Excellent, in fact. Several new clients, including an exisiting massage client, who couldn't need to do Pilates more. I'm very excited about working with her. Also thrilled to be working with a pregnant client. Everyone bought packages, and all is well. I'm so happy to have things building up at the Sports Center. Lovely place to work, and the money is significantly better there than any of my other three Pilates jobs.
I also had a tremendously good Mat class yesterday. It was nearly all magic circle work, some of it taken from a handy little video I borrowed from work, about how to incorporate small apparatuses into your Mat work. I had seven ladies, mostly pretty healthy and eager.
It was also a small victory for me: I had a general plan (lots of magic circle work), but no specific list of exercises. For the first time, I really felt like the flow came easily and naturally, the way my favorite teachers of the past have seemed to work.
Spine twist with circle at base of ribs
Spine twist with head aligned
Spine twist with alternating head
Spine twist with circle in extended arms
Bicep presses with circle at side
Small presses while crowning head with circle
Small chest presses with circle parallel to chest
Bridging with circle between knees (inner thigh squeezes at top)
Bridging with heel and toe lifts (together and alternating)
Stretching with circle (hams, outer leg, outer leg flexed foot, inner thigh)
Calf presses with circle
Bridging with circle outside of knees (outer thigh presses at top)
Side-lying work
Roll-downs with circle in hands
Figure Four Stretch
Psoas Stretch
Sunday, January 21, 2007
A Real Live Day Off
Today is my first entire day off since the first day of the month. Feels nice. Happened kind of by accident, and I now resolve to try to make it happen on purpose more often than twice a month.
Now, don't mistake me. I am not a workaholic, and we're not talking 12-hour days here. The kind of work I do doesn't put me at a desk for hours on end. For example, this week I worked 24 actual hours (not including transit time). Not bad, really, but I think we all know that even if you only work 3 hours in a day, it's not the same as having 24 full, unscheduled hours to yourself.
Here's what I did today:
Got up at 9 am, had coffee and oatmeal
Caught up on e-mails, myspace
Showered leisurely
Got a lovely pedicure
Had a nice lunch out (garlic sesame chicken bowl)
Grocery shopped for and made vegetable soup
And now I'm catching up on this here blog and watching football
Tonight our friend Will is coming over and we will watch more football and eat take-out from our favorite new find, a mediterranean/middle eastern/Armenian restaurant called Araz. I might also do some laundry, which I actually don't mind at all. I had notions of being a little more active, maybe going on a hike or something, but I have to say, I don't feel guilty at all.
Now, don't mistake me. I am not a workaholic, and we're not talking 12-hour days here. The kind of work I do doesn't put me at a desk for hours on end. For example, this week I worked 24 actual hours (not including transit time). Not bad, really, but I think we all know that even if you only work 3 hours in a day, it's not the same as having 24 full, unscheduled hours to yourself.
Here's what I did today:
Got up at 9 am, had coffee and oatmeal
Caught up on e-mails, myspace
Showered leisurely
Got a lovely pedicure
Had a nice lunch out (garlic sesame chicken bowl)
Grocery shopped for and made vegetable soup
And now I'm catching up on this here blog and watching football
Tonight our friend Will is coming over and we will watch more football and eat take-out from our favorite new find, a mediterranean/middle eastern/Armenian restaurant called Araz. I might also do some laundry, which I actually don't mind at all. I had notions of being a little more active, maybe going on a hike or something, but I have to say, I don't feel guilty at all.
Movie: Casino Royale
Good fun. Nice to see a slightly edgier Bond. I was never one of those who was against Daniel Craig, though I did find the choice a little surprising. I liked him a lot, and not just because he takes his shirt off a few times. He's kind of craggy, and good-looking, but with some years on him, and some experience. An excellent Bond.
Had all of the ridiculous action-movie necessities: evil villains, fantastic settings, and the ill-fated love affair (you can see her betrayal coming a mile away). But it is what it is, right? All in all, an entertaining night at the movies.
Had all of the ridiculous action-movie necessities: evil villains, fantastic settings, and the ill-fated love affair (you can see her betrayal coming a mile away). But it is what it is, right? All in all, an entertaining night at the movies.
The Tao is Dead. Long Live The Tao.
Well, so much for that. I've lost my way, literally, I guess. I may still check in, but I'm no good at the every day thing. That's almost certainly a reason why I should do it, but I just don't care enough, sadly.
