coiffes, glides and great apes

Picture walking through an old dusty museum with a curator who's been giving the same tour for 40 years. Can you feel the excitement? That's pretty much what the yoga class I attended this morning was. Despite frequent admonishings to close my eyes, I stared at the gray depressing ceiling trying not to fall asleep. I chatted with the nice (yawn) teacher afterwards who asked where I used to do yoga previously. "The US?", she asked. "Mmmh... chez eux le yoga ca decoiffe, non?" - figuratively, yoga there is more active; literally, yoga over there messes up your hair. In fact I think if it's an hour and a half of yoga while keeping on a perfect coiffe and fancy earrings, it's not my style. Am a bit nonplussed - this class came with such high recommendations. I've looked at others; I even drove half an hour. Am giving up. So I'll just save my 170euros and do yoga with me ownself.

Life's been interesting. We created a room for the little one out of the back end of our living room/dining room area. Surprisingly, she loves it. Can she already sense that it's all her own space, the playpen, the dresser, the little chair and toys and books and crib? Sometimes I feel like a twisted kind of scientist - the type that runs experiments on the great apes with a big mental checklist. Lil One able to recognize self in mirror? Check. Lil One able to recognize own name and parents' name? Check. Lil One able to feed self? Messily. When does it end? Are we a culture of such developmental checklist and experts and comparisons that there's no such thing as living, only living self-consciously anymore?

Speaking of self-consciousness, or rather self-analysis, I realized that sometimes a little bit of something is in fact worse than none of something. Take rain for instance. Or human company.
We were invited for drinks at 1 of the only 2 families we know in the area. (Their little one is 15 days younger than ours and I met the mom at a pregnant swim class.) I came back lonelier than before. As long as I was heads down in our hermits routine, I wasn't even aware of our isolation; and then the bubble burst. Oh achiness. The discussions on next steps and potential relocations are going at full speed again. Especially since the world ended last week. Well, almost. P was told he would not be allowed to fly in France. Or rather I took the call while he was out on a walk. World came tumbling down, I was pretty much ready to start packing that instant. He's taken it lightly (right... he stayed up thinking about it until 2am...)

Ach. What's one to do? What's one to do?