<<Love, feel love, care for that feeling, keep it in. So you can smile. Smile. Talking, it goes away?>>
I'd love to write but how wrong this feels? Feels like I cannot write something I would want to read again.
horrible, grandma Ann energized
for me? All the voices. Do not like phone calls, emails, voices in the house?
[I've now escaped to L's. Only a cat and worms (from JM / enchanted garden) and smaller insects. None speak that I can hear. The cat watches from dark under sofa. (still there!)]
--writing here exaggerates.
Mom is sad I do not like to call--she did not say, but seems clear. I do not enjoy the check in, retrospectively, partly: ever I say the wrong thing for her. Not always, but one cannot really relax if interlocutor [my friends it seems a bit of magic that word came to me. Phrasal memory? Truly, in writing, begin, and find one can have a converstion with self.] is not at ease, is harmed by you.--and I am not where I like to selflessly call. . . as my dad does every Sunday for gann and me. I _could_ be there, and hold the conversation with only the other's happiness in mind, but have yet to try that.
I never want to call. Never?
only when I've walked all day and not seen a soul and wish some distraction from myself. Only then.
I will write though. And sometimes they will too. It may take me a while, but I will, and generally find the time meaningful. Even very.
So now it's here, it's written, and can tell others I'll only call when very lonely/ want escape from self?
Mom is in a quiet house in the country with only my sister and [her] husband a mile away, and because I never visit or talk, do not know how friendly they are--.
I imagine it is the isolation I'd feel if I worked in one place, lived in another--in a place by myself. As it is, my grandma and cat are there. And when she's gone--a sweetness, sort of. But how long till that would rub off.
---
using the phone to read blogs, felt a bit of unease. Now is time to spend with dad?
Well, he seems to be a buddha sort of. A happy soul these days when he did not used to be. (and healthy!)
---
well. I know I'm lucky to have these relatives. But I don't do the 'quality time-spending'? For me, it is bits of time here and there that add up if we live together. Or if we must go to hospital. If no live near, then write.
And L and occasional others? May be we can be near and appreciate presences, without doing or talking. Special trips rarely. Just the daily life.
The trap of the holidays becoming clearer? Relatives, special events, quality time. Sometimes that is realized.
Well. I'll not explain the trap.
How to act then if you know it? Run away? Savor loneliness at this time? Use it to be with whoever's near, however distant, the homeless guy in the park.
Do not travel.
Be alone.
Care for the pets or livestock of those who do not follow this voice.
Love, feel love, care for that feeling, keep it in. So you can smile. Smile. Talking, it goes away?
Believe I have some truth here, though it seems all life says the opposite. . . Believe I have some truth here.
Wherefore relatives? What do we share? Life examples? And that is what I have to give? And how much I have learned from housebound old women, once young pretties, about a possible way of being? Why are you out rushing aroung young pretties if this is where you'll end up? Alone in a house with a cat and a phone and a TV. And--
more time endless time endless endless time
the new young ones build communities though, live carfree, do not get stuck isolated (they rush around now to make that possible) [or join monasteries?]
----
wherefore relatives? More variety on the trail. Good to have the option, a christmas alone, one with them, or one with both as this one has been.
Again, no reverence here? Can I revere my mother, my dad, my grandmas, my grandad, my sisters, their husbands, uncles, aunts, cousins, aunt's dogs. . . aunt's grad students. . .
more than being a monk, helping one's relatives learn dharma--
must live it oneself.
No, I don't make them suffer by non-participation, non-contribution, non-travel, non-etc.
so we'll see
eventually I'll be out on my ear?
will there be another family there?
I respect my dad and his success and personal well-being and participation in the emergent culture. Should I make more of a point to know him, to spend time?
if any of them die, any regrets?
----
[the earlier, and not worth reading--except the Dostoyevsky--part follows.]
-----------------------------------------------------
A disconnecting day? Many voices.
Got on Internet, had been a while. Spent $44 on LED light--see delicio links. No need to spend so much, but that's done. Always I fear computer time. So easy to send emails, spend $$. And emails generate emails. Also: added $25 to phone this AM and paid for 200 msgs (-$5).
Talked to JM ( thesetruths.com ?). We had a phone date--215PM it turned out. Spoke about neighborhood doorknocking.
Then to my mom. Missed trip with dad and G Ann to Point Loma.
With deadline of the ninth to be at monastery [there is] a bit of pressure to get things done, get camping gear in order. May go up the day before and camp nearby to help begin the transition.
here's more from _the brothers k_, Dostoyevsky, A MacAndrew, trans.
------
"Raising up his soul from vileness
Reaching for his human worth,
Man must enter an alliance
With eternal Mother Earth. . ."
(Schiller's 'Hymn to Joy'?)
"But what makes it hard for me is that I don't know how I could possibly enter that eternal alliance with Mother Earth. I don't kiss Mother Earth, I don't plow her soil . . . Should I, then, become a peasant, a shepherd, or what?"
"And I was also instinctively aware that this little Katya was no innocent schoolgirl but a person with a strong character, a truly honorable young lady, and, above all, someone with both a good education and an acute intelligence, whereas I had neither."
"For the last time--there is no God."
"Well, for your information, Alexei, your dear brother is a low, despicable man."
"In his fervent prayer, he did not ask God to clear up his confusion, but only sought the rapture he always experienced in the glorification of God, of which his nightly prayers consisted."
"Here I've written you a love letter. My God, what have I done!"
"So, until we meet, until that *terrifying* moment,"
"Have mercy upon them all, O Lord. Save them, the unhappy and the tormented. Guide them onto the path that is right for each one of them, according to Your wisdom. You are love. You will bring joy and happiness to all . . ."
"What? You're leaving me now? So that's the way you are!"
"I'm *sorry* for him, and that doesn't go well with love."
"In a flash her expression changed and her tears vanished without a trace."
"Pay no attention to women's tears, Alexi;"
"The extraordinarily beautiful, gentle eyes of the crippled girl looked at Aloysha with infinite serenity."
"Well, in the evening I took my son out for a walk. I must tell you at this point that the two of us had been going out for a walk every evening before that, following roughly the path that you and I are taking now; from our gate to that big rock over there, see the one by the fence where the town pasture begins. It's a deserted spot and very nice."
[like to note some of the great pedestrian moments / settings in carfree lit.]
"You know, Alexei, twice before in my life I began to go mad and had to be put under medical care."
L: "And another thing, Alyosha, you'll have to do what I tell you, do you agree to that? That must be settled in advance."
A: [. . .]
L: "And that's just as it should be. Now, as for me, I'm prepared to give in to you not only on that most important point but on every point and in everything, and I swear right now that that's the way it will be as long as I live!"
"I've always thought that, before anything else, people should learn to love life in this world."
"But then, what about the children? How will we ever account for their sufferings?"
[reminded of Jensen's _The Culture of Make Believe_]
----
so what makes a good day for me? A bit of socializing and exercise in morning and evening and the rest silent contemplation, reading, working on projects?
and, oh, was a bit on the verge of mania. Get excited having a future plan and telling some about it.
well. Beginning to prepare. Adds variety to the terrain, anticipating and preparing for challenge.
---
peace & creative love,
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
_The Brothers Karamazov_ A MacAndrew,tr.
The only news: Deer Park Monastery has confirmed: I go there on 1/9! Nothing else I feel like writing at the moment. Below are parts of _the brothers K_ I typed in.
---
"Even though sin and injustice and temptation are all around us, we know that there is on this earth a holy man, a saint who is just and knows the truth, and this means that truth and justice have not vanished from the earth and so will come to us too and rule over all the world, as has been promised."
[TNH helps me feel this way]
"A man who lies to himself, and believes his own lies, becomes unable to recognize truth, either in himself or in anyone else, and he ends up losing respect for himself as well as for others. When he has no respect for anyone, he can no longer love and, in order to divert himself, having no love in him, he yields to his impulses, indulges in the lowest forms of pleasure, and behaves in the end like an animal, in satisfying his vices. And it all comes from lying--lying to others and to yourself."
[don't know if I'm lying to self or just unsure what truth might be/ how to live it. . .]
"And if you think I look cheerful, nothing you say could give me more pleasure. For human beings were created to be happy, and those who are perfectly happy are entitled to say to themselves: 'I have carried out God's will on this earth.' The righteous, the saints, the holy martyrs--they were all happy people."
"By acts of love. Try to love your neighbors, love them actively and unceasingly. And as you learn to love them more and more, you will be more and more convinced of the existence of God and of the immortality of your soul. And if you achieve complete self-abnegation in your love for your fellow man, you will certainly gain faith, and then there will be no room in your soul for any doubt whatsoever. This has been tested. This is the true way."
[how serious is Dostoyevsky (through this character)? We know he's a trickster]
"all your good intentions will remain mere daydreams, and your whole life will slip by like a shadow."
"A true act of love, unlike imaginary love, is hard and forbidding."
"His face took on a grave and solemn expression, and this somehow made him look positively evil."
"Despise Grushenka? No, my friend, Dmitry doesn't despise her. How can he, when he obviously prefers her to the woman he's promised to marry?"
[her name I found amusing]
"Aloysha 'touched his very heart by being there, seeing everything, condemning nothing.' Moreover, Aloysha offered his father something that he had never had before--a complete absence of contempt for him. Indeed, Aloysha treated him with invariable kindness and a completely genuine and sincere affection, which Karamazov little deserved."
[could I do this for my friend? For myself?]
"Nevertheless, from the beginning of their married life, she had given in completely to his wishes and she respected him for his moral superiority."
[I have a sense of what that moral superiority might be like. I feel more like the wife--perhaps I'm 'more intelligent' but would defer to moral superiority if I knew it, found it, and could get self to defer. . . but that may not make sense.]
"As a matter of fact, Aloysha was convinced that there was not a man in the whole world who would wish to offend him or, for that matter, who could offend him. He had accepted that once and for all as a self-evident truth, and so he had no misgivings now on his way to his father's house."
"So he went the back way, ignoring the streets, following deserted paths, climbing over fences, walking across other people's yards, but since he was well known and liked in town no one objected--people simply waved at him."
"But falling in love with someone doesn't mean loving that person. It's possible to fall in love and to hate at the same time--I want you to remember that."
[hating what a slave one is? One's dependence?]
[I'm aware there was an odd note in my last post: "the drama with L is probably not over yet. . .": not exactly a reverent tone. . . It seems I take nothing truly seriously? Even when I was remorseful about that email I sent I was laughing at the ridiculousness of the whole thing? So, true reverence, and true love. . . I found you in music, in singing, in childhood love. . . What does it take to feel and sustain awe. . . My life here is quite petty. Rather different in the isolation of the mountains? Well, will keep this question in mind.]
---
I'm at L's apt this afternoon. Deposited checks from CC work: +$450. Sounds different here. The howls of the Verizon sign dancer (see photos) can be heard from here. He has amazing energy (howls last 10 - 15 - 18 seconds at a time?). An interesting example of commercial public 'art'. And he's out there for hours with all the cars and their fumes (If he did not have the sign the police would take him away? They handcuffed a jesus guy out there one night, but he had a megaphone). Wind chimes, metal, wood. Engines at the intersection of College & El Cajon. Sun filters through window shades, tattered venetian blinds. The walls, two an almost neon green, two a slightly greener green. Ceiling white. My feet on the couch, back on a rug on a wood floor, head on two pillows, the instrument, the one I'm using, between me and the south-facing windows. An oblong mirror on the green wall above my feet reflects white ceiling. I visited a different dumpster today. May do the long walk this evening. Has been a while. Did not lift today and not really the day before. Dad arrives. Wrote Jasmine. Email-introduced her to Mike, another Portland friend from here.
---
Peace & creative love,
---
"Even though sin and injustice and temptation are all around us, we know that there is on this earth a holy man, a saint who is just and knows the truth, and this means that truth and justice have not vanished from the earth and so will come to us too and rule over all the world, as has been promised."
[TNH helps me feel this way]
"A man who lies to himself, and believes his own lies, becomes unable to recognize truth, either in himself or in anyone else, and he ends up losing respect for himself as well as for others. When he has no respect for anyone, he can no longer love and, in order to divert himself, having no love in him, he yields to his impulses, indulges in the lowest forms of pleasure, and behaves in the end like an animal, in satisfying his vices. And it all comes from lying--lying to others and to yourself."
[don't know if I'm lying to self or just unsure what truth might be/ how to live it. . .]
"And if you think I look cheerful, nothing you say could give me more pleasure. For human beings were created to be happy, and those who are perfectly happy are entitled to say to themselves: 'I have carried out God's will on this earth.' The righteous, the saints, the holy martyrs--they were all happy people."
"By acts of love. Try to love your neighbors, love them actively and unceasingly. And as you learn to love them more and more, you will be more and more convinced of the existence of God and of the immortality of your soul. And if you achieve complete self-abnegation in your love for your fellow man, you will certainly gain faith, and then there will be no room in your soul for any doubt whatsoever. This has been tested. This is the true way."
[how serious is Dostoyevsky (through this character)? We know he's a trickster]
"all your good intentions will remain mere daydreams, and your whole life will slip by like a shadow."
"A true act of love, unlike imaginary love, is hard and forbidding."
"His face took on a grave and solemn expression, and this somehow made him look positively evil."
"Despise Grushenka? No, my friend, Dmitry doesn't despise her. How can he, when he obviously prefers her to the woman he's promised to marry?"
[her name I found amusing]
"Aloysha 'touched his very heart by being there, seeing everything, condemning nothing.' Moreover, Aloysha offered his father something that he had never had before--a complete absence of contempt for him. Indeed, Aloysha treated him with invariable kindness and a completely genuine and sincere affection, which Karamazov little deserved."
[could I do this for my friend? For myself?]
"Nevertheless, from the beginning of their married life, she had given in completely to his wishes and she respected him for his moral superiority."
[I have a sense of what that moral superiority might be like. I feel more like the wife--perhaps I'm 'more intelligent' but would defer to moral superiority if I knew it, found it, and could get self to defer. . . but that may not make sense.]
"As a matter of fact, Aloysha was convinced that there was not a man in the whole world who would wish to offend him or, for that matter, who could offend him. He had accepted that once and for all as a self-evident truth, and so he had no misgivings now on his way to his father's house."
"So he went the back way, ignoring the streets, following deserted paths, climbing over fences, walking across other people's yards, but since he was well known and liked in town no one objected--people simply waved at him."
"But falling in love with someone doesn't mean loving that person. It's possible to fall in love and to hate at the same time--I want you to remember that."
[hating what a slave one is? One's dependence?]
[I'm aware there was an odd note in my last post: "the drama with L is probably not over yet. . .": not exactly a reverent tone. . . It seems I take nothing truly seriously? Even when I was remorseful about that email I sent I was laughing at the ridiculousness of the whole thing? So, true reverence, and true love. . . I found you in music, in singing, in childhood love. . . What does it take to feel and sustain awe. . . My life here is quite petty. Rather different in the isolation of the mountains? Well, will keep this question in mind.]
---
I'm at L's apt this afternoon. Deposited checks from CC work: +$450. Sounds different here. The howls of the Verizon sign dancer (see photos) can be heard from here. He has amazing energy (howls last 10 - 15 - 18 seconds at a time?). An interesting example of commercial public 'art'. And he's out there for hours with all the cars and their fumes (If he did not have the sign the police would take him away? They handcuffed a jesus guy out there one night, but he had a megaphone). Wind chimes, metal, wood. Engines at the intersection of College & El Cajon. Sun filters through window shades, tattered venetian blinds. The walls, two an almost neon green, two a slightly greener green. Ceiling white. My feet on the couch, back on a rug on a wood floor, head on two pillows, the instrument, the one I'm using, between me and the south-facing windows. An oblong mirror on the green wall above my feet reflects white ceiling. I visited a different dumpster today. May do the long walk this evening. Has been a while. Did not lift today and not really the day before. Dad arrives. Wrote Jasmine. Email-introduced her to Mike, another Portland friend from here.
---
Peace & creative love,
Monday, December 29, 2008
ahoy
Was at Point Loma for a night (Saturday). Grandparents, drama, aunts, uncle, cousin. Got responses to the foolish email, sent reply, got wise, reconciling reply from L. Email foolishness not a reason for an end in this case. [In response,] Wrote four drafts, only sent the fourth (the third failed to send immediately, giving me another look). The fourth, just a 'thank you!' and 'see you when you get back' (the whole experience was rather emotional and meaningful, but after puzzling over three drafts, attempting to be more coherent and less passionate, I realized there was no point in drawing things out--I wrote foolishly partly because I missed her and wasn't self-aware enough at the time to say simply that. The only resolution really is to wait for her return. Not sure what the value of email is in this case. Her response [the wise one, already mentioned], somewhat amazing and comforting--she even welcomed my writing again and said she'd try to read more open-mindedly. A sort of email aikido--there is no resistance, nothing to push against there. Instead of continuing the foolishness, she raises the quality, thoughtfulness of the interaction. And she showed she does read the emails and does care--I did not entirely expect that.). Picked Macadamias in Pt Loma cyn. Emails from Jasmine, Don-- inbox a bit like a good novel. Returning to Acorn & Seminole, ate a lot. Later left, got sour cream. Dumpster greens, got earlier: good spinach, lettuce. Many people visit this dumpster [but I live very close by--can check it each walk if I have no higher purpose]. Yesterday it was mostly full of bananas. At evening visit to cat, looked at L's books: inner child, _magister ludi_, nietszche, dostoyevski. Later got into _brothers K_. Ate too much cream, I'm sure. Won't get so much again.
