Here’s another good song title: Debauchery’s “Decadent Depravity of the Dead.” I think they’re onto something there, because that’s certainly one of my own least favorite things about the dead, their decadent depravity. (Every time that crosses my mind, I laugh.)
I got to the point again of thinking I’d return the Internet radio, which was requiring an undue amount of online research, and to confirm I’d be doing the right thing, I switched it from accessing the Internet to accessing my computer, which it has been balky about, but of course it did it perfectly, and back again. I guess it’s time to admit it: I’m in love with this thing, and I will now tell you its name. It is the Squeezebox Boom, from Logitech.
At first I had trouble finding my own childhood rock station, WRIF in Detroit, but what you have to do is visit the radio station’s website and get the URL for the live stream, which is different from the URL for the website itself.
So I’m happily listening to KQED, WRIF, my iTunes playlists, Snakenet, and downloaded episodes of On the Media, Radiolab, Fresh Air, and This American Life, all on one device. Of course, none of this is what I originally wanted the thing for, which is dharma talks, but I’m completely attached to it at this point.
Howie was away this past Tuesday evening and the affable Yvonne Ginsberg was there instead, with her small dog Leo. On Thursday, Hammett turned five, which means he’s been with me for precisely four and a half years. He celebrated by sitting on top of my turntable—what a bad little boy! Friday evening, the newly designated Chore Night, I cleaned the bathroom, which probably had last been done prior to Thanksgiving. Of 2010.
Saturday morning I went to the Zen Center and heard Christina Lehnherr’s talk, which was very helpful. She was one of the teachers for my EPP class. I stayed for the Q&A and for lunch.
Back at home, I did various chores (I guess Friday night is Big Chore Night, and Saturday afternoon is Little Chore Afternoon) and watched two movies in the evening, both of which I loved: Knight and Day, and Stone. The former is a frenzied crime caper with Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz. It didn’t get very good reviews, but it’s totally excellent because Tom Cruise is in it. I’m sorry, but he is completely attractive, and Cameron Diaz is fun to watch, too.
In Stone, Edward Norton plays a convict who deploys his wife, played by Milla Jovovich, to seduce his parole officer, Robert De Niro. It seems to be some sort of commentary on religion and spirituality. Norton’s performance is dazzling. Parts of it were filmed in Michigan. They may have used the prison in Jackson, MI, for the prison exteriors, and in the credits, thanks go to Washtenaw County and to the City of Ypsilanti (!).
On Sunday I went to Rainbow and then made Beluga lentils and brown rice, almond shortbread, and home fries.
I suppose you thought I forgot about this, but on the contrary. Some years after starting my test of mineral sunblocks, I’m ready to release the name of the winner.
A bit of background: A handful of years ago, I bumped into the Environmental Working Group’s database of personal care products, which offers information on ingredients and rates each item’s safety.
It’s healthiest to use a mineral sunblock, so, sifting and resifting through the EWG database, I tried several, and hated them all. They all smelled metallic, they all looked completely dreadful once applied—sticky, gunky, pink, white, masklike—and they also were impossible to get off. I gave up and went back to chemical sunscreen.
Then the chemical sunscreen I’d been using for years turned on me and added one and/or the other of the two main mineral sunscreen ingredients, titanium dioxide and zinc oxide. I did a Google search for its former ingredients thinking I’d find a similar sunscreen, but instead I found such dire warnings that I discarded my remaining chemical sunscreen and went back to the drawing board.
Along the way, I’d at least learned how to get this stuff off your face. The containers often say to rinse with water. This does nothing. Soap and water more or less does the trick, but what I do is put lotion all over my face and wipe it off with cotton balls, repeat, and then rinse with water.
The runner-up: Alba Botanica’s mineral sunblock that is SPF 20; probably the SPF 30 is similar, but I tried the 20, since I always wear a hat, anyway. The EWG database says Alba Botanica might use nano-scale ingredients, but I called them, and they said they don’t.
And the winner! Vanicream Sunscreen, Sensitive Skin, SPF 30. (Not the “Sport” version, though this might meet the needs of some.) This gets a two rating on EWG’s one-to-ten scale, one being best. I don’t know how Vanicream does this, as they do not use nano-scale ingredients, but it goes on clear. It also smells like nothing when first applied, though later a faint sort of orange smell creeps in, not even really a metallic smell. It’s slightly tacky to the touch, but not thick or greasy.
There is also an SPF 60 of the same thing, which gets a three rating at EWG, has a slightly firmer feel on the face, and looks just as good as the SPF 30.
Monday, April 18, 2011
Monday, April 11, 2011
Corporal Jigsore Quandary
Last Thursday night, I talked to Angela on the phone, as we do every month or so. On Friday night I did laundry, which I give myself permission to do now that I’m nearly 49, which is nearly 50. (I always had permission to do laundry, but there seemed to be some reason not to do it on Friday night, like that I might be out having some fabulous social event.) I recall hearing a man grumbling, years ago, about visiting the bars regularly and never meeting any nice men. “That’s because the good men aren’t in the bars—they’re home ironing,” his friend explained.
Saturday morning I went to the Zen Center, where they were celebrating the Buddha’s birthday. Steve Stücky gave the talk and then we had a festive procession to the park across the street and circumambulation and chanting; there were parasols and streamers and rose petals everywhere. It's nice to walk along the sidewalk and have someone tossing flower petals over you. We crossed the street again afterward and had cookies and tea in the courtyard.
Normally the after-talk cookies are tasty and rather small, as befits a cookie you eat an hour before lunch, but for this occasion, someone had made the most fabulous, decadent, not-small brownies—they were like slabs of chocolate frosting. It was most enjoyable to sit in the Zen Center courtyard with the sun beating down, having such a magnificent thing to eat, complete with peppermint tea. Lunch was a hearty kidney bean soup with ginger and chunks of sweet potato.
When I got home, I did some chores around the apartment and in the evening I saw Inception, which I don’t think got great reviews, but of course is the year’s best movie as far as we lucid dreamers are concerned. I could scarcely follow it, but I thought it was dazzling and magnificent. I always like to watch Leonardo DiCaprio, too.
On Sunday I went to Rainbow—behind me in line at the cash register was another person from Howie’s sitting group—and then I made Spanish rice, home fried potatoes for immediate consumption, Bieler Broth, and blondies. I adapted the Spanish rice recipe from Deborah Madison’s, and it’s a lot easier and faster, and just as good. Home fries are a cooking-day tradition. I usually use an onion in them, but that’s a lot of onion (hence poor potato-to-onion ratio), so this time I used a lesser amount of shallots, and the finished product was perfect.
Bieler Broth is pureed celery, zucchini, green beans and fresh parsley. I may have gotten into it when I had my tooth out and had to eat soft food for a week or two. It ensured that I’d get a blast of green vegetable matter, and I’ve continued to make it every week and have it for dinner for two nights.
The blondies were in hopes I could stop buying Rainbow’s packaged ones—I’d really like to buy no plastic whatever, if possible—but they didn’t come out well and ended their evening in the compost bin. The recipe was kind of strange to begin with, and I had to make substitutions based on what Rainbow had, so the finished product, while being ultra-sweet, didn’t actually taste very good and had the consistency of asphalt on an August day in Michigan (gooey and sticky, but not liquid).
I would have taken them to work, but it would have been tricky transferring them to a container and out again.
When the building manager and I were exchanging emails about the smoke in the hallway, she mentioned that she was looking forward to having the pigeons gone from the fire escape, but I myself was sorry we'd be losing them. While the smell of the nest was rather powerful on wet days, I’d grown fond of their little burbling sounds. Fortunately, the Bird Busters’ efforts weren’t entirely successful. The nesting area itself is closed off, but there are still plenty of birds hanging around, so I hear them as much as ever, and the smelly nest is no more.
Tom and his girlfriend borrowed a bread pan from me several weeks ago and returned it promptly the next day, clean. When I’m getting rid of stuff, I always consider Tom’s apartment as a possible outlet, and indeed he recently agreed to take an item I don’t use anymore, and when I took it upstairs to him, he said his girlfriend had something for me, as well: a brand-new, sturdy, American-made, quite handsome bread pan! Tom said she thought she might have stained mine. Can you believe that? I told Tom he has my one hundred percent permission to marry her—she is really nice! And extremely easygoing of manner, and very cute, too. I sent her a note of thanks and she wrote back that the three of us should have dinner one of these days.
