Up All Night (practically)

Went to a concert at ye olde Great American Music Hall Friday night.  [I had never been there, and when I walked through the main door and into the hall, I felt like I'd time traveled to the Moulin Rouge.  No kidding!  I was on the main floor, there were balcony seats, huge columns supporting the balcony, and baroque beginning-of-the-20th century flourishes all over.  Straight out of a Degas oil.]

Thought the show started at 8, but it was really 9.  Thankfully the weekend’s rains had not yet begun, so waiting outside for more than an hour wasn’t really awful.  What the problem was, was that we missed the last train out of the City when the show finally ended after midnight.

I had been getting sleepy, but the drama forced me awake.  Now it was getting interesting!  There was another hapless commuter who asked the station agent what to do now, and he mentioned the transbay bus depot as Plan B.  We quickly consulted a map in a bus shelter where one man was explaining the virtues of bus #800 to another, and then went off in search of the bus terminal.  As we were leaving, the bus maven turned to us to ask if we needed help with “the 800 schedule.”  “Nope, we’re fine,” we said as we walked away.  So off we went.

We arrived there at 12:50, which was pretty good for twenty minutes’ walking, only to discover that the last bus left at 12:38.  Doh!  But there was a bulletin board that said, “Did you miss the last bus?  Try the 800!” Double doh!

Again, luck was on our side, as the rains continued to stay away, and the transbay bus ran every half-hour through the night.  We were only fifteen minutes away from the next bus.

There was a meandering ride through Oakland, but eventually we arrived very very close to where we’d parked the car (and we had had an alternate plan to park not very close at all) and finally arrived home shortly after 2am.  It was the latest I’d been up in years, and we slept in until noon yesterday.

I’m still suffering sleepy after-effects.

I’m very pleased that I didn’t panic or get carried away worrying about what was going to happen to us.  I chalk it up to the meditation.

{And the concert was very good, but I much preferred the opening band, Paul & Storm. }

Super Tuesday/Mardi Gras

It’s a big day, the biggest Tuesday in a while….

I got my ballot completed, and will drop it off after work tonight.  I like voting at my official voting area: it’s in a community center just around the corner.   It feels very “New Hampshire” to me, and there’s always a big line of people there, even on primary days.

And then there’s some “party” at a place we like to celebrate Mardi Gras tonight, so maybe we shall go.

Then it’s Chinese New Year on Thursday — what am embarrassment of riches for this week!

I’m doing a daily spiritual email class (for the month of Feb) and it’s been very challenging.  The good news is that I can see how I “create my world” with the thoughts, though it may not be related to whatever is reality.

Jeopardy Junkie

Ever since our kitty died, we have been watching “Jeopardy.”  It wasn’t planned, it was just something to do at 7pm on Christmas Eve, and we’ve been watching it every weeknight ever since.  I enjoy it, I can feel smug about the answers I know, and deride the contestants for being too smug (that’s what’s so great about playing along at home!)

We read Bob Harris’ _Prisoner of Trebekistan_ last year, and it had interesting insights into how to hit the buzzer correctly, his own personal Jeopardy training regimen (studying on his feet under bright lights in the clothes he planned to play in), and strategy for winning (never, ever guess and wager big on the Daily Doubles).  In essence, it made watching “Jeopardy” interesting.  Viewed through Harris’ lens, I could pretend I was a contestant.  Also, I seem to know a lot more now compared to when I was a kid….most questions back then, I didn’t even know what they were asking.

So we’ve been watching steadily for two weeks up to last night, and I realized that I didn’t want to watch.  It had officially become a habit, and not a particularly rewarding one at that.  It was a “If it’s 7 o’clock, then I must be watching ‘Jeopardy’” kinda Pavlolvian response that I trained myself to do!  It was self-perpetuating!  And I felt a vague sense of disease as the minutes ticked away.  I knew that Alex would be over the chit-chat and category review, and the players would be in the thick of it.

Finally, at 7:15, my husband could stand it no longer.  “Let’s see what the Final Jeopardy question is,” he urges.

What I felt was incredible relief that I didn’t have to sit through those godawful commercials for nicotine addiction, the Jeopardy home game, the NY Times subscriptions, Oprah promotions, and local news teasers.  It was so tirelessly, rut-inducingly the same every night, down to the minute.

There were many other things I wanted to do with my life this year in 2008, and writing this blog is one of them (as a springboard to writing more in general, to selling my work and screenplays and to becoming financially independent!)  It was really easy to identify this time-waster, since it was a recent development.  I’ll just have to pay attention to the more entrenched habits I have.