So, all in all, not much news. Haven't got to look at link Gianni sent: portablefarms.com.
Walking now. Will probably do exercises, swim, etc. Dad arrives tomorrow evening.
Will not be able to get away with filling mind with books forever. But at least I got out [of the house]. May think some creative thoughts now or just enjoy whatever is happening. Eating--probably the greatest recent foolishness.
No response from Deer Park yet. That will be quite a change. What is there to do in meantime? Money will be a main concern soon enough. But, waiting, more challenge course jobs may come along. If it works out, long-term monastery non-monk residence appears to be <$300/mo + work. Not sure what I'll think of it after two weeks there. How will I be affected by those I meet. Drama with L probably not over yet, love and desire.
Imagine either I'll like it there (@Deer Park) very much, or develop renewed appreciation for extra-monastery life, or develop new connections, new visions, and progress to some newer synthesis of the two. May meet good laypeople who open new possibilities.
In the meantime, try not to eat too much, keep exercising. Sew those pants. Feed the cat. Read _Brothers K_. Maybe think about finances. Write Don, Jasmine. Should probably call mom, but I tend to avoid calling anyone. Could talk to J about meeting in Balboa Park the 6th.
In many ways, it is very (very) nice here at the moment. There is no fire to get me to keep working on getting a shipping job.
The city-funded park leafblowing just started--motivation to move on. [Later it stopped, and Jim L from SDSU Aztec Adventures and dog came by and said hi.]
------
Here are parts of _the brothers K_ I felt like typing in:
"Alyosha," Miusov declared, "may be the only man in the world who, if left all by himself in the middle of a strange city inhabited by a million unknown people, would never suffer from cold or hunger. For he would immediately be offered food and shelter; and if no one offered him anything, he would find everything he needed right away himself, and it would cost him no effort, nor make him feel in the least humiliated, nor, for that matter, would he be imposing himself on others; just the contrary, they would all be only too happy to do things for him." _The Brothers Karamazov_ Dostoyevsky; AH MacAndrew, translator.
"What precisely is an elder, then? An elder is a man who takes your soul and your will into his soul and his will. Once you have chosen your elder, you renounce your own will, you yield it to him in total submission and self-renunciation. A man who consents to this ordeal, to this terrible apprenticeship, is willing to bear it in the hope that, after a long period of trial, he will conquer himself and achieve a self-mastery that will enable him to finally attain, through a whole life of obedience, complete freedom (that is, freedom from himself) and thus avoid the fate of those who reach the end of their lives without ever having found themselves within themselves." Ibid.
----
[wishing us]
Peace and creative love and enough mindfulness to be aware of them [I'm working on the latter at the moment],
So, all in all, not much news. Haven't got to look at link Gianni sent: portablefarms.com.
Walking now. Will probably do exercises, swim, etc. Dad arrives tomorrow evening.
Will not be able to get away with filling mind with books forever. But at least I got out [of the house]. May think some creative thoughts now or just enjoy whatever is happening. Eating--probably the greatest recent foolishness.
No response from Deer Park yet. That will be quite a change. What is there to do in meantime? Money will be a main concern soon enough. But, waiting, more challenge course jobs may come along. If it works out, long-term monastery non-monk residence appears to be <$300/mo + work. Not sure what I'll think of it after two weeks there. How will I be affected by those I meet. Drama with L probably not over yet, love and desire.
Imagine either I'll like it there (@Deer Park) very much, or develop renewed appreciation for extra-monastery life, or develop new connections, new visions, and progress to some newer synthesis of the two. May meet good laypeople who open new possibilities.
In the meantime, try not to eat too much, keep exercising. Sew those pants. Feed the cat. Read _Brothers K_. Maybe think about finances. Write Don, Jasmine. Should probably call mom, but I tend to avoid calling anyone. Could talk to J about meeting in Balboa Park the 6th.
In many ways, it is very (very) nice here at the moment. There is no fire to get me to keep working on getting a shipping job.
The city-funded park leafblowing just started--motivation to move on. [Later it stopped, and Jim L from SDSU Aztec Adventures and dog came by and said hi.]
------
Here are parts of _the brothers K_ I felt like typing in:
"Alyosha," Miusov declared, "may be the only man in the world who, if left all by himself in the middle of a strange city inhabited by a million unknown people, would never suffer from cold or hunger. For he would immediately be offered food and shelter; and if no one offered him anything, he would find everything he needed right away himself, and it would cost him no effort, nor make him feel in the least humiliated, nor, for that matter, would he be imposing himself on others; just the contrary, they would all be only too happy to do things for him." _The Brothers Karamazov_ Dostoyevsky; AH MacAndrew, translator.
"What precisely is an elder, then? An elder is a man who takes your soul and your will into his soul and his will. Once you have chosen your elder, you renounce your own will, you yield it to him in total submission and self-renunciation. A man who consents to this ordeal, to this terrible apprenticeship, is willing to bear it in the hope that, after a long period of trial, he will conquer himself and achieve a self-mastery that will enable him to finally attain, through a whole life of obedience, complete freedom (that is, freedom from himself) and thus avoid the fate of those who reach the end of their lives without ever having found themselves within themselves." Ibid.
----
[wishing us]
Peace and creative love and enough mindfulness to be aware of them [I'm working on the latter at the moment],
Saturday, December 27, 2008
1/09|DbStndrd|Joy inCreation of culture
<<there is something about the joyful reproduction or creation of culture that is at the root of any friendship or partnering--and at the root of my being so lost, so non-participating.>>
Sitting in quiet park (a special circumstance), facing low south sun, close hill with houses, bright grassy outfield, sparkled blacktop to my bare knees.
Will kata, yog, ballet soon, I imagine. It is 0916. First walkers and a dog now, 'Good Morning!', and I've been here a while. Bare foot in sun. Eileen the cat attacked that foot and the other one, not enough to damage. She spent the night outside.
Things are somewhat different now. Having a bit of a life plan. And even a reason to earn a bit.
Imagine I'll be somewhat more mindful, less dramatic, here and in the rest of life. Giving up, as it were, what has for me been a primary source of drama.
The memory of my own harmful-to-others(desire-[or something-]driven) mindlessness seems to be what motivates me to change--the fire I was wondering how to get on, the 'I need help'--and fortunately there was a place in mind believed helpful.
A lack of belief that two people outside of the sangha can do what needs to be done, can develop as is needed.
A seeing that peace must be every step, or you lose it, as I did. And can harm more than one's own self.
What this means for spontaneous, creative interaction? Well, I don't think, any more, I'll be going through that taciturn, too-cautious-to-speak-or-act (perhaps neo-buddhist) stage.
And how helpful or necessary is this memory of harm, this sense of possible harm?
I'm aware of how positive the quick play can be.
The harm was done after a loss, after a wished-for identification of the one harmed as self, and from a wish to change and control.
The harm was done [by me] to me [or to the relation], perhaps, far more than to the other[?], and the harm, now a useful feedback.
Not scoring points for coherence today perhaps. . . and what will become of this type of writing and publishing when I'm there at DPM?
I don't think I want to just sit. I think I'd like to keep this up, but probably could come to identify with other work.
I was concerned what I'd written here yesterday about family could cause harm. And causing harm, or potential harm, by writing here may continue to be an issue.
The main place where there may be harm by writing here is in interpersonal relations, close, intimate relations, where trust can be damaged.
And there are incidents of unhelpful speech I've left in old published pages. Some of the newer stuff too.
But so much / all of that shows my hypocrisy ['double-standard' is probably the more appropriate word]--wanting others to accept my difference or lack of culture while not accepting theirs. Every incident I recall seems to fit that statement,
And what of standards of care/treatment, of improvement, . . . pretty sure all that will still work and occur. [a leaving-behind of Jensen's 'culture of make-believe', of culture of self- and other-destruction?]
it remains to be seen whether this is a progression for me: Is this a point of growth I'll be able to look back on? Etc.
---
I do think there is something about the joyful reproduction or creation of culture that is at the root of any friendship or partnering--and at the root of my being so lost, so non-participating. Were there no sangha. . . There is. Previously I was trying to see all things as the sangha. But the recent focus on working with others, on companionship, helps me to see I want to be with others who self-identify with the sangha, with their practices of mindfulness--that I do not wish to just trust in basic goodness and my own (attemps at) mindful practice to generate peaceful and creatively loving sangha wherever I go. My recent foolishness helped coffin that idea.
peace & creative love,
--------------------
[from yesterday afternoon and evening:]
Subject: 2009-01-09
Maybe I'll be at Deer Park Monastery that day for the start of a two-week retreat in a tent.
My remorse or embarassment at what I wrote L certainly helped me register (-$350). I need help. And looking over their web pages and how they've changed since I last visited: these are many good people doing good things.
There was a hint too of: I don't want life to be all happy-smiley. It won't be, even there. Maybe I can fit in with these good people and become a more helpful, positive person.
---
Oh, I'm so sorry.
Well, two weeks to sew, and may as well work on the maritime program app and refs. For now, though, a break? Read Richard Henry Dana or _Infinite Jest_? Eat? Will I walk long?
--------
2008-12-26-1739 Reading why Kate Gompert wanted to kill herself is calming oddly. My mind's been running. Been eating hurridly. Feeling a bit bad, down, but knowing it will pass. An impersonal xmas card[?]. Memories of other unmindful speech [a cause?]. Not wanting peace, wanting things to happen--(such as) a discussion and recognition of suffering.
Unmindful speech one of my greatest challenges. Time to end the experiment of writing and speaking out? That doesn't suit me now.
Needing help.
"I'd rather feel nothing than this." _Infinite Jest_
Not my case, but does get me considering what I'm feeling, what I've felt before.
------------
Peace, creative love,
Sitting in quiet park (a special circumstance), facing low south sun, close hill with houses, bright grassy outfield, sparkled blacktop to my bare knees.
Will kata, yog, ballet soon, I imagine. It is 0916. First walkers and a dog now, 'Good Morning!', and I've been here a while. Bare foot in sun. Eileen the cat attacked that foot and the other one, not enough to damage. She spent the night outside.
Things are somewhat different now. Having a bit of a life plan. And even a reason to earn a bit.
Imagine I'll be somewhat more mindful, less dramatic, here and in the rest of life. Giving up, as it were, what has for me been a primary source of drama.
The memory of my own harmful-to-others(desire-[or something-]driven) mindlessness seems to be what motivates me to change--the fire I was wondering how to get on, the 'I need help'--and fortunately there was a place in mind believed helpful.
A lack of belief that two people outside of the sangha can do what needs to be done, can develop as is needed.
A seeing that peace must be every step, or you lose it, as I did. And can harm more than one's own self.
What this means for spontaneous, creative interaction? Well, I don't think, any more, I'll be going through that taciturn, too-cautious-to-speak-or-act (perhaps neo-buddhist) stage.
And how helpful or necessary is this memory of harm, this sense of possible harm?
I'm aware of how positive the quick play can be.
The harm was done after a loss, after a wished-for identification of the one harmed as self, and from a wish to change and control.
The harm was done [by me] to me [or to the relation], perhaps, far more than to the other[?], and the harm, now a useful feedback.
Not scoring points for coherence today perhaps. . . and what will become of this type of writing and publishing when I'm there at DPM?
I don't think I want to just sit. I think I'd like to keep this up, but probably could come to identify with other work.
I was concerned what I'd written here yesterday about family could cause harm. And causing harm, or potential harm, by writing here may continue to be an issue.
The main place where there may be harm by writing here is in interpersonal relations, close, intimate relations, where trust can be damaged.
And there are incidents of unhelpful speech I've left in old published pages. Some of the newer stuff too.
But so much / all of that shows my hypocrisy ['double-standard' is probably the more appropriate word]--wanting others to accept my difference or lack of culture while not accepting theirs. Every incident I recall seems to fit that statement,
And what of standards of care/treatment, of improvement, . . . pretty sure all that will still work and occur. [a leaving-behind of Jensen's 'culture of make-believe', of culture of self- and other-destruction?]
it remains to be seen whether this is a progression for me: Is this a point of growth I'll be able to look back on? Etc.
---
I do think there is something about the joyful reproduction or creation of culture that is at the root of any friendship or partnering--and at the root of my being so lost, so non-participating. Were there no sangha. . . There is. Previously I was trying to see all things as the sangha. But the recent focus on working with others, on companionship, helps me to see I want to be with others who self-identify with the sangha, with their practices of mindfulness--that I do not wish to just trust in basic goodness and my own (attemps at) mindful practice to generate peaceful and creatively loving sangha wherever I go. My recent foolishness helped coffin that idea.
peace & creative love,
--------------------
[from yesterday afternoon and evening:]
Subject: 2009-01-09
Maybe I'll be at Deer Park Monastery that day for the start of a two-week retreat in a tent.
My remorse or embarassment at what I wrote L certainly helped me register (-$350). I need help. And looking over their web pages and how they've changed since I last visited: these are many good people doing good things.
There was a hint too of: I don't want life to be all happy-smiley. It won't be, even there. Maybe I can fit in with these good people and become a more helpful, positive person.
---
Oh, I'm so sorry.
Well, two weeks to sew, and may as well work on the maritime program app and refs. For now, though, a break? Read Richard Henry Dana or _Infinite Jest_? Eat? Will I walk long?
--------
2008-12-26-1739 Reading why Kate Gompert wanted to kill herself is calming oddly. My mind's been running. Been eating hurridly. Feeling a bit bad, down, but knowing it will pass. An impersonal xmas card[?]. Memories of other unmindful speech [a cause?]. Not wanting peace, wanting things to happen--(such as) a discussion and recognition of suffering.
Unmindful speech one of my greatest challenges. Time to end the experiment of writing and speaking out? That doesn't suit me now.
Needing help.
"I'd rather feel nothing than this." _Infinite Jest_
Not my case, but does get me considering what I'm feeling, what I've felt before.
------------
Peace, creative love,
Friday, December 26, 2008
murmullos; monastery
Back @ park. Sort things out. Been unmindful. Sending messages. Eating bananas. Today is mostly clear. Laying in sun. Grandma alone in TV glow eve of xmas day. Gums irritated.
If extract self, not wait for death or extraction, mind will develop plan, supporting rationale. Last night during long walk mind turned to monastery. The walk, 2.5 hrs at the shortest, 3 hrs last night. In dark through driving wind and rain at the top of Del Cerro. Brutal in its lonliness, the loneliness is a strand connecting times of life when that feeling was newer, less resolved. Now there is a bit of distance from it, an examination of it.
The rationale. No rent, no car. No commute. A focus on the most meaningful. Company, companionship. Our social structure is isolating. Alternatives: homeless camp by river / village in mexico / get job pay rent try to find companions do the more usual thing.
---
Just went online. Come, murmullos, save me, distract me from rationale, my own reason.
Same guys are in the park.
--
Two days, no Kroc, not so easy.
The next step is to arrange the visit to the monastery then.
---
I sent L a stupid email. Well, that's done now.
---
Wrote NUP draft:
Network Use Policy
Wait one day before sending a reply to a personal message not related to meeting up.
Wait one day after writing a personal message to send it.
Analyze this policy.
---
I guess that's it. If I could find a female partner who shared my orientation, no cars, walk, stay near, question tradition--and I expect that is possible--maybe I could sustain a non-monastic life.
I guess that's it. Will you make the reservation?
What holds you back? The effort, planning, forethought, change, cost.
Shaving, commitment, sexless.
---
avoid the endless wandering.
may be able to call them. May be. By 4pm?
---
any other way to meet those goals?
The reproductive costs: the vietnamese buddhist culture versus other options.
perhaps could develop a new approach based on what I learn there, but such initiative seems unlikely at the moment.
and my typing here?
this does seem to be the next adventure. The beauty of the women, head hairless, body cloaked, without the challenge of the possibility of intimate partnering.
unusual to have men & women at same monastery in that tradition. There are the other retreaters and lay visitors.
a comment like that on the women--
oh, they eat separately, generally.
you're not there to love them the sexual way.
but does seem much richer that they are there. Doubt there's harm in noting that.
a regression to school-age fun and sociability. A progression--
is there any other solution to the social and intellectual devastation of north america / socal ? [doubt intellectual should be in there]
could the monastery ever be more accessible?
is the sexlessness a requisite of this style solution?
the amish--in which reproduction, mating, life, far more scripted.
but to my knowledge, few non-christian solutions are as open to the culturally lost as the buddhist monastery + the buddhist need no statement of faith.
sort of like a neo-tribe for those who lack initiative to make tribe of own or enter existing one.
