H. Hsu Word Salad

How does one maintain utility to say the least of suppleness and strength in wrists, hands, and shoulders when work ties you to a computer for hours on end?
A few years ago, the first time I felt twinges in my right (mouse) hand, I was utterly aghast.  I suppose it is a reaction akin to when overweight people seem shocked that their cholesterol or blood sugar is high.  We all know the risks, but the don’t seem to apply to ourselves.  I knew my office had crap ergonomics and my home office crappier still.  But feeling those scary twinges was a wake up.  Seeing lovely young colleague A.T. with her whole wrist and upper arm encased in a brace, as another one. My former roomie B explained to me her mother’s carpal tunnel surgery, "yeah so they cut open your wrist and it’s like they pull or take out certain tendons here and here…" OMG.
P and I often joke that time will tell which is worse: engineer ass or therapist ass.  We both sit on said asses most of the day almost every day and the spread of the buttocks paired with strain of the typing digits make for some grim postures by the time we get home.   There were years that P’s back and shoulders rebelled from the 12+ hour days at Oracle, and sent him to  chiropractor multiple times per week.
Several years ago my office spouse introduced me to the yoga teacher of my dreams, Sandy Blaine.  She teaches for those Pixar people, and co founded Alameda yoga station.  I’d had several yoga teachers. Sampled Aikido, modern dance, bellydance, more ballet, jazz, Bikram (hot) yoga, kickboxing, indoor rock climbing. All enjoyable enough but never was there a teacher I respected as much as my former ballet teacher.  Until I met Sandy and realized that this lady was making changes in my 30+ body that I never would have thought possible.  I credit her yoga with helping me avoid injury during these brutal triathlon/running/adventure race years.

A rather Fobby aquaintance of hours said "Ew! YOU go to yoga?!" to P when she hears us speaking about the weekend.  I wanted to snap "get out of the dark ages ,woman."  Many yoga teachers are men, and most male athletes have a glaring weakness in their flexibility.  There is a gray haired man in our class, and if yoga can keep one that supple into the 60’s and beyond- it would be foolish to miss out.  I had asked P for years and years to try it.  He never had time.  But followed his own stretch routine which was better than nothing.  On a whim he finally put in my yoga video. And another. Then came to class with me.  Oracle once declared him 13% disabled (what does that even mean?!) from repetititve stress injuries.  Now he’s chiropractor free.

We get up early on Sundays to drive our butts to Alameda because Sandy knows her stuff so well, and learns each of our bodies individually.  Gym quality yoga is when 25+ people cram into a room with a barely trained instructor up front.  Sandy is a teacher-trainer, she and her 2 assistants roam the room throughout classes gently supporting and correcting poses.  This is a woman whose smiling calm overlays her years of knowledge and practice.  Worlds away from the young woman who teaches at my gym (where I go as a backup on days I can’t reach Alameda), M plays music during class and has to refer to written notes.  She makes almost no corrections and I cringe inside as I restrain myself from adjusting my classmates whose necks or alignments are totally off whack.  I fear they will hurt themselves.  Sandy would never let that go without guiding someone into the proper modification.
Sandy knows which of us have tight hamstrings.  Tight shoulders. Weak or strong ankles.  Creaky hips.  Who is most flexible where.  Who hates inversions and who loves them.  She could see instantaneously the legacy in my body of those ballet years. She knows what my feet struggle to unlearn.  She knows how much I love the balance or extension poses that bring out the long buried arabesques within me.

Sandy will be autographing her newest book "Yoga for Computer Users" as well as leading simple seated stretches and answering back/neck/shoulder/wrist/hand questions Sunday, May 4 at 2 pm at Books Inc. in Alameda (Hooray for independent bookstores!!).   If you spend your employed life attached to a keyboard, I highly recommend you come check out her book and tips. Besides, then you can partake in Alameda’s yummies directly afterwards! Burma Superstar, Tucker’s ice cream, Kamakura sushi, Calafia Taqueria, the HobNob, Pappo’s…mmmm mmmm Alameda!
Sadly P and I will miss it.  Not so sadly, it is because we will be frolicking in Monterey to celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary.  (How time flies!)
We’ll have Sandy autograph her book next time we come to class at the yoga room.
more info: www.booksinc.net   or google Alameda Yoga station.

