just when I had it all figured out Tweet

Soaking in the bath this morning, I was as happy as Larry: there was yours truly, late to wake up but not late to the office. There was my coffee with just a smidgen of unskimmed milk, and brown sugar cubes. There was my breakfast of clementine and port wine pear halves. There was my iPod Touch with real time feeds over wi-fi AND the lovely remote app that allows me to play music all over the house, including in the bathroom, from my very own (OK, rented) tub. I could see myself keeping up this pleasant ritual for every week day, mmm, every week day when I go to the office. And I smiled generously at the thought of starting yoga tomorrow, and doubling the benefits of my morning ritual with just one thick stroke.

And then, in cynical accordance with the time of the day, it dawned on my slow brain: yoga starts at 7, I'll get up at 6, so how does that not fuck up my morning ritual?

Later update: Then, at sixteen minutes past 1 am we were still unable to sleep. And the brilliant half realised that there are yoga classes in the evening, too, so... change of plans.

Even later update: We made it. We survived the first session of hot yoga (Bikram) doing what possibly are beginner postures in 40 centigrades and 40% humidity. Not very different in climate from my first yoga session ever, in Viet Nam, but with more serious work and less time to rest in the 90 minutes we were sweating and breathing with difficulty—at times. In a way, plenty of similarities with intergalactic travel.

The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy has a few things to say on the subject of towels... A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value [...] More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. [...] Want to know why?