Today's entry is about skills, and how they are eternal parts of the soul. So if you learn to play the zither, I can take away your zither, but you'll always know how to play it. I can kind of relate to this one, in that I make my living from skills (massage, Pilates), and as such, they're eminently portable.
Today's entry is about skills, and how they are eternal parts of the soul. So if you learn to play the zither, I can take away your zither, but you'll always know how to play it. I can kind of relate to this one, in that I make my living from skills (massage, Pilates), and as such, they're eminently portable.
A Great Deliverance, by Elizabeth George
Ah, Elizabeth George. Dense, twisted, very-British mysteries. So much fun. I've read them all, but picked up A Great Deliverance, the earliest of the Lynley-Havers series, at the library on a whim and read it again. So nice to be reintroduced to the characters. Great reading. It's always nice to have to look up a word every now and then.
The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak
I knew this book would be good before I even undid the ribbon and unwrapped it. My Aunt Susan gives me a wonderful, interesting book every year, and somehow manages to give me one I've never read. Sometimes they're new, and sometimes quite old, but all books that I clearly should read.
The Book Thief is the story of Liesel, a young German girl who travels to live with foster parents during WWII. What makes this book unique, among the many stories of Nazi Germany, is that the narrator is Death, and in a way, it's Death's story, too. Liesel learns to read in her new home, with the help of her kind foster father, and along the way, does in fact steal several books, beginning with a gravedigger's manual, stolen from the graveside of her younger brother. Her brother's death is Death's first encounter with her, and she captures his attention. He follows her story from there, in the midst of his regular death-duties.
I love books about books, and words, and how comforting words can be in trying times. I've always found it true in my own life; A book can make you happy when you are sad, keep you from dying of boredom or despair. The act of writing can keep you sane in the most difficult circumstances, and I certainly credit the act of writing with helping me be the person I am. Zusak conveys all of this subtly and beautifully.
The format of the story is a bit stylized, and includes the rough drawings and stories of Max, the Jewish man who is hidden in her basement for much of the story. It also contains small bits of exposition, given directly by Death, instead of worked into character dialogue: definitions of words, explanations of moments just to come, character sketches, and warnings of tragedy. The style reminds me of Jonathan Safran Foer, who wrote Everything Is Illuminated and Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close, both lovely books. This technique, of embedding pieces of the story into the book, draws the reader in so well. I was so eager to know what was in the stories Max wrote, and so full of gratitude to be able to read them for myself, instead of having them described by one of the characters or the narrator.
The Book Thief is the story of Liesel, a young German girl who travels to live with foster parents during WWII. What makes this book unique, among the many stories of Nazi Germany, is that the narrator is Death, and in a way, it's Death's story, too. Liesel learns to read in her new home, with the help of her kind foster father, and along the way, does in fact steal several books, beginning with a gravedigger's manual, stolen from the graveside of her younger brother. Her brother's death is Death's first encounter with her, and she captures his attention. He follows her story from there, in the midst of his regular death-duties.
I love books about books, and words, and how comforting words can be in trying times. I've always found it true in my own life; A book can make you happy when you are sad, keep you from dying of boredom or despair. The act of writing can keep you sane in the most difficult circumstances, and I certainly credit the act of writing with helping me be the person I am. Zusak conveys all of this subtly and beautifully.
The format of the story is a bit stylized, and includes the rough drawings and stories of Max, the Jewish man who is hidden in her basement for much of the story. It also contains small bits of exposition, given directly by Death, instead of worked into character dialogue: definitions of words, explanations of moments just to come, character sketches, and warnings of tragedy. The style reminds me of Jonathan Safran Foer, who wrote Everything Is Illuminated and Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close, both lovely books. This technique, of embedding pieces of the story into the book, draws the reader in so well. I was so eager to know what was in the stories Max wrote, and so full of gratitude to be able to read them for myself, instead of having them described by one of the characters or the narrator.
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Yes Man, by Danny Wallace
An excellent book for the New Year. It's a comic memoir of one man's attempt to say "Yes!" to life. As an improviser, this notion is familiar. In improv, we have a rule of "Yes, and-ing" everything. This is a way to be in constant agreement with your fellow players: you agree with them, then add something new. This isn't a literal, "yes, and it's my birthday!" You can agree with something in improv without being verbal, or necessarily agreeing with your partner's character's attitude.
