12/9/2020

i am at the acupuncture school right now. i actually don't have to be here. i am administering the final for the class primarily via distance (meaning students receive and send an electronic copy). there were a few in person students, but as there weren't really any questions regarding the final, i'm just sitting here waiting.

what sucks is that i got a speeding ticket driving here. i'm not going to comment on it right now. but it just sort of put me in a bitchy mood. like, i didn't even have to come here, and i am ending up paying for the stupid ticket for the privilege of my optional appearance...

*****

i read a story in "olive kitteredge", which is an excellent book, btw. in the latest chapter, called "starving," an older man named harmon basically finds new life in a relationship he has with another woman. i should say that harmon has been married (bonnie) for many years, enough to have raised 4 boys, all now gone out of the house... the empty nest syndrome hits him hard, much harder than his wife, who seems to find a kind of empty joy in little craft projects and her weekly book club. bonnie also doesn't "accommodate" him, and even tells him, with finality, that that aspect of her life was over... so i guess that sets harmon wandering... he learns the slang from a couple of younger twenty-somethings: "fuck buddies." and realizes, somewhat ashamedly, that that's what he and this other woman, daisy, are... fuck buddies... but eventually, due to a tragic and heartrending event- the intrusion of a desperately anorexic young girl into their "cozy" relationship- well, it somehow transforms harmon and daisy into something more.

the story is called "starving," and, on one level, it is about the young anorexic girl. however, on a parallel track, it is about harmon, who comes to starve for life... even after living what most would consider a full life. some might superficially label this a mid-life crisis- and perhaps there are some aspects of that- but to me, it expresses more the notion that life ALWAYS hungers for life... and that there are those that feel this, sometimes acutely... and there are those that sort of give up on life- on all its newness, its relentlessly unfixed nature... harmon understands, at the end, that choosing one (his relationship with daisy) will destroy what he already has (his marriage and life with bonnie)... but in a certain sense, it is not a choice. because who, "infected" by life, would choose death?

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anyway, it is now a day later. i always end up doing this. i start to write an entry somewhere, and then, due to circumstances, i can't finish... and i have to pick up the loose thread and go with it.

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i don't know, i'm sort of mixed, not about the story, but about its portrayal of commitment as death. yes, it is always a relentless draw to think about other lives, other loves, other possibilities. and familiarity, the oblivion that comes from living with the patterns of those you "love," well, it can seem akin to a sort of death. but in the surrender to that, there is also a miracle. this, i have to believe.

i also think that people never really stop growing or changing. just because it seems as though things are "fixed," there is always someone or something restless within us that is trying to come to be. i'm thinking of counting crows lyrics, although i think they were sung with a darker significance... nevertheless: "beneath the dust and love and sweat that hangs on everybody, there's a dead man trying to get out."

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i'm trying to keep to certain routines, and miraculously, i've been able to do so. i get up at around 4, and then meditate for 30 minutes... the main problem i have during my sessions is that i wake up with some sort of random snippet of song in my head, and for the life of me, i can't get it out of my head. i think it's something like my ego or a shadow of it trying to assert its control over the acid of my awareness... it tries to pretend a sameness within me... anyway, after meditation, i do my taijiquan, based on adam mizner's instructions. i basically do 25 minutes of standing meditation, which is getting easier, although the last 10 minutes (poses that involve putting 90-100% weight on one leg) tend to be very difficult, to the point where i'm sweating and vibrating... after that, i do 10 minutes of fang song exercises, basically simple movement exercises that get things moving. and then i do the small snippet of the 37 movement form made famous by cheng man ching...

i also do a few ab exercises, and some chest/back and shoulder/arm exercises from p90x. just a little bit. i think it's best to break things into small increments... otherwise they become insurmountable (psychologically) and they just don't get done...

so i manage to do that every morning. and in the afternoons, i set about on my routines... like drawing, playing the piano, reading chapters in different books, stuff like that. it pretends at life, this routine... this "forced" immersion in different aspects of culture. but so far i like it. it makes my mind active.