So, I’m on the phone with my mother this morning, and she asks if I say the new photos of my niece in Texas. For a reason I have yet to figure out (mainly because it involves going through my voluminous e-mail rules), whenever my sister-in-law sends me e-mail, I don’tget it, but when my brother does, on the same provider, etc., it comes through fine. So, my mother forwards the pics to me.

When I get the new e-mail, there’s about 30 confirmations from eBay that my auctions have all been listed successfully. This is news to me, as I’m not selling anything on eBay. They are all multiple DVD box sets for very low prices, like four seasons of Star Trek Enterprise on DVD for like $70. In addition to the listings, two of the items have already sold.

My identity theft flags go up, and I hurry over to my eBay account, thinking I’ll be locked out. But I’m not. I log in, change the password. Then I bounce over to PayPal, and again, no activity there since my last visit, change that password, too.

Then I investigate the auctions. I was thinking there would be some money order requested as payment, or some other service, but the auctions said PayPal was preferred. So, the auctions are listed as me, without affecting my account information, and payment is also going to me. The only snag is that I’m not selling any of these items.

I quickly add a note to all the auctions for people not to bid, since they are a mistake. Reading on eBay’s help site, it says to cancel auctions if this happens, so I do (thanks to eBay for requiring me to input EVERY auction number, and not have a special link to kill multiple auctions at once).

I send them e-mail, they send me stuff back a few hours later confirming it wasn’t done by me, my account has been credited for the auction listing fees, etc. So, everything’s fine.

The only thing that has been perplexing is… what is the point of it? I mean, what is the end game here? I could see if they had gotten into my PayPal, but even then, you can’t easily switch the bank account for the deposits. That takes about a week.

So, someone starts auctions in my name, prices the stuff to move, says PayPal is the preferred payment whereby anyone winning the auction can deposit money from their credit card into my account, but then they can’t get the money.

What am I missing?

After missing yoga on Sunday, and never since then, the marketing part of my brain adapted quickly. The word consecutive disappeared, and I would just switch to saying I’ve done XX classes now, the implication being consecutive.

But today, I fixed things by doing a double class, attending both the 6:15 am and the noon classes. While not getting me back the word consecutive, it lets me say 70 classes in 70 days and such. So, that has a good ring to it.

I was a bit apprehensive about going twice. It is an intense class, after all. But the second class was much easier and seemed to fly by quicker than the first.

From the moment pranayama breathing starts at the beginning, it was definitely different doing a second class. My lungs were immediately filling up more than a typical breathing exercise. And the stiffness of the initial backward and forward bends was gone, my body jamming right into them without stiffness, tension or anything else.

No major differences, though. Everything seemed a bit easier, stretched a bit more, and I think the novelty of seeing how much more I could do (if anything) made for a good class, rather than phoning it in since I’d already done it once today. For example, there are a lot of sit-ups between floor postures. Usually, my fingers touch my toes. In the second class, my toes were hitting where my wrist meets my palm with my fingers wrapping down the bottoms of my feet.

I can’t say I’m a convert to double classes, but they are no longer scary. It is a huge timesuck, though.

But, as a result, I can now say that I’ve done 72 classes in 72 days.

It had to happen eventually, but I did not go to yoga today.

That said, I tried and wanted to.

I woke up early and did the Mother’s Day calls, felt fine. I knew I couldn’t go to 9 a.m. yoga, as I was buying tickets to the VERY small club date that Maroon 5 is playing on June 1. As expected, it sold out almost instantaneously and, as intended, I got tickets.

I had my bag packed for noon yoga, and around 10:30-11, I had a slight headache, but nothing I was worried about. Then, in rapid succession, I started sneezing rather frequently and my nose filled with fluid and started running. Aside from this quick-onset symptom, I felt fine. In fact, had it been a gym visit and not yoga, I’d've probably gone.

But, yoga is all about concentration, which frequent sneezing doesn’t really help, and inhaling and exhaling through your nose for six counts in, six counts out. And now, nose breathing is off the menu. As it rolled in pretty fast, I was slightly taken aback at going from fine to somewhat sick, even though I still felt fine.

I push off the noon class, figuring I’ll fare better for 4:30 or 6:30p, because at that point, I’ll have the advantage of drugs.

So, normally I would leave at around 4p for 4:30p yoga, but today, I go at 3:30p. I’m thinking it might be something in the apartment, since it seemed more allergy than illness, although I don’t have any allergies really. I figured fresh air would do me good, so I dosed up on Tylenol Sinus and took a slow walk toward yoga, hoping for my nasal whatever it is to lift as I get closer to yoga.