Danny Wallace's brand of yes is substantially more literal. He attempts to say an actual, verbal "yes," to any question he is asked, whether it's advertising ("Why not say it with flowers?"), invitations ("Want to have a pint?), job offers (Want to do this job you're not remotely qualified for?), or spam e-mails (Please kind sir, will you help a man from Somalia trying to get 4 million dollars out of the country?), no matter the cost or effort required.
This results, as you can imagine, in wonderful comic moments, near disasters, travel to the opposite side of the world, and in a funny way, true enlightenment. My husband read it first, and I was constantly asking him what was so funny. And as I read it, he kept asking me where in the story I was, everytime I laughed. I can highly recommend it for a good laugh, and perhaps a little think about how often we say "No," without thinking.
Danny Wallace's brand of yes is substantially more literal. He attempts to say an actual, verbal "yes," to any question he is asked, whether it's advertising ("Why not say it with flowers?"), invitations ("Want to have a pint?), job offers (Want to do this job you're not remotely qualified for?), or spam e-mails (Please kind sir, will you help a man from Somalia trying to get 4 million dollars out of the country?), no matter the cost or effort required.
This results, as you can imagine, in wonderful comic moments, near disasters, travel to the opposite side of the world, and in a funny way, true enlightenment. My husband read it first, and I was constantly asking him what was so funny. And as I read it, he kept asking me where in the story I was, everytime I laughed. I can highly recommend it for a good laugh, and perhaps a little think about how often we say "No," without thinking.
Tuesday, January 9, 2007
The Black Dahlia
Pretty boring. Didn't look so much like a proper period movie, but kind of a weak facsimile. They did a good job of adapting the book, though. In fact, I think that the only reason I was stayed engaged with the movie is that I was assessing how well they adapted the book. My fellow movie-watchers were bored, and one of them even fell asleep toward the end. So much for an exciting climax. The acting was uneven and, well, boring.
Dreamgirls
Dreamgirls was good fun. Not a great movie, not really a great musical, and not a consistent cast, but a lot of fun. It amazes me how many people don't realize it's a musical, though.
Jennifer Hudson lives up the the hype, and she and Eddie Murphy were really the only ones who managed to sing and act at the same time. Murphy's portrayal of a James Brown-like soul singer is really wonderful, and Hudson sings circles around other girls.
Beyonce and Jamie Foxx were both pretty flat.
Jennifer Hudson lives up the the hype, and she and Eddie Murphy were really the only ones who managed to sing and act at the same time. Murphy's portrayal of a James Brown-like soul singer is really wonderful, and Hudson sings circles around other girls.
Beyonce and Jamie Foxx were both pretty flat.
My Dark Places, by James Ellroy
Whew. This book was compelling, but exhausting. In the last few months, I have read a recent non-fiction account of the Black Dahlia murder, re-read Ellroy's own Dahlia novel, and saw the movie over the weekend. One of my fellow New Year's Eve revelers told me about My Dark Places, so I put it on my hold list at the library (more on that later) and just finished it yesterday.
It's a pretty dark memoir of his life, changed forever after the unsolved murder of his mother when he was a boy. Convincing himself that he was happy to be away from his drunk, whore mother, he lived with the father he idolized. He led a pretty dissolute existence until his late twenties, when he nearly went mad from drugs and drink. His temporary descent into madness shook him out of it, and he eventually became a critically acclaimed novelist.
In the 90s, he realized how much his mother's death affected him and began to work with a detective to unravel what actually happened. The retelling of their quest sometimes gets a little tedious, with long lists of people who weren't able to tell them anything, and places then visited to learn nothing. But they put together little pieces of her life, and that helped him to come to terms with it, on some level.
The most interesting part of the book to me, given my mild fascination with the Black Dahlia case, is how his mother's murder got twisted up in his mind with the Dahlia and other murders during his child- and young adult-hood. It's a little creepy, and very disturbing, but totally fascinating.
It's a pretty dark memoir of his life, changed forever after the unsolved murder of his mother when he was a boy. Convincing himself that he was happy to be away from his drunk, whore mother, he lived with the father he idolized. He led a pretty dissolute existence until his late twenties, when he nearly went mad from drugs and drink. His temporary descent into madness shook him out of it, and he eventually became a critically acclaimed novelist.
