Unrested Sophistron

I am bored and restless, which is a bad way to be on a quiet night without enough energy to make things happen. Most of the people I know are occupied by All Tonight’s Parties, so the usual haunts are quiet. Drove around out of boredom, ended up back at my house. The saddest voyages loop back and return to home. Viewing the world through my windshield. Isolated, air-conditioned, insulated, sanitized.

Feeling creative, but not enough to make things happen. Song in my pocket. Want to record it. Mostly written, but stuck in my head for two years. I look at my music equipment, play it, know what I need to do to make it happen. But when I arm the Record button, nothing. Just want to turn it off. Why bother? Why bother.

So I’m sipping on vodka against doctor’s orders, looking at the internet, waiting until it’s time for passing out to sleep. Feeling of malaise today; I blame the antibiotics.

Also watched a depressing movie, “The Day After”. Reminded me of the fears of youth, of the ever-present threat of mutually-assured destruction, nuclear armageddon around the corner. What of it now? Too many players in the nuclear club. Things were sharper when we had one enemy. Our focus was like a knife blade. Now everybody’s in the game, and the enemy is ourselves.

Sinus infection is fading out. It looked like allergies, but really germs were to blame. Azithromycin is the poison now. I wonder if malaise is among its side effects. May cause diarrhea, intestinal cramping, sensitivity to sunlight, heat stroke, funny taste to mouth, avoidance of quiz shows, dyslexia, dyspepsia, dystopia, onomatopoeia, death, erections lasting longer than 4 hours, internal bleeding, headache, nausea, and voting Independent. Ask your doctor if Azithromycin is right for you.

I’ve been told my blog entries make no sense. So sue me. Sometimes, you gotta work to pick up what I’m laying down. Can you dig it?

I find it difficult to be not lonely. I don’t mean hanging out with people. That’s easy, just go to the cafe. I mean being with someone who’ll leave the cafe with me. Dance, music, sex, romance. Been over a year since my last date. Difficult making moves when there are no pieces on the board, when there are better players in the game. Grow a pair, they say. Grow a pair, I say. Positive thinking. Magical thinking. That’ll help. Stand up straight. Shoulders back. Look strong. Look viable. Look alive. They will come to you. This all means nothing.

Passing the time thinking about ones far away. It’s a futile effort. Wasted time. Easy, safe, no risk. People are more than words on a screen. Best to push buttons across a table within arm’s reach. At least you can have that someone leave the cafe with you.

Desperation is a stench that takes a while to wash off. Others can smell it. The only cure is to not care, not desire, not want, and to walk alone. But will they come to you? No. Back to square one.

I’m done. No more buzzed philosophy.

Yogi On the Path

Ripples and troubles with my yoga training. Good sessions, not so good sessions. Perplexed. I have limits. Physical limits. Things that are tight that should not be. Joints that should bend but do not. Mental limits. There are a lot of things at once to pay attention to. Posture, the roll of the leg, the position of a shoulder, the length of spine, the openness of chest, the force applied through the toe, the gaze in the distance, the breath, always the breath. Always with the interpreting what I need to be doing. The hard part, understanding the goal of the pose, understanding that when I am to be stretching the hamstring, I should be stretching the hamstring, not straining my calves, for instance. Balance; I don’t feel balanced. Nobody is perfectly balanced, sure, but when I lay flat in the savasana, I should feel somewhat level, but I don’t, I feel warped, uneven. The imbalance makes me tense to relieve the imbalance, and I have to remember to relax. Relax. This will take me a long while to be able to see myself, to see my body, to see where it needs to be, to see how to get there. Awareness. Proprioception. Control.

Blow

I wonder sometimes if my role in this world is to add counterbalance to the chipper, positive, hopeful, blind-to-the-consequences world. It is my lot, apparently, to state the things that nobody wants to acknowledge, to inject reality into the little platitudes that we say to ourselves and to each other to prop up our false hopes.

