A friend of mine started inviting me to this yoga class on Saturdays. And I started going. I have to confess: I’m not much of a yoga girl. I find it impossible to clear my mind, let alone breathe shoulder to shoulder and hip to hip. I plugged my way through some hot yoga a year ago, but everything else has been oh-this-stuff-again.

But you can never step into the same river twice, as some yogi undoubtedly said at some point, and this time, I dunno, it sort of clicked. I couldn’t clear my mind — that is never going to happen, sorry — but the breathing suddenly made sense and I could feel how it’s not just fancy stretchin’ but actual isometric exercise. And then I downloaded Neal Pollack’s book of yoga essays — yep, it’s on the right rail — and long story short, today I ditched Gentle Flow for Power Lunch and oh, I fear I’ve stepped onto a train that is leaving the station and all I can do is hang on and wave until it crashes into Boring Station. It may already be there, in fact. I may be That Person at the party, but if I am, I’d really like to have that incredible posture that person always has. Not there yet.

Yoga is fucking awesome. Let that be the last thing I say about it.

No, this: The other day I was lying in bed, reading, and stretched my leg out at a strange angle, just for the feels, and it not only went there, it went beyond. This is how they hook you, those yoga people.

So, how was everybody’s Tuesday? Mine? Cold and snowy, but I got out in it anyway. The snowfall finally broke the last record and I’ll give it this: It was pretty. But now it should go away. Back in the 60s by Thursday.

One of my neighbors had a pet raccoon. She said the family came down one morning and found the animal had escaped its cage, wrecked the kitchen, and was sitting on its fat ass, legs spread and an open bag of marshmallows between them, dipping them one by one into the canister of sugar. (Not sure if I believe every detail of that.) Anyway, things worked out better for her than it did for this girl. Mauled by a raccoon as a baby, now having her face reconstructed.

Don’t keep raccoons as pets.

I haven’t been watching CNN since the Malaysian plane went down, but apparently they’ve gone mad? New York magazine has a roundup, with video links.

Happy hump day, all. See you tomorrow.

Roy had a post the other day that led to the American Spectator, which led me down a rabbit hole of weirdness and nostalgia. I started reading the Spectator in the ’80s, when I would filch it from the editorial page’s mailbox when I was bored. It was the first magazine I read that made me think, “These folks are not only wrong, but insane.” I think it was the column opposing curb cuts for wheelchairs that did it.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing down the rabbit hole was this entry in the long-running — and apparently endlessly amusing to readers — Ben Stein’s Diary. The rabbit hole has since been gated (maybe it won’t be to you), but there was a jaw-dropping passage in it. In the context of a long rant about the awful Barack Obama, he laments that California is dying of thirst, and how can this be? Michigan has more than enough water; why is there not a great aqueduct running from Michigan to California? Why? WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THIS ONCE-GREAT COUNTRY THAT WE CAN’T SEND MICHIGAN’S WATER TO CALIFORNIA?

How is it possible to be this clueless? To answer the question, and with all due respect to our California readers: Because any number of Michigan residents would dynamite an aqueduct to water California’s golf courses, or go anywhere else. You’re welcome, Ben Stein. You putz.

So, what a Monday. Woke up to howling winds, and walked to the bus stop in what seemed like a gale, the sort of wind that makes you lean into it, so you don’t get knocked over. It was coming up from the south, and I calculated that I would be disembarking and walking north to my office. So after the usual rattle-bump ride downtown, I stepped off the bus and turned north. Caught a blast to the face that had grit in it, because this is of course the gritty city.

At least it was warm. Was. The temperature is dropping like a rock, and it is supposed to snow overnight. Snow.

When I got to work, my co-worker said, “Did you see the cloud of grime over the city, coming in?” See it? I tasted it.

And now it’s Monday night, and I survived. Tuesday? We shall see.

With 1.9 more inches of snow, we can break the all-time record. Part of me wants to see it happen. The other part — the biggest part — says fuck that noise.

So, a little bloggage, but not much, because I want to go to bed early.

Tom and Lorenzo on last night’s “Mad Men.” The part about the Helter Skelter coincidence is a little unsettling, but that’s not the first place I heard it. Let’s assume Matthew Weiner will continue to be all obtuse ‘n’ stuff. That’s a little too on the nose.

