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...
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
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.
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.
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.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
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.
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.
Monday, February 2, 2009
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.
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.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
free parking
okay, so after watching more macgyver episodes in the last few days than i should admit to, i started thinking about what odd situations i've been in that i had to find creative solutions for.
one time i had to break into a parking lot to get a car. whose car? my friend's car. why did i have to break into a parking lot to get it? we were in fremont and parked the car at a 24 hour fitness before getting on the BART into san francisco. when we came back that night, we found that the parking lot had been emptied except for two cars, one of them being ours. why was the parking lot empty? because a construction crew had put up a chain link fence around it with the intention of resurfacing the parking lot the next day. there was a sign on the chain link fence warning people to get their cars out by midnight or they would be towed. we came at 3 am. well, they hadn't towed the car, but we still had the problem of getting to it.
i didn't want to call the construction company because it would probably just bring the tow truck driver and a $200 fee for getting the car back. we walked around the whole fence looking for a break in the links but found none. after walking the whole perimeter, we returned to what should have been the entrance and i happened to notice that at that segment in the fence, there was a part missing. all the other segments had these rectangle feet that served to hold up that particular section. at this segment, that foot was missing. i took a closer look and saw there was a metal piece, shaped like a figure eight, that connected the two segments together. i gave it a little yank and it moved! if i pulled it all the way off, i could open the segment like a door and we could drive our car out.
now that we had a way in, we had to have a quick plan. we'd probaby have a hard time explaining to a police officer why we were disassembling a fence on private property. the plan was this: i would open the fence while my friend quickly went in, started the car and drove it back to me. i would open the fence all the way while she drove it out, then i would close the fence back up, put the figure eight piece back, get in the car, and nobody would know we opened it up. sounds good right? we got as far as opening the fence and her driving out, but not before the security guard for the 24 hour fitness came by and saw i was waiting by the fence to close it up again. i didn't have to explain anything, he guessed pretty quickly that we had parked there for the BART and gotten stuck. he was pretty understanding and said just as long as we closed it back up, he didn't have a problem. so, out she came, i closed up the fence, and we went home.
i know, i didn't make any batteries or explosives or lockpicks, but i'm still satisfied at cheating the towing company out of $200. we cheated BART too. why did we park at 24 hour fitness in the first place? we didn't want to pay $1 for parking at the train station.
one time i had to break into a parking lot to get a car. whose car? my friend's car. why did i have to break into a parking lot to get it? we were in fremont and parked the car at a 24 hour fitness before getting on the BART into san francisco. when we came back that night, we found that the parking lot had been emptied except for two cars, one of them being ours. why was the parking lot empty? because a construction crew had put up a chain link fence around it with the intention of resurfacing the parking lot the next day. there was a sign on the chain link fence warning people to get their cars out by midnight or they would be towed. we came at 3 am. well, they hadn't towed the car, but we still had the problem of getting to it.
i didn't want to call the construction company because it would probably just bring the tow truck driver and a $200 fee for getting the car back. we walked around the whole fence looking for a break in the links but found none. after walking the whole perimeter, we returned to what should have been the entrance and i happened to notice that at that segment in the fence, there was a part missing. all the other segments had these rectangle feet that served to hold up that particular section. at this segment, that foot was missing. i took a closer look and saw there was a metal piece, shaped like a figure eight, that connected the two segments together. i gave it a little yank and it moved! if i pulled it all the way off, i could open the segment like a door and we could drive our car out.
now that we had a way in, we had to have a quick plan. we'd probaby have a hard time explaining to a police officer why we were disassembling a fence on private property. the plan was this: i would open the fence while my friend quickly went in, started the car and drove it back to me. i would open the fence all the way while she drove it out, then i would close the fence back up, put the figure eight piece back, get in the car, and nobody would know we opened it up. sounds good right? we got as far as opening the fence and her driving out, but not before the security guard for the 24 hour fitness came by and saw i was waiting by the fence to close it up again. i didn't have to explain anything, he guessed pretty quickly that we had parked there for the BART and gotten stuck. he was pretty understanding and said just as long as we closed it back up, he didn't have a problem. so, out she came, i closed up the fence, and we went home.
i know, i didn't make any batteries or explosives or lockpicks, but i'm still satisfied at cheating the towing company out of $200. we cheated BART too. why did we park at 24 hour fitness in the first place? we didn't want to pay $1 for parking at the train station.
cleanup
having resolved to head home next week has put me in a good mood today. i didn't do any packing, but i did do some cleanup around the apartment. the next major thing i have to take care of is to get my car ready for the drive back. 1000 miles, give or take a few hundred depending on which way i go, but at least i'm in no hurry to get there. i'm planning on paying a visit to my friend james in el paso for a few days before i get back to houston. i'll have to remember to get a car wash so i'll be less likely to get hasseled by the border patrol again.
this week went by quick once i stopped trying to pack so much into each day. maybe i'm starting to get the hang of this.
this week went by quick once i stopped trying to pack so much into each day. maybe i'm starting to get the hang of this.
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