Is there ever a day....

when I DON'T have to go to the grocery store? I think not.

I did an abbreviated practice this morning - I'm still a little sore from two days ago, and I laid awake from 4:50 (when Will crawled in bed with us) to after 6:00 (which is when Lee's turned his alarm off and went back to sleep) finally dozing off and falling into a thirty-minute coma.

Michael and I got caught by the train, so I screeched to a halt in front of school and told him to hurry in and maybe he wouldn't have to get a tardy slip. Then still in rush mode I hurried home, made the beds, checked on the hermit crabs, loaded the washing machine and the dishwasher, checked my email, then unrolled my mat and started the DVD. I felt like an old lady during the Surya Namaskars (and I had to stop and chase the cat out of the house in the middle of Surya B). I knew I didn't have time for the whole series, so I stopped at the half bound lotus paschimottanasana, then went to the finishing series. I did three backbends...the first one, I could barely get up....the second one, got up more easily but could not lower myself and I actually just fell out of it onto my back....not to be defeated, I did a third, focusing on really using my quads and I got up and down with more ease. I know my feet are splayed out, though. Coming into backbends is, mentally, a lot like the third part of awkward in Bikram, when we are kneeling, balancing on the balls of our feet, and we have to slowly come up....that challenge is as much mental as physical for me, because I know I can't come out of it without either giving myself a bounce, or without leaning forward to get myself up. I know that hard part is coming, and the dread is the worst part.

Anyway, I did shoulderstand and plow as well....Swenson kept talking about keeping the neck lifted and I'm like, what the hell, how does one keep the neck lifted in this pose? I craned my neck to see the TV and sure enough, he is on his shoulders with his head raised off the floor. Maybe in a million years I will be able to achieve that. I must be doing something wrong, because after shoulderstand the other day those bones at the top of my back, just below my neck were bruised feeling. I must be either too far up or not far enough. I did the next couple poses through matsyasana then turned off the DVD.

I still feel excited about the workshop starting this weekend, but kind of nervous too, like I am going to have to face my fears about backbending and inversions and I really don't wanna.