Skunk-ageddon

Most of us have, at one time or another, passed through a putrescent puff of skunk funk during a stroll in our neighborhood or perhaps a hike in the woods.

“Phew!” we may say to ourselves, noses twitching every which way. We hold our breath and pick up the pace until we’ve safely escaped the almost visible boundaries of the scent.

But when detonated from within closed quarters, skunk spray has the astounding ability to permeate through solid doors, tunnel through air vents and peel paint from walls. It’s powerful enough to make eyes tear up, as my fellow Wildlife Department volunteer Jennalee discovered on Wednesday.

Jennalee’s eyes began weeping not long after she and I commenced our vigil outside the double doors of the exam room.  I’d like to report we were engaged in some sort of important scientific observation of the activity underway within, but we were simply overcome by a perverse curiosity, something akin to rubbernecking on the highway. Well, at least I was.

Like fearless first responders sacrificing themselves to save others, Ashley and Gary had charged into that odiferous exam room to confront the sick skunk inside. Jennalee and I watched, mouths closed, as Gary held down the great beast and Ashley administered fluids. A healthy skunk would have fought and sprayed at our heroes, but this one simply leaked and oozed into the towel placed beneath him. Even from the opposite side of the doors, Jennalee and I could taste skunk funk on our tongues.

“Get the coffee in the locker!” Gary said.

Oh crap. He was speaking to us.

“Do you know what he’s talking about?” I asked Jennalee. She did.

But the coffee grounds kept in the supply closet for the express purpose of absorbing skunk stench were exhausted. So I booked it to the employee break room and ransacked the cabinets there. Armed with two single-serving packets of Colombian blend (fully caffeinated – decaf just wasn’t going to cut it), I returned to the double doors, sucked in a deep breath and pushed through.

Confined within that 8 by 10-foot room, the fumes were positively toxic and thick enough to induce coughing. It was the kind of stench you imagine you can actually see, squiggly green vapors suspended in the air. I’ve smelled burning corpses before. This was worse.

“Holy crap, that stinks!” I said, a tad louder than the situation called for. Our heroes shushed me, presumably to spare the patient any embarrassment.

In a motion not unlike ripping a pin from a grenade, I tore open the coffee packets and dumped the contents onto a large metal pan. Then I retreated.

“There’s a skunk in recovery,” I texted Matt. “Worst smell ever.”

“Poor skunk,” he texted back. “What’s wrong with it?”

“They don’t know. He’s just not very mobile. I think they’re giving him fluids. Ashley and Gary are going to reek afterward.”

Eager for a breath of fresh air, I decided this was an ideal time to visit the shelter gift shop and buy a kennel key from the cashier there. Business had been slow, and she seemed eager to chat.

“You’re in Wildlife, so you’ll appreciate this,” she said. “My husband fancies himself a wildlife photographer. He especially likes birds. So he drove 150 miles alone the other day to get these shots at a park near Gilroy.”

She handed me her smartphone.

“Just scroll down,” she said. “They’re long-eared owls.”

“Great shots. Where did you say he took these?”

The woman’s nose twitched.

“Have you been hanging out with a skunk?” she said, gasping for air and grasping for her phone.

I bent my head and directed my own nose to the collar of my favorite jacket.

“Oh man!” I moaned. I expedited my purchase and vacated the gift shop before the cashier asphyxiated.

Back in Wildlife, Ashley and Gary had settled the skunk into an outdoor kennel. His stench, however, still lingered throughout the department hallways. It would remain so for days.

“I got my key, but the cashier says I stink too,” I told Ashley. “So, how do I get rid of the smell? Just shower and shampoo and wash my clothes a few times?”

Ashley opened her eyes wide, smiled and shook her head back and forth.

“What? What does that mean? Am I going to have to burn my clothes?!”

“No, you’ll be fine,” she said, laughing. “Your car’s going to stink, though. My car always stinks after.”

“But I’m spending all next week in my car!”

“Well, maybe use your husband’s car.”

“We have just one car.”

“Oh. Good luck.”

I called my mom on my way home. She thought the situation was hilarious. And the fact she thought the situation was hilarious reminded me of the psychological torture she and my father subjected me to as a child.