---
the maritime career would possibly solve many problems of life. But I don't feel at ease with it--(were it easier to get in, as in 1850 [started Richard Henry Dana], I probably would already be gone)
buddhists aim more directly at the goal.
---
got to comparing self with the 'more alive'. I don't seem to miss my relatives. The thought of visiting them does not bring peace, though there is nothing openly bad about our interactions--well some I do avoid--its just that my problems will not be solved thereby, I feel. Awareness of difference and otherness again. [where can I lessen that?]
---
getting cold. Hope to do my exerecises. Will see if I make that reservation.
peace and creative love,
If extract self, not wait for death or extraction, mind will develop plan, supporting rationale. Last night during long walk mind turned to monastery. The walk, 2.5 hrs at the shortest, 3 hrs last night. In dark through driving wind and rain at the top of Del Cerro. Brutal in its lonliness, the loneliness is a strand connecting times of life when that feeling was newer, less resolved. Now there is a bit of distance from it, an examination of it.
The rationale. No rent, no car. No commute. A focus on the most meaningful. Company, companionship. Our social structure is isolating. Alternatives: homeless camp by river / village in mexico / get job pay rent try to find companions do the more usual thing.
---
Just went online. Come, murmullos, save me, distract me from rationale, my own reason.
Same guys are in the park.
--
Two days, no Kroc, not so easy.
The next step is to arrange the visit to the monastery then.
---
I sent L a stupid email. Well, that's done now.
---
Wrote NUP draft:
Network Use Policy
Wait one day before sending a reply to a personal message not related to meeting up.
Wait one day after writing a personal message to send it.
Analyze this policy.
---
I guess that's it. If I could find a female partner who shared my orientation, no cars, walk, stay near, question tradition--and I expect that is possible--maybe I could sustain a non-monastic life.
I guess that's it. Will you make the reservation?
What holds you back? The effort, planning, forethought, change, cost.
Shaving, commitment, sexless.
---
avoid the endless wandering.
may be able to call them. May be. By 4pm?
---
any other way to meet those goals?
The reproductive costs: the vietnamese buddhist culture versus other options.
perhaps could develop a new approach based on what I learn there, but such initiative seems unlikely at the moment.
and my typing here?
this does seem to be the next adventure. The beauty of the women, head hairless, body cloaked, without the challenge of the possibility of intimate partnering.
unusual to have men & women at same monastery in that tradition. There are the other retreaters and lay visitors.
a comment like that on the women--
oh, they eat separately, generally.
you're not there to love them the sexual way.
but does seem much richer that they are there. Doubt there's harm in noting that.
a regression to school-age fun and sociability. A progression--
is there any other solution to the social and intellectual devastation of north america / socal ? [doubt intellectual should be in there]
could the monastery ever be more accessible?
is the sexlessness a requisite of this style solution?
the amish--in which reproduction, mating, life, far more scripted.
but to my knowledge, few non-christian solutions are as open to the culturally lost as the buddhist monastery + the buddhist need no statement of faith.
sort of like a neo-tribe for those who lack initiative to make tribe of own or enter existing one.
---
the maritime career would possibly solve many problems of life. But I don't feel at ease with it--(were it easier to get in, as in 1850 [started Richard Henry Dana], I probably would already be gone)
buddhists aim more directly at the goal.
---
got to comparing self with the 'more alive'. I don't seem to miss my relatives. The thought of visiting them does not bring peace, though there is nothing openly bad about our interactions--well some I do avoid--its just that my problems will not be solved thereby, I feel. Awareness of difference and otherness again. [where can I lessen that?]
---
getting cold. Hope to do my exerecises. Will see if I make that reservation.
peace and creative love,
Thursday, December 25, 2008
non participation
Mist and drizzle, but under this huge what may be a Torrey pine the ground is dry for writing and exercise. Two others, at least, in this park: a man with sideburns reclined in his car; the tall, somewhat formidable homeless guy who sleeps here under the awning of the little league bleachers, who collects cans.
The king of days for non-participation! For those from nations with a christian history. Those who participate are doing so, and we are left to ourselves. The others are not participating in their usual routine; streets are more quiet, more places closed than at other times--externally, the world is not participating either.
More drizzle, umbrella now.
Hard rain. Wind.
Black and red, green, blue, drops on the screen. Wish I had my tarp?
Not a lot different from a solo mountain day.
Well--
Challenging times recently. Was a bit wrapped up with one of the more living. With these, I get to the point where I simply witness. Odd, for the witnessed, has never lasted. I respond, somewhat, to calls to life--my response unmet, the call given with half a heart perhaps as I imagined, and there was no other half here: well that is hard.
So the heavy rain passed. Tree drip now. Gusts of drip.
Were the living one gone--perhaps I'd just be focused on some project. The only project comes to mind: work on shipping out: three character refs.
dRIp; A drip on "Tree drip".
She is gone and left me her cat and her neighbor.
I could go south to Huehuecoyotl.
Could get some job here. Feel somewhat drawn to adult daycare for the developmentally disabled. Those I see at Kroc.
Oh. An old friend, and what are those? What is a friendly feeling? What is concern from 3,000 miles distant? Well hers, from that far and five months past, affected me. . .
Life could be would be different elsewhere. But I'll be moved rather than make a move?
Something special and true about this space when I, as now, do not eat or read to avoid it.
Self as cultural being seems to be the topic, I feel close by, of a meditation.
Should you complace with the culturepractice of another . . .
And where does the energy to live or will come from. . . Is there anything in interaction beyond culture? Interaction = mutual valuing of culture?
My pickle is: self-imposed isolation due to non-participation in transportation as practiced here. Why have I no will to change? I am so comfortable? Fire--is there any way to be on it?
Is my no-will so strong because when left alone, when I leave the calls to interaction, when they leave me, I am comfortable, content?
No need to ramble more here. The goal of writing has been met. I thought I might resolve or affirm to make some change in my non-life--such as not being here, not living here by next December.
Barking dog.
Pretty lame in a certain way if I'm still here then. Only in comparison.
I've become aware how much strength there can be in being with a partner. With that strength, potential for harm. Much of culture is built on partnership. And the single ones. . .
Well--no one is entirely. Somewhere there was an interaction.
------
What do old friends mean? Friends of an old self? With whom will the next interaction be? What claim do they have on me? What do I have for them but witness?
Sun and bright sky. Glistening on needle-leaves.
You can be my friend if you embrace my culture.
My culture? Walk. Sense. Contemplate. Stay near.
Shipping out, rather a disruption.
The meditation (last week) got me focused on companionship perhaps only to learn a bit about culture.
A dog walker by my oddness. "Good morning!" Showers.
The warmness of my brain--comfort there--in interactions with others challenge comes in. Did not used to have that central warmth, or did, but sought so much in you that I never knew.
---
A newer friend invited me to church. Got the note a few days late. By then non-response not so hard. But actually had thought to ask.
A statement of faith her church has. Culture. Reproduction. Do g-ds have faith? In what? Do they state?
---
Distant light blue.
I'd interact more were the quakers, unitarians, buddhists, grand christian cathedrals (St Barts), not separated by the transit I avoid. In NYC.
A creative response. Neighborhood door-knocking. But I only live here waiting to leave.
---
Kevin is that friendly guy who swims in the day. A student at CalPolySlo.
Showers.
Cheetah is a female-sexed dog (my mistake). Gender? Yearnings, trans-species? (Second Life avatar and persona?)
---
I rode with L to her work yesterday and helped her mend some student work before firing. Took pictures. A wonderful thing to do--somewhat somber too, a sort of unimagined event. But she's gone now till the fifth. I had never been. A place so much a part of her life. And broadening to me to go. UCSD *is* 15 min by car--1.5 to 2 hours by transit. Not a wonder SANDAG still seeks to build highways. The sky a distant illumined blue beyond a long mottled plain of clouds. The campus of SD Jewish Academy fairly rich with art, artistic thought, and I know from my own experience in a private school with art tiles (less art than was here but more natural beauty: All Saints' in Carmel Valley)how this adds to good memories, connection to place.
Good so good to just be and work and read, often silent, with this other's presence.
---
Wind in trees, not much dripping. Moving orange mesh fence. Sound of cars on road, a rushing. A plane-- L is on one; another, undulating jet sound. Birds, a chatter conversing. A drop on umbrella drum. Rustling leaves. Ants progress on curb of wheelchair walkway. Phone hangs, dims, attempting to receive something. Reflection, in the dark glass, of eyes, rosy nose, whiskers over lip, red edge of synthetic fleece hat. Looking around. Purple flowers. Straightening spine. Transmission did not succeed. [Later arrives: a post to sdtjdph I'd scheduled for seven days from the 18th].
---
Time to exercise, to send this out?
---
reread; shivers; time to move.
Peace & creative love,
The king of days for non-participation! For those from nations with a christian history. Those who participate are doing so, and we are left to ourselves. The others are not participating in their usual routine; streets are more quiet, more places closed than at other times--externally, the world is not participating either.
More drizzle, umbrella now.
Hard rain. Wind.
Black and red, green, blue, drops on the screen. Wish I had my tarp?
Not a lot different from a solo mountain day.
Well--
Challenging times recently. Was a bit wrapped up with one of the more living. With these, I get to the point where I simply witness. Odd, for the witnessed, has never lasted. I respond, somewhat, to calls to life--my response unmet, the call given with half a heart perhaps as I imagined, and there was no other half here: well that is hard.
So the heavy rain passed. Tree drip now. Gusts of drip.
Were the living one gone--perhaps I'd just be focused on some project. The only project comes to mind: work on shipping out: three character refs.
dRIp; A drip on "Tree drip".
She is gone and left me her cat and her neighbor.
I could go south to Huehuecoyotl.
Could get some job here. Feel somewhat drawn to adult daycare for the developmentally disabled. Those I see at Kroc.
Oh. An old friend, and what are those? What is a friendly feeling? What is concern from 3,000 miles distant? Well hers, from that far and five months past, affected me. . .
Life could be would be different elsewhere. But I'll be moved rather than make a move?
Something special and true about this space when I, as now, do not eat or read to avoid it.
Self as cultural being seems to be the topic, I feel close by, of a meditation.
Should you complace with the culturepractice of another . . .
And where does the energy to live or will come from. . . Is there anything in interaction beyond culture? Interaction = mutual valuing of culture?
My pickle is: self-imposed isolation due to non-participation in transportation as practiced here. Why have I no will to change? I am so comfortable? Fire--is there any way to be on it?
Is my no-will so strong because when left alone, when I leave the calls to interaction, when they leave me, I am comfortable, content?
No need to ramble more here. The goal of writing has been met. I thought I might resolve or affirm to make some change in my non-life--such as not being here, not living here by next December.
Barking dog.
Pretty lame in a certain way if I'm still here then. Only in comparison.
I've become aware how much strength there can be in being with a partner. With that strength, potential for harm. Much of culture is built on partnership. And the single ones. . .
Well--no one is entirely. Somewhere there was an interaction.
------
What do old friends mean? Friends of an old self? With whom will the next interaction be? What claim do they have on me? What do I have for them but witness?
Sun and bright sky. Glistening on needle-leaves.
You can be my friend if you embrace my culture.
My culture? Walk. Sense. Contemplate. Stay near.
Shipping out, rather a disruption.
The meditation (last week) got me focused on companionship perhaps only to learn a bit about culture.
A dog walker by my oddness. "Good morning!" Showers.
The warmness of my brain--comfort there--in interactions with others challenge comes in. Did not used to have that central warmth, or did, but sought so much in you that I never knew.
---
A newer friend invited me to church. Got the note a few days late. By then non-response not so hard. But actually had thought to ask.
A statement of faith her church has. Culture. Reproduction. Do g-ds have faith? In what? Do they state?
---
Distant light blue.
I'd interact more were the quakers, unitarians, buddhists, grand christian cathedrals (St Barts), not separated by the transit I avoid. In NYC.
A creative response. Neighborhood door-knocking. But I only live here waiting to leave.
---
Kevin is that friendly guy who swims in the day. A student at CalPolySlo.
Showers.
Cheetah is a female-sexed dog (my mistake). Gender? Yearnings, trans-species? (Second Life avatar and persona?)
---
I rode with L to her work yesterday and helped her mend some student work before firing. Took pictures. A wonderful thing to do--somewhat somber too, a sort of unimagined event. But she's gone now till the fifth. I had never been. A place so much a part of her life. And broadening to me to go. UCSD *is* 15 min by car--1.5 to 2 hours by transit. Not a wonder SANDAG still seeks to build highways. The sky a distant illumined blue beyond a long mottled plain of clouds. The campus of SD Jewish Academy fairly rich with art, artistic thought, and I know from my own experience in a private school with art tiles (less art than was here but more natural beauty: All Saints' in Carmel Valley)how this adds to good memories, connection to place.
Good so good to just be and work and read, often silent, with this other's presence.
---
Wind in trees, not much dripping. Moving orange mesh fence. Sound of cars on road, a rushing. A plane-- L is on one; another, undulating jet sound. Birds, a chatter conversing. A drop on umbrella drum. Rustling leaves. Ants progress on curb of wheelchair walkway. Phone hangs, dims, attempting to receive something. Reflection, in the dark glass, of eyes, rosy nose, whiskers over lip, red edge of synthetic fleece hat. Looking around. Purple flowers. Straightening spine. Transmission did not succeed. [Later arrives: a post to sdtjdph I'd scheduled for seven days from the 18th].
---
Time to exercise, to send this out?
---
reread; shivers; time to move.
Peace & creative love,
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
What is it . . . commands me . . ? -Ahab
To have text to ponder on a walk. Rather hard today. My visitors left today, were gone most of yesterday. The contrast between us was a bit hard for me, but perhaps it was the weather, grandma's fretting--can't have couchsurfers here--she likes to worry; they give her more. Or just my own fretting, caring, mom-like-ness.
Well! Good that I'm at the point of writing. Was feeling so trapped. But am now working on the character references again. I made progress sewing--am now ready to sew the pants legs together.
The biggest oddness and hurt, probably, self-afflicted. Two days ago, I believe, stopped by L's and other suitor Tom was there, a good guy, could not help loving him for loving her, sharing a wrap (cucumber, middle east; goat cheese; other greens + mango cubed) she made. So, that was fine.
Affected by my visitors perhaps, who live in collective houses (residents have shared goals, projects, spaces), being left to myself by them, got to considering on my walk. At any event, managed to ask L if she thought it would be good if we made more of a commitment to each other--'spending more time together' was a way she interpreted it.
She was encouraging. It was a rather intensely focusing full of a sense of meaning interaction. Here's a visual memory of it, played with:
A clock stopped at 5:05:45 on a light green green yellow wall.
---
Well. From my memory--now that I recall--any conversation or thought like that is a sure way to knot myself. Start to think the thing serious, try to see how I could be a serious male partner--well that's the end of any complacency I had.
So now what? Well, a walk, then a visit.
This dead end. Possibilities: a visit to HueHueacoytl(sp?) ecoaldea to the south. Don't feel like setting off wandering again in cold, rain, dark.
I feel the future challenge is to make a commitment to a collective of people perhaps. Will be looking out for this. Not sure what my role with L can be[/should be/will be--without the 'should']. Even thought of running goats in canyons. As it is---
[I feel like the filipina homehealthcare woman who couldn't say what help she needed, but someone managed to come up with an action she found helpful.
What help would I value that I am clueless how to ask for or find?]
I seem to have a general sanguinity. How do I mess it up? Social comparison with visitors (unintentional)/ experience of difference/ otherness?
That was the main event.
Peace & creative love,
Well! Good that I'm at the point of writing. Was feeling so trapped. But am now working on the character references again. I made progress sewing--am now ready to sew the pants legs together.
The biggest oddness and hurt, probably, self-afflicted. Two days ago, I believe, stopped by L's and other suitor Tom was there, a good guy, could not help loving him for loving her, sharing a wrap (cucumber, middle east; goat cheese; other greens + mango cubed) she made. So, that was fine.
Affected by my visitors perhaps, who live in collective houses (residents have shared goals, projects, spaces), being left to myself by them, got to considering on my walk. At any event, managed to ask L if she thought it would be good if we made more of a commitment to each other--'spending more time together' was a way she interpreted it.
She was encouraging. It was a rather intensely focusing full of a sense of meaning interaction. Here's a visual memory of it, played with:
A clock stopped at 5:05:45 on a light green green yellow wall.
---
Well. From my memory--now that I recall--any conversation or thought like that is a sure way to knot myself. Start to think the thing serious, try to see how I could be a serious male partner--well that's the end of any complacency I had.
So now what? Well, a walk, then a visit.
This dead end. Possibilities: a visit to HueHueacoytl(sp?) ecoaldea to the south. Don't feel like setting off wandering again in cold, rain, dark.
