is it my karma that's stopping me from touching my toes?

I was sitting on my yoga mat yesterday waiting for class to start when a woman who appeared to be older than time walked into the studio. Using a cane.

My first thought? Finally, someone who'll be worse at yoga than I am. Because, as you know, yoga is a competitive sport. That I am very, very bad at. But that I really, really love.

I should have known I was in trouble when she left the cane in the dressing room and came out dressed in a matching pajama top and bottom that appeared to have been purchased at JC Penney's in 1964. I should have rolled up my mat and gone home when I saw her GOLD TOENAIL POLISH. But she was coughing like she had the swine flu, so I thought I had a chance. To, you know, beat her at yoga.

Let's just say that I thought wrong. It turns out that the woman is NINETY YEARS OLD (she told us all after class), and much better at yoga than I am. Not that it's a competition.

yoga addict

I think I may be addicted to yoga. My yoga teacher is out of town for three weeks (how dare she!) and sometimes my body actually aches to do a sun salutation. Lest you think, however, that I'm one of those yoga people -- the kind of yoga person who refers to herself as a "yogini" (gross) and has a slim but toned, flexible body as a result of her "practice" (I wish) -- know this: Yoga is making me fat. Actually, technically it is probably the chocolate I eat throughout the day that is making me fat, but I'm pretty sure it is the yoga that is giving me massive thighs. It's not a metaphor when I say I'm busting out of my pants. I have literally busted out of literal pants (once while I was shopping at Home Goods, where I will never show my face again, now that I have shown my butt).

And not only is it making me fat, I'm terrible at yoga. After nine months of going to between one and four classes a week, I can just barely touch my toes (although when I started, I could just barely touch my knees, so this is an improvement). The pose I'm best at is savasana, also known as "corpse pose" (Chris is under the impression that I get lots of exercise because I go to yoga so much, in spite of the fact that I've explained to him that it's more like preschool than aerobics: we lie down on our mats and take a nap at the end).

And though I know that as a yogini (as if) I should be tolerant of or at peace with or at least not completely judgmental of the people around me, I have an arch nemesis at yoga. Farting Man usually comes late to class, he inevitably plops his mat right in front of mine, and then he proceeds to fart his way through yoga while I fume and curse him in my head and wish ill upon him, which I'm sure the Dalai Lama would do, too, if he were stuck behind Farting Man for an hour and a half in a hot room.

But at this point I'm so desperate for yoga class, I wouldn't even mind if Farting Man tooted in my face while I was struggling to touch my toes. Well, I would mind, but I would summon the yogini within, stretch my massive thighs, and try not to let the toxic stench disrupt my deep yogic breaths.