First, a little business. Henceforth, the Little Diva shall be known as Entropy Girl. Sue has pointed out that this change requires a photograph. She is right and one is forthcoming.

Second, when my new friend Wynn suggested that we take a Friday morning yoga class together I thought it a splendid idea. Why, my grace would make Christie Turlington weep with envy! I would set new standards for the accomplishment of peace and tranquility! My unfashionably broad but flexible hips, heretofore suitable only for rapid and drug-free childbearing, would help me to create an astonishingly effortless beauty of movement!

I have a lot to learn about yoga.

Yoga kicks my butt. Not only am I stretching muscles I never knew I had (years of exclusively treadmill or pool exercising allows one to completely deny entire sets of muscles) but I am finding it very difficult to achieve the necessary quietude to succeed where yoga is concerned. I don't know whether to throw in the towel, so to speak, or take it as a sign that I need to press forward for my own good, to expand the boundaries of what I currently know as my personality.

Part of the problem is that annoying water/bell/chime...well, I hesitate to call it music but I suppose it is. Also, my "essence" (as the instructor says) is 100% at odds with what seems to be in demand for yoga achievement. Perhaps even seeking yoga achievement is at odds with yoga achievement, I don't know. All I know is that for an hour I keep doing these contortions (tucking one's heel into one's yoni, while standing on the other foot and facing palms and eyes skyward is just odd, no matter what you call it or how much peace it might bring you) waiting for the actual class to begin. And then it's over. Meanwhile my brain is insisting on asking how many miles, how many flights, how many calories, how many laps, how many...well, just what exactly has been accomplished here.

And, today, when I mentioned to the very nice instructor that I was also looking forward to trying the beginning pilates class she looked as if I had mortally wounded her with a dull knife to the belly. Seriously. Her face went slack and her shoulders dropped and pulled inward, just like someone who has been struck. I felt awful and so I forgave her when she suggested that I might be more comfortable in the "plus sized yoga" that meets on Thursday afternoons.

And as if all this weren't strange enough, in doing a search for, yes, plus-size yoga gear (I ascribe to the "fake it till you make it" philosophy where fitness is concerned) I discovered that a high school friend, a lovely boy by the name of Andrew Zionts, has opened a yoga studio in Istanbul.

Of course he has.