I haven’t quite decided whether to keep the Internet radio or not. I tried listening to a dharma talk on it and it wasn’t all that satisfactory, because whereas I can still get the gist if I miss a sentence here and there of On the Media, with a dharma talk, I really want to hear every word. However, possibly everyone in the vicinity doesn’t also want to hear every word, so turning it up to a mind-bending volume might not be the thing.
It also does not switch readily at all between its two main modes, accessing the Internet and accessing my computer. It has to “update firmware” every time you change or change back, and quite often I have to go through all the setup steps again from scratch, though it does preserve my favorites. I tried assigning a static IP, but made some wrong choice somewhere and will have to try again.
I actually decided I would just return it, but then I turned on the regular radio to listen to KQED, found it a bit staticky, and used the nice, clear Internet radio instead. Also, I really am enjoying listening to hours of Snakenet Metal Radio and discovering music I wouldn’t bump into anywhere else. I downloaded (bought) Grand Magus's mp3 album Hammer of the North. They’re from Stockholm.
The Snakenet band and song titles often make me chuckle: “Remains of a Remembrance,” by Lethargy of Death, or “Corporal Jigsore Quandary” by Carcass. Then of course there’s “Dead Embryonic Cells” by Sepultura and “Black Seeds of Vengeance,” by Nile. When it comes to vocalists, you have your screamers, your growlers, your vomiters, your opera singers and your high-note guys, though you’ll also find quite a large percentage of instrumentals in this genre. On rare occasion, you’ll even hear a woman’s voice.
Saturday morning I went to the Zen Center, where they were celebrating the Buddha’s birthday. Steve Stücky gave the talk and then we had a festive procession to the park across the street and circumambulation and chanting; there were parasols and streamers and rose petals everywhere. It's nice to walk along the sidewalk and have someone tossing flower petals over you. We crossed the street again afterward and had cookies and tea in the courtyard.
Normally the after-talk cookies are tasty and rather small, as befits a cookie you eat an hour before lunch, but for this occasion, someone had made the most fabulous, decadent, not-small brownies—they were like slabs of chocolate frosting. It was most enjoyable to sit in the Zen Center courtyard with the sun beating down, having such a magnificent thing to eat, complete with peppermint tea. Lunch was a hearty kidney bean soup with ginger and chunks of sweet potato.
When I got home, I did some chores around the apartment and in the evening I saw Inception, which I don’t think got great reviews, but of course is the year’s best movie as far as we lucid dreamers are concerned. I could scarcely follow it, but I thought it was dazzling and magnificent. I always like to watch Leonardo DiCaprio, too.
On Sunday I went to Rainbow—behind me in line at the cash register was another person from Howie’s sitting group—and then I made Spanish rice, home fried potatoes for immediate consumption, Bieler Broth, and blondies. I adapted the Spanish rice recipe from Deborah Madison’s, and it’s a lot easier and faster, and just as good. Home fries are a cooking-day tradition. I usually use an onion in them, but that’s a lot of onion (hence poor potato-to-onion ratio), so this time I used a lesser amount of shallots, and the finished product was perfect.
Bieler Broth is pureed celery, zucchini, green beans and fresh parsley. I may have gotten into it when I had my tooth out and had to eat soft food for a week or two. It ensured that I’d get a blast of green vegetable matter, and I’ve continued to make it every week and have it for dinner for two nights.
The blondies were in hopes I could stop buying Rainbow’s packaged ones—I’d really like to buy no plastic whatever, if possible—but they didn’t come out well and ended their evening in the compost bin. The recipe was kind of strange to begin with, and I had to make substitutions based on what Rainbow had, so the finished product, while being ultra-sweet, didn’t actually taste very good and had the consistency of asphalt on an August day in Michigan (gooey and sticky, but not liquid).
I would have taken them to work, but it would have been tricky transferring them to a container and out again.
When the building manager and I were exchanging emails about the smoke in the hallway, she mentioned that she was looking forward to having the pigeons gone from the fire escape, but I myself was sorry we'd be losing them. While the smell of the nest was rather powerful on wet days, I’d grown fond of their little burbling sounds. Fortunately, the Bird Busters’ efforts weren’t entirely successful. The nesting area itself is closed off, but there are still plenty of birds hanging around, so I hear them as much as ever, and the smelly nest is no more.
Tom and his girlfriend borrowed a bread pan from me several weeks ago and returned it promptly the next day, clean. When I’m getting rid of stuff, I always consider Tom’s apartment as a possible outlet, and indeed he recently agreed to take an item I don’t use anymore, and when I took it upstairs to him, he said his girlfriend had something for me, as well: a brand-new, sturdy, American-made, quite handsome bread pan! Tom said she thought she might have stained mine. Can you believe that? I told Tom he has my one hundred percent permission to marry her—she is really nice! And extremely easygoing of manner, and very cute, too. I sent her a note of thanks and she wrote back that the three of us should have dinner one of these days.
I haven’t quite decided whether to keep the Internet radio or not. I tried listening to a dharma talk on it and it wasn’t all that satisfactory, because whereas I can still get the gist if I miss a sentence here and there of On the Media, with a dharma talk, I really want to hear every word. However, possibly everyone in the vicinity doesn’t also want to hear every word, so turning it up to a mind-bending volume might not be the thing.
It also does not switch readily at all between its two main modes, accessing the Internet and accessing my computer. It has to “update firmware” every time you change or change back, and quite often I have to go through all the setup steps again from scratch, though it does preserve my favorites. I tried assigning a static IP, but made some wrong choice somewhere and will have to try again.
I actually decided I would just return it, but then I turned on the regular radio to listen to KQED, found it a bit staticky, and used the nice, clear Internet radio instead. Also, I really am enjoying listening to hours of Snakenet Metal Radio and discovering music I wouldn’t bump into anywhere else. I downloaded (bought) Grand Magus's mp3 album Hammer of the North. They’re from Stockholm.
The Snakenet band and song titles often make me chuckle: “Remains of a Remembrance,” by Lethargy of Death, or “Corporal Jigsore Quandary” by Carcass. Then of course there’s “Dead Embryonic Cells” by Sepultura and “Black Seeds of Vengeance,” by Nile. When it comes to vocalists, you have your screamers, your growlers, your vomiters, your opera singers and your high-note guys, though you’ll also find quite a large percentage of instrumentals in this genre. On rare occasion, you’ll even hear a woman’s voice.
Wednesday, April 06, 2011
Don’t LOOK at Me, Sandra!
The last Monday in March, I had the great pleasure of dinner at Herbivore with Lisa C., in town from Seattle.
I’ve been going to Howie’s every Tuesday evening, and to the Zen Center most Saturday mornings, though not every, and that is a nice dharma balance and good way to be around congenial people.
Last night, Howie talked about loss, as his much-loved pet had just died. He said that we want to fully experience joy and sorrow, just without tacking on grasping or aversion. We might ask ourselves, “What is the truth of this experience?” And, “What is inevitable and what is optional?”
“I don’t have to become the great non-griever,” he observed.
Toward the end, he took questions and, since the space is cavernous, used a microphone to summarize for the group what the speaker had said. One woman noted that she found it “stabilizing” to hear that dharma teachers have their ups and downs like anyone else. Howie summarized for us, “She says it’s very stabilizing to hear about my car being towed and my dog dying,” which was quite funny, though the events themselves aren’t funny at all.
I have been inspired lately to reprioritize and per that, am taking a break from hospice volunteering and am thinking of taking piano lessons. I’ve been playing my electronic keyboard every day since the new year and it always brings satisfaction and enjoyment. I’ve been working on some of my own compositions again, and emailed my esteemed music school piano professor, Dr. Neve, to see if she would consider sending me one of her excellently organized scale sheets, and she said it’s on its way. She said she has fond memories of me, which was awfully kind and also flattering, since I graduated 16 years ago. The feelings are mutual.
Nothing much to report on the lucid dream front because there hasn’t been one for two months, but I’ve been having lots of nice dreams of flying, or floating in the air, and I had this very strange dream of a paper cup with a metal frame affixed to it and a pair of dark eyes looking out of the frame. I move off to the side and see that the eyes are still looking at me. “Don’t look at me, Sandra!” I warn it, referring to Sandra Bullock, though the eyes actually look more like Debra Winger’s. I walk right up to the cup and there is no doubt its gaze is taunting and malevolent, so I destroy it.
I aspire to remember to make friends with dream enemies, but I don’t usually remember.
