Sicko and Lefty

So, anyway, Sir Dave and I did see Sicko, which was great. You may visit Sir Dave’s website at SirDave dot com. I love when Michael Moore takes the little boats full of people to Guantanamo Bay and uses a bullhorn to request medical treatment for them. “We just want the same care you’re giving Al Qaeda!”

The movie is full of memorable moments—sad, outrageous and even a bit comical, thinking here of the fellow who throws his shoulder out fulfilling his lifelong ambition to cartwheel across Abbey Road where the famous picture of the Beatles was taken: “Ow, my shoulder!”

After the movie, Sir Dave said he was famished; was I? I said I was intending to go back to my neighborhood and have a burrito (followed, I didn't mention, by a six-hour nap). Sir Dave said he might just tag along, so he did. After burritos and garlic mushrooms at Pancho Villa, I turned north on Valencia St. to go home; Sir Dave said he might just walk with me a bit, so he did.

When we were nearly at my place, I invited him in to meet the Hammett (“Oh, he’s little,” said Sir Dave) and then subjected him to a variety of audio selections: Megadeth, the Beatles, Red Hot Chili Peppers, KT Tunstall, and some of Brent Weinbach’s off-color humor. Sir Dave departed at about 8:30 p.m. following his customary notice of departure: “I’m going to wend.”

Later I went up on the roof of my building to behold, through the unusually clear night, fireworks going off in four or five different places, plus all of the amateur productions. It was pretty spectacular, the best fireworks display I’d seen in years, maybe since my youth. I have fond memories of fireworks in Ann Arbor: being out with my family in the night, the smell of the dewy grass, the brilliant burning colors right overhead, the ear-splitting explosions and the white flashes

Some of the best fireworks this year were coming from very near at hand, in Dolores Park. Unfortunately, it turned out later that a young woman’s hand was seriously injured when some device exploded right next to her. In fact, she lost a finger, and she is a drummer.

Usually there are many things exploding through all of the Fourth of July night, but there seemed to be very few this year after 11 p.m. or so. I also expected leftover munitions to be detonated the following night, but I heard none.

My place of employment has sent me a new cell phone (a Nokia 2366i) which has two wonderful features: you can’t tell whether it’s on or not without picking it up and doing something to make the display light up, and it’s hard to tell when you have a new voice mail. With the previous phone, it was very obvious whether it was on or not and if you had a message or not. So this is a big step in the right direction.

I’ve been trying to find a good place to walk at lunch on weekdays. Yerba Buena Gardens is idyllic, but way too short a walk. Howard St. to the Embarcadero is nice for the water views, but slightly too populated. Folsom St. to the Embarcadero, just one block beyond Howard, is definitely free of people, but so much so as to be almost eerie. It has almost a wasteland feel, very romantic, but maybe not what you’re looking for every day.

One day this week I walked south on Third St. to the Embarcadero, and that was quite nice. It has nearly a small-town feel while going south (not going north, when you see downtown’s tall buildings) and affords tantalizing views of the Francis Lefty O'Doul Third Street Bridge, a venerable hunk of metal. I like things that are made of metal. By chance, that same evening, KQED was broadcasting a feature about this bridge.

Meditation is proceeding apace. Some days I do just five minutes, but if it's longer, it’s usually an hour, starting with a period of metta, then concentration practice using the breath, and then vipassana: letting go of the exclusive focus on the breath and noticing anything that is predominant.

I’m reading Ayya Khema’s book Who Is My Self?: A Guide to Buddhist Meditation, which oddly, is actually an exploration of the jhanas, which is somewhat of an advanced topic; I never expect to experience a jhana in my life. But it is excellent. She is a very good writer; so clear and so in command of her subject. I’m having to underline huge swaths of it.

One time when I was on a retreat and having a crush on a fellow retreatant, my teacher, Howie, advised, “Guard your sense doors.” I took that to mean not to look at the other person, but Ayya Khema says of course we will see and hear things all the time, and that to guard one’s sense doors means you see the guy, but don’t get off into “He’s cute” or “He’s on my nerves.”