routine

okay, now that i've had plenty of time to relax and settle in, i'd like to start writing again. it's been a good way to have a little daily routine and stay somewhat thoughtful.

i spent some time this morning looking at joining a gym with the intention of swimming and trying out some tai chi and/or yoga classes. after a while, it became pretty apparent that for what i want to do, it seems a gym membership is too expensive and more than i need. instead, i went swimming today at the community center. the pool was pretty nice with four lap lanes. not too busy. and best of all, free, if you don't factor in the taxes that eventually pay to keep the place open. they even had free classes for yoga and tai chi, although i don't know what kind of quality to expect. still, i'll give it a try sometime this month before deciding i want to spend money.

swimming wore me out and i ended up taking a nice long nap this afternoon. following that, i treated myself to some delicious sushi tonight. i haven't had good sushi in a long time and it didn't break the bank.

i'm really enjoying myself these days. i'm getting plenty of sleep, plenty of sunshine, and don't really think a lot like i used to. when people complain to me about the economy, my immediate response has become: "it's a good year to take a vacation."

it's been a long time since i rock and rolled

after making a nice stop through albuquerque and el paso, i'm back in houston. i thought spending winter in colorado would toughen me up but i have to admit it's a little chilly these days.

i had a big day the day i left colorado. i packed all my things into my tiny vw rabbit and hit the road at about 11am. james told me about great sand dunes national monument the day before i left and at the last minute, i decided to make a little detour to check it out. i'm glad i did. getting there took me off the main interstate for a more scenic drive. i went though a mountain pass and emerged in a valley covered in snow. on either side of the road, you could only make out the tops of the wire fences.

i was only at great sand dunes for an hour or so, but it was time enough to take a walk out. the sand dunes are the tallest in north america. they're formed in a kind of nook where the surrounding mountain ranges meet.

the wind is incredible there. i was chilled pretty quickly although i was walking in the afternoon sun. fortunately, the wind wasn't throwing sand in my face. the sand bounced along close to the ground, looking like smoke or fog running past my feet. i also saw a tumbleweed go past me. i had never seen one except from inside of a moving car. the tumbleweed had a funny way of moving, doing a cartwheel then leaping off it's back foot into the next movement.

after leaving, it was about 8 hours to el paso. the drive went by surprisingly easily. i remember the first time i drove from houston to el paso by myself. it was about 11 hours and in that time, i had gone through 6 cd's and restlessly sang and screamed out loud to stay sane. on the drive from colorado springs to el paso, i only played 2 cd's and most of the time i had the stereo off. compared to my 19 hour drive to colorado from houston, it was a piece of cake.

more about my adventures in the southwest later.

an essay on how to approach things

this morning, i had the pleasure of talking with my friend about the right way to approach things. i was having coffee this afternoon, thinking about what i've done, what i want to do, and what has made me satisfied or disappointed with my work. i started daydreaming and wrote a little essay about what kind of attitude i would like to have when i get started on whatever it is i do next.

...

what separates the artist from the dilettante, the master from the apprentice, is the precision, the subtlety, and the range of expression the artist has at their command. a roar in one instant and a whisper in the next. the expanse of the valley and the shadow of a smile.

to be able to express the subtle, one must first see, hear, and feel the subtle. empty, receptive, letting the senses tell what is missing. only then can the execution be full.

following subtlety is control. without this, the unmitigated outpouring of creative expression succumbs to a chaos, a cacophony, unbalanced and worthy of pity. pity at what might have been beautiful.

the tao te ching says:

people often approach success in their affairs
only to fail at the end.
care at the end as at the beginning
averts failure.

in everything i do, i will strive to be this careful, this mindful. to not do so is to guarantee a failed effort and a waste of energy, for how can we learn from failure when we have not used all our faculties first? we can only learn when we have applied everything we already know. we can only succeed when we have learned everything we can from failure.