I’m about halfway through this NYT magazine cover story about two lost artists of early 20th-century blues, and I’m enjoying it very much. It looks like the online presentation is the usual bells-and-whistles stuff. Nice.

Is that my faraway bed calling? I believe it is. See you Tuesday. Oh, it’s Tuesday already? You don’t say.

Every time we have computer trouble, I find myself both irritated (haven’t we reached the point in the internet that it should just flippin’ work?) and — if I solve the problem — amazingly satisfied. Problem-solving has never been my most marketable skill, so it feels good to do deductive reasoning from time to time. Is it this? Let’s take it out of the chain and see what happens. Is it this? Yes.

It was the router, the ugly-ass Cisco that wanted me to install all its stupid software, added a Guest network and couldn’t find the damn printer until J.C. passed through town and brought it to heel.

The new one’s an Apple. Yes, I paid the premium. My reward? I plugged it in, and it worked. The lagniappe? It’s pretty. Good enough for me.

So, on Wednesday I experimented with what the urban planners call “last-mile” bike commuting. That’s where you ride your bike to the bus stop, put it on the rack on the front of the bus, commute to the urban center, take the bike off and ride to your office. It worked swimmingly both ways, unless you are the sort who would be bothered by the raving homeless guy who lingered at the downtown stop for a time. Bonus: I had a bike for lunch, and a friend and I rode down to Eastern Market for a slice at Supino’s, the best pizza in this or many other towns. The crust is so thin you can eat it entirely without guilt, because they don’t lard the cheese on, either.

And then it was back to the office, passing between a major-league baseball park and the housing project where the Supremes grew up, now abandoned and undergoing demolition. All under china-blue skies. That is what I call a lunch hour.

The only potential sour note in this is the lack of a rack at my office building, and the management’s refusal to let me bring it upstairs. I can’t even lock it in the vestibule, which meant I had to secure it to a parking meter outside the front door. I invested in a bomb-ass lock, but nothing works all the time. That’s when I rely on my time-honored strategy of never having the nicest stuff. Today, a woman rode past me on a racing bike that looked like it had been imported from the 23rd century. If I recognize her blond ponytail, she’s a local amateur racer and probably needs it, but I wouldn’t want to leave it anywhere without a 50-pound anchor secured to, I dunno, maybe a car.

OK, so bloggage for the weekend?

Here’s the WashPost Wonkblog thing I posted in comments Wednesday, for you non-comments people. It explains why ophthalmologists are among the highest-billing Medicare doctors out there. Spoiler: Pharmaceuticals.

I guess some people won’t be watching Stephen Colbert when he takes over for David Letterman.

And then Jesus said, “Take my wife. Please.” Can’t wait to see how this plays out.

Great weekend, all. And happy birthday, J.C. Burns! You make this thing happen every single day.

Yesterday: Grilled salmon and spinach souffle. Today: Macaroni and cheese with bacon crumbled over the top. You can’t be healthy and fancy all the time. Especially with a chill rain falling from the heavens. Cool spring evenings practically cry out for mac and cheese. And there was a salad, because we’re not animals, y’know.

I grew up with a mother who worked full-time — rare-ish at the time — and who commuted on the bus. I would hear her footfalls coming up the front walk at 5:30 or so and look forward to her sunny presence in the house, even though it was, for her, merely the beginning of the second shift, which she did uncomplainingly. Tonight I thought of her as I walked home from my own stop, which lets me off about the same distance from home as my mom was from ours. That’s what started me thinking of mac and cheese with bacon. We shouldn’t express love with food, but face it? Food = love, many times.

Not that I wish to start off this work week all navel-starey. But it IS raining.

