Advice for Day 21: Find Zen without Losing your Hygiene

First let me make a disclaimer: I love hippies, really i do. I love their avantgarde approach to halter tops, bangles and tie dye. I love their hand-inked butterfly/flower/fairy tattoos placed strategically on the ugliest and most noticeable part of their bodies. I even love their silly annual parades to that weird shaped green plant called mary.

That said I do not like their "au naturual" scent; that distinct order they seem to have copyrighted as organic (as if they could put a sticker on their armpit and sell it for twice its market value). From the unwashed dread to the unwashed unmentionables, hippies need to find a shower before they find their inner peace.

But luckily the WASP's have gentrified hippyhood the same way they do to any dignifably ugly neighborhood and turned it into YOGA Inc., my zenarific 45 minute noon power stretch.

Every Tuesday and Thursday I am welcomed into the studio with a sign asking guests to consider their hygiene for the comfort of other guests. That is how WASP's say no effin' Hippies allowed. We may be embracing the religions of the East but we will never forget the 1st commandment of the West: politeness is next to godliness.

And so i enjoy 45 blissful minutes of the gentrified skeleton of ancient yoga that the Green Bay area has so finely honed over the course of the last 3 years. And I walk out feeling good and smelling even better thanks to my all-powerful Secret deodorant.

But beyond knowing i just participated in an ancient religious practice watered down for and then steroided back up to appeal to the "i want a hot ass and inner peace" American, I feel like i did something i little good for myself.

I took 45 minutes and realigned my spine and my priorities. I folded my body in half, rested my nose to my knees and didn't think once about the my impeding insurance-less doom. Yoga may be too hippy for WASPs and American Yoga may be too WASPy for hippies, but I say light the effin' incense and find zen my friends because neither side is having much luck these days.

I am starting to see I may be a WASP but I may be a Yogi as well. Really the only difference is a little more deodorant and a little less stick up ass.