Guitar Circle Journals

Some of the most intense rain and wind I’ve ever seen in my life yesterday. It was necessary for me to go out driving in it, and it was a moment that I realized I was risking my life to greater degree than usual. Puts a bit of an “edge” on the experience.

Our power went on and off a few times, so we chose to unplug the computer. No posting yesterday. The day was a full-metal family day, and today is more of the same. This makes some of my “internal” plans impossible, and others are just more difficult.

The weather is wet and windy, and forecast to remain that way throughout the weekend. This puts a damper (ha!) on plans to present the soon-to-be-4-year-old with a bicycle. We shall see.

I’ve returned to T’ai Chi in the last few days. Each time I do this I am tempted to smack myself (with a slow, attentive, motion) for ever having abandoned it. It’s one of those things that is so obviously good for me in so many ways, why does it get dropped?

Began the limb rotation an hour earlier than usual this morning. This has the effect of throwing of my sense of the “default” limb of the hour. On the other hand, the “math” is easier when I begin at 6 instead of 7.

The adults in the house are rising earlier, in order to be ready for the children who are also rising earlier. I noticed, and I’ve noticed this before, that it’s somehow easier for me to get out of bed when my alarm time changes. My hypothesis is this: The morning schedule (from the time I rise until I leave for work) is driven by the rise time. When the rise time changes, “it” doesn’t quite know how to organize the morning, so “I” must get out of bed to engage the day.

Q: How do I know that I should probably change one of my plans for the work day?

A: When I wake up and get an immediate headache from thinking about it.

Not related to the above, a contentious situation is arising in the workplace. I am not directly involved, but there is shouting going on over my head.

I take a forward step in a addressing a health-related situation.

Later in the day, I go shopping for toys for some upcoming birthdays. This is fun, and generates ideas for the future.

In the morning, a reminder that I need to get up earlier. So it goes.

On the way to work I drive by the local bike store in hopes of finding a time I can shop for a bike for the soon-to-be-four-year-old. They are still on their “winter hours” and I don’t know how I’ll get there. Later in the morning I get a phone call from the family – they are at the bike store, shopping.

I spend a large part of the work day wrestling with a 6-Gigabyte file. This was a form of torture. Here was a conversation from the afternoon:
M: The problem with a 6GB file is that it takes a very long time to do anything with it.
Co-Worker: Can’t you filter the file, and somehow make it smaller?
Me: “Filter” and “make it smaller” go under the umbrella of “doing anything.”

Again, a sense of waiting. One item has appeared, although I’m not clear on its significance.

I will now take five minutes to restore order to my desk.

The children have been waking up at an absurdly early time lately. When we set the clocks on hour ahead on Sunday, they will still wake up at the same time, but the rest of the world will have shifted to accommodate them.

The day is remarkably routine. I suppose that might make it unremarkable. It makes me uneasy to suggest that a day could pass without remark.

Part of this is because I’m waiting for something. While I’m waiting, what am I doing?

Something I noticed: my eyes watering as I walk outside. Moving on from noticing, this reminds me that I need to acquire the name and # of a prospective new allergist.

Morning weigh-in: none lost, none gained. Or, perhaps, equal amounts lost and gained.

I am determined to get a certain amount of work done today, but I am remarkably prone to distraction. The day is not fruitless, but not as productive as I had hoped. There are several tasks coming up that will function as pointed sticks: they must be done, and they must be done by me.

Thoughts revolve around: life and death; past, present and future; old friends and older friends.

I was surprised, while walking and thinking, to discover that I have not fully let go of something I previously believed to have been let go of. What? Let’s try again: I let it go. I believed this letting-go to be complete. Today I discovered it was not. There is a mechanical aspect to this: I see a picture, I read a name, and…not-so-much-letting-go. My buttons were pushed. There are some strategies for working with this, and I was advised that I would find that these strategies useful for a time, and then they might be dropped, and then I might feel the need to resume them. And so it has come to pass.

We stayed up late to watch a movie. 1 hour and 50 minutes in, the movie lost us. That is, it failed to convince. So close.

We all enjoyed the sunny and (relatively) warm weather. Everybody made it outside twice.

I had a brief sitting, which magically coincided with the one time during the day in which the house was quiet.

Throughout the day, the strange experience of blatant corporate propaganda, as a TV network and a cable company duke it out in front of the public.

I applied to join the Completion Course at a distance today.

Once upon a time this date was significant for me. That was a long time ago. Now it is significant in that I remember that it used to be significant.

The children awaken early. I don’t mind getting up with them, probably because the day is sunny and the warmest of the year to date. We attend to several tasks today, including paper and cardboard recycling, and donation of no-longer-needed goods. I am grateful to my wife for taking the initiative on the donations.

The afternoon is productive as well: I get some necessary reading and writing done. I have been compiling a history of the first NST weekend I attended (April 14-16, 2000). I am surprised by how long it is taking to tell the tale.

I made a decision a few weeks ago, going on instinct. Today I received confirmation that my instinct was spot on.

Family time into the evening: walking, play, dine, discipline, read.

A good day. Looking forward to a film tonight.

Developed a bad attitude last night. Noticed the attitude, and kept asking myself, “Am I really going to act like this?” The answer that kept coming back was, “Maybe.”

This morning I awoke with my mind racing. I noticed it was racing, and decided that it wasn’t necessary to race along with it.

There is something in the air…is Spring coming?

Yesterday evening I began to review my diary from the first NST weekend I attended, nearly 10 years ago. The diary is mostly a series of single sentences or phrases. I read them, and then sit back trying to recall what it is the phrase is supposed to trigger. This is generally successful, although it is more difficult to separate my subjective impressions from a factual account of what happened. Of course I’m dealing with 10-year-old memories of subjective impressions and so forth, so good luck to me.

A discussion this morning points to one of my goals for the month, although I’m the only one who knows this. A phone call this afternoon indicates that I was wise to refrain from discussing an idea. For this month, anyway, the idea is unworkable.

The work day is intensive, and feels like it’s about 1.75 days long.

My GC radar is active today.