I feel the future challenge is to make a commitment to a collective of people perhaps. Will be looking out for this. Not sure what my role with L can be[/should be/will be--without the 'should']. Even thought of running goats in canyons. As it is---
[I feel like the filipina homehealthcare woman who couldn't say what help she needed, but someone managed to come up with an action she found helpful.
What help would I value that I am clueless how to ask for or find?]
I seem to have a general sanguinity. How do I mess it up? Social comparison with visitors (unintentional)/ experience of difference/ otherness?
That was the main event.
Peace & creative love,
Sunday, December 21, 2008
nothing profound; furries
Considering writing more often and making less of a deal. The short chapters in _Moby Dick_ are an inspiration. They are great; this more boring. I use this, perhaps, to have a self and a mind,
Tommy and Karin are coming! It is good to have reason to straighten, prepare.
Made it to the pool late yesterday. Did nearly full kata, yog, ballet. Swam well. Met another Melissa before I swam. In the men's locker room.
After swim, messages from Karin, B. A dialected CS request from Charly ( couchsurfing.com/people/irieitez
). ---------
hey colin,
waz up!? howz life..!?
i'm gud, still in colorado springs, visiting a gud friend of mine.
but dis place is really geting too cold, so on tuesday i'll be leaving for san diego. i'm actually planing on goin to san francisco for new years, to visit sme amazing people i just met on the train from ny to
denver, and from there leaving to new york again, but who knows what the future brings,...!
so, what do yu say!? u think u can host me for sme nights!?
thanks so much and see you maybe soon,
have a guud guud day,
jaly
by the way, how is da weather nowadays..!?
cu!
---------------- (have yet to get to see her profile on other than cell phone--no photos--thought she was a guy)
[B,] I was manic, mind fire, walking the route of stairs among the christmas lights, stopping myself, breathe, "Colin, you're not here at all." Look around. Nice.
Would Laurie be there? Love. She was. And not so well. And asked to do laying meditation to relax. It didn't work. . . But was a long time long time silent. Returning, put on relax CD. Time.
Harder for me to lay than to sit. Switched to sitting. Time. She went to bed. I checked my message from Karin--a had-been burr/pearl seed.
She revived. We walked to State through cyn. Playful. Told her about the new Melissa. Told me--- Returned. Responded to Karin by txt (try that first next time!). Had had to decide what to say.
Special.
Returned. . . Somehow was up till one. Ah txting directions to Karin. Sitting with grandma saw part of cat in the hat. She had grown a bit worried about visitors. Gave us a portapotty so no need to visit bathroom.
Turned couch availability to no--grandma said no more after these (she'll like it. . . Fine. Told charly no.) Told FNL about cs. I hope I did--a not usual method of sending the email.
And--
-------------------
disorientation. A bit of melancholy. Watching it. How to be at ease with visitors. So special for me. May become less fantastic.
This AM ? Reread T&K's profiles. Found contact jam monday night. Main one, Friday. Search on Eveoke Dance. Developed other schemes.
Decisions, fifty million? Where sleep how... Bus or trolley. Who knows what else. Peace.
---------
plan, finish straightening. Vacuum. Maybe walk to WF, get more sausage. And to walk the hill route. Kata, swim. NF (L).
Then with presence of T&K.
-----------
In AM paper, an article about Micha Cardenas ( secondloop.wordpress.com [have yet to visit] ). Even with the VR headgear on, believe I know this person as a him, michael? at the activist san diego house, and from Circle A summer camp at organic collective "roots of resistance".
Is the world telling me something? Melissa I knew as Casey or Carey. Yesterday s/he spoke more to me than almost all other times. Time to tell me the legal name. "truth will set us free". "we all have a story". Definitely looking better than when I first met . . .
Was very overweight. A self-described jesus freak. A thick pink towel wrapped around head like my mom after a shower. Breasts, but from the fat?
Much less overweight, but still the breasts, presses left one with left hand, "some of us have a story in us burning to get out."
Not so hard to talk to her, naked, there, Melissa with a penis--as with the friendly gay men. . . Wish to avoid eyeing their "boy parts" (an L term), but doing so seems to make it worse. Why is this so? They very much seem to wish to be seen. With Don--insurance investigator, 'my job: get people talking. Many love to talk about self'--I squatted, back to lockers and talked with him facing away, the wall. I like these friendly guys--have had many good gay friends. Sort of like being a cute girl, maybe--
Have often thought the emergent phenomenon of gender and sex (+ human social evol. ) is to motivate us to meet and learn from each other. . . On top of the attempts of DNA to reproduce itself.
Why such a large incidence of gay men (and even women--well just carmen, beverly [snakegirl.net - bi?]) as my friends, people I know. I and we all may be closer to same[. . .] Have tried mentally to be aroused by men I've felt love for--
And now gender reassigning. Remember seeing Mike/Micha dressed as woman on my way to Food Not Lawns meeting at ASD. Not looking too content. Smoking too much.
Else, s/he's quite masculine in form. Was a leader of the anti-minutemen clown army.
------
Tommy arriving, queer, self described. Karin, enthusiastic about that movement.
And I agree--creativity and positive culture comes from there--sandor katz, short mtn sanctuary, EV (on PCT), christian--radical faerie--'s guynecology circle.
---
Micha, in the article: some decide not to mess with hormones--'I want to be a fox' (not a female-gendered sapien) and online, can.
---
Not sure there is anything to make of all this---
except it could (possibly) be great if binary gender segregation were not so enshrined. US among the worst (fear of nudity). Europe much better. Remember an old couple and a young buff, and so me too, swimming naked near the copenhagen airport--and other happenings.
here little kids freak out to see a naked man in the men's locker room.
---
so-- nothing to make of that, just de-binary the gender lenses. View it as spectrum with a generally binary distribution, + the gender switchers and the furries and the dragons + the queers. + various fetishes? + perhaps the no-sexuals (forgot the term) and the monks and nuns.
As to what your worth and potential may be, Melissa, Micha--seems clear the best we can do is encourage each to sense. . .
---
[?maintaining focus on feelings of]
peace & creative love,
Tommy and Karin are coming! It is good to have reason to straighten, prepare.
Made it to the pool late yesterday. Did nearly full kata, yog, ballet. Swam well. Met another Melissa before I swam. In the men's locker room.
After swim, messages from Karin, B. A dialected CS request from Charly ( couchsurfing.com/people/irieitez
). ---------
hey colin,
waz up!? howz life..!?
i'm gud, still in colorado springs, visiting a gud friend of mine.
but dis place is really geting too cold, so on tuesday i'll be leaving for san diego. i'm actually planing on goin to san francisco for new years, to visit sme amazing people i just met on the train from ny to
denver, and from there leaving to new york again, but who knows what the future brings,...!
so, what do yu say!? u think u can host me for sme nights!?
thanks so much and see you maybe soon,
have a guud guud day,
jaly
by the way, how is da weather nowadays..!?
cu!
---------------- (have yet to get to see her profile on other than cell phone--no photos--thought she was a guy)
[B,] I was manic, mind fire, walking the route of stairs among the christmas lights, stopping myself, breathe, "Colin, you're not here at all." Look around. Nice.
Would Laurie be there? Love. She was. And not so well. And asked to do laying meditation to relax. It didn't work. . . But was a long time long time silent. Returning, put on relax CD. Time.
Harder for me to lay than to sit. Switched to sitting. Time. She went to bed. I checked my message from Karin--a had-been burr/pearl seed.
She revived. We walked to State through cyn. Playful. Told her about the new Melissa. Told me--- Returned. Responded to Karin by txt (try that first next time!). Had had to decide what to say.
Special.
Returned. . . Somehow was up till one. Ah txting directions to Karin. Sitting with grandma saw part of cat in the hat. She had grown a bit worried about visitors. Gave us a portapotty so no need to visit bathroom.
Turned couch availability to no--grandma said no more after these (she'll like it. . . Fine. Told charly no.) Told FNL about cs. I hope I did--a not usual method of sending the email.
And--
-------------------
disorientation. A bit of melancholy. Watching it. How to be at ease with visitors. So special for me. May become less fantastic.
This AM ? Reread T&K's profiles. Found contact jam monday night. Main one, Friday. Search on Eveoke Dance. Developed other schemes.
Decisions, fifty million? Where sleep how... Bus or trolley. Who knows what else. Peace.
---------
plan, finish straightening. Vacuum. Maybe walk to WF, get more sausage. And to walk the hill route. Kata, swim. NF (L).
Then with presence of T&K.
-----------
In AM paper, an article about Micha Cardenas ( secondloop.wordpress.com [have yet to visit] ). Even with the VR headgear on, believe I know this person as a him, michael? at the activist san diego house, and from Circle A summer camp at organic collective "roots of resistance".
Is the world telling me something? Melissa I knew as Casey or Carey. Yesterday s/he spoke more to me than almost all other times. Time to tell me the legal name. "truth will set us free". "we all have a story". Definitely looking better than when I first met . . .
Was very overweight. A self-described jesus freak. A thick pink towel wrapped around head like my mom after a shower. Breasts, but from the fat?
Much less overweight, but still the breasts, presses left one with left hand, "some of us have a story in us burning to get out."
Not so hard to talk to her, naked, there, Melissa with a penis--as with the friendly gay men. . . Wish to avoid eyeing their "boy parts" (an L term), but doing so seems to make it worse. Why is this so? They very much seem to wish to be seen. With Don--insurance investigator, 'my job: get people talking. Many love to talk about self'--I squatted, back to lockers and talked with him facing away, the wall. I like these friendly guys--have had many good gay friends. Sort of like being a cute girl, maybe--
Have often thought the emergent phenomenon of gender and sex (+ human social evol. ) is to motivate us to meet and learn from each other. . . On top of the attempts of DNA to reproduce itself.
Why such a large incidence of gay men (and even women--well just carmen, beverly [snakegirl.net - bi?]) as my friends, people I know. I and we all may be closer to same[. . .] Have tried mentally to be aroused by men I've felt love for--
And now gender reassigning. Remember seeing Mike/Micha dressed as woman on my way to Food Not Lawns meeting at ASD. Not looking too content. Smoking too much.
Else, s/he's quite masculine in form. Was a leader of the anti-minutemen clown army.
------
Tommy arriving, queer, self described. Karin, enthusiastic about that movement.
And I agree--creativity and positive culture comes from there--sandor katz, short mtn sanctuary, EV (on PCT), christian--radical faerie--'s guynecology circle.
---
Micha, in the article: some decide not to mess with hormones--'I want to be a fox' (not a female-gendered sapien) and online, can.
---
Not sure there is anything to make of all this---
except it could (possibly) be great if binary gender segregation were not so enshrined. US among the worst (fear of nudity). Europe much better. Remember an old couple and a young buff, and so me too, swimming naked near the copenhagen airport--and other happenings.
here little kids freak out to see a naked man in the men's locker room.
---
so-- nothing to make of that, just de-binary the gender lenses. View it as spectrum with a generally binary distribution, + the gender switchers and the furries and the dragons + the queers. + various fetishes? + perhaps the no-sexuals (forgot the term) and the monks and nuns.
As to what your worth and potential may be, Melissa, Micha--seems clear the best we can do is encourage each to sense. . .
---
[?maintaining focus on feelings of]
peace & creative love,
Saturday, December 20, 2008
dis-cont-in-u-it-y. I lost the thread.[N
etwork. Relationship.]
Can't tell you how I got to where I am. Can't tell you where I might be next.
Only thing to do: tell what has been that I know. Work back.
I just ate a lot of rice, unnecessarily. A sausage (apple chicken?)-- Oranges--
I tried writing--
What I have left of the attempts, reverse order of occurence:
----------------------------------------------
Subject: every thought is broken by device failur
Back to writing here, but the technology is failing.
Before that, disembodied voices, yes.
Unable. Isolation. You cannot
---
Subject: Sara I love you
Looking through the old entries at experienceart, trying to find Valerie's last name, I saw a mention that when Sara called me from Alaska one time, she said I sounded angry, like I didn't want to talk. I also read of some amazingly endearing things she did. . . I'm not recalling now exactly what. And when I read it I sort of shuddered, maybe had a beginning of a tear, a silent, half-said "oh my g-d", ("I can't believe anyone. . .") and went skimming on.
---
I haven't bbb
---------------------------- (End previous attempts that did not get erased.)
I briefly considered 'fuck' as a subject. . . I remember that. "I am your madness," was another. A draft that got deleted had a list of spaced words ending: "network.
network.
network."
In one I mentioned sitting a few days ago--the unrecorded entree to this void--and before that or was it after, the sidewalk opening her legs to me, but could not recall which first perhaps we'll sort it out.
---
Why did I stop? People emailed me.[?] Never do that. Post a comment? Never email me. (It was partly my own fault. I may be wiser now. [Hide the address?])
{what really means what here. This seems to be seriously true. But too sad. In the past: contact me only to arrange to meet. That seems reasonable. What about dialog about ideas? That could be a comment somewhere. And what about my licence (two 'c's! Verb: one 'c', one 's') in emailing others? If you need to use me, use me, if I don't reply, I'm waiting for you to set a date and time to meet. If I don't reply to that. . . maybe didn't get it. Never count on me getting anything sent to me at mms.att,net.}
---
Was just laying here, sensing?, before trying to write. Before that, eating reasonably. Before that, resting. Before that, sewing a seam in my new pants [a wonderful accomplishment but still have a long ways to go]. Before that, eating reasonably. You are missing all the accompanying thoughts. Laurie, Melissa, Julie, Karin (and Tommy). I wrote one of them an email (wasn't thinking? Not as wise as now?), and signed it "peace & creative love," something I developed this morning and ran through my mind quite alot. That was after sewing, after resting, I don't know what came over me.
Before laying here and not writing, I tried various ways of sending, getting email, spending ~$1. Then, avoiding the walk to State (SDSU), spent $10 on 5 megabytes [expire in a month] and read bloglines blogs (worldchanging post "xmas gift ideas" has book and mag recommendations), cleaned gmail inbox, turned off email daily digest for couchsurfing groups, all as prelude to reading the couchsurfing landscape person job description and deciding it wasn't for me--the main result and end of about 300kb of data use.
Before what was last, walked back from pool via Laurie's ( not there :-( ), via S&F dumpster (zucchinis, oranges, apples, good mixed salad greens, all thoughtfully covered in flour and water [the bags were]).
At pool worked hard [remarkably fluid, energized]. Sitting time gave the disconnect. Had had grand and distracting plans ("aspiring carfree, planefree, and motorvehiclefree couchsurfers and hosts" couchsurfing group, and related ideas), had even considered writing
---fone phroze as it has been doing. A long time. Nearly slept, but had not used oralbreeze.com to clean gums. Got up. Did. Trying to receive? Failed. Don't know what phone is doing. 2233.--- froze again 2236---
had considered writing after first sit and before weights but drifted into sitting once more and let that go too.
before at Kroc did fast kata, yog, ballet (1hr) at Rolando Little League Park.
before that, tried to use free internet to do something related to Karin & Tommy and my couchsurfing profile, but connection failed, and later realized that (falling asleep. Good night.).
--------------------
0602 Saturday
Before spending the $10 yesterday I did try the free wifi a couple of times.
I later realized that whatever it was I wanted to email them about--well, whatever it was, I forgot. I did want to soften the instructions to smokers (my neighborhood friend smokes somewhat sparingly, is trying to quit, and generally smells good--doubt it helped if she read that [my CS profile], which reminds: I sent NF an email, the one from couchsurfing, written by Karin-- couchsurfing.com/people/yll -- saying carfree she and friend tommy were coming to SD and could I host them?).
So that is the main skein back to Friday morning? The kata/yog/ballet in the park were very nice, though I got caught up in my scheming about that CS group--eventually developing the name "aspiring carfree, planefree, and motorvehiclefree couchsurfers and hosts"; and considered how to implement it (one global, many local groups), and what the description, mission statement would be. And Geneva in the weight room, Charles in the pool. I got a message from god: it was from the friend (hmm) I later emailed asking a technical question. [never all. Layers]
---
Thursday night. I had got to the kroc late on Thursday --- did full routine on cold concrete (rainy the prev. day; shade from the low southern sun; bright, blue sky, clouds, distant: hills, mts in sky), and swam, went to sit, and didn't have it in me to lift. Walked back, but not enough (in me) to walk by NF's. But she'd been by and I missed her!
I act oddly when that happens. Topics for writing come up: I want to see her? I don't want but want her to feel missed? (ended up calling four times, leaving three messages before the evening was up).
There is a subtle competition: who can hold out longer from visiting, calling? But more an internal one: a pride (or compulsion) in remaining aloof, unneeding? [and then the easy magnet of often wanting stop by (regardless of what may have happened last), at least on way back, when walking near her place.]