While my parents, supposedly impartial role models, adorably referred to my younger sister as “Mouse” or “Sweet Pea” or “Twinkle Toes,” they called me “The Beast,” “The Godmother” and, worst of all, “Stinky.” And I was not, to the best of my knowledge, a dirty or disgusting kid! Nevertheless, my parents solidified my association with filth and putrescence throughout my childhood. When I was 8, they returned from a trip to present Hailey with a plush opossum (who doesn’t love a baby opossum?!) and me with a skunk, which I still own and which scares the bejesus out of my cats. During my twelfth year, my parents somehow managed to intercept my request for the nickname that would appear on the back of my youth soccer jersey and informed the coach it should read “Pig Pen.” And so it did.  You can imagine what a boon this was to my ranking on the middle school popularity scale.

Years of therapy have softened the bitter sting of “Stinky.”  I think saddling Matt with the pet name has also contributed to my improved self-image (In exchange, I’ve agreed to endure the slightly less-offensive “Smelly). But I’m still sensitive to association with the fetid. So in the aftermath of “Skunk-ageddon,” I’ve showered twice and twice laundered my clothes. I think I’m officially stench-free, but as is commonly the case with B.O., it’s difficult to know for sure without shoving an armpit into a loved one’s face. Stinky should be home from work soon. I’ll make him smell me.

David Sedaris signed my book – with a bloody knife

The crowd at Zellerbach Hall for Saturday's David Sedaris reading 

To prepare for meeting my literary hero, I showered, dabbed on make-up and trimmed my eyebrows. I also took an eraser to the “$6.95” penciled into the endpaper of his book.

“I don’t want him to know I bought the book second-hand,” I explained to Matt.

The truth is, that hardback copy of “Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim” is the first David Sedaris book I’ve ever owned; I’ve “read” all of humorist’s bestselling essay collections by listening to him read them to me through library-owned audiobooks. So months ago, after I purchased tickets to hear Sedaris deliver a reading at Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall, I began scouring bookstores for a used copy my hero could actually sign. Sentimentality steered me toward “Dress Your Family,” the book that introduced me to Sedaris’ acid wit in 2005. I even sprang for the hardback edition.

I’m never early for anything, but I drove Matt and I to Berkeley six hours ahead of Saturday’s 8 p.m. reading, one of 47 engagements Sedaris had scheduled for a 49-day book tour. No, I wasn’t obsessed to the point of insisting we spend the entire afternoon loitering outside Zellerbach Hall; I wanted to thoroughly explore this beautiful college town. If we happened to “randomly” spot Sedaris dining in a restaurant or polishing off his holiday shopping on College or Shattuck Avenue, so be it.

“Keep your eyes peeled,” I told Matt through a mouthful of Cheese Board Pizza Collective pizza. “He could be just wandering around here.”

“I don’t even know what he looks like,” Matt said. He retrieved his iPhone and Google Image-d Sedaris’ name.

“Well, he’s sort of balding, and kind of short,” I said.

Matt displayed a photograph of Sedaris holding an umbrella, an expression somewhere between amusement and weariness playing across the writer’s face.

“Yeah, but he’s a little older now.”

Maroon Shirt

From our standing room only dining position outside the pizzeria, we commenced a game of selecting random pedestrians and saying, in a mock-hushed voice, “Look! Is that him?!” (By “we” I actually mean just “me” and most of the people I singled out seemed to be UC students of the Asian persuasion – or bums.) But then we wandered over to Zellerbach Hall to scope out the scene before the program’s start, and I became convinced I really did see Sedaris in the lobby.

“See that balding guy standing behind the table with the books on it? In the maroon shirt? I think that’s him.”

“Why would he be here four hours before the show starts?” my ever-practical husband asked.

“I don’t know, but that kind of looks like him – and that guy seated beside him, that’s probably Hugh.”

I said “Hugh” as if Sedaris’ long-time partner, Hugh Hamrick, happened to be a friend of a friend we were meeting for brunch.

Before long, I had tiptoed up to the lobby’s locked glass doors to stare at Maroon Shirt, my nose all but pressed to the glass. Was that really him? My hero? He seemed taller than I imagined.

I was so engrossed with observing Maroon Shirt that I failed to notice the badged auditorium employee observing me from the other side of the door. She propped open the door but no more than the few millimeters required to make herself heard.

“Can I help you?” the young woman asked. 

“Um, yes,” I stammered. “Is there, um, a public restroom around here?”