In the 90s, he realized how much his mother's death affected him and began to work with a detective to unravel what actually happened. The retelling of their quest sometimes gets a little tedious, with long lists of people who weren't able to tell them anything, and places then visited to learn nothing. But they put together little pieces of her life, and that helped him to come to terms with it, on some level.
The most interesting part of the book to me, given my mild fascination with the Black Dahlia case, is how his mother's murder got twisted up in his mind with the Dahlia and other murders during his child- and young adult-hood. It's a little creepy, and very disturbing, but totally fascinating.
The Day of the Literal Pain in the Neck
Ouch. Ouch. And more ouch.
Yesterday I woke up with a little twinge in my right shoulder blade, which built and built until the entire right side of my torso up to my neck and the base of my skull was on fire. It's somewhat better today, but I can still make myself dizzy with pain just by poking the back of my head (I know, don't poke it, then). I don't think I slept more than an hour at a time last night, since everytime I shifted, I woke up.
And to top it off, today was an extraordinarily long day...I worked from 7 am to 7:30 pm (with a few hours at home for lunch). 8 hours of Pilates clients, none of whom I had met before, so I was creating the workouts as I went. Good day for money, though, and I actually enjoyed most of the clients, and with a few exceptions, didn't find myself at a loss for exercises. In fact, this is my longest Pilates day ever! It's historic, and I hope it never happens again.
In other exciting news today, we got a DVR, which is kind of fun, though a totally different remote to learn. I've been fast-forwarding and rewinding like mad....just because I can...Chris is totally tickled by it. He's been jealously slavering over DVRs whenever we visit someone who has one.
Yesterday I woke up with a little twinge in my right shoulder blade, which built and built until the entire right side of my torso up to my neck and the base of my skull was on fire. It's somewhat better today, but I can still make myself dizzy with pain just by poking the back of my head (I know, don't poke it, then). I don't think I slept more than an hour at a time last night, since everytime I shifted, I woke up.
And to top it off, today was an extraordinarily long day...I worked from 7 am to 7:30 pm (with a few hours at home for lunch). 8 hours of Pilates clients, none of whom I had met before, so I was creating the workouts as I went. Good day for money, though, and I actually enjoyed most of the clients, and with a few exceptions, didn't find myself at a loss for exercises. In fact, this is my longest Pilates day ever! It's historic, and I hope it never happens again.
In other exciting news today, we got a DVR, which is kind of fun, though a totally different remote to learn. I've been fast-forwarding and rewinding like mad....just because I can...Chris is totally tickled by it. He's been jealously slavering over DVRs whenever we visit someone who has one.
Sunday, January 7, 2007
We Are All Welcome Here, by Elizabeth Berg
I love Elizabeth Berg. Her novels are sentimental and sweet and so very girlie, but I love them. I'm not an emotional-response-crier kind of girl, but hers almost always get me, and We Are All Welcome Here is no exception. It's a departure for Berg, in that she based it on the real life of the mother of one of her readers. The reader sent a letter suggesting this, a thing that Berg was initially against, but then was won over by the sheer force of the mother's story. She states in the introduction that it's a fictionalized version of the woman's story, but the grounding in reality is perhaps one of the reasons the book is so good.
It was a pretty quick read, with a young girl as narrator. Her mother, Paige, who contracted polio late in her pregnancy, delivered the baby in an iron lung, and then lived to come home and raise her, albeit from a paralyzed state, able only to move her head. Paige is determined to focus on what she can do, not what she is unable to do anymore, with the help of a special caregiver, whose boyfriend is caught up in the civil rights movement. We follow her daughter as she hits puberty, pushes boundaries, and begins to understand what love is and isn't.
Berg has such a skill at capturing the almost excruciatingly unbearable moments in life, whether of tragedy or love, and I think this is why I like her books so much. It's so easy to identify with those moments where you think you just can't stand whatever it is, whether it's good or bad.
The first Elizabeth Berg book that made me cry is Range of Motion, which I highly recommend, along with this one.
It was a pretty quick read, with a young girl as narrator. Her mother, Paige, who contracted polio late in her pregnancy, delivered the baby in an iron lung, and then lived to come home and raise her, albeit from a paralyzed state, able only to move her head. Paige is determined to focus on what she can do, not what she is unable to do anymore, with the help of a special caregiver, whose boyfriend is caught up in the civil rights movement. We follow her daughter as she hits puberty, pushes boundaries, and begins to understand what love is and isn't.