---
I ate and thought I'd not go out at all again. . . Was resting. The message "[CS msg: Karin Ervelin] Two carfree swedes arriving..." came through on my phone. Arriving 12/21-22. Energized! Grandma said ok; the free internet worked and I wrote back (CS makes you use the site) and read profiles and looked at photos of my potential new friends. Then resolved to walk to State (wanted to walk--energized, and to upload photos of the porch so I could be more sure they really wanted to stay here--and the free internet had stopped). Called Laurie for the fourth time: "get ready if you want to walk!"; third message.
She was there. Foolishly, energetically "so you've been here the whole time!" She had not. Probably for the last one. But she only has four rings, then an answering machine (the default male "leave a message" --I'd call her now to get it exactly but she might answer 0653), and sometimes she picks up if you leave a message. I've been there. Often she never answers others who call when I'm there (and phone and machine volume are very low, not disturbing). Nice. But often she never answers when she's there [*]alone[*]. Once she told a guy she'd call him back in a minute--perhaps made a point of speaking to me, he'd hear--, never did. I guess it was he [who] called again, [she] never answered. And he or another guy left a msg earlier that evening too!
Spending time with her is a challenge unless you stop by and get her-- It doesn't seem to be an intentional, composed, serene aloofness though. It is cousin perhaps to the alienated depressive kind, which, at its worst, she'd never respond unless you go in and get her out--I've never done that, but think Catherine has. [I'm] Assuming she won't read this.
No I don't understand her. And this story is mine not hers. She writes, as I said before, and not to me, and what little I've heard of her written voice was cogent, reassuring. Yet in other ways she's anything but that.
Guess she's alot like me, visionless[?]. She watches movies though. That seems significant. Well, that night she went with upstairs neighbor to rent a movie, walking, in her SoCal women pseudo velvet exercise pants (a small groan, but who am I, and have appreciated? the view of mons and underwear lines one morning when comparing notes on pelvic tilt and posture).
I went to State (thru dark cyn), communed with net and photos [how interesting that I have these digital artifacts, make use of them], updated couch description. Returned to find NF, NFF, NFFF (Al--Keg & Barrell Mgr?), and NFFD (neighborhood friend's friend's dog--Cheetah) in deep floral velvet (*$%&! the phone keyboa[rd has this horrible lag it some]times gets. All that in square brackets was left out! Typed twice!) red-sashed bedroom with zebra or otherwise black and white pattern on everything else, including Al in large zuni blanket and Cheetah who is always black and white unclothed, a sort of chihuahua daschound, never barking, never a sound but clicking nails on linoleum or concrete, a round black spot on his side, others on tips of ears, and he often wanders into Laurie's place like a lost and somewhat curious small pig.
I believe that sentence is complete, though this is where it was headed: to find [subjects] watching a batman movie. Cindy, Laurie, Cheetah on the zebra-quilted low mattress bed, AL in the corner in chair wrapped in blanket, Cindy, ever friendly, inviting me to stay, the glow of large screen to my left lighting[. . .]--mostly I just apologized to Laurie through the din, said hi to Al, no thank you to Cindy. I'd been marveling at my energetic impatience, annoyance, or jealousy that led me to say "So! You've been here all the time."
This is very much about the network, the phones (landlines), computers, cellphones that receive email, and my inability to deal with them well. (The transportation network.)
Of the rather many ideas: a post, "Network Use Policy", of how I'll use the network. I would--
In New York City I could have friends and visit them, and get to know them, to love them, they walked from pool or dance studio, I could walk with them, we could ride subway together too.
---
0833 Was up to Thursday morning. I believe that morning I responded to emails, spent time online, reflexively posting, emailing about the San Diego Sunday Streets LinkedIn group Mike and Larry just started. [no, that was weds morning.]
Late, very late Wednesday (1 and 2 am Thursday) emailed Melissa, Julie. That is where any last energy went before ---.
Now, Wednesday night, sat. At library at State, after taking all those rainy day photos. After really feeling like a kid. [The Short Now.]
Yes, and Thursday, sunny thursday, the sidewalk was opening her legs, and I knew--you were in "the warmness of [my] brain" and I in yours. As now. [Gamboling.]
The network.
Wednesday sitting, couchsurfing, but before that, companionship.
---
One of those hard sits. There is no out. Am I going to ask for references to apply to the mariner school?
Stillness before that, before getting to that. That seemed all that was left.
But[, giving up,] companionship [, a memory, feeling of, companionship arrived?]. The energy there. The isolation. The solution is never any one relation but a social focus[? philosophy without love? How well the CS profile pages are structured.]. The built environment must be changed. If not changed, then laid, overlaid, perhaps with couchsurfing. I walk around, and am notified where truly "mi casa es su casa."
But couchsurfing came to me only later, after release, the focus on companionship [I shall walk and meet who's there? That is all?].
At home, logged on, the free internet worked, read the site. About their history, mission, working for them. Read my profile. My philosophy: just what I'd just done [arriving there I found the directions that got me there; remember: the profile was written prior to the TJ-Ensenada trip.]. Set my couch to 'yes' from 'travelling'. The magic was: Karin contacted me the following day.
---
So the energy of the [Internet] network in the car-centric transportation network-colonized (devastated by lack of sharing) urban space dominated by pavement, cars, the people who use them, isolated by their use.[. . . what about it?]
And my g-d! They found *me*! I tried to search for my own profile. Couldn't make it come up except by typing "carfree." If I typed 'dance', the search always hung. That was my best guess. Else: by date of last login. Maybe it was that.
So the same network angst occurs. Will they choose me? By default they should call when they know if they'll arrive Sunday or Monday. But I've heard no more after replying. . .
And such apparently energetic people, coming into this barren neighborhood from their euro-urb richness of Malmo. And into my lack of direction.
Did what I add to the profile scare them away? (a thought, to which there probably is no meaning beyond illustrating an odd fear of rejection)
---
Well the sit on Friday let that go. Either way they've had their good effect. To remember how energized I felt by the thought of their vitality finding mine, coming here, helping me out. Teaching me to couchsurf. . .
because, for me, there is some hardness about it. How to spend time with others. Marvelling now that I got to know Sara! How I respond to network-based contacts by distant friends. And---
---
Is that more or less the story? Is the message somewhat there. Ethan Hughes has left both cars and network, uses transit, postal mail nets.
---
The network holds out the promise of relation, but, disembodied, at a distance. My nature doesn't cope well? A framework for imbalance?
So walk and be with who's there?
As in the forest, this summer (how much that trip has changed me--seems more evident).
---
And Cinderella is a fairytale (tales of great devotion across distance are fairytales, this not the best illustration{, though I've missed people horribly intensely as recently as Quail Springs (last year)} but this is 'philosophy without love'? What says buddha, TNH? So What about what they say?).
And relationship? Sharing (read what the Brazilian in the couchsurhing leadership team has to say).
Sharing?
[what can I?]
---
0923 [rereading]
0951
and {streetcorner teambuilding. Often I'm the only pedestrian, wearing a vest, people ask me directions from their vehicles. The rainy day, the power out, phone out, the filipino[? A singing voice] home healthcare aide, short, in blue scrubs/nursewear, with umbrella wanting something, not clear, (seemed she needed to knock on more doors? To borrow a cellphone? . . . mine, $.25/min. . .) me: (after: "everyone's ok?") "I hope you find. . ." & walking away. . . "You." <<If this is a teambuilding challenge, I'm sitting out.>> Walked back half a block and found her. "Is there anything I can do to help?" She wasn't sure or clear. I helped her find a neighbor I had been pretty sure was home (most are not. Car-suburb emptiness.) I'd walked by his place so much, asked to pick the loquats, seen him building cabinets in his garage (pro), given him extra avocados from a tree further back on my walk, smelled the cigarette thickness coming from his open door, (on past passes) seen a little kid there, heard a woman's voice. He let her call from there. I asked, she said, I need not stay. Walked on. Did no more than say hi to the guy (she arrived just after he opened the door). Left wondering at my (reflexive? lack of gregariousness [shame?]).}
---
How Proustian, how In Search of Lost Time.
---
The story: no asking for reference letters. The Brazilian: relationships give you the goals you need. Into the limbs and warm brain of companionship? Why do anything other than this?
Will sew my pants. Swedes could arrive. Tomorrow. Will straighten place up.
Pants sewed, will leave to be homeless again? To meet whoever's there? May learn to be with others? Or will spend long dark nights?
---
leaving B unanswered (but there was no question). She writes back quick and the contact asks for contact, is in my mind, unless I wait it out and let the contact fade. I will see you again! I'm almost certain.
---
I do that. Remembering when I wanted any response from anyone
---
why should we leave where we are and arrange to meet? How could distant minds. . . resolve to trouble themselves to become in the same near space
---
to move---why are the swedes (she could be fooling, could be alone, doubt it, but a thought), coming from San Francisco to San Diego, not stopping in Monterey---SLO, etc. (SF is where the CS hq appears to be.)
We move for food and shelter.
What is it to be a friend with Ethan Hughes. You must be there or write him. Not sure he even has a phone.
He has a partner. Child.
---
What good [is all this typing]? People, get rid of the cars. If you can organize, get to SANDAG, elsewhere be a voice against them?
Live with friends?
Share?
How can I? Can I ever have that close comfort of a long partner? Thich Nhat Hanh.
Why did I stop?
---
Peace & Creative Love,
Can't tell you how I got to where I am. Can't tell you where I might be next.
Only thing to do: tell what has been that I know. Work back.
I just ate a lot of rice, unnecessarily. A sausage (apple chicken?)-- Oranges--
I tried writing--
What I have left of the attempts, reverse order of occurence:
----------------------------------------------
Subject: every thought is broken by device failur
Back to writing here, but the technology is failing.
Before that, disembodied voices, yes.
Unable. Isolation. You cannot
---
Subject: Sara I love you
Looking through the old entries at experienceart, trying to find Valerie's last name, I saw a mention that when Sara called me from Alaska one time, she said I sounded angry, like I didn't want to talk. I also read of some amazingly endearing things she did. . . I'm not recalling now exactly what. And when I read it I sort of shuddered, maybe had a beginning of a tear, a silent, half-said "oh my g-d", ("I can't believe anyone. . .") and went skimming on.
---
I haven't bbb
---------------------------- (End previous attempts that did not get erased.)
I briefly considered 'fuck' as a subject. . . I remember that. "I am your madness," was another. A draft that got deleted had a list of spaced words ending: "network.
network.
network."
In one I mentioned sitting a few days ago--the unrecorded entree to this void--and before that or was it after, the sidewalk opening her legs to me, but could not recall which first perhaps we'll sort it out.
---
Why did I stop? People emailed me.[?] Never do that. Post a comment? Never email me. (It was partly my own fault. I may be wiser now. [Hide the address?])
{what really means what here. This seems to be seriously true. But too sad. In the past: contact me only to arrange to meet. That seems reasonable. What about dialog about ideas? That could be a comment somewhere. And what about my licence (two 'c's! Verb: one 'c', one 's') in emailing others? If you need to use me, use me, if I don't reply, I'm waiting for you to set a date and time to meet. If I don't reply to that. . . maybe didn't get it. Never count on me getting anything sent to me at mms.att,net.}
---
Was just laying here, sensing?, before trying to write. Before that, eating reasonably. Before that, resting. Before that, sewing a seam in my new pants [a wonderful accomplishment but still have a long ways to go]. Before that, eating reasonably. You are missing all the accompanying thoughts. Laurie, Melissa, Julie, Karin (and Tommy). I wrote one of them an email (wasn't thinking? Not as wise as now?), and signed it "peace & creative love," something I developed this morning and ran through my mind quite alot. That was after sewing, after resting, I don't know what came over me.
Before laying here and not writing, I tried various ways of sending, getting email, spending ~$1. Then, avoiding the walk to State (SDSU), spent $10 on 5 megabytes [expire in a month] and read bloglines blogs (worldchanging post "xmas gift ideas" has book and mag recommendations), cleaned gmail inbox, turned off email daily digest for couchsurfing groups, all as prelude to reading the couchsurfing landscape person job description and deciding it wasn't for me--the main result and end of about 300kb of data use.
Before what was last, walked back from pool via Laurie's ( not there :-( ), via S&F dumpster (zucchinis, oranges, apples, good mixed salad greens, all thoughtfully covered in flour and water [the bags were]).
At pool worked hard [remarkably fluid, energized]. Sitting time gave the disconnect. Had had grand and distracting plans ("aspiring carfree, planefree, and motorvehiclefree couchsurfers and hosts" couchsurfing group, and related ideas), had even considered writing
---fone phroze as it has been doing. A long time. Nearly slept, but had not used oralbreeze.com to clean gums. Got up. Did. Trying to receive? Failed. Don't know what phone is doing. 2233.--- froze again 2236---
had considered writing after first sit and before weights but drifted into sitting once more and let that go too.
before at Kroc did fast kata, yog, ballet (1hr) at Rolando Little League Park.
before that, tried to use free internet to do something related to Karin & Tommy and my couchsurfing profile, but connection failed, and later realized that (falling asleep. Good night.).
--------------------
0602 Saturday
Before spending the $10 yesterday I did try the free wifi a couple of times.
I later realized that whatever it was I wanted to email them about--well, whatever it was, I forgot. I did want to soften the instructions to smokers (my neighborhood friend smokes somewhat sparingly, is trying to quit, and generally smells good--doubt it helped if she read that [my CS profile], which reminds: I sent NF an email, the one from couchsurfing, written by Karin-- couchsurfing.com/people/yll -- saying carfree she and friend tommy were coming to SD and could I host them?).
So that is the main skein back to Friday morning? The kata/yog/ballet in the park were very nice, though I got caught up in my scheming about that CS group--eventually developing the name "aspiring carfree, planefree, and motorvehiclefree couchsurfers and hosts"; and considered how to implement it (one global, many local groups), and what the description, mission statement would be. And Geneva in the weight room, Charles in the pool. I got a message from god: it was from the friend (hmm) I later emailed asking a technical question. [never all. Layers]
---
Thursday night. I had got to the kroc late on Thursday --- did full routine on cold concrete (rainy the prev. day; shade from the low southern sun; bright, blue sky, clouds, distant: hills, mts in sky), and swam, went to sit, and didn't have it in me to lift. Walked back, but not enough (in me) to walk by NF's. But she'd been by and I missed her!
I act oddly when that happens. Topics for writing come up: I want to see her? I don't want but want her to feel missed? (ended up calling four times, leaving three messages before the evening was up).
There is a subtle competition: who can hold out longer from visiting, calling? But more an internal one: a pride (or compulsion) in remaining aloof, unneeding? [and then the easy magnet of often wanting stop by (regardless of what may have happened last), at least on way back, when walking near her place.]
---
I ate and thought I'd not go out at all again. . . Was resting. The message "[CS msg: Karin Ervelin] Two carfree swedes arriving..." came through on my phone. Arriving 12/21-22. Energized! Grandma said ok; the free internet worked and I wrote back (CS makes you use the site) and read profiles and looked at photos of my potential new friends. Then resolved to walk to State (wanted to walk--energized, and to upload photos of the porch so I could be more sure they really wanted to stay here--and the free internet had stopped). Called Laurie for the fourth time: "get ready if you want to walk!"; third message.
She was there. Foolishly, energetically "so you've been here the whole time!" She had not. Probably for the last one. But she only has four rings, then an answering machine (the default male "leave a message" --I'd call her now to get it exactly but she might answer 0653), and sometimes she picks up if you leave a message. I've been there. Often she never answers others who call when I'm there (and phone and machine volume are very low, not disturbing). Nice. But often she never answers when she's there [*]alone[*]. Once she told a guy she'd call him back in a minute--perhaps made a point of speaking to me, he'd hear--, never did. I guess it was he [who] called again, [she] never answered. And he or another guy left a msg earlier that evening too!
Spending time with her is a challenge unless you stop by and get her-- It doesn't seem to be an intentional, composed, serene aloofness though. It is cousin perhaps to the alienated depressive kind, which, at its worst, she'd never respond unless you go in and get her out--I've never done that, but think Catherine has. [I'm] Assuming she won't read this.
No I don't understand her. And this story is mine not hers. She writes, as I said before, and not to me, and what little I've heard of her written voice was cogent, reassuring. Yet in other ways she's anything but that.
Guess she's alot like me, visionless[?]. She watches movies though. That seems significant. Well, that night she went with upstairs neighbor to rent a movie, walking, in her SoCal women pseudo velvet exercise pants (a small groan, but who am I, and have appreciated? the view of mons and underwear lines one morning when comparing notes on pelvic tilt and posture).
I went to State (thru dark cyn), communed with net and photos [how interesting that I have these digital artifacts, make use of them], updated couch description. Returned to find NF, NFF, NFFF (Al--Keg & Barrell Mgr?), and NFFD (neighborhood friend's friend's dog--Cheetah) in deep floral velvet (*$%&! the phone keyboa[rd has this horrible lag it some]times gets. All that in square brackets was left out! Typed twice!) red-sashed bedroom with zebra or otherwise black and white pattern on everything else, including Al in large zuni blanket and Cheetah who is always black and white unclothed, a sort of chihuahua daschound, never barking, never a sound but clicking nails on linoleum or concrete, a round black spot on his side, others on tips of ears, and he often wanders into Laurie's place like a lost and somewhat curious small pig.