Here’s a story that’s been floating around for a while, about a young doctor who started acting erratically a few weeks back, and disappeared. A body appeared in an Indiana lake near where she was last seen, and the early signs are that it’s her. What makes it all the more tragic is that all signs are that she had some sort of psychotic mental illness, and what kind of doctor was she training to be? A psychiatrist. How is it that a woman who’s made it through med school, who’s chosen a specialty and is presumably studying it intensively, doesn’t recognize the symptoms in herself? Although maybe she did:

Twitter messages gave investigators clues to her state of mind in the eight months before she disappeared after leaving work Dec. 5. Her Twitter account, filled with 20,000 tweets, indicate she dealt with hallucinations and that they were growing worse. In September, she described a troubling episode: “My mind melted,” she tweeted about an earlier psychotic episode. “Everything went haywire. Signals got crossed and my mind started telling me that everything is a lie and I’m crazy.”

Her family said she was never diagnosed with mental illness, but siblings and her ex-husband were troubled by her behavior, they said.

“I begged her to get help. She didn’t want to be branded,” said her ex-husband, Smiley Calderon of Orange, Calif., of a diagnosis that could derail the career of the smart, focused woman with a medical degree and doctorate in biochemistry. Patrick also has a bachelor’s in theology.

A tragedy. Less so was the death of Mickey Rooney, who, I was amused to hear, was christened “Andy Hard-on” by Lana Turner, one of his many, many conquests. I recall him in most of his biggest roles — “National Velvet,” the awful Japanese caricature in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” etc. — but what I find most memorable was a role he played late in his career, as the wordless, grotesque clown in “Babe: Pig in the City.”

I have a friend who absolutely hated that movie, but I? Well, I loved it. You don’t always find children’s movies that most people would call “dark,” but there you are. It’s a train wreck, but a wonderful one, and Rooney, as the wrangler of a strange, dark vaudeville troupe of apes and his own mime-like clown. His part isn’t big, but a key part of the strangeness that pervades the whole film.

I’m the only one who liked that movie, I swear. I can imitate many of the animals’ voices, and sometimes will say to Kate, “My people tied me into a bag and threw me in the water.” She loves it.

Finally, what is the story behind this story? A sticky-fingered thief, or a dealer in stolen goods? Hoosiers, report.

Friday is the best day of the week for a lot of reasons, but lately because we usually see friends Friday night for some food or drink or both. A changing group, and changing venues.

This past Friday we went to a newish place in Hamtramck, Rock City Eatery, which if you like artisanal is pretty much artisanal to the bone. The menu, both liquid and solid, changes often, and this past Friday, they had “the Bourdain” — a roasted shank bone, split lengthwise with the marrow exposed. Of course you eat it, because YOU ARE CARNIVORE, and at the end the waiter comes around and asks if you’re ready for your whiskey.

Excuse me? Turns out it’s part of the dish. Once the bone is clean you stick one end in your mouth and the waiter pours a splash of Jim Beam down the trough.

I thought this was terribly clever until I did some Googling, and found it’s been around for a while. Yes, there’s a website: Bone Luge.

So that’s one of the lessons Friday night will teach you, and I have to say, it makes more sense than tequila body shots. They also had a very nice craft cocktail: Grapefruit old-fashioneds, which autocorrect just tried to change to “old-fashioners,” so beware of typos throughout. I really wish it wouldn’t do that, except when it comes in handy.

It’s a vivid, sunny day as I write this, and it promises to be vivid and sunny for Opening Day, too, which cements my decision not to chance the madness downtown tomorrow. I find myself with little tolerance for drunks anymore, and I guarantee you 99 percent of the ones downtown tomorrow will not be Bone Luge sorts of drunks. But the good news is, higher temperatures the rest of the week! I can get the bike out! Kate can use the car all she likes, because my needs will be met by the two-wheeler in the garage.

I splurged on a new taillight for it this year, and am eager to try it out — it projects a moving bike lane on the pavement as you ride, which I hope will not alarm motorists around here too much. Truth be told, I was more interested in the super-bright main light and the rechargeable nature of the unit itself. I’ll also be rocking flashing LEDs on the front, but as always, my fate this season will be in the hands of the Lord. Fingers crossed. I only have 15 pounds until even the CDC and the state of Michigan no longer consider me overweight, and I’d like to reach it by summer’s end.

Bloggage? OK.

I was amused by this photo of wee Prince Georgie with his parents, giving the firstborn/only child’s look at the family pet: Are you my brother? I’m sure George will get another sibling or two before his parents close the baby factory, but until then, the cocker spaniel will have to do.

