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)
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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,
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