Reprioritizing also means deciding what stuff I don’t need to keep, so a lot of items have been going to the thrift store, and I also decided to get rid of an electric guitar, amp and guitar case, and a keyboard stand. I wanted to give the guitar and amp to an underprivileged young lady, but then someone at the thrift store mentioned the Bay Area Girls Rock Camp, and I ended up giving it all to them, which is even better.
Of course, that put me dangerously near not having enough stuff, so I acquired a new toy, and the accompanying guilt about what it means for oppressed workers in other countries and the environment in general: an Internet radio, which will play anything streaming free online (such as KQED or Snakenet Metal Radio) and any paid services you subscribe to, plus music files on your own PC—your iTunes and downloaded podcasts and so forth.
Over the weekend, I listened to four episodes in a row of On the Media. Big treat! The main reason I wanted this thing was to be able to listen to dharma talks while I’m in the kitchen cooking for four or six or eight hours. There’s nothing stopping me from sitting down in front of my computer and listening to a talk, but I never do this. While at work in the kitchen is the perfect time.
Early on, I discovered that this device would only work when my computer was on. It has a wireless connection to my router and while it can’t play my own music files when my computer isn’t on, it should still be able to access Internet radio, but it wasn’t doing it. I did some reading and was anticipating a giant support nightmare, but yesterday morning, I did the very first thing advised, flush my DNS cache, and it worked!
I turned on the thing, tuned in KQED, turned off my computer and continued to hear Morning Edition. Then I turned off the thing and turned it back on and it still worked, so yay. However, this morning it was stuck again, so I turned on my computer, flushed the DNS cache again, and all was well, so I will see if I can make a scheduled job that does this every day at 4 a.m. (No hints needed yet, computer experts.)
I saw a marvelous movie this past weekend: Nowhere Boy, the story of John Lennon’s formative years. It’s absolutely beautiful to look at, and the performances are wonderful. I’m a huge fan of Kristin Scott Thomas.
This week I was cycling to work and stopped at the light on Market St. at Grant, a T-shaped intersection, and a guy to my left and a woman to my right also stopped. I said to the guy, “Good for you!” and we exchanged a few words, and, not wanting to leave the woman out, I said the same to her and she said, “For what?” “Stopping at the red light.” She looked confused. “Why wouldn’t I?”
She’ll soon learn she’s quite in the minority there, but I like to think it won't be that way forever.
I’ve been going to Howie’s every Tuesday evening, and to the Zen Center most Saturday mornings, though not every, and that is a nice dharma balance and good way to be around congenial people.
Last night, Howie talked about loss, as his much-loved pet had just died. He said that we want to fully experience joy and sorrow, just without tacking on grasping or aversion. We might ask ourselves, “What is the truth of this experience?” And, “What is inevitable and what is optional?”
“I don’t have to become the great non-griever,” he observed.
Toward the end, he took questions and, since the space is cavernous, used a microphone to summarize for the group what the speaker had said. One woman noted that she found it “stabilizing” to hear that dharma teachers have their ups and downs like anyone else. Howie summarized for us, “She says it’s very stabilizing to hear about my car being towed and my dog dying,” which was quite funny, though the events themselves aren’t funny at all.
I have been inspired lately to reprioritize and per that, am taking a break from hospice volunteering and am thinking of taking piano lessons. I’ve been playing my electronic keyboard every day since the new year and it always brings satisfaction and enjoyment. I’ve been working on some of my own compositions again, and emailed my esteemed music school piano professor, Dr. Neve, to see if she would consider sending me one of her excellently organized scale sheets, and she said it’s on its way. She said she has fond memories of me, which was awfully kind and also flattering, since I graduated 16 years ago. The feelings are mutual.
Nothing much to report on the lucid dream front because there hasn’t been one for two months, but I’ve been having lots of nice dreams of flying, or floating in the air, and I had this very strange dream of a paper cup with a metal frame affixed to it and a pair of dark eyes looking out of the frame. I move off to the side and see that the eyes are still looking at me. “Don’t look at me, Sandra!” I warn it, referring to Sandra Bullock, though the eyes actually look more like Debra Winger’s. I walk right up to the cup and there is no doubt its gaze is taunting and malevolent, so I destroy it.
I aspire to remember to make friends with dream enemies, but I don’t usually remember.
Reprioritizing also means deciding what stuff I don’t need to keep, so a lot of items have been going to the thrift store, and I also decided to get rid of an electric guitar, amp and guitar case, and a keyboard stand. I wanted to give the guitar and amp to an underprivileged young lady, but then someone at the thrift store mentioned the Bay Area Girls Rock Camp, and I ended up giving it all to them, which is even better.
Of course, that put me dangerously near not having enough stuff, so I acquired a new toy, and the accompanying guilt about what it means for oppressed workers in other countries and the environment in general: an Internet radio, which will play anything streaming free online (such as KQED or Snakenet Metal Radio) and any paid services you subscribe to, plus music files on your own PC—your iTunes and downloaded podcasts and so forth.
Over the weekend, I listened to four episodes in a row of On the Media. Big treat! The main reason I wanted this thing was to be able to listen to dharma talks while I’m in the kitchen cooking for four or six or eight hours. There’s nothing stopping me from sitting down in front of my computer and listening to a talk, but I never do this. While at work in the kitchen is the perfect time.
Early on, I discovered that this device would only work when my computer was on. It has a wireless connection to my router and while it can’t play my own music files when my computer isn’t on, it should still be able to access Internet radio, but it wasn’t doing it. I did some reading and was anticipating a giant support nightmare, but yesterday morning, I did the very first thing advised, flush my DNS cache, and it worked!
I turned on the thing, tuned in KQED, turned off my computer and continued to hear Morning Edition. Then I turned off the thing and turned it back on and it still worked, so yay. However, this morning it was stuck again, so I turned on my computer, flushed the DNS cache again, and all was well, so I will see if I can make a scheduled job that does this every day at 4 a.m. (No hints needed yet, computer experts.)
I saw a marvelous movie this past weekend: Nowhere Boy, the story of John Lennon’s formative years. It’s absolutely beautiful to look at, and the performances are wonderful. I’m a huge fan of Kristin Scott Thomas.
This week I was cycling to work and stopped at the light on Market St. at Grant, a T-shaped intersection, and a guy to my left and a woman to my right also stopped. I said to the guy, “Good for you!” and we exchanged a few words, and, not wanting to leave the woman out, I said the same to her and she said, “For what?” “Stopping at the red light.” She looked confused. “Why wouldn’t I?”
She’ll soon learn she’s quite in the minority there, but I like to think it won't be that way forever.
Friday, March 25, 2011
A Mysterious Encounter in the Laundromat
I’ve been reading a book my mother has often recommended, Rapid Relief from Emotional Distress, which is largely a cognitive approach, and I’ve been finding it remarkably helpful, though one must be careful not to use this kind of thing, ditto one’s meditation practice, to try to avoid feelings that need to be felt. So I say to myself, “I accept that the building manager has a party every Thursday night,” and immediately feel a bit of relief, and less anxiety and urgency.
As it happened, there was no party this week, which was great, but it would have been OK if there had been.
RRFED says that once you have accepted things as they are (where have I heard that before?) and understand that if your happiness depends on other people changing, you’ll always be unhappy, you can then decide on your goals and consider your actual choices, which are likely many.
This is basically equanimity practice. I observed to my mother that Dad has a great deal of equanimity; she agreed. I recalled a time when my mother accidentally (did I say this before?) drove a rare brand-new car of my father’s clear across town with the parking brake on. He went into a store to do a quick errand and my mother said to me, “Oh, no. The parking brake was on the whole time.” I wondered if she might simply not mention it, or if she did, whether my father would be quite annoyed.
But when he returned, my mother immediately said, “I drove all the way here with the parking brake on,” and my father said, in his normal tone of voice, “OK,” and that was all there was to that.
He’s also very kind; I know I’ve said that before. My mother has decided to get more exercise, so, to support her, my father is accompanying her on walks and told her he’ll be happy to do so every day—he said that while she might regard it as her exercise program, for him it will be togetherness.
(Thank you, Dad, for taking such good care of my beloved mother, and of all of us.)
