A Treasure Found at Home

The Way I See It #37
Embrace this right now life while it’s dripping, while the flavors are excellently woesome. Take your bites with bravery and boldness since the learning and the growing are here in these times, these exact right nows. Capture these times. Hold and kiss them because it will soon be very different.
–Jill Scott Musician.

Two sleeps untill we leave for the burn. Things are coming together for me.

I’m trying to be in the, love in the, swim in the right nowness of now. I’m always more comfortable now instead of trying to be in next week or in two days or in next month, so why continue to drift randomly? My burn is my retreat; I remove the percieved need to worry about what’s next, like this picture… going nowhere fast.

I start my new job the day after I get back, no decompression. But isn’t that the point? No Decompression. Bring Home home. Bring the feel of the burn into the mundane. Make kindness and trust and Be Here Now the norm.

We fret and plan and run around like the proverbial chickens… except our heads really *are* cut off. I’m right here, at this desk, in this apartment, listening to this music, these keyboard clicks, feeling this chill in my fingers, little pain in my neck from slouching *right now*… and where is my head?

In the dust, on the train, trying to buy a FastPass, sorting through what I have packed, in the store buying “enough” water and snacks… I’m anywhere but here and here is where I want to be.

“It’s so simple, why don’t we do it?” asks Rinpoche.

What a good question.

If you like penguins at all, you should read this post by a guy stationed at the south pole.

He didn’t mention anything about them being very smelly. In fact, I never hear that mentioned about penguins. I’m starting to believe the penguins at that private zoo in Dallas had something wrong with them. Maybe the smell was just penguin sweat, it was outside in Dallas!

Anyhow, the penguins in that blog entry are cute and curious and cold.

I got the job!

My first day back from the burn I’ll be hauling myself down to Sunnyvale to my new gig. All new hires must start on Monday, but since Monday is a holiday I can start on Tuesday (but not Wednesday). So I’ll be a bit tired come Tuesday night, but I have a long tradition of not taking Tuesday off when I come back from the burn.

and renew

I’m renewing my vow to try to break the habit of thinking bad things about myself. I don’t think I’m revealing anything here since, as far as I can tell, we all do this to ourselves.

I’m trying to stop the storyline when I find myself thinking I’m not good enough for this or that reason. I’m not allowing myself to believe it when something happens which seems to support my story. Not that I don’t believe the thing happened, but I don’t believe it is any sort of proof in support of my story.

I thought all my shivering was just because of my fever, but it seems that’s only part of it. “On Wednesday, San Francisco was colder than Anchorage, Alaska.”

self portrait

Originally uploaded by Hjem.

We’re days from leaving for the playa. I’ve got strep (with the stupids that usually come along with it), and am close (hopefully) to landing a full time gig, so I’ve got lots to think about. Add to that a possible family visit and a good friend coming into town…

*sigh*

I’m a bit of a grumpus today. I think that’s why I like the playa so much. Once you get out there, you’ve made your decisions; not much changes. (Except that year our camp imploded, but that’s another story.)

I mean, once you’re out there you already have your costumes and camp parts and either you found or didn’t find That Thing you wanted so badly and were all stressed about. Communication with the default world is at a bare minimum so I don’t worry about who’s emailing what to me since I won’t be getting it anyhow.

Yay, playa… I can’t get there fast enough.

I had more weird dreams about being in trouble and trying to solve problems and misunderstood monsters and people being mean to me. Needless to say, I’m feeling stuck.

I’ve been craving doughnuts again. I bought some at the grocery store down the street. They have this one regular filled sized chocolate iced puppy which is filled with icing-like creme–just like the creme sticks from Crinkle House but much smaller. They also have ones that look just like it but are filled with custard. Usually, you can tell because some of the filling leaks out, but last time I had to just go on what the signs said–and the signs were WRONG! I got custard. It was yummy, just not what I wanted.

Which is mirroring some other parts of my life where I’m making choices based on what I think are accurate signs, but which really aren’t. Nothing is life alteringly horrible, and just like the custard I still enjoy what I get, but I’m not getting what I think I’m reaching for. Mr. Brezsney’s astrology told me last week I’d have a lot of bravura, and I did pretty well in my interview and getting some camp stuff sorted and asking some hard for me questions.

This week his horoscope mentions doughnuts:

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Have you heard of the term “doughnut lies”? They’re what happens when people create misleading impressions by leaving out important facts from the center of what they say. Be especially careful to avoid them in the coming week, Libra. Neither be victimized by them nor victimize anyone yourself. It has rarely been more important than it is right now to be devoted to the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. (P.S. But it’s fine to eat more than your usual quota of doughnuts.)

What am I leaving out?

I’m going back to the store for my cream stick.

LIBRA September 22-October 22
Thank heavens Venus in Libra makes you flavor of the month thru Sept 11. Recent interactions felt more like you’d had garlic for lunch.

I love garlic. mmmmm, garlic. Maybe I’ll make pasta with garlic today for lunch. Then I will be happy, just like if I’d had garlic for lunch.

I won’t hear back about last week’s interview until the end of this week or maybe early next week. I’m hip deep in Burning Man prep. I have to fix the amb… doesn’t that sound great. Ok, I’m just replacing a fuse so the cig. lighter will work and we can power the music on the way up and back.