I assume this essay of life advice is written by the same Charles Murray who wrote “The Bell Curve,” so someone explain why I should take a word of it seriously. Is a racist clock correct twice a day?

I don’t know if this Timothy Egan essay on the horrific mudslide in Washington counts as “too soon,” but I believe every word:

…who wants to listen to warnings by pesky scientists, to pay heed to predictions by environmental nags, or allow an intrusive government to limit private property rights? That’s how these issues get cast. And that’s why reports like the ones done on the Stillaguamish get shelved. The people living near Oso say nobody ever informed them of the past predictions.

And if they had, they probably would have lived there anyway. Because it’s beautiful.

And the week awaits us! Let’s show up for it.

It was a few years ago that I started to notice a particular type of billboard on our travels up north. Once the subdivisions give way to forests, they come fast and furious: A smiling old person sits in a wheelchair, while a young woman in a gaily printed medical-scrub top stands nearby, or perhaps kneels so as to look up into the old person’s eyes. In the big type, one of two basic messages:

When you think joint replacement, think (name of hospital) “Joint replacement” is interchangeable with “cardiac catheterization” or any other surgery unlikely to be performed on people under 50.

Your No. 1 choice in health-care careers: (name of community college)

What this tells any half-bright observer is that you’re entering an economic dead zone, a post-industrial (or, in the case of northern Michigan, post light-industrial) wasteland filled with old people who lack the will or cash to move. Or you’ve entered Florida, Arizona or North Carolina. But this is a signifier, as the proprietor of Gin and Tacos knows well:

Visit the website of any derelict Rust Belt city and search for references to the number of hospitals or the strength of the health care sector. It won’t take long to find them. It turns out that along with local government and, of course, prisons, hospitals are one of the few things that remain open when everything else closes. They may not have jobs anymore, but someone still needs to lock ‘em up and occasionally stitch ‘em up. The hundreds of Fast Company-style articles in the business media over the past few years proclaiming nursing as THE NEXT BIG THING in the job market always puzzled me… is it really a sign of the strength of our economy when the best job (supposedly) is to take care of the rapidly increasing number of dying old people?

When I went to New York last fall, I was amazed at all the strollers being pushed around Brooklyn, even as I knew Brooklyn is the breeders’ borough of choice. I felt like one of the old people in “Children of Men,” P.D. James’ novel about a dystopian future where all the women in the world have become infertile. Michigan is an aging state, even below the up-north regions, something our booming health-care sector indicates. I’m not quite one of those women who, at the sight of a baby, wants to run up and beg to stroke the infant’s downy-soft flesh, but I feel I’m getting there. This maybe the the grandma years asserting themselves, I admit.

But if I’m such a grandma-in-waiting, why did I seriously consider making this — “tatted up, overweight, half-ass English speaking gap-tooth skank ho” — my Twitter bio yesterday? This is from the woeful recent works of a local judge, who was booted from the bench yesterday, and you can follow the link to get the rest of the story, but for some reason that line stuck with me. Some people can really make a text message sing.

Oy, what a week. The cold is finally, finally breaking. Wendy and I worked at home today, and that usually means a morning/noon walkie, but we both stood at the back door and just scowled; as the misery drags on, we both seem to be getting weaker, not stronger.

And Opening Day is Monday. I can’t decide if I want to go to the office and behold the spectacle; it could be terribly ugly.

A little light bloggage: I’ve talked before here about urban farms in Detroit, really more like super-gardens. Here’s a charming story about a woman I know here, who raises ducks on four lots adjacent to her home. Actually, she doesn’t exactly raise ducks, but rather has them, and collects the eggs. At some point you can’t really say you’re raising livestock if you’re unwilling to swing the axe on the chopping block, and Suzanne treats her flock like friends. She has a B&B on one side of the complex, and if any of you are interested in visiting the Paris of the Midwest, I’m sure she can hook you up for a great price.

Otherwise? That’s it for me. Have a great weekend, all.