“Try the Student Center, to the left,” she said and closed the door.

Matt and I made use of the facilities and then continued our stroll up and down College Avenue. We returned to the hall at 7 p.m., an hour before the show, and discovered, to my delight, that the line containing five book-holding bibliophiles wasn’t the queue for entrance but the gateway to securing a pre-performance book signature. Two silver-haired matrons – the stereotypical kind everyone associates with performing arts usher-hood -- were handing out pens and custom post-it notes featuring Sedaris’ name beside a picture of an owl, a nod to his latest essay collection, “Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls.”

“Write your name on the sticky so he knows how to spell it,” one of the matrons instructed. Expecting my thus-far good fortune to evaporate, I decided to quiz the ushers.

“So, is he actually in there? Now? Are we really going to meet him?” I asked.

“Yes, of course,” one said, and turned to pass out another pen.

“I thought she was going to say they wanted us to write our name down so they could take the book, have him sign it, and then return it to us,” I whispered to Matt. “So, do you think I should have him make it out to ‘Megan’ or ‘Megan V. Winslow?’”

“I think just ‘Megan’ is enough.”

Post-it in place, I began flipping through my book’s pages.

“What are you doing now?” Matt asked.

“I want to make sure I know the name of my favorite essay in case he asks me,” I said. “Actually, you should read this. It’s really funny.”

I watched Matt read “Us and Them,” waiting for him to laugh. Or just smile. When he failed on both accounts, I began watching Jessica, the student teacher-turned book signing line bouncer.

I noticed she delivered the same directive before escorting each group of four inside the auditorium and around the corner to disappear under the stairs in some sort of alcove, presumably where Sedaris was ensconced.

"Remember: no photos,” she said. “Don't even hold up your phone as if you're going to take a picture. His demands.”

“I think he wrote an essay about that – hating having his picture taken,” I informed one of the matrons.

“Oh really?”

Matt and I were now at the front of the outside line, and I could clearly see Maroon Shirt, still loitering behind the book table. Two facts suddenly made me question my earlier Sedaris identification: The first was that Maroon Shirt’s table was positioned far from the sacred alcove beneath the stairs; The second was Maroon Shirt no longer wore his maroon shirt. He had shed it to reveal a “Moe’s Book Store” T-shirt, the kind an employee representing the local provider of performance-related materials might wear. So this wasn’t Sedaris, and he was no longer worthy of my attentions. Instead, I studied Jessica and the auditorium staff member whispering in her ear. It was the same woman who had shooed me off to the bathroom. 

“I see,” Jessica said. She turned to Matt and I and opened her mouth to speak. My face fell.

“What?” Jessica asked me.

“I thought you were going to say the book signing is over,” I told her, crestfallen.

“No, I was going to say ‘It’s your turn.’ How many people are in your group?”

I could hear Sedaris’ voice as Matt and I rounded the auditorium stairs. It was the same soothing voice I had heard speaking through my car stereo during countless road trips across Florida. The same nasally tone that always interrupted the fluidity of my iPod music playlist whenever I selected “shuffle.” The same snarky delivery I forced my parents to listen to and laugh with whenever we happened to be in the same vehicle. Now that voice emanated from a pint-sized man seated behind a table strewn with colored Sharpie markers. He wore a tie and a button-down sweater, a combination that reminded me of my 11th grade math teacher (I couldn’t tell at the time, but he was also wearing culottes breeches, another wardrobe choice reminiscent of Mr. Dougherty). Sedaris was chatting to a group of middle-aged men, explaining how much he dislikes being interrupted by fans while eating in restaurants. 

“Quick! Is there anything hanging out of my nose?” I asked Matt. “I feel like my nose is running.” I flared my nostrils so he could get a good look.

“No, you’re good.”

Then there was a trio of giggly Berkeley co-eds.

“It’s nice he’s taking time to speak to each fan,” I reflected.

Then us. I took a deep breath and handed my hero my copy of “Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim.”

"Your name must be...,” He said, slowly opening the book cover as if the name might magically come to him in the seconds before he consulted the post-it note. I remembered him describing this trick in one of his essays. But he could not guess my name. He opened the book and read the post-it. “…Megan. Megan, have we ever met before?"

"No, but I'm a huge fan,” I gushed. I felt my lips begin to quiver.

