MAKING SAUSAGES

OKAY OKAY OKAY

Now I've gone back to some exercise, since we are allowed to do classes outdoors with masks on,

I love PURE BARRE, and so do a great many extremely good-looking women.

 

It only stands to reason that many in my class would be in good shape, right? We are a self-selected group who have chosen to sacrifice time, money and effort to 

have good bodies.

These days, especially, it's a sacrifice since we are outside in a parking lot that the city of Santa Monica allows the class to use. It was filthy the first few times. I worked out on a broken-down cardboard carton donated by a classmate because I didn't know I had to bring my own mat. That was cute, and I have some pictures of me looking like a crazed homeless woman gyrating on the crenallated paper that was protecting me from the crumbling asphalt.

 

The next day I brought my mat, but it got so dirty I had to give it a full-on bath when I got home. So I bought a cheap mat at TJ Maxx, and that was better.

 

Then the city kindly started to wash the parking which was really great especially after it was done a few times, cumulatively cleaner.

But my new cheap mat let the water through. It seems they washed the lot minutes before the start of our class--9 am. (I had to throw away one mat already because it got so disgusting one morning when I had to be in the shade, ergo in a puddle, that I kept from evaporating by my presence.

So not only was the mat wet, so were my special socks, pants and top. I should mention that this outdoor workout is particularly impressive because of all the tiny muscles we need to shanghai in order to stay on the mat, and not let any part of our bodies stray onto said crumbling asphalt. So, good for the workout, bad for the outfit.

But my main point here, and I wish I had photos to show, and maybe I do and can add them later, is that we are a good looking bunch, dressed in minimal and skin-tight clothes, cavorting, stretching, lunging, and tucking--how suggestive is that!!!? Moves not unknown in strip clubs, even. Totally out in public.

For all the world to see. And we are in downtown Santa Monica. Loads of socially distant and masked persons, including men of all ages and types, pass by.

Loads.

You would think that all this toned and barely clad pulchritude would garner an appreciative audience. I don't mean anything I'd have to #MeToo about, but some smiles and lingering glances would not be inappropriate. We are out in public, after all. 

But no!

Nary!

Nada!

Women sometimes watch, and maybe come ask about classes. But men, never. Why?

Because while they admire women. They admire good bodies. They do not like to see what we do to get them.

Men do not seem to want to know how the sausages are made!

 
 

THE TRUMPED UP PRESIDENCY

These last few weeks have been so momentous, so fraught, so bursting with implications, that it scared me, stunned me away from my blog. The thing that sustains me is that it could have been so bad. Four years ago, when Trump was elected, no one imagined how bad it could be. Unthinkable, how bad it actually was. This time, we know exactly how it would go. So whatever fears and worries I have about how hard it will be to indo the massive damage to America's spirits, reputation, and power to do good in the world, I only have to think of how bad it could have been.

This thought usually restores my spirits. And we will just have to word hard for incremental victories, as done by our dearly departed RBG. And try to stay united in good will and willingness to compromise when possible. 

BTW there is a very good documentary series called The Reagans, about the family who came up with the MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN slogan, and how explicit its meaning was, then and now.

FYI--DO YOU KNOW WHAT Crispr MEANS?

Crispr--spelled just like that, is the gene editing technology that allows us, or rather scientists who do that sort of thing, to edit genes. Essentially, a damaged or wrongly-tuned piece of a gene can be removed to change a disease-causing gene into a benign gene. Or a piece of another, presumably better, gene or virus can replace a bad bit. Then the "repaired" gene can function without causing whatever problem it used to, and the host, plant, animal, or person, can carry on happily ever after. Weird and wonderful things can happen, e.g., the AIDS virus may be able to cure Sickle Cell.

Crispr stands for "clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats".