps me get in shape, and helps my back. But wait! There's more! Because it's in a 100 degree room, you sweat so much that you lose weight. It takes care of four (four!) of my "need to do" things in one fell shot.

Plus, people who do it regularly says it completely changes you. Makes you lose weight and get in shape. Makes you want to eat less, exercise more, and stop adding pollutants to your body (that meaning beer and pizza). Sign me up. I wanna be a new me. I wanna see if I could give up beer and pizza (as the Duke would say, that'll be the day).

How was it?

First off, it's really fucking hot in there. Really fucking hot. And I hate the heat. It's one of the reasons I don't want to move back East. Most of the moves aren't that difficult or strenuous, but when you do it in that kind of heat, it feels like it's strenuous. I mean, you know something's pretty fucked up when the teacher gives the class instructions before the class starts on what to do if they feel like they're gonna throw.

And man, did I sweat. I haven't sweated that much since my last "oh fuck, I really need this job" job interview. And I haven't felt so sick since that night a few weeks ago when I went bar-hopping through the neighborhood and spent all morning watching my apartment go round and round.

The strange thing was that it wasn't necessarily the yoga moves that made me feel that way, it was the move the teacher had everyone do to relax. After a move, she'd have us turn around the other way and lie down on our chests to do a push up. All of the turning around is what did it to me. I wonder how many times they've had to hose down someone's up-chuck after a class?

Hours afterward, though, I feel pretty damn good. Good enough to try it again (maybe). Even full-well knowing I spent most of the time staring at the big clock and wondering how soon the whole thing would be over.

We'll see.