This past Sunday I went to Phillip Moffitt’s daylong at Spirit Rock in a City CarShare car. It was a rainy morning, and just as I was getting to San Rafael on 101, there was the most spectacular huge rainbow. The daylong was kind of miserable because I had stayed up too late cooking the night before, and so was sleepy all day, but it was definitely worthwhile. We did several sessions of meditation using a variety of techniques, and Phillip mentioned several times how there’s the experience, and there’s the commentary on the experience, and how as soon as we start commenting (mentally, to ourselves) on our experience, we are no longer available to the actual experience.
This idea of availability has stuck in my mind. Phillip spoke about this explicitly. What is it to be fully available? Perhaps it means not thinking about one thing while doing another, and also not having tense, cramped places in the body. Since the daylong, I’ve been particularly inspired to focus carefully and to try to prolong the spaces between mental comments—two seconds here, five there, ten!
After not having done laundry for a month, I did seven loads yesterday evening—a sign that I have too much underwear and too many pairs of socks—and these events occurred: A slender fellow about six feet tall dressed all in dark baggy clothes came in, bought laundry soap from the machine, put his clothes into two washers, put his large black duffel bag on top of one of his washers, and departed.
Then he returned, picked up the bag, walked over to me, and asked, “Is this your bag?”, at which point I realized it was another fellow entirely, of similar dimensions and sartorial persuasion.
I said, “No, I believe it belongs to the guy whose laundry is in those machines.” This guy had rather intense, borderline menacing energy. He noted my answer with a “Hmm” or a “Huh,” walked away, appeared to be tapping on the box that contains the fire extinguisher, and then departed. I couldn’t figure out what he’d been doing, so I walked over and saw that he had tagged (tagged on?) the fire extinguisher box, just a few characters, the last being “3.” I could still smell the marker fumes in the air. (It was red, if that matters. Oh, maybe it does, come to think of it.)
The first fellow returned, eating from a crinkly bag of crunchy snacks, suggesting he had been to the corner store. I told him what had happened, pointing out that his bag wasn’t where he had left it—the tagger had thrown it down on the other washer—and I showed him the new graffiti and asked, “What does it mean?”
He said firmly, “It doesn’t mean anything.” Then, “It means ‘I am a moron.’” Then, with extreme casualness, “Which way did the guy go?” And then he looked out the window, in a very low-key fashion. A vague unease came upon me at that point and I was kind of glad I was taking the last things out of my last dryer. When I left, he said, “Thank you.”
I went home and reported this to Tom and said, “I think he knew perfectly well what that graffiti meant,” and Tom said, “I think you’re right.”
As it happened, there was no party this week, which was great, but it would have been OK if there had been.
RRFED says that once you have accepted things as they are (where have I heard that before?) and understand that if your happiness depends on other people changing, you’ll always be unhappy, you can then decide on your goals and consider your actual choices, which are likely many.
This is basically equanimity practice. I observed to my mother that Dad has a great deal of equanimity; she agreed. I recalled a time when my mother accidentally (did I say this before?) drove a rare brand-new car of my father’s clear across town with the parking brake on. He went into a store to do a quick errand and my mother said to me, “Oh, no. The parking brake was on the whole time.” I wondered if she might simply not mention it, or if she did, whether my father would be quite annoyed.
But when he returned, my mother immediately said, “I drove all the way here with the parking brake on,” and my father said, in his normal tone of voice, “OK,” and that was all there was to that.
He’s also very kind; I know I’ve said that before. My mother has decided to get more exercise, so, to support her, my father is accompanying her on walks and told her he’ll be happy to do so every day—he said that while she might regard it as her exercise program, for him it will be togetherness.
(Thank you, Dad, for taking such good care of my beloved mother, and of all of us.)
This past Sunday I went to Phillip Moffitt’s daylong at Spirit Rock in a City CarShare car. It was a rainy morning, and just as I was getting to San Rafael on 101, there was the most spectacular huge rainbow. The daylong was kind of miserable because I had stayed up too late cooking the night before, and so was sleepy all day, but it was definitely worthwhile. We did several sessions of meditation using a variety of techniques, and Phillip mentioned several times how there’s the experience, and there’s the commentary on the experience, and how as soon as we start commenting (mentally, to ourselves) on our experience, we are no longer available to the actual experience.
This idea of availability has stuck in my mind. Phillip spoke about this explicitly. What is it to be fully available? Perhaps it means not thinking about one thing while doing another, and also not having tense, cramped places in the body. Since the daylong, I’ve been particularly inspired to focus carefully and to try to prolong the spaces between mental comments—two seconds here, five there, ten!
After not having done laundry for a month, I did seven loads yesterday evening—a sign that I have too much underwear and too many pairs of socks—and these events occurred: A slender fellow about six feet tall dressed all in dark baggy clothes came in, bought laundry soap from the machine, put his clothes into two washers, put his large black duffel bag on top of one of his washers, and departed.
Then he returned, picked up the bag, walked over to me, and asked, “Is this your bag?”, at which point I realized it was another fellow entirely, of similar dimensions and sartorial persuasion.
I said, “No, I believe it belongs to the guy whose laundry is in those machines.” This guy had rather intense, borderline menacing energy. He noted my answer with a “Hmm” or a “Huh,” walked away, appeared to be tapping on the box that contains the fire extinguisher, and then departed. I couldn’t figure out what he’d been doing, so I walked over and saw that he had tagged (tagged on?) the fire extinguisher box, just a few characters, the last being “3.” I could still smell the marker fumes in the air. (It was red, if that matters. Oh, maybe it does, come to think of it.)
The first fellow returned, eating from a crinkly bag of crunchy snacks, suggesting he had been to the corner store. I told him what had happened, pointing out that his bag wasn’t where he had left it—the tagger had thrown it down on the other washer—and I showed him the new graffiti and asked, “What does it mean?”
He said firmly, “It doesn’t mean anything.” Then, “It means ‘I am a moron.’” Then, with extreme casualness, “Which way did the guy go?” And then he looked out the window, in a very low-key fashion. A vague unease came upon me at that point and I was kind of glad I was taking the last things out of my last dryer. When I left, he said, “Thank you.”
I went home and reported this to Tom and said, “I think he knew perfectly well what that graffiti meant,” and Tom said, “I think you’re right.”
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Bird Buster Fluster
A few other random occurrences: The last Saturday in February, I took the bus up to Novato and spent the weekend with Carol Joy. We had lunch at Toast and dinner at a Thai place in San Rafael (not Thai Smile) and breakfast the next day at a place in downtown Novato, and we played several hands of Sneaky Pete, and we saw two movies: No Strings Attached and Just Go With It.
By the way, the reason having to buy a mattress was a psychological burden was that I just did it not that long ago, and it took forever, and I ended up with something that now needs replacing (I think). Per the Internet, quite a large percentage of people end up being unhappy with whatever they buy.
I’m now sleeping on the new mattress and the old one is sheathed in aluminum foil (I guess it’s been a while since it was tin foil), but I have the strong feeling that one of these days I’ll be asking Tom to come down and help me swap them so I can retest the old bed. Just to be sure.
An ominous note appeared in the lobby of my apartment building several weeks ago saying that “Bird Busters” was coming to deal with the pigeons on the fire escape. I hastened to their website, where practically the first thing it says is that they are bird friendly. Whew! On the appointed day, I thought I’d take a last look at my little friends and, to my dismay, saw there was a baby in the nest. I called my landlord and asked if she could ask Bird Busters to come some other day.
She didn’t warm to my suggestion, but, fortunately, when the Bird Buster fellow arrived, he said that if there was a baby in the nest, he’d come back another day. He climbed up to take a peek and reported that there were actually two babies in the nest and that he thought they’d be gone in two weeks. By then, I’d called Animal Care and Control and sent an email to the pigeon people at Cornell and so forth. That you can send an email to a pigeon expert and get an authoritative answer in a couple of hours is one of the aspects of our civilization that is working best.
I started checking the birds regularly and after several days, one of them was gone—but the other wasn’t, which I had to go out onto the fire escape to see. While I was out there, I also offered some encouraging remarks.
The adult birds didn’t seem to be around much and I began to wonder if this youngster had been abandoned. I re-read my emails from Cornell and fretted a bit. Finally, just a few days before the bird people were coming back, I stepped onto the fire escape and saw the nest was empty, which was a relief.
I suppose I could have just let my building manager know that the date needed to be changed again, but the fewer doings there, the better.
Speaking of whom, she has evidently decided that Thursday night is a great night to throw a party, judging from the past seven weeks out of eight. They don’t play music, but there are several people talking at the top of their lungs in the room right underneath me. Last week’s party ended at 2:35 a.m.