I believe that sentence is complete, though this is where it was headed: to find [subjects] watching a batman movie. Cindy, Laurie, Cheetah on the zebra-quilted low mattress bed, AL in the corner in chair wrapped in blanket, Cindy, ever friendly, inviting me to stay, the glow of large screen to my left lighting[. . .]--mostly I just apologized to Laurie through the din, said hi to Al, no thank you to Cindy. I'd been marveling at my energetic impatience, annoyance, or jealousy that led me to say "So! You've been here all the time."
This is very much about the network, the phones (landlines), computers, cellphones that receive email, and my inability to deal with them well. (The transportation network.)
Of the rather many ideas: a post, "Network Use Policy", of how I'll use the network. I would--
In New York City I could have friends and visit them, and get to know them, to love them, they walked from pool or dance studio, I could walk with them, we could ride subway together too.
---
0833 Was up to Thursday morning. I believe that morning I responded to emails, spent time online, reflexively posting, emailing about the San Diego Sunday Streets LinkedIn group Mike and Larry just started. [no, that was weds morning.]
Late, very late Wednesday (1 and 2 am Thursday) emailed Melissa, Julie. That is where any last energy went before ---.
Now, Wednesday night, sat. At library at State, after taking all those rainy day photos. After really feeling like a kid. [The Short Now.]
Yes, and Thursday, sunny thursday, the sidewalk was opening her legs, and I knew--you were in "the warmness of [my] brain" and I in yours. As now. [Gamboling.]
The network.
Wednesday sitting, couchsurfing, but before that, companionship.
---
One of those hard sits. There is no out. Am I going to ask for references to apply to the mariner school?
Stillness before that, before getting to that. That seemed all that was left.
But[, giving up,] companionship [, a memory, feeling of, companionship arrived?]. The energy there. The isolation. The solution is never any one relation but a social focus[? philosophy without love? How well the CS profile pages are structured.]. The built environment must be changed. If not changed, then laid, overlaid, perhaps with couchsurfing. I walk around, and am notified where truly "mi casa es su casa."
But couchsurfing came to me only later, after release, the focus on companionship [I shall walk and meet who's there? That is all?].
At home, logged on, the free internet worked, read the site. About their history, mission, working for them. Read my profile. My philosophy: just what I'd just done [arriving there I found the directions that got me there; remember: the profile was written prior to the TJ-Ensenada trip.]. Set my couch to 'yes' from 'travelling'. The magic was: Karin contacted me the following day.
---
So the energy of the [Internet] network in the car-centric transportation network-colonized (devastated by lack of sharing) urban space dominated by pavement, cars, the people who use them, isolated by their use.[. . . what about it?]
And my g-d! They found *me*! I tried to search for my own profile. Couldn't make it come up except by typing "carfree." If I typed 'dance', the search always hung. That was my best guess. Else: by date of last login. Maybe it was that.
So the same network angst occurs. Will they choose me? By default they should call when they know if they'll arrive Sunday or Monday. But I've heard no more after replying. . .
And such apparently energetic people, coming into this barren neighborhood from their euro-urb richness of Malmo. And into my lack of direction.
Did what I add to the profile scare them away? (a thought, to which there probably is no meaning beyond illustrating an odd fear of rejection)
---
Well the sit on Friday let that go. Either way they've had their good effect. To remember how energized I felt by the thought of their vitality finding mine, coming here, helping me out. Teaching me to couchsurf. . .
because, for me, there is some hardness about it. How to spend time with others. Marvelling now that I got to know Sara! How I respond to network-based contacts by distant friends. And---
---
Is that more or less the story? Is the message somewhat there. Ethan Hughes has left both cars and network, uses transit, postal mail nets.
---
The network holds out the promise of relation, but, disembodied, at a distance. My nature doesn't cope well? A framework for imbalance?
So walk and be with who's there?
As in the forest, this summer (how much that trip has changed me--seems more evident).
---
And Cinderella is a fairytale (tales of great devotion across distance are fairytales, this not the best illustration{, though I've missed people horribly intensely as recently as Quail Springs (last year)} but this is 'philosophy without love'? What says buddha, TNH? So What about what they say?).
And relationship? Sharing (read what the Brazilian in the couchsurhing leadership team has to say).
Sharing?
[what can I?]
---
0923 [rereading]
0951
and {streetcorner teambuilding. Often I'm the only pedestrian, wearing a vest, people ask me directions from their vehicles. The rainy day, the power out, phone out, the filipino[? A singing voice] home healthcare aide, short, in blue scrubs/nursewear, with umbrella wanting something, not clear, (seemed she needed to knock on more doors? To borrow a cellphone? . . . mine, $.25/min. . .) me: (after: "everyone's ok?") "I hope you find. . ." & walking away. . . "You." <<If this is a teambuilding challenge, I'm sitting out.>> Walked back half a block and found her. "Is there anything I can do to help?" She wasn't sure or clear. I helped her find a neighbor I had been pretty sure was home (most are not. Car-suburb emptiness.) I'd walked by his place so much, asked to pick the loquats, seen him building cabinets in his garage (pro), given him extra avocados from a tree further back on my walk, smelled the cigarette thickness coming from his open door, (on past passes) seen a little kid there, heard a woman's voice. He let her call from there. I asked, she said, I need not stay. Walked on. Did no more than say hi to the guy (she arrived just after he opened the door). Left wondering at my (reflexive? lack of gregariousness [shame?]).}
---
How Proustian, how In Search of Lost Time.
---
The story: no asking for reference letters. The Brazilian: relationships give you the goals you need. Into the limbs and warm brain of companionship? Why do anything other than this?
Will sew my pants. Swedes could arrive. Tomorrow. Will straighten place up.
Pants sewed, will leave to be homeless again? To meet whoever's there? May learn to be with others? Or will spend long dark nights?
---
leaving B unanswered (but there was no question). She writes back quick and the contact asks for contact, is in my mind, unless I wait it out and let the contact fade. I will see you again! I'm almost certain.
---
I do that. Remembering when I wanted any response from anyone
---
why should we leave where we are and arrange to meet? How could distant minds. . . resolve to trouble themselves to become in the same near space
---
to move---why are the swedes (she could be fooling, could be alone, doubt it, but a thought), coming from San Francisco to San Diego, not stopping in Monterey---SLO, etc. (SF is where the CS hq appears to be.)
We move for food and shelter.
What is it to be a friend with Ethan Hughes. You must be there or write him. Not sure he even has a phone.
He has a partner. Child.
---
What good [is all this typing]? People, get rid of the cars. If you can organize, get to SANDAG, elsewhere be a voice against them?
Live with friends?
Share?
How can I? Can I ever have that close comfort of a long partner? Thich Nhat Hanh.
Why did I stop?
---
Peace & Creative Love,
Friday, December 19, 2008
Couchsurfing magic + Photos up! MEChA EOP, SDSU, Del Cerro, Dumpster, ThxGiving @ Point Loma, TJ, Water & Rain, Macadamias, unFashion
 |
| San Diego and Tijuana, published 2008-12-18 |
The couchsurfing magic I hope to write about later, but for now, if you sign up there, we can be friends!
http://www.couchsurfing.com/people/colinleath
---
I took all the water photos perhaps to post to SDTJDPH about how--by improving the design of our streets, houses, lives, etc--we'd not need desal or piped water from NorCal; and to point to harvestingrainwater.com. May not get to that though.
Well I did. . . and scheduled it to be published on 12/25.
Peace,
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
a jolly death
Silence. The event of the day:
B appeared, I unable to act, she left. So [I] wrote. I don't want to be unkind. I don't want to be paralyzed. For the time being, am playing in the odd and broken, disconnected world I've been given such license in.
I've not heard back from her. So much about my actions here feel slightly off and inappropriate. I may be an explorer. Maybe no one's been this way before. In fact, no one has.
I can't appreciate having the whole thing here. But here's a core:
--------------
Maybe you understand why this is so hard. You're raw on your pages [and you have no dates to show a developmental progression, a leaving behind; for the new reader of you everything can appear current]. I am [raw, uncut, simple] on mine [but so voluminous as to be obscure--not like your manageable site]. [And we have possibly compl[e]mentary however misplaced desire?] Never have met another like you [/me in that way]?
and, yes, I may even be publishing this email and examining it later, making some attempt to understand.
but, just giving up to that greater compelling power--questioning ends [stops], action occurs.
thank you [B] for so much disturbing me--
No need to reply. Who knows what to say, do next? Maybe nothing. You can see now why I so avoid this--devoid of interpersonal context--telepathic gambling. [where I am so reflexively unrestrained. But I see some function in that lack of restraint.]
-----------
this should be just between me and her.
there is other news. Avoided work on references. But there are no distractions left, I believe. Tomorrow, god willing.
rested much of day (1230-4?).
wrote peer.
NF fiddling with powerpoint, visited her after walk to SDSU and back.
Imagine it will be time to head out soon? How long can I accept the way I live now?
peace, (and the non-peace of creative love and life)
B appeared, I unable to act, she left. So [I] wrote. I don't want to be unkind. I don't want to be paralyzed. For the time being, am playing in the odd and broken, disconnected world I've been given such license in.
I've not heard back from her. So much about my actions here feel slightly off and inappropriate. I may be an explorer. Maybe no one's been this way before. In fact, no one has.
I can't appreciate having the whole thing here. But here's a core:
--------------
Maybe you understand why this is so hard. You're raw on your pages [and you have no dates to show a developmental progression, a leaving behind; for the new reader of you everything can appear current]. I am [raw, uncut, simple] on mine [but so voluminous as to be obscure--not like your manageable site]. [And we have possibly compl[e]mentary however misplaced desire?] Never have met another like you [/me in that way]?
and, yes, I may even be publishing this email and examining it later, making some attempt to understand.
but, just giving up to that greater compelling power--questioning ends [stops], action occurs.
thank you [B] for so much disturbing me--
No need to reply. Who knows what to say, do next? Maybe nothing. You can see now why I so avoid this--devoid of interpersonal context--telepathic gambling. [where I am so reflexively unrestrained. But I see some function in that lack of restraint.]
-----------
this should be just between me and her.
there is other news. Avoided work on references. But there are no distractions left, I believe. Tomorrow, god willing.
rested much of day (1230-4?).
wrote peer.
NF fiddling with powerpoint, visited her after walk to SDSU and back.
Imagine it will be time to head out soon? How long can I accept the way I live now?
peace, (and the non-peace of creative love and life)
Monday, December 15, 2008
A New Day | FW: =
0643 am. Light. Drizzle. Dream thoughts subside. Mind rambles. Totally free. What animates me today? How will I begin to move?
0705 called the Paul Hall School--waitlist is about 6 months. You can send in copies of the original documents (passport, mmd, twic), and send in originals when you get the scheduling letter. Character refs: how long they've known you, are you dependable, whatever they want to say.
Now eating carrot, looking over SD UT (Union Trib.).
0722 done w/ paper (a shrinking distraction). Now?
0748 ate/eating banana, yeast, flax seeds, sweet potato (got ~5lbs from S&F dumpster last night), 4 brussel sprouts, reading "The Dying Whale".
0805 G Ann's been up a while now.
0834 out door. +4 macademia nuts local forage. 192 - 1.5? lbs.
0840 now walking. Forgot hat, took off some clothes. Is raining.
0908 in stall @ Kroc.
"To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of the arts."
I walk a longer way to get in a hill. Did 3 pushups and a few other exercises before leaving.
There is an element of suspense: may meet B again.
Will do quick kata before swim? In a different spot though--usually do it outdoors by pool. Rain, wind today.
1000 that's the end of quick kata, yog--did not do all ballet. May quickly in rain. Met Peter Felber, plumber & former resident of The Farm, TN, and now a vitamin salesman (Nutrilife).
To affect the quality of others' day--
Was on far side of gym from bball players, missing the briskness a bit of outside.
Developmentally disabled arrived.
1100 Upstairs (after swim, shower), Geneva here. . .
Delicious, cold drops, mist, heaven (sky)side, warm water earth side. An old sync swimmer there.
Resolved a bit more character letter action & whom to ask, while swimming. Will report later. Will clarify plan, then reevaluate whole thing + larger plan it is subplan of.
A new friendly younger guy showed up as I was leaving.
1105 sitting time, perhaps-- we'll see.
1147 Done sit.
Not first and last of that quality of experience in day. 1st: in deep relaxation during kata.
Am affected by this experiment of reporting, but sit not unusual.
Thoughts ran a bit: what say about Geneva, etc. After a while dream-like imagery unrelated (not clearly related) to events. Just keep returning focus to belly breathing. Then first stop signal. Then a bit of a switch to watching and contemplating stop impulse (and occasional return to running thoughts, etc). Bits of uplifting middle-eye focus, but no long trancing (sometimes with music can sit and sit shivvering/shimmering--but not sought, not the main draw, it seems).
Finally a stop when, perhaps, indifference about stopping or continuing: no aversive-type stop signal (which I imagine is when mind runs out, fears for its continued existence); and no avoidance of returning to action (a preference to just sit rather than to get up and begin next planned action--lifting in this case). Perhaps the arrival at the awareness, "there will be more of this quality throughout." Background: school kids in gym, playing; trainers with clients, exercise partners; kids left, leaving distant speaker music, front desk people, exercise machine sound, but none of that the main focus or noise.
Geneva: on occasion we manage to talk. Desire (mine) definitely affects communication--or some other oddness comes in. She a U of OR grad (dark hair, darkish skin, don't know, can't guess mix), worked in chemistry, somehow escaped office, here in midday, now slowly working on getting work in fire department. Haven't asked how she can be as slow as me (getting work). Maybe will as some point. Is friends with huge (gladiator, no potbelly, all parts larger, but not bodybuilder kind) and friendly black (north african? A distinctive wide head, good eyebrows--perhaps some Arabic--a moor, an Othello) Marcus. He's much easier to talk to--we joke about the wilderness (says he's afraid). Marcus may play some sort of pro b-ball. . . I never really got it clear. The life of the place when he's here.
There are women for me where desire doesn't come up, and can see being friends, low-key.
When one doesn't have that comforting, more intimate, partner-type relation--with those of the attracting gender, that seems to be a main concern, question, for me at least, interefering with simpler interaction.
May get to it later, and not 100% sure, but Neighborhood Friend may be approaching being that partner-type person (in our noncommital sort of way). When it seems to be a basic part of the day, visiting her, and she makes similar and related effort, and we both continue to find that visit comforting, meaningful--well, that's significant--has only just become the case, if it has, after years.
1227 so: a quick lift. Believe it is biceps, triceps, legs this time (Friday was the last time lifting?).
1301 close to leaving. There is the reflex of seeking the glance of any attractive woman. But sometimes I follow the monk's precept and make a point to keep eyes down.
A skinnyish black man from Philly with a lisp/weak 'f', and an old lady from the Ukraine, asking each other wherefrom and neither understanding the other. She started by asking how much he lifting (on the benchpress), sitting in the hamstring curls machine.
A voice--a singer in a stall? He's very good. . . Ah, it is acapella xmas carols, silent night, just put on the until now silent ceiling speakers.
1316 Let's go!
1341 Back @ Acorn & Seminole. Some indecision on way, but avoided SaveALot dumpster (S&F has the good stuff). Grandma has soup on, gate unlocked, easy to get in from rain.
Saw long-unseen Charles, (formerly small-time civil attorney now peripatetic public school sub?) spirit of the pool, meets all the people, lifeguards, greets each each time with enthusiasm. Usually swims early. Humor--
Now--cook, eat? Other possible goals: the char refs, get across hwy to get more grains. . . But this project, perhaps enough.
1411
bit o g soup
flax & yeast
romain heart (foraged)
1 whiting filet
brown rice
brussle sprout
bit o parsnip, broccoli stem
lentils
celery
1 sweet, 1hot dried peppers,
1 shroom
1 half-clove garlic
bit o turnip
bit o rutabega
3" of zucchini
removed sprouts, have been eating them
ate whiting, standing
yellow onion, most of
green onions foraged, 4?
Bit o fresh ginger
in that order, about, to already cooking pot, ~ 2qt pot now full, water simmering out/into swelling rice, I hope. Rice cooked longest, ginger the least.
bit o dulse, dry, chewed, earlier
4 macadamias, foraged
1 small black frozen and now partly thawed banana. Mmm
1452 pot off stove, I'm crosslegged on sheet on old carpet. . . but probably will recline & eat.
oh-- a small red yam microwaved.
1504 one more banana
1507 reading _Moby Dick_ "the quadrant", eating.
1533 done?, pot scraped.
1547 Left Ahab @ ch120.
Now?
Should leave to cross hwy soon, before dark.
Lets review essay.
To complete the next step:
1600 --- distraction resolved.