A friend sent me this map yesterday, a data illustration of the nation’s population — half of it, anyway, residing in 39 metro areas. Half. I think it’s safe to say none of these areas would be considered Real America ™ as defined by Sarah Palin, and maybe that’s, in a nutshell, the problem with the Republican party, even though many of these metro areas are solidly red. It’s more the idea the country has of itself, with its SUVs that never see so much as a gravel road and its field hand breakfasts for people who haven’t beheld a field since the last time they drove to Cleveland.

We are city people, and have been for a good long while. But we like to think we have one foot in the soil. It’s one reason I’m grateful for Coozledad’s presence on this blog, and his regular dispatches from the soil of his vegetarian farm and petting zoo; he knows things about the way we used to live that the rest of us have conveniently forgotten.

So how is everybody’s week going? Mine is slogging along. Someone sent me this today; what is it about Mitch Albom that even his charity is self-serving? He just got back from the Philippines. Book-touring, but with heart:

“I’m donating 40 boats up there, but more importantly than that, we’re gonna try to reopen some libraries and put books from myself and some of my author friends from America like Stephen King, Amy Tan and John Grisham… My hope is that maybe we can draw some attention to the situation (in Tacloban),” Albom said.

Why don’t people laugh in this little man’s face when he says stuff like that?

So, bloggage?

Dahlia Lithwick says the contraception mandate is likely toast.

That’s all I have tonight. Enjoy Thursday.

For as long as I’ve been able to hold a pencil and take personality tests in glossy magazines, I’ve considered myself an extrovert. I like to be around people. I feel more energetic in a group setting. Like to talk, like new experiences, blah blah blah.

Then I became a freelancer, and spent most of a decade working alone out of my spare bedroom. Something must have changed in that time, because I now find myself…less of the textbook extrovert, in the sense that all I want after a day around people is a few hours alone, or nearly so. Last night I came home, changed clothes, walked the dog, threw together some dinner and sat on the couch for two hours playing a laptop game called 2048 (WARNING WARNING ADDICTIVE ADDICTIVE CURSE YOU ERIC ZORN FOR LINKING TO THIS), thinking sooner or later my cup would refill enough to blog a bit. Didn’t happen. Extroversion had finally exhausted me. It did yesterday, anyway.

Or maybe it was the getting up at 5:30 a.m. to swim. Yesterday was one of those days when I was steaming through the morning, smugly thinking I so totally have this life thing knocked. Swim, bakery for the first loaves of the day, home, make lunch for Kate, dry hair, assemble breakfast for me — oh, you are such a lovely poached egg, yes you are — sit down and get ready to put my customary six or seven drops of Sriracha on the egg, only to watch the whole cap come off and a tablespoon, easy, drown the egg. I sat there for a moment considering my options, and finally decided: OK, today will be chili-sauce egg day, and you know what? It was sort of delicious.

Now it’s Wednesday morning, and my wind has returned. Either that, or it’s the coffee. Working at home today.

This story caught my eye in today’s NYT, mainly because gentrification has been a topic of conversation in Detroit lately. It’s about how New York City rents — Manhattan rents, anyway — have started forcing bookstores out of a place that considers itself the center of the literary universe:

When Sarah McNally, the owner of McNally Jackson bookstore in Lower Manhattan, set out to open a second location, she went to a neighborhood with a sterling literary reputation, the home turf of writers from Edgar Allan Poe to Nora Ephron: the Upper West Side.

She was stopped by the skyscraper-high rents.

“They were unsustainable,” Ms. McNally said. “Small spaces for $40,000 or more each month. It was so disheartening.”

Forty. THOUSAND. Dollars. Every single month, even the ones with 30 days? Holy shit. And there you see the problem with turning the city, any city, into a gated community for the super-wealthy. Last year, a former head of the Michigan Chamber of Commerce self-published a book, a novella of all things, about his idea for how Detroit can save itself: By turning Belle Isle, its river park, over to developers and by making it a commonwealth of the United States. Of course it would be exempt from any and all taxation. And then a miracle would happen! Dubai with snow, Monte Carlo with snow, etc.

The book was atrociously written, and had a weird undercurrent of homoeroticism that one of the local snarkers had fun with; the story was populated almost entirely by men, and a strange attention was paid to details of interior decorating and clothing choices. But even this ham-fisted Cliff Notes version of “Atlas Shrugged” had some sort of subsidy for artists and artisans to live on the island. Even he understood that a world populated solely by the super-rich and the businesses they enjoy — hint: not bookstores — is a pretty grim place.