It’s slightly tricky because it’s the building manager doing it (!) and because she and I get along poorly. Some of her guests are smokers, and, despite stepping out front to smoke, manage to fill the hallways completely with foul-smelling fumes, which then seep into the various apartments. It was bothering Tom, too, and he announced I was going to have to send an email of complaint. You might think it might be Tom’s turn to send an email of complaint, but you could wait forever for that, whereas I’m well practiced in this area, so I went ahead and sent a note saying there seemed to be a good deal of smoke in the building, and could the building manager please post a notice reminding tenants it is a non-smoking building? I didn’t allude to her or her guests at all, but I knew she’d take my meaning, so I was terrified to look at my email afterward.
In fact, I decided just not to check my email for a week to avoid the unpleasant experience of reading her enraged reply, but then I realized that if I read it right away, a week later the experience would be seven days in the past and somewhat less acute, so I opened her email and was astonished to see that she was entirely civil and reasonable. She said she had a houseguest who was smoking out front, and that he’d be gone soon, and that she’d ask him to make sure the front door is securely closed. I thanked her warmly, and was pleased.
However, I didn’t conclude from that that she would welcome a note objecting to the Thursday night soirees. I think it was a fluke, or that she felt guilty about all the smoke. I think she probably thinks she’s bending over backward by refraining from playing music, which I do in fact appreciate.
I’ve been just using earplugs on Thursday nights, which works fine until I roll onto one side or the other. Then the earplug gets forced into my ear, which is somewhat painful. I ended up having to remove the earplugs last week—which is how I know the party ended at 2:35 a.m.—and was grumbling about the whole thing to Emily later that day at work. She recommended another type of earplug, which I will try.
By the way, the reason having to buy a mattress was a psychological burden was that I just did it not that long ago, and it took forever, and I ended up with something that now needs replacing (I think). Per the Internet, quite a large percentage of people end up being unhappy with whatever they buy.
I’m now sleeping on the new mattress and the old one is sheathed in aluminum foil (I guess it’s been a while since it was tin foil), but I have the strong feeling that one of these days I’ll be asking Tom to come down and help me swap them so I can retest the old bed. Just to be sure.
An ominous note appeared in the lobby of my apartment building several weeks ago saying that “Bird Busters” was coming to deal with the pigeons on the fire escape. I hastened to their website, where practically the first thing it says is that they are bird friendly. Whew! On the appointed day, I thought I’d take a last look at my little friends and, to my dismay, saw there was a baby in the nest. I called my landlord and asked if she could ask Bird Busters to come some other day.
She didn’t warm to my suggestion, but, fortunately, when the Bird Buster fellow arrived, he said that if there was a baby in the nest, he’d come back another day. He climbed up to take a peek and reported that there were actually two babies in the nest and that he thought they’d be gone in two weeks. By then, I’d called Animal Care and Control and sent an email to the pigeon people at Cornell and so forth. That you can send an email to a pigeon expert and get an authoritative answer in a couple of hours is one of the aspects of our civilization that is working best.
I started checking the birds regularly and after several days, one of them was gone—but the other wasn’t, which I had to go out onto the fire escape to see. While I was out there, I also offered some encouraging remarks.
The adult birds didn’t seem to be around much and I began to wonder if this youngster had been abandoned. I re-read my emails from Cornell and fretted a bit. Finally, just a few days before the bird people were coming back, I stepped onto the fire escape and saw the nest was empty, which was a relief.
I suppose I could have just let my building manager know that the date needed to be changed again, but the fewer doings there, the better.
Speaking of whom, she has evidently decided that Thursday night is a great night to throw a party, judging from the past seven weeks out of eight. They don’t play music, but there are several people talking at the top of their lungs in the room right underneath me. Last week’s party ended at 2:35 a.m.
It’s slightly tricky because it’s the building manager doing it (!) and because she and I get along poorly. Some of her guests are smokers, and, despite stepping out front to smoke, manage to fill the hallways completely with foul-smelling fumes, which then seep into the various apartments. It was bothering Tom, too, and he announced I was going to have to send an email of complaint. You might think it might be Tom’s turn to send an email of complaint, but you could wait forever for that, whereas I’m well practiced in this area, so I went ahead and sent a note saying there seemed to be a good deal of smoke in the building, and could the building manager please post a notice reminding tenants it is a non-smoking building? I didn’t allude to her or her guests at all, but I knew she’d take my meaning, so I was terrified to look at my email afterward.
In fact, I decided just not to check my email for a week to avoid the unpleasant experience of reading her enraged reply, but then I realized that if I read it right away, a week later the experience would be seven days in the past and somewhat less acute, so I opened her email and was astonished to see that she was entirely civil and reasonable. She said she had a houseguest who was smoking out front, and that he’d be gone soon, and that she’d ask him to make sure the front door is securely closed. I thanked her warmly, and was pleased.
However, I didn’t conclude from that that she would welcome a note objecting to the Thursday night soirees. I think it was a fluke, or that she felt guilty about all the smoke. I think she probably thinks she’s bending over backward by refraining from playing music, which I do in fact appreciate.
I’ve been just using earplugs on Thursday nights, which works fine until I roll onto one side or the other. Then the earplug gets forced into my ear, which is somewhat painful. I ended up having to remove the earplugs last week—which is how I know the party ended at 2:35 a.m.—and was grumbling about the whole thing to Emily later that day at work. She recommended another type of earplug, which I will try.
Monday, March 21, 2011
No Returns, No Exchanges
Sorry for long delay. I've been dithering about this and that. To get rolling again, I considered listing the vast number of movies I’ve seen, but decided to skip it, since my movie reviews are very minimal, anyway. I guess I do recommend seeing A Solitary Man, Fish Tank, and Cyrus. And Lorna’s Silence. And Hideaway. And Heartbreaker. In the latter, you can see Johnny Depp’s wife (or longtime partner), Vanessa Paradis. She is seriously darling, which means they are, without any reasonable competition whatsoever, the best-looking couple on earth.
I recently bought a quite inexpensive mattress after a period of putting some portion of my social life on hold while I grappled with the heavy psychological weight of knowing I had to do this. I’m not letting go of the old one until I’m positive the new one is good, however, so the old one is completely covered with tin foil (in hopes of repelling Hammett; it sort of works) and leaning against the wall in my one room, along with the box spring: my least-favorite piece of furniture by far.
If you have to buy a mattress and/or box spring, I highly recommend Bedroom & More on Market St., which gets rave reviews on Yelp. On my first visit, I inquired into their returns and exchanges policy and the fellow said, “It’s simple: no returns, no exchanges.” “That is simple,” I agreed. He explained that while you can readily return anything you buy from Sleep Train, that also accounts for their higher prices: They are assuming there will be two failed transactions for every completed one. Also, he told me Sleep Train christens every mattress with a unique moniker to thwart comparison shopping. If you go into another store wanting to try the “Tuscany,” or whatever, they won’t have such a thing, and Sleep Train won’t have told you it’s a Simmons Beautyrest Classic Extra Firm.
I went to the yearly membership dinner at the Zen Center and it was really very nice. There was a beautiful, delicious vegetarian buffet, a somewhat romantic ambience due to dim lighting and tablecloths, and a couple of exercises that involved meeting and speaking with a partner, then a chance to share thoughts and discoveries with the larger group. I was pleased to hear the class that led me to Zen Center, Establishing the Path of Practice, mentioned several times as someone’s entrée to Zen Center, or as evidence of a more welcoming spirit. EPP really is a great thing.
The morning after the membership dinner, I was back for Rosalie Curtis’s lecture, which I thought was particularly well organized and pithy, and which resulted in not one but two sudden flashes of insight, which I don’t think has happened before in my 20 years of hearing dharma talks.
I was thinking my 20-year meditation anniversary was coming later this year, but I checked my journal and found the exact evening I first went to Howie’s sitting group, and it was 20 years ago last summer. I've gone to Howie’s every week in the past month or two or three, and to the monthly social gathering beforehand.
After Rosalie's talk, I would have liked to stay for Q&A and lunch, but had to roll on to Rainbow and get groceries, including a hunk of Sartori Bellavitano cheese to take with me on the train to Sacramento later that day, the occasion being Chris’s birthday party, which was attended by a gaggle of Chris’s friends, Eva, Paul, Steve, Dan, Jim, Melinda, Abbie, Abbie’s friend Riley (sp?), Tom, Dave C., me, Tom’s girlfriend and Tom’s girlfriend’s son.