But Sedaris was no longer looking at me. Instead, he was doodling on the title page of my book, selecting first the black Sharpie and then the brown.

"Megan, don't ever send me a book in the mail to sign,” Sedaris said. “You know what I do with books people send me in the mail to sign? I throw them away."

My eyes grew big. Had I ever subconsciously mailed him a book to sign? Dear God, I hoped not.

"I'll be sure to spread the word." Matt said, laughing nervously.

"Is that a knife?" I asked, mesmerized as Sedaris wielded the gray Sharpie to color in the blade. The two-dimensional weapon appeared to pierce the printed “i” and “d” of his first name. 

"Yes, it's the knife I would use to stab the people who send me books to sign."

“Oh.”

"And some people send them directly to my house -- with American stamps. That doesn't do me any good in England."

“No, I bet it doesn’t,” Matt agreed.

I decided to change the subject.

"We've spent all day wandering around Berkeley hoping to see you in a restaurant or something."

Oh dear, I thought. That surely sounded stalker-ish.

“I was in San Francisco, spending money."

“Oh.”

Sedaris put the finishing touches on his knife – a bloody drip in red Sharpie – and I realized our 2-minute conversation was drawing to an end. 

“I just wanted to tell you that you've inspired me to become a humor essayist,” I babbled. “So maybe. One day..." 

I trailed off, leaving a pregnant pause ripe for a line of encouragement that never came. Instead, Sedaris squinted up at me and smiled. I knew this was my signal to go. So I went.

“Could you tell I was flustered?” I asked Matt later as I drained a glass of overpriced performing arts merlot. “I didn't know what to say when he started talking about the knife.”

“What could have possibly inspired him to say that?” he said, laughing.

“I don’t know, but I guess it makes people remember him.” 

“Oh, he was unforgettable.”

We finished our drinks and found our mezzanine seats. The show was about to start.

A letter from the future?

Matt collected the mail today.

“A very strange letter came for you,” he said. “It’s addressed to you in what looks like your handwriting, and there’s no return address. Could it be a letter from yourself in the future?”

My eyes lit up.

“A letter from the future? Oh boy!”

No, I didn’t actually believe some Future Me had reached through the fabric of time to deliver a life-altering message to Present Me (“Don’t drink that expired soy milk.” or maybe “Remember to floss our teeth.”) But there was always the very-real possibility that Past Me mailed a letter to Present Me to “call dibs” on some kick-ass invention idea. I would need to carefully analyze this envelope before I broke that virginal seal. I made a beeline for the kitchen table and the pile of mail discarded there.

Yep, that was definitely my handwriting. And I remembered the stamp, one from the United States Post Office’s “Go Green” collection. I purchased a sheet of the eco-friendly stamps a few months ago. “Fix water leaks,” this one instructed. It featured a drawing of a hand twisting a water faucet handle.

When it comes to postage, I prefer pretty over practical and so typically purchase the special edition stamp sheets instead of the rolls containing the generic flag motif.  And when the special edition sheets contain various different designs, I subdivide further by designating the “boring” ones for envelopes containing bill payments (surely the artistry of a primo design would be wasted on whichever frazzled accounts receiving processor received it). So could this be a bill -- billed to myself?

Still holding out on the invention scenario, I snapped pictures of the front and back of the envelope to protect the integrity of my intellectual property. Then I took a deep breath and ripped open the envelope.

Inside was a hand-written note from River Styx, a St. Louis-based literary journal. I suddenly recalled mailing my “Deer Battle” essay for consideration for the journal’s forthcoming “Revenge” issue. A self-addressed envelope had been required should the writer desire a formal rejection.

“Megan, I’m sorry we couldn’t take your story. Competition for the Revenge issue has been tough. Thanks for giving us a shot. – KL.”

Darn.

Yes, rejection sucks. But at least K.L. – whoever he (or she) is -- took the time to send that note. It’s nice to know someone read my submission, and perhaps it even made this K.L. person laugh. Perhaps he even noticed the envelope’s postage stamp.

Reminiscences of a stock operator

Dude: Turn yourself right back around and buy some more wrinkled shirts.

Alice Corona Ireland Brownlow, my father’s mother’s mother, died in 1999 at the age of 97. In her will, Alice graciously left each of her 18 great-grandchildren £1,500. I was a teenager at the time, and on the advice of my father, I chose to invest my share and thus take my first stab at the stock market.

