Loose Leaf Notes

1. The Teen Meditation Retreat that Joe organized and attended last week got a good write-up in the Roanoke Times HERE. It included a large feature photo on the EXTRA front page of Abraham Cherrix (who I interviewed HERE) doing yoga. My own story is coming soon ...

2. Meditation: It’s like combing the hair … of a wild shaggy mind … making a part … untangling the thoughts … to some unruly feelings … that need grooming. More HERE.

3. These days writing has crowded out my own meditation practice. I wake up with sentences wanting to be written down, and writing them down seems important, even more important than my first cup of tea.

4. A few days ago I woke up and the first thing I said to Joe was, “which came first Yogi Bear or Yogi Berra?’

5. Last week I wrote that eating fruit and yogurt in the morning wigs me out like drinking alcohol for breakfast would (because of the sugars). I got some comments and further explained myself, saying at one point that because I have CFS I’m not your average berry-loving bear, which then led to me think about Yogi (which by the way is also what meditaters are called).

6. The results from the Wikipedia: Yogi Berra (whose first name was really Lawrence) picked up his more famous nickname from a friend who said he resembled a Hindu holy man (yogi) they had seen in a movie, whenever Berra sat around with arms and legs crossed waiting to bat, or while looking sad after a losing game. Years later, the Hanna-Barbera cartoon character Yogi Bear was named after Berra, something Berra did not appreciate after he started being periodically addressed as "Yogi Bear."

7. It goes on: Berra, who quit school in the eighth grade, has a tendency toward malapropism and fracturing the English language in highly provocative, interesting ways. Simultaneously denying and confirming his reputation, Berra once stated, "I never said half the things I really said."

8 Some people have said that I talk like Yogi Berra. And Deana from Friday Night Fish Fry says her way of speaking has been likened to Norm Chomsky. I mean Norm Crosby (see what I mean?)

9. I had to look up Norm Crosby and discovered this about the comedian: King of the malaprop, Norm always speaks from his 'diagram' and drinks ‘decapitated' coffee. His confusing word play and twisted speech has been an audience favorite since his days on The Ed Sullivan Show.

10. Deana thinks Bobby McGee jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge like I try to order New Balance beer at a bar when I really want New Castle.

11. Around the same time I was thinking about Yogi Berra, I also got curious about the poem “Roses are Red, Violets are Blue, Sugar is Sweet, and So are You,” after titling a recent blog post “Roses Are Red.” The fact that I then spent twenty minutes trying to find out who wrote it and when is why my blog mission statement reads: Whenever I don't know exactly what it is I'm doing and it borders on wasting my time, I call it research.

12. Seems it’s a nursery rhyme written by Anonymous.

13. Wig out HERE with me and Claudia.

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