Okay, I got a confession to make. I’m not a big fan of crushes. They’re fun, but they’re adolescent. They’re dreamy. They’re sweet…but I’m 35, not a boy, or a teenage girl mooning over the Jonas Brothers, and I’m too-cool, cynical, savvy…not sweet.

Unless you know me, that is, in which case you know I’m a big cornball, a romantic (as in Byron or Churchill, not romance). I’m picky as hell, always falling for women far, far, far out of my league. Why not?

Still, “crushes” pull in huge traffic on this, our indie media site, and so help spread our “mindful” ethos beyond our core or choir…so again and again, me and my staff and my friends, including one by the titular Kathryn Budig, are guilty of penning the occasional fun silly sweet Crush.

I like the idea, I have to admit, of connecting love and sex and all that crazy stuff with mindfulness. Why have a crush on the Jonas Brothers, or Disney’s latest Dream Queen, when you could fall for an ecofashionista or an eco-minded actor or a yogini? Someone who’s trying to live a good life, help others to do so, all while being good to the planet we all share?

Why not align our values with our hearts (and our eyeballs)?

Well…drumroll…here comes probably my biggest crush, like, yet.

Kathryn Budig ain’t big, she’s rather petite—by all reports. For though she writes a bit for elephant, and is an emerging yogastar (having been featured on the cover of Yoga Journal, as well as in countless videos, ads, at least one poster, and a cameo in a viral video), well, we’ve never met. But she’s got a big smile, and a big heart, and big ambitions. I like, nay I need women with outsize views of what they can do in life. Hell, I still think I’m gonna be rich and run for President some day. And so I need independent, strong, willful women to keep me grounded…but, too, I need there to be genuine admiration flowing both ways (what one elderly codger called the secret to his lifelong marriage, this year, in the Times).

If this sounds a bit serious, it’s not. Okay, I admit it: it is.

I have a crush on Kathryn Budig.

I asked her to be my (virtual) Valentine. She (virtually) said yes. I even managed…a bit late…to mail her some (Choco)love via Post. I haven’t mailed anything myself at the post office in years, I’m incompetent at the whole letter gift package tape stamp thing. Given my willingness to venture forth into the hostile land of the PO, well if that ain’t love, I don’t know what is.

Anyways, you didn’t come here to hear expressions of puppy love from this old dog, learning new tricks—you came for photos, and videos. Enjoy. But I catch you checkin’ her out a bit much, watch it buddy.

You can Fan Kathryn Budig here.

Videos. Don’t just watch, yoga along with her, it’s good for ya.