OK, now it’s after 8, and I have to get moving. Happy hump day, all.

We live close enough to Lake St. Clair that we see some strange wildlife from time to time. My vet is on call with the local police for animal rescues, and keeps a photo album of his greatest hits, including a multi-point buck spotted swimming in the lake in midsummer, far enough from shore he likely would have drowned without help. But mostly it’s less dramatic. Today I was walking home from the bus stop and saw two turkey vultures slowly circling around the hospital on the corner. Circling, and then landing. Vultures.

I wonder if they were there for some sort of evening feeding. I think I’ve seen too many western movies.

Cold today, but nice to get out, even if it was just to see some vultures and walk to and from the bus stop. Even in the gentrifying downtown, Detroit has such ..interesting street life. Raving schizophrenics, doddering drunks, pacing crackheads — you see them all. It reminds me of the early ’80s in Columbus, when the big mental institution near town closed abruptly and suddenly the streets were awash in the…well, none of the names are OK anymore, so let us say the halt, the lame and the insane. What became of them all? Some died, some found their way to other towns and…well, I’m not sure. There was one guy who pushed a cart through downtown, crowing like a rooster. He was hit by a car.

So, do we have some bloggage? Sure.

If you’re reading this after 6 a.m. EDT, look to the right rail for some stories by my colleague Ron, about what happened when a two high schools in central Michigan merged, one mostly white and more affluent, the other mostly black and poorer. It’s a sensitive topic, but he did a really nice job with it. It’s in four parts; start at the beginning.

Elsewhere, rarely have I been more grateful that I don’t smoke as when the e-cigarette craze caught on. Now it’s called gaping — stop changing it to vaping, autocorrect — and you should not be surprised to learn there’s a festival:

The vapers at Vapefest look as if they’re taking a smoke break — sorry, vape break — from a sci-fi convention or a Harley-Davidson ride. Some of them are clearly sporting scabs from skateboard accidents. Some of them are clearly wearing one of their half-dozen Men’s Wearhouse suits. Some of them look like they belong at a Leesburg PTA meeting, or in Middle Earth, or the 1910s. One vendor here sells both “shire malt” and “Grandpa’s cough medicine” e-liquids (or “juice”), the vials of flavored nicotine that are electronically vaporized when you suck on the mouthpiece of an e-cigarette, or “mod,” as the vapers refer to the device.

And from the WashPost archives, a blast from the past: A profile of the late Fred Phelps that is surprisingly revelatory.

Me, I’m off to bed. I hope the vultures don’t get me. Nor you.

This is the time of year I really start to feel divorced from my fellow man. Evidently there’s a basketball tournament going on now? I dunno. I watch the comments go by on my Twitter feed and it’s like watching a game played on another planet.

So, how was your weekend? I took a yoga class for the first time in at least a year. It was the same as it always is: It feels like nothing more than a lot of stretching until the next day, when it feels like you have hamstring cancer. I hit the market. Made cookies. Made macaroni and cheese. Made chicken. Made a salad with the leftover chicken. Slept late (clear til 7!) and watched the news of all the same-sex marriages going on until the court of appeals issued its stay. Watched “Nebraska.” And little by little the weekend slips through the fingers, and here we are at Monday again. Oh, look, snow flurries on Tuesday. But! Almost all the snow is gone from the yard and now it’s…well, it’s still frozen mud. But little by little, the earth thaws.

If only it were happening a little faster.

What did the weekend’s news sources cough up for bloggage? Let’s get started:

Here’s a lovely piece by Brian Dickerson at the Free Press, about how the judge in the SSM case found himself becoming acquainted with the world of gay families — in his own office. It’s a very human story, but don’t read the comments, because many of them are horrible and hateful.

Don’t read the comments on this story, either, about changes in the food industry pushed by the first lady. Where does the world find these people?

This story on Upworthy will make you vomit. It did me, anyway. Metaphorically, of course.

Time to watch “Girls” and see what the week brings.