...

i was working on my new track this morning and have almost finished it. this afternoon i was thinking back on all the other tracks i've done. i've had this hobby for almost ten years now. a lot of work i've done has had good points but i've never been fully satisfied with the final product. the track i'm working on now is the best i've done so far. i don't want to ruin it by rushing to the finish line.

i'm finally headed out tomorrow. i'm going to keep some daily notes and post them when i get setup again.

until next time...

sunny afternoon

it's about 10pm and i'm actually a little sleepy. i woke up before sunrise this morning and have been busy doing some more cleanup and packing. it was pretty nice to be up during regular hours for the first time in two weeks.

i spent the afternoon washing laundry and enjoying the nice weather. i forgot to bring a book with me, so i sat in this chair with a small attached desk that must have been taken from a high school and stared at the washing machine. the afternoon sun coming in through the window was warm and a nice breeze was coming in through the open doors. i only watched the washing machine for a few minutes before nodding off.

when i was a kid, i fell asleep in my backyard on a day like today. there's a storage shed in my backyard but before it was stuffed full of yardwork tools and pesticides, it was a clubhouse for my sister. my father and grandfather built it when my grandparents came to stay with us when i was ten years old. it was actually pretty cool. it had a front door that was "locked" from the inside by a string tied to a nail. it had two windows that were hinged at the top and were held open by metal wires looped around nails on the outside.

the really nice touch to the thing was that my grandparents brought a hammock from the philippines and hung it up inside the clubhouse. i went out there one afternoon and opened the door and windows to let in the nice breeze. i lay down in the hammock for the first time and i remember the ropes digging into my back. i always imagined a hammock to be a really comfortable thing but it wasn't. not at first anyway. i kept laying in it, staring up at the ceiling, feeling the cool breeze and the warm sun. i let my eyes close and shortly fell asleep. when i woke up, the sun had almost set.

i tried to sleep in that hammock another time but i never could. there was something nice about that afternoon that i could never find again. a few years went by and my sister and i outgrew it so it became a storage shed.

i once bought a hammock for a friend as a gift. we never set it up though. i'm not sure what happened to it. i was kinda looking forward to falling asleep in a hammock again but i didn't get the chance. that afternoon in my backyard was the first and only time.

oil change

como estas mi amores! my apologies. i'm a little more inebriated than is acceptable while trying to write, so forgive me for any nonsense i might put here.

today, i got my oil changed, did some packing, so to celebrate i headed out for buffalo wild wings to get as drunk as i could while still being able to drive home. since i'm writing ths you can assume i made it home okay.

i met a dude named john at buffalo wild wings tonight. his website is www.survivordude.com. i owned him at poker tonight and took all his fake money. the bar was full, so i sat down at a table by myself and no less than five waiters/waitresses said hello to me and asked me why i wasn't sitting at the bar. i must be pretty, ugly, or leaving generous tips, but eventually, i did find a seat at the bar.

i'm excited about heading out to el paso. i bought some hiking shoes yesterday in the hopes that my friend james and i will be able to camp out in hueco tanks. i don't know how i managed to fit everything into my car when i arrived here, but i hope i'll be able to pull it off again.

anyway, maybe i'll be able to get back to a normal sleeping schedule. wish me luck.

auto parts

is it midnight already? i took some time today getting my car ready for the long trip out of here. my drive to the auto shop took me up some hills in a part of town i hadn't seen before. i think i found the suburbs.

one of the nice things about houston is that it's flat so that it's not so obvious how ugly the suburbs look. i was driving this afternoon with the setting sun low in the sky, looking out at these beautiful rolling hills blighted by a claustrophobic carpet of identical two story houses and scarred by pitiful looking backyard fences. at least in houston, only the street is ugly, not the whole view to the horizon.

i got a call from my recruiter this afternoon telling me he might have another job for me in colorado. i told him i was already getting ready to head home and that my lease was ending. i've had enough of this state for the rest of the year.

there's no place like home.

rabdargab

i'm feeling awfully old and serious today. i was having coffee and reading this afternoon and started thinking about the two old regulars who are always there. they spend their afternoons drinking coffee, reading the newspaper, and i started to contemplate what i might be doing in thirty or forty years from now. will i still be wondering what i'm supposed to do with myself? will i be broken and cynical? or will i be wise enough to know that spending your afternoon having coffee and reading is one of the most pleasurable things an old man can do?

i was talking with a friend earlier tonight and he asked, "what's the point of life?" i conjured up an image of a senile old man throwing water balloons at children and thought that'd be a pretty fun person to aspire to be in life. i don't know why i should wait until i'm senile to throw water balloons at strangers. maybe i ought to get a headstart.

in the meantime, i'm still trying to figure out what's next. there's not much of a map of life after school. or i should say the map that says, "have a career, a house, and a family," looks pretty unappealing for right now. what can i do instead?

i was talking to another friend tonight and she had an excellent suggestion: read the autobiographies of people you admire. she was having the same thoughts as me and reading about what other people did helped her to think about what she wanted to do herself. great idea. more material for the coffee shop.