I gave up the precious offering of a free Springsteen ticket so as to carbo load and hit the sack early before a 10 mile race. Sure, I’ve done 13.1 before, but that was more than a year ago! Plus, well…this winter has been heavy on pastries and light on running. And heck, the Presidio 10 takes one across the Golden gate and benefits the guardsmen & Ashlyn Dyer foundation.
My sweetheart insists we MUST eat at Trattoria la siciliana on

College Avedespite the fact that the waits are atrocious. This time, we made an 8pm reservation.
After an hour and 20 minutes of waiting while fragrant plateloads of food ferry by, we gorge ourselves. Gnocchi, lamb, eggplant, sauces, risotto, multiple desserts and wine. Roasted garlic and hearty flavors linger in our mouths. The clean, satisfying YUM of good quality food and straight cookin’. (as opposed to the odd aftermath of msg-or preservative, grease laden whacked out mass produced, standard restaurant fare.)
Sigh. That friggin’ wait was pretty ridiculous. But all is forgiven when that food appeared. It’s kind of like getting pissed off at your chronically, inconsiderately late lover…and then your anger evaporating when s/he shows up looking fab & kisses you.

The next morn, 6 a.m. I STILL feel heavy with Italian food. We layer up in the cold morning and head through slumbering Oakland to pick up Sean. I meet Yee-Min’s friend from work, Sean is a fellow former USMC. He bops outta the house in shorts and a special forces Tee, kissing his dark haired wife farewell.
“She’s a welder, she even teaches welding.” Yee min shared.
How cool is that?
Over the bridge and to Kevin’s. I stare at the youth hostel and imagine the goings on. Fantasize about traveling abroad. Kevin comes downstairs and we’re off to Presidio.

Mile 1 through 3 are typically brutal for me. I can’t seem to rev up properly or pace the breathing right for the first couple miles. The discomfort used to lead to my bailing out. By now I’ve learned to tough it out and wait for the moment 20 minutes or so into it when suddenly, miraculously, my lungs don’t feel any strain and the muscles are all in sync.

But it didn’t help that our dash through the Presidio began sloping up, and around, and up, and up. The enthused pack that bolted from the starting gate begin to thin. The guys look back at me. ‘How are you doing?”
“great!” Big grin, disconcordant with my labored chug-chug.

“How are you feeling?”

“Damned hot.”

Time to start shedding layers.
“I am having flashbacks to the Oyster race.” TK bicycled around these treacherous roads with me as my quads screamed. Our team practiced on this road until skunk and nightfall made us turn back. Here I am yet again. Clearly I am more of a masochist than I had imagined. Around mile 3, they handed out Clif Blox. These are big gummy cubes or electrolytes and other energy sources so you don’t bonk out during a distance event. I love these at triathlon time, because I think all the Gu and Clif Shots are nasty as heck, but one does need fuel. So I often eat a bag of blox while on my bike. But how does one chew up a blox while running non stop? The guys cheeked it in their mouths like squirrels…where they dissolved quite slowly for a reported 3 more miles. Someone gave me an orange slice which I sucked dry and discarded in 2 steps. OMG. At this point that is like the BEST tasting orange of my entire life.
By Mile 4, we hit the
Golden Gate Bridge, and it is one of the postcard-perfect days when the city by the bay shines brilliantly in that California glow. We run to Marin, and promptly round the corner to stairs that wind us back toward SF. At the last few miles we start to become more organized, ‘Ok, Helen takes a picture by the Mile 6 sign, Yee Min can be 7, I’ll be 8, Sean will be 9…”
"Are ya’ll masochists or sadists?" I ask, since it does strike me as funny that we all paid good money to get up early and subject ourselves to a certain level of pain.  The guys all declare themselves sadists.  But I kinda doubt that…