Ha! The stock market completely perplexed me. Teenage me simply envisioned it as gambling; If I was lucky, my money would magically replicate into more money. If not, my money would just as magically disappear. So when it came time to select a stock, my dad suggested I invest in a company I recognized, a business that mattered to me. So I did not pick Apple. Or IBM. I picked the GAP. As in the casual clothing retailer that sells wrinkled button-down shirts.

On April 4, 1999, I purchased 15 shares of GPS for $49.375 a share. In October of that same year, I expanded my portfolio by adding 10 shares at $31.5625. My dad served as custodian for my E-Trade account, and all statements arrived addressed to us both. It was the first “adult” mail I ever received, and I relished discovering the green and purple-accented envelopes in our mailbox. For a while, I even opened them.

Reginald & Alice Brownlow, my great-grandparents

When the novelty of high finance finally wore off, I began squirreling away the statements; They were too important to throw out but not interesting enough to actually read. I stuffed them into desk drawers, buried them in filing cabinets and stacked them in my closet. And yet the envelopes kept coming. It took my family and I five relocations – to different cities and states – before we managed to foil the U.S. Postal Service’s mail forwarding system and shake E-Trade and the ubiquitous envelopes from my trail.

Fast-forward 15 years: I’m a (reasonably) responsible adult. What’s this in the attic? A 2004 E-Trade statement? Oh yeah – I’m an investor! In the GAP. Could that be worth anything? I’ll telephone E-Trade and find out.

“What’s the account number, ma’am?” 

“I don’t know.”

“Do you have the account password?”

“Um, no.”

“How about the email address associated with the account?”

“Funny you should ask that because I think this account was opened before email was invented. Ha. Ha. Um, hello?”

A few more awkward phone calls and some document submissions later and I finally have access to my E-Trade account, my very own adult, non-custodial account. It’s time to properly manage my estate, maybe make some trades and bark some calls to maximize my equity. So yesterday, for the first time ever, I logged into the E-Trade website. And laughed.

I am proud to report, after 15 years of painstaking investment and eagle-eyed monitoring of the market through its tumultuous ups and downs, my net profit is…$26.

Naturally, this sudden windfall has me wondering: Will $26 be enough to buy me one of those wrinkled, button-down shirts?

"Princess Grace" attempts yoga

I once read an article in which Jennifer Aniston credited yoga for the remarkably toned body she presented on the cover of “GQ” – the cover in which she’s covered in nothing but a man’s tie. I would have guzzled Smartwater or bathed in seaweed-infused Aveeno lotion if she had attributed those abs to either product. Either would have been preferable. Yoga, however, is not fun.

The goal

I seem to have a selective memory when it comes to yoga. Before class, I remember only Aniston’s abs. It’s not until sweat is blinding my eyes, my muscles are quivering uncontrollably to maintain a plank and I’m begging the hands of the clock to advance that I recall just how not fun this activity is and vowing never to subject myself to such torture again.

Beyond the “fun factor,” my aversion to pigeon poses and peacock postures is two-fold:

1. I’m hopelessly inept at meditation and…
2. I don’t possess a molecule of coordination, balance or flexibility in my entire body.

Let’s begin with the first, my ineptitude at meditation. My mind is forever leaping from topic to topic, flatly refusing to settle on any specific one. “Wow, that girl has gorgeous layers in her hair.” “Please God, don’t let this overzealous yogi fall on me.” “Crap. Once again, my razor missed that freakishly long ankle hair.” These are real, paramount concerns that have occupied my brain during yoga class. The Buddhists have an official name for such insanity, “Monkey Mind.”

As for coordination, balance and flexibility, the Winslow family’s share of these gifts was exhausted on my sister, the gymnast. In fact, my parents liked to refer to childhood me as “Princess Grace” to emphasize just how ungraceful I was. I’m still lanky and awkward and cannot for the life of me reach my toes or split beyond a 30-degree angle. Years of playing soccer have demonstrated my propensity to simply lurch over when challenged with the ball, a defense mechanism that might be tied to the weight of my notoriously large head; like a reverse roly poly toy, I topple head-first.