If your goal is to keep your nose clean, then going through life with the sniffles is not the way to go about it. You may be able to hock and snort and swallow yourself into some form of nasal clearing, but sometimes you have to actually blow the snot out to get a clear head. That is what I hope to do, to metaphorically remind you to blow your nose.

So if you find me making broad statements about how to go about life, that’s me on my mission. Even two decades hence, I’m still on the pulpit, still on the soap box, still trying to tell people how to live the right way. It’s a dick move, sure, but I apparently live my life to serve as a warning to others.

Balance, Breath

After thinking about it for years, I’ve finally gone and joined a yoga class. I’m horribly out of shape, out of balance, and need to get my self back into shape so that I no longer injure my back by doing normal things. The only discussion I had of taking yoga was on IRC some years ago, and it went like this:

(@Phaysis) anyone here ever taken yoga classes?
(@tesko) yes, and i stopped when i learned i couldnt breathe fire

If I had played Mortal Combat during my youth, I would’ve gotten that joke, but at the time it flew right over me and landed squarely in the bash.org quote database. I’ve seen it referenced in various other places, so it must’ve struck a nerve…at my expense. It’s funny, in hindsight, but yeah. Most of the laggards I bummed with on IRC were just as uninterested in their own health as I was. Now I can’t afford that luxury of youth.

Yesterday was my first class of a month-long beginner’s series at Yoga-Yoga. It felt brief, but it ran the full time allotted. Instructor ran through some of the background philosophy of yoga and did a few exercises with us to get us into thinking about our bodies, our breath, our mind. “Yoga,” he went on to say, “is the seeking of balance between body, mind, and spirit.” “Spirit” meaning “spire”, meaning “breath”, as in “respire”. When one is filled with the breath of the divine, they are “inspired”; when one dies, their divinity leaves them, and they are “expired”. Breathing, and paying attention to it, allows one to open up their bodies, to create space, to allow themselves to find balance in their spine.

Yoga is not the art of getting “flexi-bendy”, nor is it the art of achieving strength to perform intense positions. That is an extended, advanced part of it, sure, but yoga is more than that. It is balance, it is unity, it is finding your solid foundation on the floor, using the right muscles to maintain that foundation, and working upwards until the whole of you is balanced and inspired.

I got to the studio on time, meaning I got there late. The room was already filled, and the remaining space was along the wall. I could blame the storm, but that’s just shifting blame. Actually, I’m nervous about the whole deal, about putting myself in workout clothes, getting into positions in a room full of mixed students, trying to understand what the instructor asks us to do, and then trying to translate that into actual motion. I mean, I’m old enough to have some sort of proprioceptive understanding of where my body is, but I have no internal language for movement. Instructor says, “hands and knees, breathe through your navel, exhale, chin tuck, chest to thighs,” I hear the words he says, but I have to think about what he’s saying, visualize that, and hope that I got that string of movements right before I do them. It’s stressful, but I hope I can get better.

I’m nervous because I’m shy about my body when I’m in the general public. I’m guarded, withdrawn, reserved (this could account for most of my structural problems — trying to hide being obviously human by changing my posture). That there are others in the class, their mats rank-and-file, nobody talking except when asked by the instructor, everybody looking forward, nobody looking around (or at least me not looking around out of fear of appearing creepy), I’m just afraid of looking stupid. It’s an irrational fear; most of the class has never done yoga, and I’m pretty sure we’ll all fall over, collapse, make a bodily noise, or get a bad posture while trying to move between positions. It happens. This is why there’s a beginner’s class.

Tomorrow is my second session. Now that I know more of what to expect, maybe I’ll be better prepared to deal with it.

I Hate the Fourth

Should I go down and watch the fireworks No it’s too crowded and parking sucks But there’s explosions and people No too much work But it’s almost time No just stay at home But I don’t want to be home No maybe watch it on TV But that experience sucks maybe I’ll just leave the house No maybe go to the cafe But I’ll just get in a funk there and act normal as if I’m over it No you’ll get in a funk anywhere But what if I’m wrong and should have gone No just stay at home But now I wish I had gone No you don’t.