By Mile 8 I am deliriously happy because I realize for sure that I am gonna make it to the end! We pass a loop of 10K runners and Yee Min inadvertently mocks them as he loudly laments our travails in comparison to theirs. At Mile 9 Sean does a handstand and looks barely impacted from our jaunt.
Kevin manages to take over 300 photos all while in motion, and when we peruse the album later, (pared to a more manageable 150) we all look like overly happy, chipper, dorks. But at least like healthy and vibrant dorks. With grins like that no one is gonna believe that was actually kinda hard. At least for me, I know the guys took a leisurely pace for me, and let me hit the finish line before them. Which surprised me, since I am quite used to total acceptance of run partners who leave me in the dust! Then again, my ‘easy’ pace was certainly comfy for them as well.

For the entire last mile, we were making a chant of all the things we lusted for at the finish line. “Beer!” “Bacon!” “Food!”
When we run near my ‘hood Yee Min and I go for waffles to compensate for all possible calories burned. He said that after the Chinatown run people stood at the finish proffering those ubiquitous pink pastry boxes – brimming with egg custard tarts. I gotta say, these Presidio folks put on a great run! Giant orange balloon columns festooned the area, and there was serious swag and treats. At the finish line the first question asked of me was ‘Would you like a Bloody Mary?”
Well. Hello! These are my kinda people…
There was Peet’s coffee (YES!!!), said Bloody Marys, beer, Accelerade, breakfast burritos and ham croissants from Asqew, pop chips, and a breakfast bar. Whew, This sure beats the usual bananas and water at the end of most races! A live band rocked out and we took victorious pics at the Mile 10 sign.

Now I’ve added more friends to my posse of runnin’ friends. Sean is trying to convince us all to do the Bakersfield Mud Run this fall…running & mud I’ve done 4 years in a row at Muddy Buddy. But whereas MuddyBuddy features about 6 obstacles, this Bakersfield sports like…70!? Let’s see how the rest of the training year goes…

Months ago I was online googling “bibliophile” and exploring links to kindred geeks. “These are my people,” I proclaimed. It felt like discovering a long lost tribe of others in love with the written word & the very process of reading/writing. Though we never met and did not even chat, I’ve made bookmooch and bookcrossing buddies. I’ve sent books to new owners and homes in New York, Kentucky, Texas, Illinois, Ireland, and Canada. And I’ve savored the joy of packages arriving at the office which are gifts of books from strangers.

This day I noticed the “Creative Minds Series” at the San Jose Museum of Art. P and I passed that museum several times on our way to eat lobster corn dogs at Arcadia, see dissected/plastinated humans at the tech museum, gorge on churros at Christmas in the Park, and after the Rock ‘n Roll half marathon. I always did want to check it out one of these days… But what immediately caused me to whip out the credit card for tickets?

Jhumpa Lahiri.

Jhumpa of the clear, luminous, owl eyes and heart-wrenching prose. Author of Interpreter of Maladies, and The Namesake (adapted in movie form by Mira Nair.) Her stories are largely peopled by Bengali Americans or immigrants. But as she stated, ‘I don’t see my writing as being about Indians and immigrants. Of course I know, I’m aware that’s what most of the characters are. But what I write about is the human condition.”

When a friend passed me a copy of her book a year ago – I was floored. At the accuracy with which she captured the ache and silliness, silent tragedies and irrational longings which pepper humanity. So much history and love and absurdity, with repression, betrayal, and discovery. I bear compassionate witness to such dramas played out within the safety of the therapeutic space all year long. These stories captured all the crazed mixed up feelings of choosing and living and choosing to live. As well as the particular brand of exasperated being that shades the lives of bi-cultural families such as my own.
The museum notes, “Lahiri’s bittersweet stories avoid sentimentality without abandoning compassion.”

