today was yet another uneventful day. but i think i got a lot done, in terms of my routines... i've been experimenting with color in my drawings. it's still very basic. i'm following the instructions from betty edwards's "drawing on the right side of the brain." she basically talks about using colored paper as background, and selecting (at first) only two colors to draw with, preferably one that's darker, and another that is its near compliment. so today, i drew on orange paper with a brown pencil and a peach pencil (i know, they aren't complimentary). i first start with the darker pencil, and try to shade in all of the darkest regions. this tends to take a long time, as i'm essentially mapping out the drawing with the dark pencil. then, there's this thing called "heightening," where you color in the lightest portions with your other color. it turned out okay, although i think ideally, what happens is that you have dark regions (delineated by your dark color) and highlights (delineated by your light color), and magically, everything else sort of gets "filled in" by the eye as the middle shades, basically the background color of the paper...
i also got a chance to meditate earlier in the day... it's a practice in being nonjudgmental. there's a lot of crap in my head... random stuff. like tunes that won't go away. or shapes in the carpet that keep arising to represent images or faces or things, only to dissolve into other shapes. or just people...
one thing that i notice is that certain people or situations have a kind of nervous energy about them. i don't clearly understand the associations, they don't make any rational sense, but in meditation, i can sort of detect that baseline disturbance. like, for example, i often think of people and their judgments, and it instantly carries this energy of weariness or defensiveness or despair... in a very minute way. but i notice that these sorts of thoughts will flash and shift my mood subtly. my hope is that, through meditation, and through awareness of these images/thoughts, i will slowly be able to "decouple" things... i recall that, i believe, charlotte joko beck (zen teacher) once talked about the importance of decoupling thoughts from feelings... and that the source of their compusive energy is this lack of awareness, this conjoining and confounding of thought-images with emotional energy...
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i've been doing my 4 page freewriting. it doesn't lead to anything "productive" in the sense of being publishable, or even remotely public. but i kind of have looked on the practice as a sort of free association psychological exercise. i try to write INSTANTLY each thought that comes into my mind. and as a result, it's strange, but i've started to remember things in my past. little details. i've mentioned this before, but it's really my hope that i can relive my past a bit more. for the longest time, i feel as though i've been dead to myself. i only recall the past in very general (and often negative) ways. for example, college was a time of loneliness and despair... actually so was post-college life... actually... so when wasn't i lonely and filled with despair??? but, like what i was talking about with meditation, that "image" of that time is just a symbol, something that is a frozen lake... there are still living fish swimming below the surface... and all i have to do is look closer, and "decouple" that association of sadness from that time and that place... and hopefully, everything will come alive again...
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musubi got sick from eating some tomatoes. my wife made an omelette for him, and put in some chopped tomatoes. we had googled it just before feeding him, and most of the articles said that tomatoes were fine to feed to dogs. as long as they were ripe. these tomatoes were pretty ripe, but not entirely. i think that's what made musubi sick. he's been very lethargic, and unable to do simple things like jump on the bed, or climb the stairs... it seems as though he's aged a lot. anyway, we finally took him to the vet today. the vet didn't really find anything particularly unusual... but we're going to do a stool test... and we did buy some antibiotics for him... so hopefully, we will have our good old musubi back...
one thing... i hate to admit it, but i am kind of abusive to musubi. not in any overt way. but i annoy him a lot. i kiss him, and stroke him, and he hates it. he growls instinctively whenever i approach him. i don't think he hates me. i mean, he comes to me a lot when i'm typing on the computer, and just sort of sits beside me, so that our sides touch. or he plays with me, bringing his rope toy or his banana for me to throw around. so a part of him tolerates me. but i'm definitely not his favorite...
i've thought a lot about why i can be mean to musubi. lynn mentioned that the way you treat a dog (or any other harmless animal) is how you really are inside. really? i guess i am a bastard inside... i tried to reflect on this. my excuse is that the dog repeats an issue i've had for much of my life. see, musubi LOVES my wife. and me, i'm just someone he tolerates. i'm always second fiddle. so the way i treat the dog is with this awareness that i'm not someone he really wants to be around. i think that this is a repetition of my situation with my brother. everyone LOVED him. and me, i'm just this pale substitute that people always tolerate.
i honestly think that way of most interactions. like with most people, i'm always thinking that they just want to get away from me. maybe it's mutual. maybe it's a projection on my part. because i'm uncomfortable around most people, i just keep thinking, what do they want of me? i suppose that i live my life trying to give people what they want, not because i really enjoy people (i don't- i feel uncomfortable around them), but because it seems as though that might make them happy? which leads to the issue of self-hatred... because i think my brother taught me to hate myself... and then i took the job upon myself... because if there's one thing i can do better than anyone else, it's hate myself...
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