Already I feel more engaged in my life, excited, invigorated, instead of feeling like my life was just a series of tasks to be completed.  It is, but when I am alive, when my soul is propelling me and not my physical body, that is nirvana.

Sure, eating a butter-laden pastry is also an enjoyable way to spend an evening, but it should only be a means and not an end.  I know that for too long in my life I have turned to food for comfort and succor, when what I really needed was my own company, being emotionally present for myself.

The food I was eating didn’t feed my soul.   That’s why, no matter how much of whatever tasty thing I ate didn’t make me feel any better.  I was trying to relive some childhood happiness that seemed to be achieved by food.  I was trying to solve a soul problem with a food answer.  Nothing I consumed would help me, but action can.  I am now a woman of action.

I have a very good feeling that many of my goals and dreams and hopes for 2008 will be realized, and tonight is just one of many nights I will string together that will get me there.

Cry, Yoga, and Meditation

That’s my version of “Eat, Pray, Love.”

So Senator Clinton won NH and Senator Obama won IA.  The Democratic primary is turning out to be quite competitive!  I hadn’t realized that it was usually over at the end of the NH primary.  (There’s also a Republican battle going on, but it’s not quite as interesting to me, but will be ultimately, of course).

I am still struggling to understand the primary process, with delegates given to each nominee…apparently it’s like a pre-Electoral College, just for the nomination.

Went to yoga today, and just tried to keep my breathing foremost in my mind the entire time.  I think it made a difference.

So we bought a Tempurpedic mattress-like topper for our bed.  I bought it on Monday, and it’s been sitting on the floor, inhaling ever since.  It’s four inches of sponge that was pressed to remove all the air, to easily ship it.  So it’s been breathing air back in for 48 hours.  It’s been fun, like waiting for a bread dough to rise.  I even took in-process photos!

Can’t wait to check it out to see if it’s ready for use this evening.

Zen

The guidance you seek is guiding you.

I’ve begun a book that’s about awareness practice, in the Zen sense, that has an entry for each day of the year.  I’ve only read the intro and January 1st’s entry.  Unfortunately, I read today’s entry about 1800, and realized I should have read it first thing in the morning.  Well, I’ve learned something already!

That’s another thing I want to explore in this blog: my meditation-Zen practice, and how I hope it will change me, make me more peaceful, patient, at ease.

I’ve been very pleased at how each day I have a different angle on my blog, and it’s a direct result of the different parts of me that is showing up at the computer.  Maybe by the end of the year, I’ll have a comprehensive guide to the inner workings of myself, or at least the one who shows up at the computer.

Friends of ours have an annual New Year’s Day open house, a casual party with a day-long charades game.  Our first New Year’s Day together while dating, my husband and I went.

This year I decided I didn’t want to go, not because of the company, but because I preferred to be outside on a gorgeous northern Cal day.  I realized that on a spectrum with “life of the mind” on one end and “physical” on the other, I identify more with the physical.  Maybe because my work keeps me imprisoned in an office all day at a desk, I relish nature and the outdoors as much as possible.  I’m no fair-weather friend; I appreciate all kinds, though if it’s unbearably hot I move verrry slowly.

We haven’t had any real rain this winter, and I’m not excited about the prospect of water rationing in the summer.   Thankfully it’s supposed to start raining this Thursday and won’t let up for a week.

In appreciation of the warm sun, I really wanted to go to the park, especially in light of the coming rains.  Unfortunately, so did hella lotta other people.  We had gone back in September, and ours was the only other car in the parking lot.  Today, it was full.

Dogs, baby strollers, bikes, kites, & picknickers (sp?) were everywhere.  It wasn’t the peacefulness that I sought, but it was soul-soothing.

As I get older, I realize that I just want simple, quiet things.  And just being outside in nature is a wonderful way for me to get it.  We went to visit friends in Tempe-Phoenix and then drove to Sedona afterwards.  Sedona was a balm for the heat & congestion of Tempe.  Higher in elevation, greener, and with those fabulous red rocks, I couldn’t get enough of Sedona.

After that trip, I vowed to ensure that I had more trips that were about being outside.  So my sis & I went to Yosemite in December.  Oh!  It’s so beautiful there, even though I was using a point-and-shoot digital camera, everything I shot looked like an Ansel Adams photo.  The light, the snow, the dramatic shadows found within Yosemite Valley…I could imagine living a very simple existence there.

Heck, our overpriced grocery stores cost the same as their overpriced grocery store in the valley.

Jeopardy’s almost on…gotta get ready.