I spent the night on Steve and Julie’s guest bed and (shh, don't tell them) peeled back one side of the fitted sheet to see if I could glean any helpful details about the mattress; this was prior to my purchase.
The next day, Steve and I went to visit Ann and Mac; Tom had gone skiing. Ann let me play her piano a little, which was a treat, and then she drove me and Mac to Berkeley for lunch at the Bistro Liaison and then they treated me to Mike Daisey’s show The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs at the Berkeley Rep. I was under the vague impression that this might be a comedy in which Mike Daisey plays Steve Jobs, and, since I don’t believe in getting a program (in order to maximize any surprises there may happen to be), it took me a while to figure out that this fellow, Mike Daisey, had personally schlepped to China, done an investigation on labor practices there, including some undercover work, crafted a two-hour (no intermission) monologue about it, and was at that very moment performing the same with tremendous skill: a true triple threat. I left the theater in tears, vowing to buy no electronic device that I don’t truly need, though there is no such thing as living a life that does not include increasing the misery of a thirteen-year-old Chinese girl. It cannot be done.
Late-ish in February, on a Friday night, I had dinner with Elea, whom I met long ago at San Francisco State University, in the creative writing program. I couldn’t have told you what year we met, but she recalls not only the year and month, but the day of the week: Wednesday. I was flabbergasted. She said, “Sure, because it would have been the first meeting of our Wednesday night class.” How can she remember that we took a Wednesday night class 26 years ago, or however many years it was? (Despite having had my memory refreshed very recently, I’m still not sure, but it was right around 26.)
Our dinner was at Café Altano, and then we met up with her husband, whom I’d never met before. Until recently, they were living in the Pacific Northwest. I liked him very much right away.
They gave me a ride home and we detoured here and there to show Elea’s husband some nice views. Elea mentioned that she had lived in a certain spot with an earlier husband, whom I will call Dave. I said, “I’m afraid I can’t remember that.” She said, “Well, I wouldn’t expect you to remember every place I lived.” “No,” I said, “I can’t remember that you were married to someone named Dave.” “Oh!” she said.
The next day I took BART over to Berkeley and took Lisa M. to see the other Mike Daisey show for her birthday. This one is called The Last Cargo Cult, and is also is about a trip to a faraway place, and also left me teary. We walked up Shattuck and had dinner at a Thai place and then gelato at a spot right near the round entrance to BART.
Even later in February my co-worker Emily and I had dinner at Ananda Fuara. It was nice to see her. This was our third time getting together outside work.
I recently bought a quite inexpensive mattress after a period of putting some portion of my social life on hold while I grappled with the heavy psychological weight of knowing I had to do this. I’m not letting go of the old one until I’m positive the new one is good, however, so the old one is completely covered with tin foil (in hopes of repelling Hammett; it sort of works) and leaning against the wall in my one room, along with the box spring: my least-favorite piece of furniture by far.
If you have to buy a mattress and/or box spring, I highly recommend Bedroom & More on Market St., which gets rave reviews on Yelp. On my first visit, I inquired into their returns and exchanges policy and the fellow said, “It’s simple: no returns, no exchanges.” “That is simple,” I agreed. He explained that while you can readily return anything you buy from Sleep Train, that also accounts for their higher prices: They are assuming there will be two failed transactions for every completed one. Also, he told me Sleep Train christens every mattress with a unique moniker to thwart comparison shopping. If you go into another store wanting to try the “Tuscany,” or whatever, they won’t have such a thing, and Sleep Train won’t have told you it’s a Simmons Beautyrest Classic Extra Firm.
I went to the yearly membership dinner at the Zen Center and it was really very nice. There was a beautiful, delicious vegetarian buffet, a somewhat romantic ambience due to dim lighting and tablecloths, and a couple of exercises that involved meeting and speaking with a partner, then a chance to share thoughts and discoveries with the larger group. I was pleased to hear the class that led me to Zen Center, Establishing the Path of Practice, mentioned several times as someone’s entrée to Zen Center, or as evidence of a more welcoming spirit. EPP really is a great thing.
The morning after the membership dinner, I was back for Rosalie Curtis’s lecture, which I thought was particularly well organized and pithy, and which resulted in not one but two sudden flashes of insight, which I don’t think has happened before in my 20 years of hearing dharma talks.
I was thinking my 20-year meditation anniversary was coming later this year, but I checked my journal and found the exact evening I first went to Howie’s sitting group, and it was 20 years ago last summer. I've gone to Howie’s every week in the past month or two or three, and to the monthly social gathering beforehand.
After Rosalie's talk, I would have liked to stay for Q&A and lunch, but had to roll on to Rainbow and get groceries, including a hunk of Sartori Bellavitano cheese to take with me on the train to Sacramento later that day, the occasion being Chris’s birthday party, which was attended by a gaggle of Chris’s friends, Eva, Paul, Steve, Dan, Jim, Melinda, Abbie, Abbie’s friend Riley (sp?), Tom, Dave C., me, Tom’s girlfriend and Tom’s girlfriend’s son.
I spent the night on Steve and Julie’s guest bed and (shh, don't tell them) peeled back one side of the fitted sheet to see if I could glean any helpful details about the mattress; this was prior to my purchase.
The next day, Steve and I went to visit Ann and Mac; Tom had gone skiing. Ann let me play her piano a little, which was a treat, and then she drove me and Mac to Berkeley for lunch at the Bistro Liaison and then they treated me to Mike Daisey’s show The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs at the Berkeley Rep. I was under the vague impression that this might be a comedy in which Mike Daisey plays Steve Jobs, and, since I don’t believe in getting a program (in order to maximize any surprises there may happen to be), it took me a while to figure out that this fellow, Mike Daisey, had personally schlepped to China, done an investigation on labor practices there, including some undercover work, crafted a two-hour (no intermission) monologue about it, and was at that very moment performing the same with tremendous skill: a true triple threat. I left the theater in tears, vowing to buy no electronic device that I don’t truly need, though there is no such thing as living a life that does not include increasing the misery of a thirteen-year-old Chinese girl. It cannot be done.
Late-ish in February, on a Friday night, I had dinner with Elea, whom I met long ago at San Francisco State University, in the creative writing program. I couldn’t have told you what year we met, but she recalls not only the year and month, but the day of the week: Wednesday. I was flabbergasted. She said, “Sure, because it would have been the first meeting of our Wednesday night class.” How can she remember that we took a Wednesday night class 26 years ago, or however many years it was? (Despite having had my memory refreshed very recently, I’m still not sure, but it was right around 26.)
Our dinner was at Café Altano, and then we met up with her husband, whom I’d never met before. Until recently, they were living in the Pacific Northwest. I liked him very much right away.
They gave me a ride home and we detoured here and there to show Elea’s husband some nice views. Elea mentioned that she had lived in a certain spot with an earlier husband, whom I will call Dave. I said, “I’m afraid I can’t remember that.” She said, “Well, I wouldn’t expect you to remember every place I lived.” “No,” I said, “I can’t remember that you were married to someone named Dave.” “Oh!” she said.
The next day I took BART over to Berkeley and took Lisa M. to see the other Mike Daisey show for her birthday. This one is called The Last Cargo Cult, and is also is about a trip to a faraway place, and also left me teary. We walked up Shattuck and had dinner at a Thai place and then gelato at a spot right near the round entrance to BART.
Even later in February my co-worker Emily and I had dinner at Ananda Fuara. It was nice to see her. This was our third time getting together outside work.
Saturday, February 05, 2011
Goodbye, Darling Nigel
You can't see directly into her eyes in any of these, but that is probably fitting, since she was very shy.
Amy. We've been friends since we were seven. (I don't know who took this picture.)
I just came upon this rather venerable photo of me and Mike S. playing at Club Boomerang; this band was called Thunderosa. I used to perform in most of a nun's habit. (I don't know who took this picture, either.)
Amy. We've been friends since we were seven. (I don't know who took this picture.)
I just came upon this rather venerable photo of me and Mike S. playing at Club Boomerang; this band was called Thunderosa. I used to perform in most of a nun's habit. (I don't know who took this picture, either.)
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Masterful Accessorizing Disallowed Here
Just when I think I’ve lost steam completely blogwise, something amazing happens that absolutely must be reported, such as the fantastic lucid dream I had last night! Yeah, me and Jared Loughner, alas. He’s into lucid dreaming.