I think I heard more dripping from the upstairs neighbors’ shower. I’ll have to pull everything out of that closet again. Thank goodness they gave me their old loveseat so I have somewhere to put all the clothes which should be hanging.

> 5 Things
the bus came just as I got to the stop
Krispy Kreme
kitten sleeping on my shoulder in my cozy warm bed
lunch with R
dinner with “B”
sleeping in

I should know by now that an all day diet of almost nothing but chocolate is not good for me. I went over to “B”’s last night to hang out with him and Stone. “B” started teasing me about something and I snapped. So now “B” and Stone have proof I have a temper, have I done that in front of either of them before? Who knows, probably. I’m pretty sure “B” believed it even if he’d never had it directed at him before.

I was terribly embarrassed. I’m still embarrassed. I shouldn’t have been so touchy, especially when I knew he was just teasing. So today I’m going to try to be better about looking after my diet. I know not eating well makes me more edgy, and when I’m already feeling such a distinct lack of control I should remember to eat better and be more mindful.

Hello, learning experience! While I can appreciate this as an opportunity to practice, I’m not so sure I can quite reach thankful yet.

Today
clean…

wait, phone…that was the HR person from where I’m interviewing. Time to revise that list.

Today
Rent Car
Interview
Buy new printer cartridges
Late Lunch/Tea with Tarzan?

I went to my horoscope on sfgate hoping to find something I could use to encourage me in my jobsearch. Instead I find this:

LIBRA September 22-October 22
The understanding is you’re already spoken for. But technically speaking, that isn’t the case. Just be sure the envelope is worth pushing.

Strangely accurate. Most people think I’m in a relationship, though I’m not sure they all think it’s with the same person, but I’m not. And I wonder how much I want to work to dispel that theory. Sometimes it’s nice to be seen as significant to someone. I mean, I get treated differently if people think I’m in a relationship, and sometimes I like the differences it brings.

Horoscope aside, I’ve applied to two jobs today and might have two phone interview/screenings later today. I also joined Linkedin, a networking site which is really about networking for jobs and not about networking for dates. Something should come along soon, right?

There’s something about the fog tonight; I’d love to go walking in the quiet neighborhoods of the City. I want to sit on a hill and watch the lights flicker through the softness. It just doesn’t feel safe or smart to do that alone, and I don’t seem to have a friend of the fog walking ilk. At least not one I can call up at this hour and ask for a sacrifice of sleep.

Fog

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

–Carl Sandburg

Made tea to wake up and had a bit of hot water left over. I cleverly poured it on to the edge of a towel so I could use it to clean the stove. It worked wonderfully until I noticed one of the burners was a bit out place.

You could hear the sizzle of my fingertips burning as I grabbed the burner I’d just used to make tea! ouch. dork.

Lucky for me, “B” knew what to do since I couldn’t seem to find it fast enough on the internet and couldn’t remember if I was supposed to use water or avoid water. I knew I kept that boy around for some reason.

I spent the first six days after being laid off hiking in Colorado with M&D. It was the first time I’d set foot in Colorado, though I’ve been in the Rockies before. Here’s the ubiquitous flowers in front of mountains shot. It is a beautiful angle, to be sure.

Flowers in front of Mountains

Originally uploaded by Hjem.

It was a good visit. My Dad had rented a place for five weeks, and this was the last week of that visit. They knew where all the yummy breakfast places were, and they had internet so I was able to do some job search stuff and keep in touch with my team for the Khandro Rinpoche teaching (which was last weekend, more on that later).

I slept for ten hours a night the first two or three nights, apparently I needed to catch up a bit. As we drove around the first couple days, I kept wondering why there were so many Corvettes. I’m sure there are a few people who might drive their sports car from Texas to Colorado at the end of summer, but we’d pass three coming the other way, then a jeep, then two more, then and SUV, then a couple more Corvettes, then there’d be four at the gas station.

I pointed it out to M&D and they started really noticing them, too. On Sunday, Mom and I walked out to get breakfast and Main Street was lined up and down both sides and the middle with Corvettes! Hoods open, paint polished… suddenly it all made sense.
Mom had to leave for a meeting in Texas, so Dad and I were left alone for about 24 hours in the middle of the week. We managed a long walk around town that evening and he told me all about dating Mom, asking her to marry him, and what it was like deciding to adopt. In the morning, we did a ten mile hike from Frisco to Breckenridge then took the shuttle back. I’m a bit more of a walker/hiker than my Mom or brother, so we did the long hike when they weren’t around.

I could live with such hikes in my backyard.

On the way home to SF, my flight was delayed by an hour to let a thunderstorm roll through. Of course, because it was weather related, no one knew how long we’d be delayed, so everyone was crammed up by the gates. Gate announcements couldn’t be heard too far from the appropriate gate because of how the speakers are situated (they point toward the gates, so if you’re in the middle of the terminal you have a hard time hearing). We were all afraid to drift too far for food or last minute magazine shopping. Luckily, these weren’t Texas storms and they were out of there before we got too restless.

On the flight home I sat next to another knitter. She was probably ten, maybe. But we knitted together for the last hour or so of the flight.