It doesn’t. I keep thinking of my reaction to someone else in class constantly inhaling their mucus back into their nose through yoga postures and decide I am not going to be that guy.

So, I go to Herbivore for early dinner, thinking I’ll hang out a bit longer and see if I clear up for the 6:30 class. After dinner, and some forced window/store shopping, it clearly wasn’t going anywhere, so yoga bag on my back, I walk home.

I guess my body was through too many temperature extremes this week and is pushing back. We had a heatwave in the city early this week, so my time was spent nearly naked in my apartment, with a fan blowing, except for when I was nearly naked at yoga. One problem, the hot yoga in a heatwave is a fickle beast, and on Monday, the normally 100-105ish room was up to 116 degrees. We all did the class, no problem. No one passed out or anything.

As the week progressed, the temperature came back down, sharpening the contrast once again between the outdoors and yoga. On Friday, when I studied with Rajashree, the room there was up around 115 and outside was much much cooler.

And, last night, for fireworks at the bay, I was bundled up in a sweater, T-shirt, a heavy jacket, gloves, and was still a bit chilly. So, going from the rainforest-like conditions of hot yoga in a heatwave to winter in the space of six days may have done me in.

Anyway, the hope is that this is a passing thing, and tomorrow I am back in class. I can just do a double one day this week, and instead of saying I did X number of classes “in a row,” I’ll just switch to saying I did X classes in X days, which will seem consecutive.

Oh well… it was bound to happen. Hopefully I wake up feeling fine. I got my traditional cold elixir this night, a half gallon of Odwalla orange juice.

Yup, still going… 67 consecutive days and counting.

So, Friday was a slight change of pace. I went to a different studio, with the owner of my usual studio, and took a class led by Rajashree, Bikram’s wife, who was in town for some events. It was interesting to take a class from her just for the sake of it being someone so closely connected to the origin and continuation of the practice but, at the end of the day, it was just another class.

Most of my friends know that my sense of history and such is pretty blank. These days, I get the benefit of saying I’m living in the now, rather than trying to relive my past or live out a projected future. But honestly? My memory has never been too on top of most things.

A friend just started taking Bikram at my studio, although we’ve never been in the same class yet (making two friends i got to go now, who both prefer evening classes, whereas I do at 9a or noon). He got really sore in class and says it wipes him out, and asked if that happened to me when I started. I said I didn’t recall being sore or anything, but then decided to send him the links to the first few days of my Bikram blogging. And, yeah, first class, references to being sore. So, it’s good i write stuff here, or else I’d never remember anything.

The owners of the yoga studio took me out to dinner on Friday night after Rajashree’s class. Initially, there was talk of doing something aorund North Beach, where the class was, so I just figured, ‘Eh? Bunch of Italian places there, T-shirt and pants will be fine.’ When I get to the studio, they tell me they have a reservation at Greens, which is this really high-end vegetarian place right on the bay, with an amazing view of the Golden Gate Bridge. Of course, being in the land of tech millionaires, you can always dress like a slob and get away with anything. Walking past an open house for a $2.5M apartment, sweaty, on your way home from the gym? No problem, just walk in, they will show you around like you might be the future owner because, frankly, they can’t tell the millionaires from the dorm students. Got to love that aspect of the area.

Read “This Year You Write your Novel” by Walter Mosley, following my tradition of only reading books from people who have written multiple books. Another tight read of no bullshit advice. One thing that resonated was he considers reading the book a draft. So, write it… draft one. Read draft one… that’s draft two. Rewriting that text is draft three. Interesting idea.

The other thing I found is an online site, when Googling something entirely off-topic. But it was a list of 50 things to keep writers motivated. In the top ten was paying yourself a salary, not real money, but basically come up with an hourly rate and all of your leisure time comes out of that budget. So, no writing = no dining out, no movies, nothing. Interesting idea.

That’s about it, mainly wanted to check in with the Bikram stuff. At this point, I’d be hard-pressed to imagine how I wouldn’t do 90 classes in a row. May as well do 100, sounds nicer. I used to do to the gym every day, so this isn’t really new, except for the eating issues and the timing aspect for the classes. One guy I met at the Rajashree training also used to be over 300 pounds and lost a lot of his weight through diet and Bikram. He’s on a pattern now of doing doubles, although the thought of two of these classes in a day is pretty hard to fathom. More from a time standpoint than the actual practice. I may do a double one of these days, though, since I want to go to an amusement park, and want to get the yoga out of the way for more roller coaster time.

Went to Slanted door with family tonight, then watched the KFOG Ka-Boom Fireworks show over the bay. Good stuff. Amazing how well they synchronize the fireworks to the music.