Wed. afternoon I bolted out of the office at warp speed. Dr. C, bridesmaid ‘o mine drove down from Walnut Creek (and showed up sporting a bouncy new ‘do having cut off her hair and donated it to Locks of Love.) We met at my place & set off for a much needed mid-week art & womyntalk holiday.  Got briefly lost (Do you know the way, to San Jose..?)Dinner of salad & éclair at Bijan bakery (does the fat bomb cancel out the benefits of the harvest salad?)

3 minutes after 7, the velvet rope is removed and a polite stampede streams up the stairs to the “open seating” gallery for the book reading.

“Sweet!” Dr. C and I, both not-so-closeted comic book sci fi fans, are thrilled to catch glimpses of the current exhibit featuring Robots. Better yet, Jhumpa will be speaking on the makeshift stage with an impressive 20 foot tall giant robot behind her constructed from recycled Styrofoam. Robot art adorns the walls beside the rows of chairs. (The next Creative Minds series speaker, BTW is the author of the book "How to Survive a Robot Uprising").  We jostle our ways to the third row, and later turn and see that it is a full house.

After the introduction made, sponsors thanked, and lights dimmed, Jhumpa Lahiri emerges from the shadows. She does not appear as stunningly beautiful as she does on her book jackets. On those glossy covers, all her striking features are highlighted, her hair slicked back, wardrobe fancy.  One has to beat back the misogynistic, reflexive disbelief that one so pretty is so sharp of mind and pen.  Tonight she’s dressed simply, an iridescent silken tunic and black slacks, medium length hair neither curly, nor straight, parted in the middle. She doesn’t smile much, but indeed bears eyes that are alternatingly beautiful and piercing. Jhumpa is one of those people who looks at least a decade younger than she is. She seems a tad nervous, and doesn’t waste time on excessive pleasantries. She mentions being honored to speak in the beautiful gallery, and cracks a smile sharing what a kick her kids would get out of this giant robot.

A friend asked me today ‘how was the reading, what she was like?”

My answer – so interesting. She was so open and honest about personal issues, yet also very closed and protective of certain boundaries. She struggled to articulate lifelong feelings of “not being right, not belonging”, of being loved yet “wishing my parents could just ‘get over’ India”. A woman asked how her family and friends feel about scenes of their lives appearing in books. Jhumpa laughed briefly that ‘My sister has already warned me that if she ever catches me writing about her…!”

She talked movingly about art and writing and the characters she creates and lives with for years at a time, yet also spoke of being a “cold mother” to her “paper children”, these books. Someone asked if she re-read her work, re-visited characters or felt protective and proprietal when Namesake was made into a movie. “No. I trusted Mira to take her vision and I did not want to be involved in the process. With my work I am kind of like those animal mothers who give birth and then..just walk away. They must stand on their own.”

She talked about always feeling shy, quiet, observant. Of her mother pushing her at parties to play with others. Of how it feels for immigrants to live in a new land and “be related to nobody else.” Of her latest book title, she notes that “in a way ‘Unaccustomed Earth’ could be the title of all the things I have written.” 

A man asks for her thoughts about the coming generation that is so obsessed with Youtube and video games etc., about whether there is a future for the written word. She responds that books will always exist in some form, and comments that she is an anomaly, a person who watches little TV and who had never even seen Youtube until just a few weeks ago. This confession in the heart of Silicon valley, drew peals of laughter.

The line for book signing stretches and curls through the lobby, where massive curliques of blown glass in brilliant colors hang overhead.
“In the interest of time, no personalizations, just book signing” explain the Kepler’s books and museum staff. Jhumpa is efficient. Says Hello. Thank you. Mostly unsmiling. Not unpleasant at all but quite a contrast to my last book signing at Commonwealth Club. Former White House Press Secretary Deedee Meyers was a chatty, laughing, sparkler of political and personal energy.