Everything I Need to Know I Learned from Dungeons & Dragons by Shelly Mazzanoble

broken,” I lamented. “I was hoping to get a nip and tuck when the doctors had me under.”
    â€œDoes this mean your kickball career is over?” Chris asked. “For a second time?”
    I wasn’t sure what was worse. Being compared to a Botox-addicted bored housewife or having a career-ending injury crush my hopes and dreams for a second time. Didn’t matter. Today was a new day, and a new day meant a new god. I sat in my desk chair, closed my eyes, and took a deep inhale, letting my abdominal cavity expand and lengthen. And then I got dizzy and almost passed out.
    I’m still learning here, people.
    â€œOm …”
    â€œOh no. Who are you worshipping today?” Laura asked.
    â€œToday I shall pray to Ioun, the god of knowledge, skill, and prophecy.”
    â€œGreat!” Laura said. “Then
you
can work on this presentation.”
    â€œPowerPoint will not help me bridge my mental and emotional faculties,” I answered. “But yoga will. I’m taking a class tonight!”
    â€œWhat the hell does yoga have to do with Ioun?” Chris asked. “She wants you to seek and distribute knowledge. Educate yourself and others.”
    â€œUm, what part of
class
did you not understand?” Look at me distributing knowledge already.
    â€œI’m not sure that’s entirely what she means, but go ahead. Knock yourself out,” he said, in an unfortunate choice of clichés. “Oh no, wait. Don’t do that. Have fun.”
    â€œHa, ha. Very funny.”
    Sadly, I sort of agreed with him. It would be nice to enroll in a Spanish class or finally learn how to knit or sit in on a lecture at the Seattle Art Museum. But yoga is the only class I could find that was available on such short notice. Just in case Chris was right and I failed to properly educate and enlighten, I’d go to NPR.com and donate $25.
    My neighborhood is riddled with yoga studios so I picked one closest to home. Okay, that’s not why I picked it. It happens to be across the street from my favorite tap house. Bart is meeting me after class so I can deposit some delicious hoppy calories back into the old reservoir.
    I haven’t taken a yoga class since … well, ever. I tried to do one of those On Demand videos when I was feeling lazy about not going to the gym for three days but the teacher was so Zen I fell asleep in chair pose and only woke up because of the charley horse in my quad. I was a bit nervous about class until I walked into the studio’s lobby, which smelled like my old friend Phoebe. A woman behind the desk greeted me. Her long, lithe limbs were enshrouded in a black body suit. She looked like a vanilla bean.
    â€œIs this the beginner yoga class?” I asked.
    â€œIt is!” she said with so much glee I wondered if she thinks I’m from Extreme Yoga Studio Make-Over Edition or something. “Is this your first time?” she asked, handing me a clipboard full of paperwork.
    Sure that I will never muster that much glee in my own voice, I just nodded and started initialing things.
    My future classmates didn’t look very “beginner.” Maybe it’s because they all had Klean Kanteen water bottles and were wearing those expensive yoga pants and matching tops that I pass over at T.J. Maxx in favorof the cheap cotton sweatpants and T-shirts I find around the office. It’s not like I’m going to a bar dressed like this. Bart’s bringing me a change of clothes.
    Their clothes, on the other hand, you
could
go to happy hour in if you were the kind of person who enjoyed drinking half-price appletinis while showing your midriff.
    I did not have my own yoga mat, so Vanilla Bean lent me one. I’m instantly grossed out over the thought that my face is going to get pretty intimate with this rubber cesspool. I exfoliated for this? Why didn’t I plunk down the $10 it probably costs to get a mat? Even if I used it only