Yet, despite all these personal defects, I’m willing to give yoga a go. I joined this gym, so gosh darnnit, I will take advantage of my membership even if “Crazed Monkey” pose kills me. Lately, my poison of choice is Vinyasa, a yoga discipline with an undeniably impressive-sounding name whose meaning completely eludes me.

Edwina, the Vinyasa instructor, fits the typical yoga instructor stereotype: willowy with a hank of long, blonde, kinky surfer girl hair gathered loosely behind her head. She has sleepy Greta Garbo eyes, but her delivery is undeniably perky; She smiles through every instruction, a kindergarten teacher’s grin in her voice.

“Be the observer or the witness and forget the judge.”

Edwina has a habit of saying crazy things like that, nonsensical utterances that furrow my brow and monopolize my Monkey Mind as I struggle to understand just what the heck she means. As it is, I have trouble enough associating the correct pose with whatever tongue-twister name she flawlessly rolls off her tongue. The exception is the forward bend, the one called “Uttanasana.” I typically remember that one because it sounds like “puttanesca” when Edwina says it and never fails to make me hungry.

The reality (about to topple over)

If the other students share my general confusion, they don’t let on. I closely observe them through straddled legs or under an armpit so as to position my appendages accordingly.

Invariably, there’s one student who manages to wrap her legs around her head and balance on her nose. For awhile, that distinction belonged to a 50-year-old woman with slate-gray hair. Her favorite trick involved standing on one leg and folding the other until she could grasp her big toe. Then she would straighten the folded leg until its foot reached her head. Lately the class show-off is a 30-something dude whose yoga wardrobe consists of breezy drawstring pants and a sizeable wood medallion necklace. He’s Caucasian but has the tight-cropped hair and the mental concentration of a Buddhist monk. He bends and splits like no man should be able to bend and split. Naturally, I hate him.

“Take a rounded breath to honor your devotional.”

Someone in Edwina’s class takes all this breathing stuff a tad too seriously; his haggard, Darth Vader gasps drown out the rhythmic exhalations of all the other students, the gentle background music – even the rumble of semi tractor trailers buzzing past the studio window. I must know who’s responsible for that cacophonous clamor, and so instead of honoring my devotional, I crane my neck every which way in a vain effort to pinpoint the source. I’ve narrowed down the suspects to Red Bandana Man and Shirtless Man-Boobs Guy, the sweaty specimen who brandishes his butt crack with every Parivrtta Anjaneyasana, or “Revolved Lunge.”

Is yoga-ing shirtless socially acceptable? I wouldn’t know. I’m still completely baffled by female yoga attire and the correct combination of yoga pants and undergarments. So far, all signs point to “thong,” but I refuse to exercise in butt floss. The alternative is granny panties, but I can’t wear granny panties without everyone knowing I’m wearing granny panties (damn underwear lines). For a while, I obstinately stuck to my reliable soccer shorts, but that wardrobe choice required exposure of my blindingly white thighs whenever I raised my legs into the air and a commitment to regular leg shaving I’m just not prepared to make.

The solution, I’ve discovered, is strategic selection of the yoga studio floor. My preferred real estate is in the very back of the room where no one can observe how my underwear carves my butt cheeks into four equal pie pieces. If I’m lucky, I manage to squeeze into the far back corner, ideal for ping ponging off the walls whenever Edwina wants us to balance on one foot and I wobble back and forth like a drunk flamingo. This past Tuesday, she suggested we use the wall to improve the angle of our standing splits. At the time, I happened to be Downward Dogging it beside a window and when I thrust my left leg into the air, I narrowly avoided shattering the glass. Luckily, my big toe caught the window ledge on the way down, and I hung there until Edwina spoke again.

“Imagine: Your connective tissues are lubricated and happy.”

Huh?

My connective tissues collapsed in a heap on the ground.

Admittedly, there are a few parts of Vinyasa class I do like. I enjoy Edwina’s selection of Indie Rock, enough to surreptitiously “Shazam” a song with my iPhone once her back is turned (here's the strangely titled "Friends Make Garbage (Good Friends Take It Out)," by Low Roar. It's ethereal.) My favorite yoga position is Shavasana, which loosely translates to “Corpse Pose” and involves the incredibly technical act of lying flat on one’s back for up to 10 minutes at a time. Surely with hard work and dedication I’ll Shavasana my way to my own set of six-pack abs. At least that’s what Jennifer Aniston promised me.