Last week while leaving the studio, our instructor, Evan, told us that YogaWorks plans to cut the Tuesday and Thursday Mysore session. Something about wanting 30 people in the room. At 6am? Evan has between 10-20 people daily, and most of us are studio members. What YogaWorks class would fill a room to 30 at 6am every day? Or even twice a week? Certainly nothing they currently offer.

Nevermind that there are two other empty practice rooms at that hour.

We were miffed. We need our practice, we need Evan, and we need them daily. There’s a possibility that YogaWorks will start to charge for Tuesday and Thursday, above the membership fees. The price of a class? $20? (I’m really not sure, and no one has clarified.) You want $40 more from each of us every week? That’s $2,080 more per person a year, which is almost twice what most of us pay for our current memberships. How strange. If anything, the room has gotten more crowded in the last year.

To lose two days a week (three if there’s a moon day), is to lose your practice, as well as two days of your membership, as we don’t take other classes at YogaWorks. This change will mean most of us will leave the studio for somewhere we can practice daily. Why is YogaWorks so willing to see us go?

We wrote letters. We sent them to the manager at our Westside studio, the regional manager, and the teacher manager. Within hours of the announcement, messages poured in from our group of ashtangis to the management. Not only are they are inspiring, they define what being a community is all about. Over the next few days, I will post them here, and on the yoga blog.

The first, from Rey:

Dear Jackie,

I’m one of the morning Mysore students that attends Evan’s classes on average 5x/wk. I’m currently out of town for work, but as you can see from my attendance when I am in town, I attend Evan’s and only Evan’s classes, like many of his students.

I recently heard from some of the other students that you will be cutting our Tuesday and Thursday classes. Respectfully, I am writing to ask that you reconsider. The whole point of Mysore practice is that it is almost daily—at the very least 4x/wk, and hopefully 6. To make it only 3x/wk basically means NOT having an ashtanga practice.

The grapevine says that it’s a measure to cut costs, but I’m not sure what savings you gain. When I first started attending Evan’s classes, there was no staff in the studio. Evan and his trusted regular students opened up. Evan took care of the towels. Whoever got in the room first would deal with the lights, the altar, and telling new students to sign up at the desk and observe the other students until Evan arrived to instruct and adjust them. Since that time it has felt like YogaWorks has been intent on destroying our community—taking away Guruji’s picture, then the altar altogether, then even a single candle; repeatedly locking us out in the morning; and now this.

It seems like such an odd move to make against such a devoted group of students. As long as Evan teaches daily, our unlimited monthly memberships will continue. And, to be frank, we kind of liked it more when you weren’t paying a staff member (who didn’t want to get up at 5 AM) to be there. We never got locked out back then. If you let him go back to running the place like a typical ashtanga shala (just from 6 – 8:30 AM), altar, student helpers, and all, we could probably get some of our friends who practice at The Shala or YogaSutra or Ashtanga Yoga Upper Westside to opt for YogaWorks in the AM. Especially with a little push from YogaWorks advertising their traditional morning ashtanga classes.

I love Evan; right now, I love him enough to go well out of my way to study with him (I live in Jackson Heights, Queens and work in the East Village—the UWS is nowhere near my day-to-day life). But ultimately I am committed to the practice. Without the ability to practice and grow daily, it doesn’t make sense for me to stay with YogaWorks. It would make more sense for me to study with Guy Donahaye or Eddie Stern, both of whom are closer to a neighborhood I go to daily, or to help Evan find a space that will let him teach with less encumbrances.

On behalf of us all, please reconsider your decision and work something out. We actually are the community YogaWorks appears to want to promote. We practice regularly and are living examples of the benefits of yoga; we see each other almost every morning; we know each other’s names; we Facebook each other; we have brunch; encourage vegetarianism and veganism; we know who is having trouble in what pose, what each other’s injuries are, when people are getting married, or having plays performed, or are teaching yoga classes themselves, or visiting their daughters, sons, or parents. Right now YogaWorks is an integral part of our morning, almost every morning. In the long run, I don’t think any of us want to change that, but we are all confused and even angry that you do.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask. I’m back in town from Kentucky late Monday night, and you can bet I will be at Mysore early Tuesday morning—I’ve missed Evan and my fellow ashtangis. Despite being welcomed by the Yoga East ashtanga community here in Louisville, I’ve been anxious to come home. I only hope my home will still be there.

Respectfully submitted,

Rey P.

Lovely, right? I posted the whole story on the yoga blog.

Thank you for all the birthday love and wishes yesterday, especially those who braved my germs and came by. I had a wonderful day, and am feeling much better, finally. One thing I can say for facebook, it turns once-birthday-well-wishing-delinquents into merry makers. I see the magic every day and it brings me cheer.

I noticed, on walking to the store for some supplies yesterday, that the grin was still on. Not from the snow, and certainly not from the ten-foot puddles on every street corner. It was the birthday grin. Yes, I might be sick as a dog but still I love my birthday. And yours. It’s, for me, fundamentally a love of life, and age, and wisdom.

Happy birthday cousin Tony. And, of course, LeBron.

And do not forget: I will kick your ass at yoga. Namaste.