The next steps:
(1) be ok with essay
(2) write three char refs/learn how to write them. Put them on linkedin?
(3) ask three people to write them. Brent, Andrea, Carol, probably.
while they do that, fill in other parts of app, etc.
---
1705 leaving acorn, seminole
1811 leaving windmill farms
1905 @ Neighborhood Friend's
2014 @ acorn & seminole
2040 ate some pepitas, wheat germ
2056 overeating wheatgerm, but decided to cook the rest (microwave)
----------------------------------
Basically, I would not have got out of house this dark rainy evening had not my friend come and got me out.
She hadn't planned to, but came all the way across the hwy to the market. (and back up the dark cyn with rushing freshet).
---
I don't think we have any desire for each other. Think we'll just be friends. The kind that can sleep together and think nothing of it (meaning in the same bed, perhaps even hugged like a teddybear, and no sex). Eat little cholesterol = little desire / no insistent hard-ons. But some cholesterol seems necessary to have some get up and go.
A wonderful thing-- though anything but intense, it is a comfort.
Will be interesting to talk to her about this.
well, I guess that's all.
Below is an email I sent her, but got to talk it out and apologize for its not intentional unkindness before she read it.
While she read the 'fun avoiding reproduction' email, she only later read 'smile'. There's no gurantee she reads what I send her--not a problem though, we meet each other by going to get the other at home.
-----
Neighborhood Friend,
since I'm not keeping silent so much any more:
I don't think I'm better--
jokes you make in play competition make me uncomfortable (as with the raincoats. . .).
I see how what I said about laughing wasn't good--I don't like to be laughed at and that's one reason I'm here and not in MX perhaps.
but its so hard to not say stupid things if one will say anything at all and not be a buddhist about it. Perhaps I could laugh at my ineptness--if your sadness were entirely not related.
I do want to change you--that's the root of all tonight's trouble, not loving you as you are--but wishing you didn't fret at all about your hair.
even though the subject is "="
it's not appropriate. I don't compare myself or compete with you
When I think about you, and our differences, it tends to be to appreciate/marvel that you still spend time with me even though I hardly work and keep wearing odd clothes, and have all sorts of other idiosyncracies.
I also want you not to joke about being the best in the world. . . .
all those things about comparing self to others--even joking--just remind me of a devastating bad root I wish were no longer there.
even as I say that I'm pretty sure some amount of concern about appearance, some amount of social comparison may be good--I go pretty far to exploring total absence of these--and can't entirely recommend it to everyone, perhaps
and it is foolish to say your physical aspect does not affect on how I interact with you. . .
but I'm pretty sure my attraction to you has nothing to do with presence or absence of hair on your head or how it arranges itself.
if you want to be devastating to me. . . (stopping here, left as an exercise to the reader).
I'm pretty sure you'll be learning / internalizing good ways of being. . .
remember you said to the barista about shooting for normal?
Neighborhood Friend, I don't do that, and doubt it is a good approach.
well I doubt this speech is helpful--it is sort of violating "loving you as you are"
but I'm questioning my old habits--
I hope I communicate your worth and potential---
suppose I hope you'd do the same.
maybe relationship is about more than acceptance, but maybe not.
peace and love, and please accept my mistakes, and don't shut down to me, and don't compare--
love (sure hope that's where this is coming from. . .questioning it a bit. . . I think it is. . . And the general, not the exclusive kind, the "we're doing our best-- I feel it" kind) (and so is [upstairs neighbor of NF]--don't let my words hurt her, but maybe it could be good. . . Just babbling. Pretty sure she wants your company too, and is sad when things get in the way--when we're cut off because you think we're down on you, we (may) feel you're down on us/or we're somehow not good friends, good people. . .)
ha! 'me gusta cuando callas' --a poem in Spanish :It pleases me when you're silent. . . I hope, overall, my speaking more is helpful, pleasing, though expect I make more mistakes as well.
so I suppose it is about acceptance: if we only accept each other in reserved, cautious, and fairly silent states we're not really acceping each other?
ok. Enoguf bable,
peace, love,
Colin
----------------------------------
I wanted to look at that email here, today, because it shows the crossing over to a sort of violence. I was sort of exasperated at the time. But, sure enough, the following afternoon I felt like stopping by, and there she was, well recovered.
-------------------
Well. . . This really is a dead-end. Looks like I won't be seeing 'peer' tomorrow. She may have read this, decided not to talk about her concerns with someone who writes like this (I do not blame her), but more than likely she's just busy.
Someone may read all this besides me--but not sure who.
---
The dead end, the absence of will--that is the question I imagine I'll be focusing on here, not desire so much.
---
My friend would be happy to see me in the morning. That excites me. Even a bit of desire--can hug her again--maybe she will be what helps me get up and out tomorrow.
And tomorrow I may get to campus and work on the character reference project.
She helped me significantly today by getting me across hwy to the market. . .
Too easy to become shut down when the food is not exciting enough: I got more chicken sausage (made in their deli)--no nutrition info, but guess most cals from fat. . . Even so, it helps me have a will, and helps me not want to keep eating. Plus other good things, vegetables and more cut 9-grain and wheat to soak to keep me from wanting bread.
---
how easy would it be just to sleep away the dark winter. . . Hibernate and atrophy.
the only other cure that comes to mind (besides having a friend to come get you) is to work in midtown manhattan and have a long walk home (north was the way I went) through central park, upper west side broadway, and so on.
I still wonder if B might be an inspiring friend.
-------
that seems to be it. Babbling has stopped. Ending the personal time tracking and eating reporting.
a good day, a magical day even, the tracking experiment maintained a sort of greater awareness in every action. And the day had unplanned contrasts--sdsu in the rain, peds, umbrellas, canyon stream. Emotional conflict: friend did not want to walk on campus, but I love to--but I'd followed her in spite of reservations friday morning. In the past she'd just go off and leave--
and my grandma, the indwelling, never-leaving spirit of the house--she's gone to bed now, but otherwise I can always stop with her a while (in front of the TV, evenings) for a change of mind, a chat about the weather, who knows what. She was after me to try to find a missing small portable heater this afternoon (It did not appear, at least in my searches).
my friend--definitely a mind-comfort--go spend time with her and wondering, attempt at initiative can shut down (or something)--she doesn't seem to mind stillness, inaction. And at some point it's time to go, time to return to this.
An odyssey today? The mind went through all that, and strung an awareness thread. So many beings, presences, encountered. Each on her own odyssey--ships passing on the whaling grounds.
Tonight, now, in dreams. And tomorrow?
How do I love?
love, peace,
0705 called the Paul Hall School--waitlist is about 6 months. You can send in copies of the original documents (passport, mmd, twic), and send in originals when you get the scheduling letter. Character refs: how long they've known you, are you dependable, whatever they want to say.
Now eating carrot, looking over SD UT (Union Trib.).
0722 done w/ paper (a shrinking distraction). Now?
0748 ate/eating banana, yeast, flax seeds, sweet potato (got ~5lbs from S&F dumpster last night), 4 brussel sprouts, reading "The Dying Whale".
0805 G Ann's been up a while now.
0834 out door. +4 macademia nuts local forage. 192 - 1.5? lbs.
0840 now walking. Forgot hat, took off some clothes. Is raining.
0908 in stall @ Kroc.
"To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of the arts."
I walk a longer way to get in a hill. Did 3 pushups and a few other exercises before leaving.
There is an element of suspense: may meet B again.
Will do quick kata before swim? In a different spot though--usually do it outdoors by pool. Rain, wind today.
1000 that's the end of quick kata, yog--did not do all ballet. May quickly in rain. Met Peter Felber, plumber & former resident of The Farm, TN, and now a vitamin salesman (Nutrilife).
To affect the quality of others' day--
Was on far side of gym from bball players, missing the briskness a bit of outside.
Developmentally disabled arrived.
1100 Upstairs (after swim, shower), Geneva here. . .
Delicious, cold drops, mist, heaven (sky)side, warm water earth side. An old sync swimmer there.
Resolved a bit more character letter action & whom to ask, while swimming. Will report later. Will clarify plan, then reevaluate whole thing + larger plan it is subplan of.
A new friendly younger guy showed up as I was leaving.
1105 sitting time, perhaps-- we'll see.
1147 Done sit.
Not first and last of that quality of experience in day. 1st: in deep relaxation during kata.
Am affected by this experiment of reporting, but sit not unusual.
Thoughts ran a bit: what say about Geneva, etc. After a while dream-like imagery unrelated (not clearly related) to events. Just keep returning focus to belly breathing. Then first stop signal. Then a bit of a switch to watching and contemplating stop impulse (and occasional return to running thoughts, etc). Bits of uplifting middle-eye focus, but no long trancing (sometimes with music can sit and sit shivvering/shimmering--but not sought, not the main draw, it seems).
Finally a stop when, perhaps, indifference about stopping or continuing: no aversive-type stop signal (which I imagine is when mind runs out, fears for its continued existence); and no avoidance of returning to action (a preference to just sit rather than to get up and begin next planned action--lifting in this case). Perhaps the arrival at the awareness, "there will be more of this quality throughout." Background: school kids in gym, playing; trainers with clients, exercise partners; kids left, leaving distant speaker music, front desk people, exercise machine sound, but none of that the main focus or noise.
Geneva: on occasion we manage to talk. Desire (mine) definitely affects communication--or some other oddness comes in. She a U of OR grad (dark hair, darkish skin, don't know, can't guess mix), worked in chemistry, somehow escaped office, here in midday, now slowly working on getting work in fire department. Haven't asked how she can be as slow as me (getting work). Maybe will as some point. Is friends with huge (gladiator, no potbelly, all parts larger, but not bodybuilder kind) and friendly black (north african? A distinctive wide head, good eyebrows--perhaps some Arabic--a moor, an Othello) Marcus. He's much easier to talk to--we joke about the wilderness (says he's afraid). Marcus may play some sort of pro b-ball. . . I never really got it clear. The life of the place when he's here.
There are women for me where desire doesn't come up, and can see being friends, low-key.
When one doesn't have that comforting, more intimate, partner-type relation--with those of the attracting gender, that seems to be a main concern, question, for me at least, interefering with simpler interaction.
May get to it later, and not 100% sure, but Neighborhood Friend may be approaching being that partner-type person (in our noncommital sort of way). When it seems to be a basic part of the day, visiting her, and she makes similar and related effort, and we both continue to find that visit comforting, meaningful--well, that's significant--has only just become the case, if it has, after years.
1227 so: a quick lift. Believe it is biceps, triceps, legs this time (Friday was the last time lifting?).
1301 close to leaving. There is the reflex of seeking the glance of any attractive woman. But sometimes I follow the monk's precept and make a point to keep eyes down.
A skinnyish black man from Philly with a lisp/weak 'f', and an old lady from the Ukraine, asking each other wherefrom and neither understanding the other. She started by asking how much he lifting (on the benchpress), sitting in the hamstring curls machine.
A voice--a singer in a stall? He's very good. . . Ah, it is acapella xmas carols, silent night, just put on the until now silent ceiling speakers.
1316 Let's go!
1341 Back @ Acorn & Seminole. Some indecision on way, but avoided SaveALot dumpster (S&F has the good stuff). Grandma has soup on, gate unlocked, easy to get in from rain.
Saw long-unseen Charles, (formerly small-time civil attorney now peripatetic public school sub?) spirit of the pool, meets all the people, lifeguards, greets each each time with enthusiasm. Usually swims early. Humor--
Now--cook, eat? Other possible goals: the char refs, get across hwy to get more grains. . . But this project, perhaps enough.
1411
bit o g soup
flax & yeast
romain heart (foraged)
1 whiting filet
brown rice
brussle sprout
bit o parsnip, broccoli stem
lentils
celery
1 sweet, 1hot dried peppers,
1 shroom
1 half-clove garlic
bit o turnip
bit o rutabega
3" of zucchini
removed sprouts, have been eating them
ate whiting, standing
yellow onion, most of
green onions foraged, 4?
Bit o fresh ginger
in that order, about, to already cooking pot, ~ 2qt pot now full, water simmering out/into swelling rice, I hope. Rice cooked longest, ginger the least.
bit o dulse, dry, chewed, earlier
4 macadamias, foraged
1 small black frozen and now partly thawed banana. Mmm
1452 pot off stove, I'm crosslegged on sheet on old carpet. . . but probably will recline & eat.
oh-- a small red yam microwaved.
1504 one more banana
1507 reading _Moby Dick_ "the quadrant", eating.
1533 done?, pot scraped.
1547 Left Ahab @ ch120.
Now?
Should leave to cross hwy soon, before dark.
Lets review essay.
To complete the next step:
1600 --- distraction resolved.
The next steps:
(1) be ok with essay
(2) write three char refs/learn how to write them. Put them on linkedin?
(3) ask three people to write them. Brent, Andrea, Carol, probably.
while they do that, fill in other parts of app, etc.
---
1705 leaving acorn, seminole
1811 leaving windmill farms
1905 @ Neighborhood Friend's
2014 @ acorn & seminole
2040 ate some pepitas, wheat germ
2056 overeating wheatgerm, but decided to cook the rest (microwave)
----------------------------------
Basically, I would not have got out of house this dark rainy evening had not my friend come and got me out.
She hadn't planned to, but came all the way across the hwy to the market. (and back up the dark cyn with rushing freshet).
---
I don't think we have any desire for each other. Think we'll just be friends. The kind that can sleep together and think nothing of it (meaning in the same bed, perhaps even hugged like a teddybear, and no sex). Eat little cholesterol = little desire / no insistent hard-ons. But some cholesterol seems necessary to have some get up and go.
A wonderful thing-- though anything but intense, it is a comfort.
Will be interesting to talk to her about this.
well, I guess that's all.
Below is an email I sent her, but got to talk it out and apologize for its not intentional unkindness before she read it.
While she read the 'fun avoiding reproduction' email, she only later read 'smile'. There's no gurantee she reads what I send her--not a problem though, we meet each other by going to get the other at home.
-----
Neighborhood Friend,
since I'm not keeping silent so much any more:
I don't think I'm better--
jokes you make in play competition make me uncomfortable (as with the raincoats. . .).
I see how what I said about laughing wasn't good--I don't like to be laughed at and that's one reason I'm here and not in MX perhaps.
but its so hard to not say stupid things if one will say anything at all and not be a buddhist about it. Perhaps I could laugh at my ineptness--if your sadness were entirely not related.
I do want to change you--that's the root of all tonight's trouble, not loving you as you are--but wishing you didn't fret at all about your hair.
even though the subject is "="
it's not appropriate. I don't compare myself or compete with you
When I think about you, and our differences, it tends to be to appreciate/marvel that you still spend time with me even though I hardly work and keep wearing odd clothes, and have all sorts of other idiosyncracies.
I also want you not to joke about being the best in the world. . . .
all those things about comparing self to others--even joking--just remind me of a devastating bad root I wish were no longer there.
even as I say that I'm pretty sure some amount of concern about appearance, some amount of social comparison may be good--I go pretty far to exploring total absence of these--and can't entirely recommend it to everyone, perhaps
and it is foolish to say your physical aspect does not affect on how I interact with you. . .
but I'm pretty sure my attraction to you has nothing to do with presence or absence of hair on your head or how it arranges itself.
if you want to be devastating to me. . . (stopping here, left as an exercise to the reader).
I'm pretty sure you'll be learning / internalizing good ways of being. . .
remember you said to the barista about shooting for normal?
Neighborhood Friend, I don't do that, and doubt it is a good approach.
well I doubt this speech is helpful--it is sort of violating "loving you as you are"
but I'm questioning my old habits--
I hope I communicate your worth and potential---
suppose I hope you'd do the same.
maybe relationship is about more than acceptance, but maybe not.
peace and love, and please accept my mistakes, and don't shut down to me, and don't compare--
love (sure hope that's where this is coming from. . .questioning it a bit. . . I think it is. . . And the general, not the exclusive kind, the "we're doing our best-- I feel it" kind) (and so is [upstairs neighbor of NF]--don't let my words hurt her, but maybe it could be good. . . Just babbling. Pretty sure she wants your company too, and is sad when things get in the way--when we're cut off because you think we're down on you, we (may) feel you're down on us/or we're somehow not good friends, good people. . .)
ha! 'me gusta cuando callas' --a poem in Spanish :It pleases me when you're silent. . . I hope, overall, my speaking more is helpful, pleasing, though expect I make more mistakes as well.
so I suppose it is about acceptance: if we only accept each other in reserved, cautious, and fairly silent states we're not really acceping each other?
ok. Enoguf bable,
peace, love,
Colin
----------------------------------
I wanted to look at that email here, today, because it shows the crossing over to a sort of violence. I was sort of exasperated at the time. But, sure enough, the following afternoon I felt like stopping by, and there she was, well recovered.
-------------------
Well. . . This really is a dead-end. Looks like I won't be seeing 'peer' tomorrow. She may have read this, decided not to talk about her concerns with someone who writes like this (I do not blame her), but more than likely she's just busy.
