Yesterday I trained someone to perform a position for which I myself have never been trained. Beautiful! Today I had a phone interview and it made my innards sieze up. It went ok, though.

Jess Bev has been in town for the past couple days and it has been awesome. It's a shame, though, that she doesn't share my passionate love of Bikram.

I'm looking forward to an Olympic-free weekend traveling through the quad-state area of the peninsulam amoenam, The Buckeye State, Michiana and The Land of Lincoln. It's too bad I can't squeeze in a side trip to Kentuckiana -- if only we could all be so fortunate.

After my mom noted the delicate features of Apolo Ohno, I couldn't shake the thought that he looked like another famous-ish person. *BAM* like lightning it struck me that spandex*-and-bandana-clad Apolo looks somewhat like women's-pants-clad Rufus Wainwright. After a thorough internet image search, though, I discovered that it is impossible to find an image of Rufus Wainwright in which he doesn't look morose, and equally impossible to find one of Apolo in which he doesn't appear a) somewhat cocky or b) jubilant. I think this dichotomy might be a sort of Clark Kent/Superman thing -- I know I've never seen the two of them in the same room.











Ah, and in the Olympic spirit: here's a thought for some more Seinfeldian events: 1) Involuntary Ski Jumping 2) Four-man Luge, 3) Sixteen-man Bobsled.

*I stumbled across this googling, I swear, and couldn't pass up sharing it's Teen-People-y flair

My head is EXPLODING. Could it be the lack of coffee? Yesterday's strange sleep schedule? Colliding neuro-transmissions from having watched too much male figure skating? The strongly erratic barometric pressure? The green tea + jasmine combo I've been purchasing from the shelf right next to the call-to-Laos phone cards at Asia's Family Market? Blah.

Despite the headache, the effects of yesterday's snowstorm caused a flurry of excitment at work. Everyone was leaving early and employees were calling in stuck in the massive berms, breastwork, parapets, banks and/or bulwarks in their driveways and subdivisions. My current boss & boss's boss were stuck in a ditch somewhere near Turtle Creek Casino (not the South Bend apartment complex) and we were prancing around in a blanket-of-snow-induced frenzy.

I'm pretty indelibly immersed (can one be indelibly immersed?) in the cult of Bikram Yoga. As an almost-daily practitioner, I've discovered that my lower left half is quite a bit weaker than my right, and my joints are also angled differently. So there are tricks the right side of my body can perform that my left side has a hard time equaling. It's humbling, in a way, to discover these little quirks in my body's mechanisms that, even as a runner, I had never noticed before. I feel sorry for my left side; I think it's jealous.

We were watching a little Torino/Turin 2006 coverage at the household over the weekend, and it brought to mind the following (which is at least forty times more funny in audio):

"So many events in the olympics don't make sense to me, I don't understand their connection to any reality. Like in the winter olympics they have that biathlon. You know that one? That combines cross-country skiing with shooting a gun? How many alpine snipers are into this? To me it's like combining swimming and strangle a guy. Why don't we have that? That makes absolutely as much sense to me. Just put people in the pool at the end of each lane for the swimmers.

"And that other one that I love is the luge. You know the luge, where the guy wears that slick suit? This is on the bobsled run, but it's not even a sled -- it's just Bob! It's just a human being hanging on for their life -- this is the whole sport. Just "ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" "Oh, he pointed his toes -- oh, this guy's a tremendous athlete." The luge is only sport I've ever seen that you could have people competing in it against their will, and it would be exactly the same. You know, if they were just grabbing people off the street, "Hey . . hey! What is this? I don't want to be in the luge!" You know, you put the helmet on 'em, you wouldn't really hear 'em screaming, just "You're in the luge, buddy." "Oooahhh aoohaoa oooohhhhh!" World Record! Didn't even wanna do it. I want to see that event next year: the Involuntary Luge."

-Jerry Seinfeld I'm Telling You For the Last Time

I heard this broadcast on the morning drive to work yesterday, and it lead to a heavy 8:00 - 9:00 time-frame internet search that yielded information about 1) the quintippio, 2) The Onion's take on 5 blades, 3) references to a 1975 SNL commercial touting the Triple-Track Razor, 4) unrequited message-board inquiries about the Mach 14 Platinum, and other stuff. I wonder what it's like to work in R&D at Schick, Gillette, Bic, etc . . . Exciting? Stimulating? Dare I say, cutting edge? Or just ridiculous?!

And, some other thoughts: Traverse City has been cold, all week. Brr. Thankfully, Bikram has been hot (though my personal expression of Bikram has been a little slow and rusty, partially due to awfully sore medial hamstrings from the standing-separate-leg-stretching pose). Also if you're curious about Shinto and/or other Asian Religions [coughDADcough] don't hesitate to check 'em out. Plus, today a constable came into work to track down an employee. THRILLING! Penultimately, I think I'm retaining water. And, lastly, I'm trying to give up crappy coffee due in part to the information in Caffeine Blues. Originally I was thinking no-coffee-ever-again, but I don't think it's right to deny oneself quality coffee 4 lyfe.

"Crystal, Eat Your Burger," is what KDub said to me/the wall/his dog as we parted ways on Thursday. I had stopped into the band building to return some keys and figured it couldn't hurt to catch up with my old band director/one-time marathon advisor. And it didn't. Hurt.

Other adventures over the course of my mid-week South Bend travels included catching up with a bazillion fun people such as Faltos, fellow graduates who were recruiters at the career fair (they the yin to my recruitee yang,) and my old coworkers at the Robinson Center. I also got to experience the amazingly clean bathroom of the McDonald's near the Cleveland Meijer -- it was an antiseptic wonder!

The fruits of this trip are that I'm only slightly closer to life organization. And yes, I am now four days past my Feb 1 deadline. However, I've got a few more weeks at the Bikram studio to take care of (I've been perpetually sore for the past three weeks, yet some part of my being is telling me to keep on keeping on until I spontaneously 1) levitate or 2) break into pretzel pieces), and a short stint at my old workplace to push through, so it's going to be ok up here in the Northern climes for the next couple weeks anyway. Particularly if today's arctic-tundra-like conditions continue . . . going outside right now is like partaking in the Iditerod without even moving! At least, that's what it's like inside my head.

Tonight I hope to dream of the SNL skit in which Steve Martin & Will Forte have a conversation just millimeters from each others lips. I will laugh and I will cry and I will affirm that Will Forte can do no wrong. Night!