Toward morning, I had a lovely, vivid dream where I was with Tom’s family, reading the newspaper with Chris. I left the room for some reason, and when I was returning, I realized I was all by myself in a large house. I said to myself, “I’m all alone, all alone,” and that small bit of conscious recognition of my circumstances was enough to make me realize I was dreaming. This has worked in other lucid dreams, too. Just the merest moment of naming what is happening can do the trick.
Then, I’m very pleased to say, I clearly remembered three intentions I’d intended, and they worked! I said, “I was going to remember to remain calm,” and then I made an effort to be calm, which actually was an effort, as I was already losing touch. Then I felt my feet on the ground, another specific intention, and then, as things were a bit nebulous, I tried spinning, a well-documented potential stabilizer of lucidity, and it completely solidified the lucid state. It ended up being my second-longest lucid dream to date; i.e., five minutes of lucidity, I estimate.
I went exploring, and when I heard a worrying noise, I remembered it’s also my goal to confront fears directly, so I walked toward the noise, which turned out to be a very poorly behaved black cat. (I complimented Hammett on his comparatively good conduct once I woke up.)
Then lucidity started to fade again, so I tried spinning a second time, and noticed on this go that the spinning itself was extremely pleasurable. During it, I thought, “Maybe when I’m done spinning, I’ll land in a nicer dream, like something with sun and blue water,” but where I actually landed was my very own bed, awake.
I’m having my dental stitches out tomorrow and cannot wait. The stitches have unraveled a bit more each day so that now it’s like walking around with a mouthful of loose flapping strings—actually, it is walking around with a mouthful of loose flapping strings—so I’ll be happy to see Dr. E. coming at me with the little scissors tomorrow.
I hope he’ll think it’s healing nicely. I can’t tell, but I can say that the dead person’s bone chips haven’t come exploding out of my mouth, so that seems good.
Last Saturday I walked over to the Zen Center and heard Michael Wenger speak. There was no public lunch or after-talk Q&A because they were having a one-day sit. I had a nice walk home and then did a long list of very small chores while listening to This American Life, at least until they played a snippet of “Freedom of Choice,” and then I stopped the streaming KQED and played some of my Devo “records”—you know, flat vinyl discs that go around and around on a “record player.” They still sound “awesome.”
I’m sorry to report that my parents’ sweet and much-loved cat Nigel had to be euthanized last week, after having been in declining health for a time. She was originally my grandmother’s cat, and she was terrified of strangers. My grandmother frequently had ladies over for bridge, none of whom ever laid eyes on Nigel. They would tease my grandmother, asking, “Are you sure you have a cat?”
My grandmother had to visit the emergency room one day in the winter of 2003 and when I spoke to her, she asked who was going to take care of Nigel. I asked, “Isn’t your neighbor feeding her today?” “No, I mean when I die,” Grandma Lee said. Naturally I stepped up right away and volunteered my parents, though this seemed quite premature. However, my grandmother did die just several weeks later, in her own bed, thanks to my parents, who moved in with her and took care of her and everything else, and then we had the extremely difficult task of getting Nigel into a carrier (for the last time in her life, probably). We cornered her in the guest bedroom and somehow my father succeeded in boxing her up for transport to Ann Arbor.
I think she enjoyed life with my parents. They love animals, and my father in particular is probably the world’s best cat parent. For instance, if a cat has to take medication, my father tastes it himself first to make sure it won’t be disagreeable for the cat. He went to incredible effort to care for Nigel in every way, though maybe what she liked most was the complete absence of bridge-playing ladies.
Toward morning, I had a lovely, vivid dream where I was with Tom’s family, reading the newspaper with Chris. I left the room for some reason, and when I was returning, I realized I was all by myself in a large house. I said to myself, “I’m all alone, all alone,” and that small bit of conscious recognition of my circumstances was enough to make me realize I was dreaming. This has worked in other lucid dreams, too. Just the merest moment of naming what is happening can do the trick.
Then, I’m very pleased to say, I clearly remembered three intentions I’d intended, and they worked! I said, “I was going to remember to remain calm,” and then I made an effort to be calm, which actually was an effort, as I was already losing touch. Then I felt my feet on the ground, another specific intention, and then, as things were a bit nebulous, I tried spinning, a well-documented potential stabilizer of lucidity, and it completely solidified the lucid state. It ended up being my second-longest lucid dream to date; i.e., five minutes of lucidity, I estimate.
I went exploring, and when I heard a worrying noise, I remembered it’s also my goal to confront fears directly, so I walked toward the noise, which turned out to be a very poorly behaved black cat. (I complimented Hammett on his comparatively good conduct once I woke up.)
Then lucidity started to fade again, so I tried spinning a second time, and noticed on this go that the spinning itself was extremely pleasurable. During it, I thought, “Maybe when I’m done spinning, I’ll land in a nicer dream, like something with sun and blue water,” but where I actually landed was my very own bed, awake.
I’m having my dental stitches out tomorrow and cannot wait. The stitches have unraveled a bit more each day so that now it’s like walking around with a mouthful of loose flapping strings—actually, it is walking around with a mouthful of loose flapping strings—so I’ll be happy to see Dr. E. coming at me with the little scissors tomorrow.
I hope he’ll think it’s healing nicely. I can’t tell, but I can say that the dead person’s bone chips haven’t come exploding out of my mouth, so that seems good.
Last Saturday I walked over to the Zen Center and heard Michael Wenger speak. There was no public lunch or after-talk Q&A because they were having a one-day sit. I had a nice walk home and then did a long list of very small chores while listening to This American Life, at least until they played a snippet of “Freedom of Choice,” and then I stopped the streaming KQED and played some of my Devo “records”—you know, flat vinyl discs that go around and around on a “record player.” They still sound “awesome.”
I’m sorry to report that my parents’ sweet and much-loved cat Nigel had to be euthanized last week, after having been in declining health for a time. She was originally my grandmother’s cat, and she was terrified of strangers. My grandmother frequently had ladies over for bridge, none of whom ever laid eyes on Nigel. They would tease my grandmother, asking, “Are you sure you have a cat?”
My grandmother had to visit the emergency room one day in the winter of 2003 and when I spoke to her, she asked who was going to take care of Nigel. I asked, “Isn’t your neighbor feeding her today?” “No, I mean when I die,” Grandma Lee said. Naturally I stepped up right away and volunteered my parents, though this seemed quite premature. However, my grandmother did die just several weeks later, in her own bed, thanks to my parents, who moved in with her and took care of her and everything else, and then we had the extremely difficult task of getting Nigel into a carrier (for the last time in her life, probably). We cornered her in the guest bedroom and somehow my father succeeded in boxing her up for transport to Ann Arbor.
I think she enjoyed life with my parents. They love animals, and my father in particular is probably the world’s best cat parent. For instance, if a cat has to take medication, my father tastes it himself first to make sure it won’t be disagreeable for the cat. He went to incredible effort to care for Nigel in every way, though maybe what she liked most was the complete absence of bridge-playing ladies.
Friday, January 14, 2011
Edentulous (Well, Not Completely)
Number 19 was extracted yesterday toward the late afternoon. I brushed my teeth at work before going to see Dr. E. and realized with a pang that that was the last time I’d be attending to that particular tooth.
You can have general anesthesia for this procedure, and, for all my joking about wanting it, if anyone is going to administer this kind of thing, I will preferably be in a hospital at the time, not in a downtown office building, so I went with local anesthetic only; you can also have nitrous oxide if you want.
Dr. E. claimed that I’d feel just like myself on the latter, that it works on the brain to blunt the perception of pain. Having used enough of it recreationally to get fired from an ice cream parlor job in my youth, I know for a fact that’s not true. It distorts reality in a very pronounced manner; at least, the amount found in nine cans of whipped cream does. Point of trivia: Another veteran of this particular ice cream parlor was supposedly Madonna, probably not long before me. She went to dance school at the University of Michigan, I believe.
Anyway, I decided on just local anesthesia, as nitrous oxide in this context is for sissies, or so I thought right up until the preparations for the procedure began, at which point I realized that was more of an opinion than a fact, but pride kept me from screaming, “I’ve changed my mind!”
I went through my standard inner pre-airplane-flight procedures, which help a lot there, but proved not quite equal to an impending dental extraction. I was really frightened, possibly in the vicinity of an actual panic attack.
