Further musing on Vegas: fun and naps

I mentioned that during my weekend in Vegas at the spa, I actually took a couple of naps. Again , I must reiterate, I. don't. nap. I've never been a nap person that I can recall (Mom, fill us in if I'm wrong on this). But the Vegas weekend really did something to me.

The first thing I noticed during the weekend was that my spa had a reduced schedule of yoga and workout classes. The only class I wanted to take that also didn't conflict with any of my few spa and salon services was Restorative Yoga. Usually I take a couple of yoga classes and maybe even some kind of cardio or flexibility class. I once took Pilates and found that it made me angry and frustrated for some reason. Anyway, the only class I took the whole weekend was a class on gentle yoga poses for chillin' my crazy ass out, which was a refreshing change from my usual vinyasa-flow-look-how-far-I-can-pull-my-leg-back yoga classes.

After my rock climbing on Saturday morning, I stood thoughtfully in front of the curtailed class schedule and racked my brain to think of what I wanted to take, what could I take. After all, I can't just sit in the steam room and relaxation lounge for three or four hours...can I? But I did. I laid around in the steam room for about 15 or 20 minutes, went to the laconium for another 20 or so minutes, a quick shower in the experiential rain booth (trust me, it was cool), and then I laid down on a heated lounge seat by the jacuzzi and promptly fell asleep for nearly half an hour. I did it again the next day too--resting here and there until I'd finally take a 20-30 minute nap.

Being that still and quiet is really unusual for me, weird. I'm so accustomed to moving, going, doing, walking, running, being productive. It's so odd to be still and quiet. Not to get all sappy and New-Agey, but it was healing, really healing to just rest and have nothing to do but rest. It's like resting was my job for two days. And when I let it sink in that my job was to have fun, real fun for the weekend, to have fun and rest, the anxiety slid away and I just enjoyed myself. And I took a nap.

And I had fun. I got dressed up and ate with the correct fork and munched on things I've never had and sipped sake at the Asian restaurant we had dinner at and nearly wept while watching Phantom of the Opera and got dressed up again and laughed really loudly and slapped the table at Craig Ferguson's stand-up and goofed off with my dear friend Miz Scarlett and went shopping and mostly....I allowed myself to be happy and not to feel guilty about being happy about stuff, whether deep (the song "All I Ask of You") or shallow (OMG! Cole Haan pumps for $90!1!!). I suppose I'd been so tweaked and stressed and anxious about my job and the economy and my cats' health and life in general that I'd forgotten what fun and rest were like.

My dear friend bluearchitecture once said that the only way to fight crazy is with crazy. He described seeing a stand-up comic talk about some guy losing his mind at the comic in traffic, so then the comic just started yelling back, "Hey man, I said you could borrow my sweater, not have it!" The road rager panicked at how crazy the comic started acting that he got the hell away from him. Hence, you can only fight crazy with crazy. With that in mind, God bless Vegas for giving me a place so crazy that I have no choice but to shake free of the usual madness and enjoy myself.