Someone may read all this besides me--but not sure who.
---
The dead end, the absence of will--that is the question I imagine I'll be focusing on here, not desire so much.
---
My friend would be happy to see me in the morning. That excites me. Even a bit of desire--can hug her again--maybe she will be what helps me get up and out tomorrow.
And tomorrow I may get to campus and work on the character reference project.
She helped me significantly today by getting me across hwy to the market. . .
Too easy to become shut down when the food is not exciting enough: I got more chicken sausage (made in their deli)--no nutrition info, but guess most cals from fat. . . Even so, it helps me have a will, and helps me not want to keep eating. Plus other good things, vegetables and more cut 9-grain and wheat to soak to keep me from wanting bread.
---
how easy would it be just to sleep away the dark winter. . . Hibernate and atrophy.
the only other cure that comes to mind (besides having a friend to come get you) is to work in midtown manhattan and have a long walk home (north was the way I went) through central park, upper west side broadway, and so on.
I still wonder if B might be an inspiring friend.
-------
that seems to be it. Babbling has stopped. Ending the personal time tracking and eating reporting.
a good day, a magical day even, the tracking experiment maintained a sort of greater awareness in every action. And the day had unplanned contrasts--sdsu in the rain, peds, umbrellas, canyon stream. Emotional conflict: friend did not want to walk on campus, but I love to--but I'd followed her in spite of reservations friday morning. In the past she'd just go off and leave--
and my grandma, the indwelling, never-leaving spirit of the house--she's gone to bed now, but otherwise I can always stop with her a while (in front of the TV, evenings) for a change of mind, a chat about the weather, who knows what. She was after me to try to find a missing small portable heater this afternoon (It did not appear, at least in my searches).
my friend--definitely a mind-comfort--go spend time with her and wondering, attempt at initiative can shut down (or something)--she doesn't seem to mind stillness, inaction. And at some point it's time to go, time to return to this.
An odyssey today? The mind went through all that, and strung an awareness thread. So many beings, presences, encountered. Each on her own odyssey--ships passing on the whaling grounds.
Tonight, now, in dreams. And tomorrow?
How do I love?
love, peace,
Sunday, December 14, 2008
colonisation
Mind owned by the wanting ones time spent with.
Comments suggesting I view myself as superior shut them down: "She would be broadened." "It is good to be able to laugh at yourself." ('That's like: you're all right and I'm fucked up.')
You don't want to read this.
---
What is our potential?
How can I communicate to myself and to more others our worth, potential? How can I not aimlessly go from imaginary woman friend to imaginary woman friend with no aim or center or concept of the worth and potential of the dyadic relationship?
---
The only vision, potential, worth: to be the model for, spokesman of, the consciously unvisioned life.
Later this coming week I may meet with one who is more of a peer than the others mentioned here. Meaning we can interact and not fear each other--as I may fear B, or as Neighborhood Friend may fear me. The peer can talk about desire, and she has it, and she is careful, and that is comfortable.
I don't need to be so melodramatic--
Broken people.
Give us a task.
So I live visionless. When I spend time with them, I reflect?
What happens if you all give up?
And--
All these broken people. (superiority once more? Including self.)
What would I have to do were they whole?
we never will be!
sitting here in this broken land because my grandma has a house here and has not pushed me out
playing with people,
like a little kid.
Our desires.
My resolve to leave fails as connections to women, however varied within that general genre [cruel only if you believe strong and shapely masculine and feminine forms are epitomes and the rest are degenerates rather than spectrum], multiply. [after writing this, and accompanying exercises, reaffirmation occurs to follow the old paper plan where it leads, ever open to alternate paths.]
I may, however, be un bindable, un stick able, long-term safe--I have no independent will(? I have only a will to independence to serve as eventual balance to simple following). They see a generally nice person, not yet too unattractive or decayed (compared to them--it is all relative[?]), however odd, who has a somewhat sensitive honesty, a freedom from surface concerns(?), and who is attracted to them somehow, tolerant, patient(?).
But who has no initiative, no desire to lead. A responsive body. Leading only into non-leading.
Sit, act, as it happens.
--------------------
but part of the cycle is to have a vision. Who are you?
there is no framework for placing you if you are disembodied from a plan.
To the homeless shelter then: there we may achieve simple presence.
---
_I_ can't place myself without a plan. In relation to them, I have desire. For which there is no framework for realization.
On the road, that doesn't matter, but the shortterm none of us wish--
Desire, the root motive,
---
A (skillful) change of subject.
Marked by choice vs. (Marked by what else)?
we are all marked?
---
desire can be a base, a center, but cannot be an all.
---
blanking
---
plan:
- may ask if peer could meet tues.
- Will continue working on going to sea project
in stillness, that's all--
"Zimbabwae is. . . And you're worried about . . ., and I'm focused on you worrying about . . ."
Poor leadership, (lack of foresight, vision, productive collaboration, initiative, motivation,) come squash us(me)!
---
Peace,
Comments suggesting I view myself as superior shut them down: "She would be broadened." "It is good to be able to laugh at yourself." ('That's like: you're all right and I'm fucked up.')
You don't want to read this.
---
What is our potential?
How can I communicate to myself and to more others our worth, potential? How can I not aimlessly go from imaginary woman friend to imaginary woman friend with no aim or center or concept of the worth and potential of the dyadic relationship?
---
The only vision, potential, worth: to be the model for, spokesman of, the consciously unvisioned life.
Later this coming week I may meet with one who is more of a peer than the others mentioned here. Meaning we can interact and not fear each other--as I may fear B, or as Neighborhood Friend may fear me. The peer can talk about desire, and she has it, and she is careful, and that is comfortable.
I don't need to be so melodramatic--
Broken people.
Give us a task.
So I live visionless. When I spend time with them, I reflect?
What happens if you all give up?
And--
All these broken people. (superiority once more? Including self.)
What would I have to do were they whole?
we never will be!
sitting here in this broken land because my grandma has a house here and has not pushed me out
playing with people,
like a little kid.
Our desires.
My resolve to leave fails as connections to women, however varied within that general genre [cruel only if you believe strong and shapely masculine and feminine forms are epitomes and the rest are degenerates rather than spectrum], multiply. [after writing this, and accompanying exercises, reaffirmation occurs to follow the old paper plan where it leads, ever open to alternate paths.]
I may, however, be un bindable, un stick able, long-term safe--I have no independent will(? I have only a will to independence to serve as eventual balance to simple following). They see a generally nice person, not yet too unattractive or decayed (compared to them--it is all relative[?]), however odd, who has a somewhat sensitive honesty, a freedom from surface concerns(?), and who is attracted to them somehow, tolerant, patient(?).
But who has no initiative, no desire to lead. A responsive body. Leading only into non-leading.
Sit, act, as it happens.
--------------------
but part of the cycle is to have a vision. Who are you?
there is no framework for placing you if you are disembodied from a plan.
To the homeless shelter then: there we may achieve simple presence.
---
_I_ can't place myself without a plan. In relation to them, I have desire. For which there is no framework for realization.
On the road, that doesn't matter, but the shortterm none of us wish--
Desire, the root motive,
---
A (skillful) change of subject.
Marked by choice vs. (Marked by what else)?
we are all marked?
---
desire can be a base, a center, but cannot be an all.
---
blanking
---
plan:
- may ask if peer could meet tues.
- Will continue working on going to sea project
in stillness, that's all--
"Zimbabwae is. . . And you're worried about . . ., and I'm focused on you worrying about . . ."
Poor leadership, (lack of foresight, vision, productive collaboration, initiative, motivation,) come squash us(me)!
---
Peace,
Thursday, December 11, 2008
wide eyed | Artists I have met in pools | Avoiding many things | Through inaction, decay, opportunities arise
- preface (Saturday)
- wide eyed (Thursday)
- artists I have met in pools (Thursday)
- postface (Friday)
- avoiding many things (Saturday)
- postscript (Sunday)
[The following was begun on Thursday. It needs to be published for me to continue by writing on my cellphone about what's up.
The speech here may be even less mindful than usual. Composed as it was without the kind of repeated going over I often do when I have the silent, portable comfort of my cellphone. Certainly not publishing and not writing is an option too. But. . .
The current impetus: The pool is now open. I may be going back there. May see [---] again, but I should get to that on my cellphone, and want this published first.
I'd rather not go unprepared.
By the way "If this is a global teambuilding prob-lem, I'm sitting around.{'. . . playing grabass' says the harsher mind} Why?" & "What is my worth and potential?" are themes I thought of taking up. . .
Bury the offending text--a long-time strategy. Unreadable due to volume.
Peace.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------]
[first draft of following written on phone:]
wide eyed
I was about to begin a contemplation [in the swimming pool] of Covey's leadership definition, yesterday's experience, and whether I might possibly be overlooking a fun way of "communicating to [more people] so clearly their worth and potential that they come to see it in themselves."
Covey's 8th habit is actually, "find your own voice and help others find theirs," I believe, which, if you look at his early work, Spiritual Roots of Human Relations, you'll see the 8th habit may derive from [what may be] the Mormon belief that everyone is capable not only of a relationship with the divine (unmediated by priests?), but also of being prophetic and visionary in the same manner their founder was, and perhaps in the same manner Jesus, Moses, and others were, and that our role here on earth is to help as many souls as possible develop to the point that "they are comfortable in the presence of God", perhaps in the manner that a peer of God would be comfortable in the presence of God.
Covey's 8th is the better pointer?
but Melissa was there--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[first draft of following written in SDSU computer lab]
Artists I have met in pools whose websites I know (03ZED [owned])
Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Center, San Diego:
Riverbank State Park, New York City:
- Valerie Atkisson and do an image search for a self-portrait
- Sara Decorso
- Carmen Menocal (Architect)
- Anthony Saridakis (? Architect)
- Charles (Actor)
- ??? (Fashion photographer)
- ??? (Documentary writer, or filmer??)
- Others, I'm sure.
Trying to remember Valerie's name I got to remembering other NYC friends:
Yoga teachers and musicians and ?? met in dance studios
Yoga teachers and musicians and ?? met in dance studios
- Rachel Leshaw (now in Encinitas)
Doctors met in dance studios
But the only one in the present is Melissa Regas. So let's look.
I like her poem inclusion: http://melissaregas.com/poems/inclusion.htm
http://melissaregas.com/poems/self-respect.htm
Bravo! This is it.
Let's just stick with the poetry.
http://melissaregas.com/Poems.html
The bio.
http://melissaregas.com/bio.html
People's sign language--
http://melissaregas.com/psl.html
Conceptual art!!
http://melissaregas.com/conceptualart.html
This article on the controversy provides a rather clinical bio:
http://melissaregas.com/images/regaspsl.doc
Her eyes:
http://melissaregas.com/paintings12.html
one more: http://melissaregas.com/paintings9.html
notable:
http://melissaregas.com/paintings19.html
By the way: youtube, facebook, myspace are all blocked where I am now. It is 806pm. Time to go home.
----------------------------
I sat before this and was still as sun was setting. But eventually got up, 03ZED.
She waited for me. I saw her eyes on one of the first days back from Mexico--or maybe even before that trip. Took a few days (over the course of months--well weeks at least?) to recognize her [I mean become familiar with her, aware of her as someone who regularly comes to the pool, without saying a thing. And there was one I confused her with once.]. Then saw her pointing her toes, which helped me say hi, asking if she danced.
Today we could say more, then. And she was ready.
She's written about herself so I don't have to.
Or I should have written before I visited her site?
There's a lot that could be said. I know she's asking me to email her. Or nearly know.
The marked ones, if they survive--are the ones!
So alive--
realizing my fear was that by some carelessness I might lessen that joy.
Some great madness is about to begin?
I couldn't help laughing when I was trying to tell her I was reading Moby Dick. . . I still can't, thinking of it.
Her eyes. And she needs to see you to understand--to see your lips.
(at least without hearing aids).
And here's a fear:
That writing is faster than speaking?
How funny to communicate when you're not sure what of what you say is understood?
And how emphatic / exaggerated her expression--
Owned, by the way:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owned
Will I --
and how long until she responds? and what then?
I've got her email in my phone.
---
Following links in the clinical bio:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ehlers-Danlos_syndrome
---
A live spirit-- [in a body]
Well. Time to go.
Peace (I can't really believe that?),
a lot of sitting is in store to maintain some remembrance of peace perhaps. . .
Were she to read me, what would she find?
I think I'm nearly unreadable--so much text. [two icebergs. what does the the already written/painted matter. . ?]
Well. I'm not going to publish this right away?
It is written in a computer lab and I don't feel the feeling in it and the thought behind it that I do when writing on my phone.
Peace,
-------------------
(The following day -- Friday eve:)
postface
Still have not emailed her. May wait until next I see her, perhaps share my old URLs. As Covey says about human relations, "Slow is fast" [as in 'strong']. No rush. Was pretty will-less today. May take a while to return focus to the projects I was working on before (shipping, sewing).
-----------------
(The following day -- Saturday:)
Avoiding many things
Just looked through her pages again--
-----------------
(The following day -- Saturday:)
Avoiding many things
Not wanting to encounter a strong will and spirit having no will and spirit myself--a path to a disempowering and ultimately failing colonization.
The motivated-from-outward excitement of last week subsided. Nothing remaining beyond basic organismic motives.
---
"It's great to be with you because I get a break from my usual constant wondering what to do and instead can just follow you around."
The one I met perhaps has a lot in common with one I used to be. "Be together to be together." Whose work is most disturbing to those most sought? "Be together to be together" . . .
---
So, once more, lost and directionless. Do I really want to go to sea? What about these people? Time to go camping? All that will resolve itself in time.
The only immediate question, what do I say to [Bee], what will result? Perhaps a sort of: yes I visited, yes I saw, yes somewhat disturbed by what I could (simply) read as written to me. Disturbed by the speed she swam after touching hands, disturbed, understanding, knowing the same in me with her, others, not as dramatically perhaps.
What to do about someone who can love so quickly, intensely, unreservedly? [contrasting to one's petrification.]
I say I want to spend more time with others, but don't seem to know how any more. [do not really wish to?]
---------------------
That's the end? I could write a note for her with my old urls on it. . . She'd look at a bit of it.
(Simply) I think she'd be broadened? We all are by whomever we attempt to understand?
Time to go, I guess. There's not a lot of thought here.
---
Through inaction, decay, opportunities arise: death or fall to a lower level of dream. By contrast to the living, by interaction with them: dissonance, attempts to fit never realized. Their active decay, our inactive.
The free Kroc membership will eventually go away. The clothes I wear, rarely washed, also help me to progress to stillness, indolent virtue.
The free bananas--
peace,
------------------------------------------------------------
Postscript
Sunday morning. Time to publish this? I finally made it to the pool yesterday. But laid here much of the day. Right ankle not feeling wonderful. Not enthusing about walking miles.
Feeling a bit more comfortable a bit more distant from [---]. Imagine I'd use the response already mentioned, and recommend we write letters, not emails, if we do.
Will also recommend she date her work to show development, change?
Perhaps I'll move on to other topics now.
Peace,
The motivated-from-outward excitement of last week subsided. Nothing remaining beyond basic organismic motives.
---
"It's great to be with you because I get a break from my usual constant wondering what to do and instead can just follow you around."
The one I met perhaps has a lot in common with one I used to be. "Be together to be together." Whose work is most disturbing to those most sought? "Be together to be together" . . .
---
So, once more, lost and directionless. Do I really want to go to sea? What about these people? Time to go camping? All that will resolve itself in time.
The only immediate question, what do I say to [Bee], what will result? Perhaps a sort of: yes I visited, yes I saw, yes somewhat disturbed by what I could (simply) read as written to me. Disturbed by the speed she swam after touching hands, disturbed, understanding, knowing the same in me with her, others, not as dramatically perhaps.
What to do about someone who can love so quickly, intensely, unreservedly? [contrasting to one's petrification.]
I say I want to spend more time with others, but don't seem to know how any more. [do not really wish to?]
---------------------
That's the end? I could write a note for her with my old urls on it. . . She'd look at a bit of it.
(Simply) I think she'd be broadened? We all are by whomever we attempt to understand?
Time to go, I guess. There's not a lot of thought here.
---
Through inaction, decay, opportunities arise: death or fall to a lower level of dream. By contrast to the living, by interaction with them: dissonance, attempts to fit never realized. Their active decay, our inactive.
The free Kroc membership will eventually go away. The clothes I wear, rarely washed, also help me to progress to stillness, indolent virtue.
The free bananas--
peace,
------------------------------------------------------------
Postscript
Sunday morning. Time to publish this? I finally made it to the pool yesterday. But laid here much of the day. Right ankle not feeling wonderful. Not enthusing about walking miles.
Feeling a bit more comfortable a bit more distant from [---]. Imagine I'd use the response already mentioned, and recommend we write letters, not emails, if we do.
Will also recommend she date her work to show development, change?
Perhaps I'll move on to other topics now.
Peace,
Just looked through her pages again--
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