We're Fatter Than They Are

I've just returned from a three week cross-country car trip from Atlanta to northern California and I discovered a few things along the way about our nation:

1) The love bugs in Mississippi and Louisiana always fly in tandem and copulate continuously.
2) Craziness is cool in New Orleans. That means you can walk around the French Quarter wearing nothing but a jock strap and a grin, or you can drink until you barf in the gutter, or you can take $25 dollars from gullible tourists (Who? Me??) and tell them, with a straight face, about vampires that haunt your city.
3) Texas is big, like 900 miles wide....and boring.
4) Arizona and New Mexico are very dry; the Rio Grande is actually the Rio Small, nothing more than a trickle in places. The only place I saw water flowing there was in toilets and on golf courses.

And then there's California, my place of birth and former home. The place where people still say, "You used to live here and you left? What, are you crazy?? And you moved where? To Michigan? Are you f---in' out of your mind???"

They've got a point. Here's what I learned about the residents of northern California:

1)They're thinner than we are. Here in the U.P,, probably one out of every three people you see walking down the street is noticeably overweight, if not downright obese. In northern California, it's about one in ten. At most. The women all look like they just finished a 90 minute zumba class, the men all look like they're taking a quick espresso break during their 30 mile bike ride over the coastal mountains.

2)They dress and coif themselves better than we do. If I wear a sweatshirt and slacks, you're looking at maybe $30 worth of clothes, less if I ran into a  sale at Goodwill.  When they wear a sweatshirt and slacks, it's an "ensemble", and they're paying $100 minimum, for each. But their clothes don't wrinkle and they've got nifty little names on them on the inside of the collar. Californians' hair? Casually impeccable, sexy, wavy. Mine? A store clerk in San Francisco stared at my hair for a few seconds, then grinned and said, "Hey, Albert Einstein!"

3)They've got more money than we do. I went to Napa Valley and watched 20-somethings, no doubt taking a break from inventing the next killer app for Apple or Google, casually throwing down $100 bills to sample the latest, greatest Cabernet-Merlot-Zinfandel blend, only three barrels total, grown on the  southwest side of the hill, partly shaded by oaks, partly by elms, hydroponically irrigated during the last two months of their growth, and then lovingly picked, grape by grape, by gorgeous, left-handed Asian women with silky smooth skin. I, on the other hand, tried the $10 sampler of five wines, and then fretted that I was throwing money away (that could have been better spent on a new sweatshirt at Target).

 4)Their houses cost just a wee bit more than ours. Like a "starter home" thirty miles outside of San Francisco? That'll cost you about $350,000. In a sketchy neighborhood. A nice home closer to the city, say, with three bedrooms and two baths, and a backyard big enough for your kids to play hacky-sack? Well, that might cost you a cool million. And a true luxury home, complete with a lap pool in the backyard, a yoga studio, and a wine cellar for all the latest Cabernet-Merlot-Zinfandel blends? Well, now you're talking three million-plus. Or in other words, the entire value of the Upper Peninsula.

5)They're inexplicably Democrats, even with all that money. What the hell?
A 70-something in a barber shop accused my brother of "being a Republican." Like it was the unkindest of all insults. Here in the U.P., expecially when you venture outside of Marquette, you have to apologize for being a Democrat, unless you're amid academics, artists or union members (or pot-smokers).

Bottom line? It all made me kind of envious. How come northern Californians are so much cooler and wealthier than us?

Well, to be honest, they don't look any happier than us. They do lock their doors at night; they don't leave their car engines running at the airport as we do when we go inside the terminals to greet passengers; they do honk their horns at the mildest of irritations at intersections; they suffer through interminable traffic jams, morning after morning, night after night; they do spend thousands of dollars on beach and ski vacations while we spend, oh, 20 bucks or so.

The list could go on and on, needless to say. But enough said. We're clearly not as cool as they are, we're certainly a lot poorer, we probably scored a lot lower on our SAT tests but.....but...our cheap sweathshirts keep us just as warm as their fancy ones do, our extra layer of flesh keeps us extra warm during our frigid winters, our cheap wines and beers give us a more than adequate buzz....and...and what's wrong with my hair anyway? Didn't seem to bother Einstein, did it?

Yooper Yoga

Dim the lights.

Turn on the calming, New Agey music.

Lie down on your one-inch-thick mattress pad.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Empty your mind of all thoughts.

So far, so good for this Yooper who's recently discovered the joys, and challenges, of yoga. You see, I figured it was finally time for me to try something new, something that had been around for, what? A few thousand years or so?

I mean, it's not like this was Tae Bo or jazzercise or Zumba or the lambada. No, yoga, I'm told, has been around for centuries opening the minds and spirits and bodies of serious human beings.

So what's to lose? For one, I'd be taking a yoga class instead of a tougher, sweatier session with a treadmill or weights. It'd be easier on the body and also more soothing for the spirit. My mind would soar. I'd be one with the universe.

The lying down flat on the pad was easy. The arching of the back was a little more difficult. An old man's spine isn't much for bending.
Then the flipping over, moving the right foot in, the left foot out, twisting your head to one side, then the other, then lifting the right hand up, holding it for five seconds, then lifting the left hand up, holding it for five seconds, then dipping your shoulders...

Then collapsing in a heap.

That was me. While the young ladies all around me were faithfully following the leader's soothing directions and her graceful positions, I was struggling, with quivering arms and legs, to match what I saw, but I couldn't do it. It hurt too much, it was too hard, and I looked ridiculous. I didn't hear any snickering among my fellow yogis, but I suspect, on the inside, when they weren't spiritually soaring, they were laughing at the old man in the corner.

It didn't matter which pose I tried--the cobra, the salutation, the half-moon, the dirty dog...or whatever. I couldn't do it, or at least I couldn't do it properly.

And not only that, but amidst all my physical struggles, I didn't have a single moment to allow my spirit to soar. I was not even close to becoming one with the universe. I was simply sweating and shaking and praying for the instructor to give us permission to move into our next pose.

Oh, how I longed for the tedium of a treadmill or a bench press.

However, I must say at the very end of the session, as I was lying prone, eyes closed, listening to the New Agey music and my labored breaths, I did have an epiphany:

It had been nice, for the previous hour, to get away from the busyness and noisyness of the world all around us, even if it meant discovering that my body was not the sublime tool that I thought it was.

And I decided I'd try this yoga thing again. Maybe some day, with a lot of work and devotion, I'd manage to achieve Nirvanha. No wait, I'm getting things mixed up, but you get my drift.