Berg has such a skill at capturing the almost excruciatingly unbearable moments in life, whether of tragedy or love, and I think this is why I like her books so much. It's so easy to identify with those moments where you think you just can't stand whatever it is, whether it's good or bad.
The first Elizabeth Berg book that made me cry is Range of Motion, which I highly recommend, along with this one.
The Ice Curtain, by Robin White
First let me say something about the way I read. I read everything, and often finish uninteresting books with little hope of their improving. But with some hope! But I find it's pretty rare that a book improves on its first half. The Ice Curtain was one I almost didn't get into at all, but due to its being the only paperback I had handy, and not wanting to lug a heavy hardback around, I stuck with it.
I must also admit that I was taken in a little by its cover: a shadowy silhouette of a man surrounded by diamonds. I do, in fact, sometimes choose books by their covers. When you are blindly reaching out for books at the library, it seems a good a way as any, and works as often as it fails, if not more often. Because most books have something good about them, I find. It's pretty rare that I feel a book is an entire waste of time, that I'm angry when I finish it, because I'll never get those 4 hours back (or however many). It's happened, certainly, but I seem to have wiped the authors and titles from my mind. If I think of any, I'll add them in.
Set in Russia and Siberia, and concerning the shadowy world of diamond mining, it was dense and fairly confusing, and just a little exhausting. By the end, I had finally started to to care a little about the main characters, but all in all, it is not one I would recommend, unless you find yourself in a guest room somewhere with no books to read but this one. That sounds harsher than I actually feel, but so it goes.
I must also admit that I was taken in a little by its cover: a shadowy silhouette of a man surrounded by diamonds. I do, in fact, sometimes choose books by their covers. When you are blindly reaching out for books at the library, it seems a good a way as any, and works as often as it fails, if not more often. Because most books have something good about them, I find. It's pretty rare that I feel a book is an entire waste of time, that I'm angry when I finish it, because I'll never get those 4 hours back (or however many). It's happened, certainly, but I seem to have wiped the authors and titles from my mind. If I think of any, I'll add them in.
Set in Russia and Siberia, and concerning the shadowy world of diamond mining, it was dense and fairly confusing, and just a little exhausting. By the end, I had finally started to to care a little about the main characters, but all in all, it is not one I would recommend, unless you find yourself in a guest room somewhere with no books to read but this one. That sounds harsher than I actually feel, but so it goes.
Friday, January 5, 2007
Gonzalez & Daughter Trucking Co., by Maria Amparo Escandon
I enjoyed this book the way I enjoy Chinese food. I'm so happy to be consuming it, but I'm hungry again not too much later. A fun read, definitely engaging, and with a little touch of magical realism (which I enjoy), but not much meat to it. I will try to get her other book, Esperanza's Box of Saints, which I seem to remember reading about somewhere.
Resolution Progress
Exercise is going well so far. Just got back from a trip to the gym, where I've started running a little again. I'm on-again, off-again with running, but lately I just had the urge, and it has felt really good. Just doing little 2-minute intervals in 5-minute sets, so nothing marathon-worthy, but enough to feel a little bit challenged and work up a good sweat.
To recap the week:
2 trips to the gym for interval running
2 sessions of Pilates, one with trainer, one on my own
2 short walks around the neighborhood
1 Pilates mat class
To recap the week:
2 trips to the gym for interval running
2 sessions of Pilates, one with trainer, one on my own
2 short walks around the neighborhood
1 Pilates mat class
Day 5 of 365 Tao
Today's entry is Sound:
Wind in the cave:
Movement in stillness.
Power in silence.
The general idea is that thoughtful stillness reduces the chaos of life around us and allows us to experience our own state, and the world around us, more deeply. Makes sense in an abstract way, but I'm not finding it easy to apply to my own life. I'm going to have to think on this one.
Wind in the cave:
Movement in stillness.
Power in silence.
The general idea is that thoughtful stillness reduces the chaos of life around us and allows us to experience our own state, and the world around us, more deeply. Makes sense in an abstract way, but I'm not finding it easy to apply to my own life. I'm going to have to think on this one.
Thursday, January 4, 2007
Day 4 of the Tao
Day 4 is Reflection:
Moon above water.
Sit in solitude.
