3, 2, 1 (a, f, e)

Today I took the long way home. Hot days make for really pleasant nights to bike in, and since it was only 9pm I got to feel like I was going home early.

Once at home, I figured out a new way to carry my bike up the stairs. It involves hoisting it over my shoulder and charging the obstacle course of metal gate, door, flight of stairs, 'nother door head on. I saw the neighbor boy doing this with his bike and his entry way yesterday.

Then I took a walk around my neighborhood. I went up to the grocery mart two blocks away, but it was already closed, so I walked around the block, peaked in at the schedule of the Bikram Yoga studio, and ended up at a grocery mart a block and a half away from my place. There, I bought yogurt, bananas, chocolate chips, and these things called Zebra bars which, after enjoying far too many of them, I discovered that just one has far too much saturated fat in it.

I cooked a quick stir-fry in the kitchen and put it in three different tuber wear containers - meals for this weekend's rehearsal schedule.

I finished folding my laundry! If you know me and laundry, you know that this is a bit of a monumental occasion. I hate laundry. HATE HATE HATE HATE it. There are some tasks I avoid but actually kind of enjoy, like washing the dishes and sweeping the floor, but there is nothing about laundry that gets me excited to be productive about it. In order to make myself fold it, I have to pile it on top of my bed so that I have to deal with it before I fall asleep. Or sleep on top of it, which has happened.

I'm listening to some music to calm my mind and quiet the constant repetition of numbers and beats that this tonight's rehearsal has stirred inside me.

I LOVE DANCING.

I had a brief and impromptu talk with someone I admire much today, and he talked about feeling like he is in a transition time, about not knowing exactly what he's doing - and he talked as if that's the most natural thing in the world. He's totally right.

I want to dance much more than I am. There are certain ways I could do that:
1) Audition for places that rehearse regularly and a lot
2) Network and audition for and build up smaller projects until I'm doing a lot at once and am always busy
3) Create my own initiatives and reasons for dancing

Number 3 interests me a great deal, but I feel like it would be utterly cocky of myself to only invest in that. Who the hell am I to assume I know anything? And at my age!

Number 2 sounds absolutely exhausting and discombobulating. It's kind of what I'm doing, except I'd want to add more on top.

Number 1 is terrifying.

There's also the possibility of combination, if I'm going to get technical about it.

complete chaos

I came home and my roommate had cleaned up quite a bit. On top of my foam roller, which I keep in the living room, he had placed some printed instructions, "MULTIPLE USES OF BIOFOAM ROLLERS," with subtitles, "SELF MYOFASCIAL RELEASE TECHNIQUES," "GENERAL TECHNIQUE," etc.

Organization.

Next to my door was my mail, a free CD sample, and a news article, "Inflammatory Statements Trip up 'Green Jobs' Adviser." I put it next to the news article he had given me that morning to read, "Firms Racing to End Texting and Driving."

I stumbled in to the bathroom, a little tipsy from one glass of wine. I was wearing a leotard, but only because I'd run out of clean underwear. "Dancing is a lifestyle" is something I say to people I meet like computer programmers who have no idea what I do. Apparently, a lifestyle in which I have collected a drawer full of leotards to wear when I run out of clean underwear.

There are things in my life which I question the meaning of. This drawer is not one of them.

I have fallen head over heals in love with the faults of those I admire.

beanbags for your fingertips

I am still kind of searching.

I found a few things:
- the need to by physical, interspersed with the desire to investigate the meanings of things that are small and intricate
- the joy in being usefully productive
- the ability to ignore it all, for once

The trouble with ignoring it all is that it also feels a bit like not caring. However, I need to recognize that I have in fact done all that I am supposed to, and attempting to care past my capacity just ends up being unhealthy.

Perhaps.

Many thanks to my friends who have made this week mean more than just drudgery.

I've been working on my Teva Tan, but it's done nothing for my sense of accomplishment.

Sometimes, when I'm lonely, I read Craigslist's missed connections. These do nothing to stop me from being lonely, but in the amount of time I spend getting annoyed that most of them are written poorly and only a few clever enough to spark any dorkish sort of imaginative romance story, I get sleepy enough to konk out, and when I wake up in the morning I'm generally not lonely.

Sometimes, when there are too many unorganized thoughts going on in my brain to konk out, I just take three melatonin and wait about half an hour. Sometimes I read a book during that time.

I don't have any melatonin with me tonight!

I just finished reading a book and am too much drenched in the feeling of it to start another one. This was a FANTASTIC book. I have not read a book this good in a long time, a book that had me living with the characters for awhile. I cried three times during the course of this book! Oh, release, to feel and cry at something wholly imaginary and completely true.

Craigslist, Facebook, and Twitter are all boring.

Today, for a little bit, I began to feel actually excited at the prospect of getting back to a schedule of working hard. I started to appreciate what that means in my life, and the portions of myself that thrive under those conditions. But right now it is a little later in the day. The parts of me that produce enthusiasm have gotten tired, and I am back in the condition of overwhelmed, exhausted, and burnt.

How does one get back? I want to feel the wonder of things again, the belief that what I do has an impact, that I am able to be fully alive, that I live in a web of connectedness where things matter, if only for brief moments.

I feel stuck in an odd complex: I am doing exactly what I want, and yet it is all so much that I don't want any of it. I want to lay in bed for half the day, and yet if I stay here past 8am I feel guilty. I want to spend all morning drinking coffee and reading comics, but after 20 minutes I get antsy. I want to do yoga every morning, but it takes so damn long. All I want to do is relax, and I'm really really really bad at it.

How do I come to joyfully inhabit this life that has sprung up around me? Do I make goals and track their progress? Do I relax and enjoy the ride? Do I tell myself, I will work for so long today, and then after that I can eat a cookie? All three of these things have worked for me during various portions of my life. I have no idea what the hell is appropriate now.

stab in the dark

I would like to post on the internet that today I went swimming for the first of what I hope will be a good jaunt of consistent cross-training. I went to the Embarcadero YMCA, which has a nice hot tub right next to the swimming pool.

I think it will be hard to make myself go consistently, but I am hoping that by posting on the internet that my body feels amazing and alive and physically tired but not banged about that I will remember why I think I should go swimming.

OK.

today

I ate a brownie for breakfast (along with coffee and vitamins)
I emailed for awhile
I didn't want to go anywhere, but I made myself go to dance class
I was completely, wonderfully exhausted, thank god
I bought a latte in the smallest cafe ever, and stopped in but didn't see my friend at the hair salon
I sent one long, serious email
I wrote a press release
I organized grant materials
I got a promotion
Things are not any slower than they have been, but they will be different

fantastical

Eleven PM on the N Judah, I sat with my head against the window, half asleep. I closed my eyes, and startled myself alert, wondering where I was. I closed my eyes again and rested. I opened them again and a boy sitting lopsided in the sideways facing seats was blowing bubbles.

The couple in front of me batted them out of their faces. The man next to me was smirking. The bubbles grew thinner as they floated backwards in the train, getting sucked in to the ventilation system, popping in to a million tiny pieces of soap that fell on everyone's clothes.

The boy's bubble bottle ran out. He pulled a jug of water and another of dish soap out of his backpack and proceeded to pour, mix, and refill his bubble bottle. Right there on the N Judah.

He had tattoos on his arms, gauged ears, and was wearing a brass key on a neon pink cord around his neck.

How does this happen in real life? And how does it happen that it feels so fantastically odd and inspiring?

I once danced as part of a bubble fountain outside the De Young museum, which maybe others found just as wonderfully bizarre.