(If anyone knows where one might purchase this card, let me know and I’ll happily link there. I’d love a few myself.)

Another. I miss them.

Archiving on, I found a shot I’d thought I’d taken for Time Out after 9/11, but obviously it was a few weeks before, as you can see the towers standing. It’s almost the same shot as in the previous post.

I finished archiving 2000 in June, and took a break from heavy cataloging, but also had to add the photos I’d scanned myself over the years to 2000. It was highly tedious. It was not pleasant. Neither was what I had to return to—2001. It wasn’t a great year for me on any level, but ugh, it was worse for the city.

People have asked to see these images and I never really wanted to look at them or to present them in any way, but now that I’m chronologically moving through all the photos, it’s time. They are up on flickr.

I wanted to like this company. I really did. In the end I have very mixed feelings. I suppose all I can say is that you usually get what you pay for. It’s like the lens issue. I’m in love with the Nikon 17-55mm f/2.8G but how can I justify dropping that much on a lens? The alternatives, however, just don’t cut it. And so it goes.

I decided to have all of my analog images scanned last August for a number of reasons, the biggest, perhaps, being that I’m nostalgic. But also because I love technology (a dangerous combination perhaps).  I want to be able to type “spectacles” into a catalog and see every photo I have of funky frames.  I want to call up my grandmother’s table (in lower left of photo, 1995) in her house, as well as mine (2009).

So, I did some research. Scancafe seemed like a better option than digmypics (who seem to have redone their site since my search) scanmyphotos. I realize my standards are high, as David Pogue raved about scanmyphotos in a NYT review, but I thought the sample images he used were of extremely low quality. But David Pogue is a tech guy, not a photographer. When these scanning services rave about the pro photogs who use them, be certain that these high profile clients are receiving high profile treatment, and I can only assume are using the “pro” services. All the scanning I’d done previously was by myself at ICP, by the now defunct Flatiron Color, or by highly recommended Hong Color, in NYC. Hong Color’s scanning is high-end. It starts at $40 a scan, more than 100x scancafe, so when digitizing 6,000 images, HC is cost prohibitive. Scancafe’s price with shipping would be about $1820.00. Because scancafe allows the client to choose only half the scans, I figured I could get that down to $1000.00.

I spent the last weekend of August packing up my images and numbering the sheets and bundles. They suggest on their website that you not concern yourself with such things, and just send them on. This not to convenience you, but so that they don’t have to worry about scanning images in order and keeping them in order. And if you have no idea where an image is, how you can really be sure if it was returned? Or if you sent it to begin with? I highly recommend organizing your photos and knowing what you have and where before you send them anywhere. I put mine on the UPS truck to California on August 31st. I found a promo code online, which saved me 20%. So, on August 31, I paid for half my estimated order (I’d underestimated the count a bit):

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This was my original payment.

On September 9th, I received this email:

The speed of the job, finished a week early, might have tipped me off to the quality. And now I had only 14 days to look over the scans, while working and teaching. Good enough though, as I was headed to Australia in November.

Okay. Attention span kaput. Will continue this tomorrow.

She handed me a mirror and showed me 5 “brown spots” she wanted to coat. “They aren’t cavities, but there’s bacteria there and they could become cavities. It’s preventative.”

“Hmm,” I said. I explained that the dentist who gave me the cleaning a few weeks before said that I had three cavities, possibly more, and that I might need root canal.

She looked over at the laptop where my teeth were on display. “I don’t really see where you’d need root canal.” She said.

“No, I thought it was strange myself. So I’m not sure about these five enamel coatings. Do I really need them?”

She explained they were my teeth, and that I didn’t have to have them. I was confused, as she had such a different take on my mouth than the previous dentist. She was quite nice, so I asked her about my front teeth.

Well, the root is strong. If you wanted to fix them, you could go veneer or crown. Both cost about $1400 a tooth. We’d have to put submit to your insurance to see if they’d cover it, which takes about four weeks.

I told her I’d think about it all and get back to her. I could do $1400 a tooth, as that would take me to the $3000 per year coverage on my insurance. Or so I thought.

I went to the front desk and was presented a bill to sign. “The insurance will send you the check and you will sign it over to us.” I was told. “We aren’t part of that spectrum plan.”

“Huh?” I wondered as I looked down at the bill. $820? I didn’t even get my teeth cleaned. They’d charged me $100-something for the visit, and over $600 for the x-rays.

I’m not sure what to say.

Unacceptable.

So much for fixing the front teeth. Even if the insurance did cover it, I’ve spent over $1000 at the dentist just getting x-rays, a cleaning, and two opinions on the state of my teeth. Enamel coverings? I don’t think so.

I do wish I had the opinion of someone I trust. Maybe the worst one really should be covered. Maybe it’s kind of almost a cavity. I don’t know.

I realized between writing these posts that the real reason I haven’t been to the dentist in so long, and the real reason that I avoid doctors, is because I don’t trust them. It’s confusing and painful when our health is in the hands of people—encouraged by a system—who are out for a buck. “Don’t worry, your insurance will cover it.” No thank you.

The health care reform that passed yesterday can barely be called reform. But at least it’s a step. Something has to be done about this system. It’s unethical.