Still water reflects the moon perfectly, while turbulent water mars the image. So, I take this to mean that stilling the mind can allow you to find a level, and reflect perfectly. Interesting, as I had two, count 'em, two no-shows this morning at the Pilates studio. No-shows are never fun, but if you just rolled out of bed at 7 am to get to work, not working the first 2 hours is pretty grumpifying. And yet...I managed to keep my cool. I still get paid partially, so it's not a crisis, but still, I'm proud that I stayed calm and used the time to read and catch up on phone calls. Good for me.
Moon above water.
Sit in solitude.
Still water reflects the moon perfectly, while turbulent water mars the image. So, I take this to mean that stilling the mind can allow you to find a level, and reflect perfectly. Interesting, as I had two, count 'em, two no-shows this morning at the Pilates studio. No-shows are never fun, but if you just rolled out of bed at 7 am to get to work, not working the first 2 hours is pretty grumpifying. And yet...I managed to keep my cool. I still get paid partially, so it's not a crisis, but still, I'm proud that I stayed calm and used the time to read and catch up on phone calls. Good for me.
Back to Pilates
First Pilates session after the holiday madness...not as bad as I thought it would be. Lots of muscles are very tight, but they were letting go and relaxing a little by the end of the session. Great session, and as I'd like to use some of it myself, I am recapping it here (all done on the Cadillac):
--Stretching
--Reverse footwork
--Monkey w/heel drops
--Hip openers
--Lat pulldowns at tower end (double- and single-arm)
--Reverse push-through
--Roll-downs
--Crescent stretch
-roll-down
-move right hand to center of bar
-left hand to outside of tower bar
-hips to side
-trainer pulls tower bar away
--spreadeagle
Excellent workout...just right for the way my body felt.
--Stretching
--Reverse footwork
--Monkey w/heel drops
--Hip openers
--Lat pulldowns at tower end (double- and single-arm)
--Reverse push-through
--Roll-downs
--Crescent stretch
-roll-down
-move right hand to center of bar
-left hand to outside of tower bar
-hips to side
-trainer pulls tower bar away
--spreadeagle
Excellent workout...just right for the way my body felt.
Wednesday, January 3, 2007
The Resolutions Themselves
This list is perhaps a work in progress.
1. Exercise consistently, including regular Pilates, cardio, and weight training. Keep your body strong and ready for anything.
2. Eat better. More veggies and fruits, more whole grains, less processed food. More potassium, less sodium. Plenty of water and other liquids.
3. Cook more. Cook different stuff. Figure out ways to cook healthy "convenience" foods rather than buying them.
4. Regulate schedule: work, sleep, play. Enjoy downtime, but keep active.
5. Do more. Participate in more activities, including improv, continuing education for Pilates and massage.
6. Write more. You've started a blog, now actually make entries in it. Keep up with things. Write about reading, about improv, about work and play and family.
7. Think more. And not in the worrying, anxious way. In a quasi-meditative, spiritual way, but retain your pragmatism.
1. Exercise consistently, including regular Pilates, cardio, and weight training. Keep your body strong and ready for anything.
2. Eat better. More veggies and fruits, more whole grains, less processed food. More potassium, less sodium. Plenty of water and other liquids.
3. Cook more. Cook different stuff. Figure out ways to cook healthy "convenience" foods rather than buying them.
4. Regulate schedule: work, sleep, play. Enjoy downtime, but keep active.
5. Do more. Participate in more activities, including improv, continuing education for Pilates and massage.
6. Write more. You've started a blog, now actually make entries in it. Keep up with things. Write about reading, about improv, about work and play and family.
7. Think more. And not in the worrying, anxious way. In a quasi-meditative, spiritual way, but retain your pragmatism.
365 Tao: Daily Meditations (Days 1-3)
This book was given to me by one of my teachers from massage school. He's a funny contradiction of a guy; he's very average-Joe-like when you talk to him, but he's into all this new-agey stuff, too, and manages to make it more palatable than your average hippie can. I'm pretty left-brained, but over the last few years, I've incorporated some of the more intuitive work into my massage and life in general, I'd say. At any rate, his bodywork is equal parts physical and emotional, and he prescribed a little more spiritual work for me. So...a book with an easily digested bit of taoism for each day of the year. It's also a book that he's loaned me for the year, and I love having books on loan. It makes them richer, somehow. I'm not usually a big fan of this kind of stuff, but I will take it for however it's useful to me, and I will try to be consistent about it. Consistency is a big challenge in my life, so if nothing else, I'll work on that.