They put the numbing stuff on my gum, and then gave me three shots, and then Dr. E. and his assistant sprang into action. Dr. E. started by poking around the tooth, maybe kind of loosening it up or seeing how loose it was. I felt a minor pain and didn’t raise my left hand in the agreed-upon signal, but then realized that a minor pain in that phase might translate to a rather significant pain later on, so then I raised my hand and received another shot; in the end, even my ear was somewhat numb.
They warned me there would be some terrible crunching and cracking noises, which weren’t too bad. Besides the aforementioned twinge and a couple of the shots themselves, there was no physical pain whatsoever, and Dr. E. and his assistant worked together very smoothly and calmly; I just heard little murmurs like, “Number nine." One of my co-workers has had a tooth or two extracted and said she was disappointed to realize how easily they actually come out.
After not long at all, Dr. E. said the tooth had broken into three parts and two were already removed! He said the tooth was indeed fractured, with a vertical crack going all the way down. (Which it better have been. As my mother said later, you wouldn’t want to hear an oral surgeon marvel, “A perfect tooth!” after taking it out.)
For the remaining segment, he had to drill into the tooth and sort of hook it out or something. Then he drilled some more to clean out the cavity, then rinsed it out with saline solution, then stuffed in some dead person’s bone flakes, then stretched a piece of membrane over it, and stitched that in place with non-dissolvable stitches.
Now I have to take antibiotics for a week and make sure nothing touches the surgery area and use a prescription rinse a couple of times a day. I also was given a prescription for Vicodin but didn’t bother to fill it because I had an entire prescription’s worth left over from when my head pounded the surface of Market St. a year or so ago.
I never took one then, but did actually take one last night. I’ve also taken it after surgeries in the past and found it really unpleasant, like being pulled under the surface of the ocean, but it was kind of nice last night, which suggests I might still be able to become a Vicodin addict, if I put my mind to it. Maybe I’d better fill that other prescription.
Today my face still feels very faintly numb, but there hasn’t been any real swelling. I took six Advil right after the extraction, the Vicodin later in the evening, and another six Advil so far today. I don’t think I’ll have to take any more Vicodin. The area is slightly achy.
Now it will heal up (I hope), and in three months, give or take, Dr. E. will drill a hole in my jaw and screw in a titanium post, and three months after that, my own dentist will slap on a tooth.
Oh, I ended up getting very good news on the cost. Insurance will pay for 90 percent of the bone graft and 60 percent of the implant, while my own dentist said he would charge me just the lab fees for the crown, which is very, very nice of him, so it will be much less than the worst case. The crown that disappeared with the rest of the tooth had been installed just last year.
You know what an unexpected downside of this whole thing has been? All the utterly revolting photos I've had to look at in the course of my online research. Go Google "bony lumps on gums" and look at the image results, for instance. Or try "tooth roots." They mostly use drawings for that, you'll notice, because the actual things are so dreadful looking, but here and there you can see photos.
You can have general anesthesia for this procedure, and, for all my joking about wanting it, if anyone is going to administer this kind of thing, I will preferably be in a hospital at the time, not in a downtown office building, so I went with local anesthetic only; you can also have nitrous oxide if you want.
Dr. E. claimed that I’d feel just like myself on the latter, that it works on the brain to blunt the perception of pain. Having used enough of it recreationally to get fired from an ice cream parlor job in my youth, I know for a fact that’s not true. It distorts reality in a very pronounced manner; at least, the amount found in nine cans of whipped cream does. Point of trivia: Another veteran of this particular ice cream parlor was supposedly Madonna, probably not long before me. She went to dance school at the University of Michigan, I believe.
Anyway, I decided on just local anesthesia, as nitrous oxide in this context is for sissies, or so I thought right up until the preparations for the procedure began, at which point I realized that was more of an opinion than a fact, but pride kept me from screaming, “I’ve changed my mind!”
I went through my standard inner pre-airplane-flight procedures, which help a lot there, but proved not quite equal to an impending dental extraction. I was really frightened, possibly in the vicinity of an actual panic attack.
They put the numbing stuff on my gum, and then gave me three shots, and then Dr. E. and his assistant sprang into action. Dr. E. started by poking around the tooth, maybe kind of loosening it up or seeing how loose it was. I felt a minor pain and didn’t raise my left hand in the agreed-upon signal, but then realized that a minor pain in that phase might translate to a rather significant pain later on, so then I raised my hand and received another shot; in the end, even my ear was somewhat numb.
They warned me there would be some terrible crunching and cracking noises, which weren’t too bad. Besides the aforementioned twinge and a couple of the shots themselves, there was no physical pain whatsoever, and Dr. E. and his assistant worked together very smoothly and calmly; I just heard little murmurs like, “Number nine." One of my co-workers has had a tooth or two extracted and said she was disappointed to realize how easily they actually come out.
After not long at all, Dr. E. said the tooth had broken into three parts and two were already removed! He said the tooth was indeed fractured, with a vertical crack going all the way down. (Which it better have been. As my mother said later, you wouldn’t want to hear an oral surgeon marvel, “A perfect tooth!” after taking it out.)
For the remaining segment, he had to drill into the tooth and sort of hook it out or something. Then he drilled some more to clean out the cavity, then rinsed it out with saline solution, then stuffed in some dead person’s bone flakes, then stretched a piece of membrane over it, and stitched that in place with non-dissolvable stitches.
Now I have to take antibiotics for a week and make sure nothing touches the surgery area and use a prescription rinse a couple of times a day. I also was given a prescription for Vicodin but didn’t bother to fill it because I had an entire prescription’s worth left over from when my head pounded the surface of Market St. a year or so ago.
I never took one then, but did actually take one last night. I’ve also taken it after surgeries in the past and found it really unpleasant, like being pulled under the surface of the ocean, but it was kind of nice last night, which suggests I might still be able to become a Vicodin addict, if I put my mind to it. Maybe I’d better fill that other prescription.
Today my face still feels very faintly numb, but there hasn’t been any real swelling. I took six Advil right after the extraction, the Vicodin later in the evening, and another six Advil so far today. I don’t think I’ll have to take any more Vicodin. The area is slightly achy.
Now it will heal up (I hope), and in three months, give or take, Dr. E. will drill a hole in my jaw and screw in a titanium post, and three months after that, my own dentist will slap on a tooth.
Oh, I ended up getting very good news on the cost. Insurance will pay for 90 percent of the bone graft and 60 percent of the implant, while my own dentist said he would charge me just the lab fees for the crown, which is very, very nice of him, so it will be much less than the worst case. The crown that disappeared with the rest of the tooth had been installed just last year.
You know what an unexpected downside of this whole thing has been? All the utterly revolting photos I've had to look at in the course of my online research. Go Google "bony lumps on gums" and look at the image results, for instance. Or try "tooth roots." They mostly use drawings for that, you'll notice, because the actual things are so dreadful looking, but here and there you can see photos.
Photos
Hammett seeing if a box spring that has been taken out of commission and leaned against the wall is a good spot to rest.
San Francisco downtown as seen from my oral surgeon's office. At first I couldn't figure out what the shiny building at Post and Kearny was doing to the right of 44 Montgomery. And why could I see 525 Market? This even includes a bit of my very favorite building, the Millennium Tower.
Ants swimming (or maybe just kind of floating) in Ham's water bowl. Ants are good swimmers/floaters. (Of course I rescued them right after capturing this action shot.)
Hammett and his new house.
The cheerful view just before the even more cheerful view of Mehfil Indian restaurant at 2nd and Folsom.
Rainbow and B. of A. building. Actually, double rainbow if examined closely enough.
Chinatown lamp post.
This looked to me at first like some actual substance on the ground, but it's pure light.
Spaceship!
I think it's always nice to finish with a cat picture, don't you?
San Francisco downtown as seen from my oral surgeon's office. At first I couldn't figure out what the shiny building at Post and Kearny was doing to the right of 44 Montgomery. And why could I see 525 Market? This even includes a bit of my very favorite building, the Millennium Tower.
Ants swimming (or maybe just kind of floating) in Ham's water bowl. Ants are good swimmers/floaters. (Of course I rescued them right after capturing this action shot.)
Hammett and his new house.
The cheerful view just before the even more cheerful view of Mehfil Indian restaurant at 2nd and Folsom.
Rainbow and B. of A. building. Actually, double rainbow if examined closely enough.
Chinatown lamp post.
This looked to me at first like some actual substance on the ground, but it's pure light.
Spaceship!
I think it's always nice to finish with a cat picture, don't you?
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