Burly

Last Sunday I went to Eugene’s sitting group. After we meditated, he shared with us the highlights of a discussion the Spirit Rock teachers had with another teacher whose name I didn’t catch. The other teacher talked about how students can plateau at various points, including when life seems easy and pleasant.

What you’re supposed to do in that case, according to this teacher, is strive to keep noticing impermanence.

While I was cooking earlier that day, Hammett sat down in a little patch of sun right where I normally stand to chop vegetables and looked contemplatively at the top of the stove until he evidently decided that whatever he was thinking of doing was likely to be discouraged or even to meet with censure.

On Monday I stopped by the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition office to pick up stuff for an SFBC table at my company’s Earth Day event. The event, the following day, was much smaller than last year’s, but I was gratified at the number of people who told me that they would like to bicycle to work, but there is nowhere to park, because that is the project I’m working on: secure bike parking.

I took their names for my fledgling network of company cyclists.

Wednesday evening found me back at the SFBC for Volunteer Night. A time or two before, I had seen S. with some small children, so I asked him if those had been his children. He said no. I said, “Oh, you must have just been sitting next to someone else’s kids.” S. said, “No—they were sitting next to me,” which I thought was funny.

I’ve been trying to identify a day on which I could do some sewing projects, which is like trying to pick a day to have dinner with a friend: Not that week, not that week, not that week. I finally decided just to do what I could weekday evenings, even though that means no reading, so on Thursday night I mended a pair of pants, hemmed a piece of cloth for draping over my sewing machine (I’ve been using a relative’s shredded towel for some years; I don’t even know how that item came into my possession), and began hemming a cherry-red piece of cloth I will hang inside a windowed closet door to protect the stuff in the closet from the curious gaze of myself.

Last night I saw the world's worst movie: London, which consists entirely of people snorting cocaine and screaming at each other. Jason Statham is in it, which is why I watched it, but he wasn't nearly as attractive as in the Transporter movies and the movies with "Job" in the title.

By the way, apparently there is a sequel to The Italian Job called The Brazilian Job, never yet released; I'm not sure if it was even made yet. That is something I must see.

Email exchange with Frank in Dublin which I subsequently forwarded to my parents, verbatim:

I wrote: I know you’ll be pleased to hear I have a sty. Unfortunately, it’s not large or painful, but it is red and unsightly, and has lingered for a few days so far.

Just trying to keep up the spirits of those in lands far away!

What’s new with you?

Frank: Ahhh, the old STY in the EYE!! Been there Atkins, been there. They are painful little buggers, they lie dormant for years and then when you least expect it................................BANG...........a giant snot-rag in your face. Memories.

Not much new on this side, did I tell you that I entered the L'Etape Du Tour this year? It is the cycling race where 8000 amateur cyclists from around the world can bike one stage of the Tour Du France. This year it's on stage 10. There is some very serious climbing in it!!! I have Wildflower in just over 2 weeks, can't wait for that. You know, I was thinking the other day, it's been over three and a half years since I left, and I have not returned to San Fran ONCE in that time. That's hugely unusual for me. I thought a bit about it, and eventually came to the conclusion that unless I am actually moving back there, I think it would hurt too much to go back. I really do miss the place. I miss the madmen on market street, the hussle and bussle of time square. My walk home up the streets to Pine. I miss the bay, the golden gate, I miss hearing that little tram as it struggled up Powell or California. And most of all I miss Trader Joes. What a place. Isn't it?

Tell me, what do you miss about dublin?

Linda [who has never been to Dublin]: Yes, you told me something about that race. It sounds incredible.

I’m going to do the 73-mile loop of the Grizzly Peak century in a couple of weeks. I think that is also hilly. I’m going to do it on my plain old commute bike plus fenders, because I haven’t been riding my Bianchi much, and therefore find it uncomfortable when I do.

Ah, good old Dublin. I miss the misty evenings, cool outside but warm and cozy inside with a pint or two and my mates. I miss those old characters sitting in the corner at the neighborhood pub. And, of course, Dublin in springtime! When the sun and flowers finally appear, it’s heaven.

You’ll be happy to hear my sty is stubbornly refusing to abate. It’s been exactly the same for four or five days now. Once in a while, it itches, and then I rub it vigorously, which is probably why it’s not going away. But really, I don’t think I’ve ever had one last more than a couple of days before.

Frank: You have the gift of chat Atkins, I can picture you now sitting in an old mans pub, sipping back a nice capari and soda, giving the finger to customers as they pass on through. 'Burly' they will mutter to themselves as they pass, referring to your inate ability to create as hostile an environment as possible. Little do these things worry Atkins, as she sits next to the fire vicourously scratching her left eye.

(End of exchange)

My father wrote back that he thought this was “highly chuckelacious.” (Note the crafty respelling of “chuckle” to make the extended form comprehensible. “Chuckleacious” wouldn’t have done the trick.)

On the phone, my mother said, “I don’t get it. What does burly mean?”

“Burly. You know what burly means. It means burly.”

“That’s not a definition! You can’t define a word by using the same word. If you look it up in the dictionary, it wouldn’t say ‘The definition of burly is burly.’ I mean, I know what burly means; it means big and strong, but he must have meant it in some other way.”

“No, that’s what he meant.”

“Why is that funny?”

“It’s funny because it’s not something people usually say about people. They might say, ‘Ooh, grumpy’ or ‘Friendly!’ but they don’t usually say ‘Burly.’”

“Was he saying he was burly?”

“No, he was saying people would say I was burly, as I sat there scratching my eye.”

There was a sincere-sounding gale of laughter—finally—and then a dry, “Yeah, a joke is always funnier if it requires several paragraphs of explanation.”