Hey there adoring fans (Devon Goffman)!

You know how sometimes you don’t hear about a particular thing for a really long time, and all of a sudden 17 people you know mention that particular thing to you?  Like last month it was Ithaca brewing companies (Goose Island is pretty damn good), and sometime last year it was Banana Grams (which is basically Scrabble*…but instead of having a board to play on, you have a banana shaped sack (giggle) and use jargon like “split” and “peel” when you make a move).  Well, this past month the word I keep hearing over and over again is meditation.  All of my self help books (youtube videos) are mentioning the amazing benefits from it, it seems that like half of my friends are doing it, and I swear a feral cat was chanting “OHMMMM…” at me as I was walking down an abandoned ally last week (I’m lying, it was 96th street, and the cat may have been a large piece of steel wool).  And funny enough, a friend that I haven’t seen in a while posted an event invitation for a free talk about meditation.  I figured, with my whole Vision Board and P-gan thing I’m already halfway on the tree-hugger train (although I’m sure they wouldn’t use a train…probably a covered wagon…but pulled by a white guy named Leon…they wouldn’t want to upset any horses by making them work…even though that’s what horses are for…if they weren’t working they’d probably be glue-factorying…did I mention that I won a Blue Ribbon in Pony Club?), so I figured I’d stop by my friend Shannon O’bryan’s talk and see what this whole meditation thing was about.

Side note: I’m not the kind of person that gets talked into things very easily.  I’m just like all of you other cold hearted New Yorkers who pretend that you don’t speak English when a person on the sidewalk in a blue polo shirt and 3 ring binder asks you if you have a minute for planned parenthood.  Don’t even try to tempt me to join your “new data plan” verizon wireless, because no, I don’t need a “free gift” of 500 extra anytime minutes to use when I only use 47 minutes of actual phone calls as is.  And NO, Wholefoods, I don’t care if tumeric juice is the new beverage that’s going to ward off cancer, is a natural endorphin booster and tastes delicious…ok, I’ll buy it.  But NOT because you talked me into it…but because I don’t want cancer…and it’s tasty…and the guy that talked me into buying it was kind of cute and not wearing a wedding ring.  So, I went into my “Intro to meditation chat” and just like with turmeric juice…I got sucked in.

Benefits of Meditation

1.  Lowers stress.

2.  Improves health.

3.  Helps focus the mind.

4.  Gives you something to talk about when people start discussing earthy tree-hugging s*it like beard growing and tumeric-juice when you’re in a far off land known as Brooklyn.

So I signed up for a 4 day meditation class…that I couldn’t afford…but was sure that the Universe was going to send me the funds some how…

Day 1 of Meditation class: Shannon performs a lovely ceremony about thanking all of the teachers that came before her.

 

 

We learn the basics of meditation and are instructed to meditate later that evening and again in the morning before coming to Day 2.

Day 2 of Meditation Class: 3am

 

My dog Ruby  jumps off the bed and starts scratching at the door.  There is a terrible smell.  Ruby has shat all over my bed.  I throw on some clothes and take her down the hall only to find…

 

I pick up my sh*tting dog, scramble down 6 flights of stairs to take her out, thinking how could this day get any worse…and just like it always does when you think things like “how could this day get any worse” it does.  Because it is snowing…and your dog won’t stop leaking…in Central Park at 3 am… which is exactly when and where the murderers and hobos hang out…and you remember that the elevator is out and you have to carry  your leaky dog up 6 flights of stairs. 2 hours later I texted my meditation coach that I couldn’t come to Day 2 of Meditation class because my dog was now puking and s*itting which made her lighter to carry up and down 6 flights of stairs but was really inconvenient otherwise.

 

Day 3 of Meditation Class: Poor poor Ruby Pubey

Ruby is leaking every 2 hours today and is being fed water through an eye dropper because she won’t drink it herself.  Any normal person would take their dog to the vet under these circumstances, but I am not a normal person.  I am poor out of work actor, freelance shot seller, and vision board enthusiast who believes that money is coming her way…just apparently not today.   So we give it another 24 hours to see if the leaking stops.  I text my meditation coach that I will not be able to make it to class until my dog stops peeing out of her but hole. Namaste.

Day 4 of Meditation Class: Stool sample.

So now we’ve had 4 days of bodily fluids pouring out of my adorable little dog and only 20 minutes of meditation….I’m lying.  I only really meditated for 3 minutes because it’s really hard to concentrate when you’re worried that your dog is going to die by way of organs coming out of her butt hole because someone told you that that had happened to their Uncle’s dog one time.   I call my meditation coach again and she says “F*ck you Sarah!  You think Ghandi quit meditating over a little fecal matter?!  You’re never going to be a meditator and your life is going to be stupid!  What’s that?  I put the “h” in the wrong place in Gandhi’s name.  What are you, the spiritual-leader-spell-check-police?!  I hope your dog s*its out it’s organs like that girls Uncle’s dog did that one time!  Go f*ck yourself!”  (she did not say any of that…she told me I could just come to class next week).

 Back to Ruby…. so my roommate Abby suggests that I call her cousin who is a vet in Boston.  He says that since the Rubinator (that’s what I call her sometimes.  I think it’s clever.  Sometimes I call her Rubinator pie…and if she’s being bad, Rubinator pie-hole…I’m never going to get married…) hadn’t thrown up since early that morning and now had enough energy to bark at my other roommate John as he vacuumed the hallway  that I could just take a stool sample into the vet to make sure she hadn’t contracted a parasite.  Unfortunately in order to get the sample and get to the vet  I had to take the night off work.  Which is totally fine because The Secret says I just have to believe that money is on it’s way and I will be rich…right?

Yep, that’s poop.  You’re welcome.

Day 5: Ruby is feeling much better and is really into boiled chicken and rice mixed with cottage cheese.  I will attend Days 2-4 of Meditation class next week and let you know how it goes.  Who knows..maybe I can start writing this blog via my mind instead of this computer…which I’m still paying off…so I might as well just type it and let my enlightened mind do other useful stuff…like laundry and that vagina dance move that Beyonce did at the Superbowl.  Namaste.

*Scrabble is what us old people call Words with Friends.