Day 1 was, predictably, labeled The Beginning:
This is the moment of embarking.
All auspicious signs are in place.
It goes on about commitment to transformation, meditation, etc. Sort of like New Year's resolutions, it's all just talk unless you actually do it.
Day 2 was Ablution:
Washing at dawn:
Rinse away dreams.
Protect the gods within,
And clarify the inner spirit.
This one is about cleansing, and goes into a bunch of mumbo-jumbo about the body containing 36,000 gods, which is where my eyes glaze over a little, so I will paraphrase: Wash away the old, the unrealistic, the unnecessary so that you can focus on your goals.
Today's is Devotion:
Make the crooked straight,
Make the straight to flow.
Gather water, fire, and light.
Bring the world to a single point.
Faith + devotion = natural momentum. This one really resonates, as I find that most of the low points in my life can be traced to a lack of momentum. And momentum is fairly useless without a place to focus it, like the single point of the world, which requires that you simplify things a bit. Everything is connected and essential. Maybe?
Day 1 was, predictably, labeled The Beginning:
This is the moment of embarking.
All auspicious signs are in place.
It goes on about commitment to transformation, meditation, etc. Sort of like New Year's resolutions, it's all just talk unless you actually do it.
Day 2 was Ablution:
Washing at dawn:
Rinse away dreams.
Protect the gods within,
And clarify the inner spirit.
This one is about cleansing, and goes into a bunch of mumbo-jumbo about the body containing 36,000 gods, which is where my eyes glaze over a little, so I will paraphrase: Wash away the old, the unrealistic, the unnecessary so that you can focus on your goals.
Today's is Devotion:
Make the crooked straight,
Make the straight to flow.
Gather water, fire, and light.
Bring the world to a single point.
Faith + devotion = natural momentum. This one really resonates, as I find that most of the low points in my life can be traced to a lack of momentum. And momentum is fairly useless without a place to focus it, like the single point of the world, which requires that you simplify things a bit. Everything is connected and essential. Maybe?
Girlbomb: A Halfway Homeless Memoir, by Janice Erlbaum
I''m never sure what to expect from a memoir...some of them are dry and boring and some are so scandalous and dirty that I find them hard to swallow. Girlbomb is a quick, interesting glimpse of a girl in the 80s who walks out of her mother's apartment because of a horrible stepfather. She's never really homeless and details her experiences in shelters and group homes and the high school she still attends. Fairly predictably, she does drugs, has promiscuous sex, etc., but the writing is engaging, and she never sounds smug, which is a common weakness in memoir. She seems to recognize herself as being sort of pathetic, sort of lovable, and definitely flawed.
Blue Screen, by Robert Parker
I love Robert Parker. I got into him through the Spenser books, and have followed him to Jesse Stone and Sunny Randall. I love the consistency of his characters, how they're all basically the same, with different outward appearances and backstories. It tickles me that Stone and Randall are becoming an item, and it gives me a litle thrill of recognition when Susan Silverman appears as Sunny's therapist. The story is insignificant, really. Great dialogue and banter and occasional highbrow references. A good, quick read.
3 days, 4 books
Another year, complete with all the good intentions and resolutions that accompany new years. Writing more is one of mine, and this is one way to achieve it. Since one of the things I do the most is read, it seemed like a nice gateway. I'm on my fourth book of 2007, if that is any indication of the sheer volume of my reading. I'm pretty democratic, however; I read just about everything. So far this year I've logged a hard-boiled lady P.I. novel, a memoir of a young girl's life on the street, a taoist meditation-for-the-day book, and a sort of fantastical Mexican prison novel.
Woman does not live by books along, though, and I find myself sometimes in danger of completely falling into my books and ignoring the world of action and people. I intend this also to be a record of the things I do, such as they are. Another resolution of mine this year is to do more. More exercise, more outdoor activities, more Pilates, more massage, more improv, more performing, more time with friends and family, more making new friends. More things I will think of later, I'm sure.
Everything starts somewhere, and this is a good a place as any.
Woman does not live by books along, though, and I find myself sometimes in danger of completely falling into my books and ignoring the world of action and people. I intend this also to be a record of the things I do, such as they are. Another resolution of mine this year is to do more. More exercise, more outdoor activities, more Pilates, more massage, more improv, more performing, more time with friends and family, more making new friends. More things I will think of later, I'm sure.
Everything starts somewhere, and this is a good a place as any.
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