Of Moose And Men
The Best Laid Plans Of Both Often Go Astray

I am most decidedly not a fan of cold weather, not that this is a revelation for anyone who’s known me or read what I’ve written online over the past decade. Being stuck inside, not being able to run or bike outdoors, all makes for a grumpy Moose. This weekend ended up being a wash as far as most activities go, though I did manage to get on the bike in the trainer both days an get some decent exercise in. For the most part I just vegetated and didn’t seem to do a lot past playing a lot on my DS. It’s weekends like this that make me question the decision to live on SW; it’s so much more socially isolated down here, despite the convenience to work and training. Though when I sit down and think it over I honestly wonder if I’d be any better at getting out if I lived any closer to folks. Certainly I’d have less of an excuse not to venture out, but would that be enough to motivate me to do so? I’d like to think I would, but I can’t know that at the moment.

That said, I’m getting the hell out now because I can’t take the apartment and the lack of human contact any more. So, off to JR’s for me thus evening and meeting a friend or friends for dinner. I may not like going outside in cold weather, but I can’t ignore the need to get out of my little shell, so wrestle with winter I will.

Got the results in from last week’s annual physical this morning. Cholesterol is a little higher than last year, but not yet “high”. Getting toward the “should watch it, perhaps” range. Vitamin D was on the low end of normal (meaning I need to be more consistent in taking my multivitamin, since it has D, and I don’t otherwise drink D-fortified cow’s milk). Everything else was perfectly normal, as expected. The annual dermatologist appointment is tomorrow morning, to do the skin check for odd spots. Gotta love getting older.

Tomorrow I have the unenviable task of telling work folks that if we screw up on a new provision in our appropriation this year (when it ever passes and gets signed, that is) we get to report that fact to everyone and his brother because it’ll constitute a violation of the Anti-deficiency Act. Woo-hoo! As if the contracting folks weren’t nervous enough about this. Lawdy. Well, it’ll give ’em some incentive not to screw this one up, at least.

So, I fagged out this morning and bought the super-duper-mega-deluxe-expensive version of Our Lady Of Pop’s latest collection of music I mostly already own. I must say, I’m kinda enjoying having the vids on ye olde AppleTV thingey (since the TV is the best set of speakers in the apartment, this is a good thing).

(oh, and the champagne flutes she uses in the Music video? That’s my crystal pattern)

I’m also suddenly feeling the urge to knit a sweater. I think I must be getting feverish from the head cold. So instead tonight I’m going to work on the long-neglected sock I’m supposed to be knitting. I have to admit, I’m a little afraid of knitting a sweater. I’m not a fan of wearing them, and I’d be trying to make this to be at least partially fitted (as opposed to looking like a big lumpy sack cloth, like many sweaters do), with a really pretty pattern, but man, that’s a lot of yarn to buy and work with. I’m hoping the feeling will pass, but I suspect it won’t. Hmph.

I did get up and run this morning, so am obviously feeling better than I was this weekend. May bike in the morning if I wake up for it. It’s perfect running weather out there now – 50s in the morning. Not so perfect biking weather, but it’ll do. Better than using the trainer, which I’m not ready to do yet.

(okay, watching older Madonna vids, it’s sooooo obvious that she got serious dance training over the years, because the newer ones are so muh more technically competent than her early ones – I mean, watching Lucky Star makes me feel kinda embarrassed for her it’s so amateurish)

Managed to get through the last day of the fiscal year without major drama, mainly because I completely ignored one of our program offices. They can’t manage their own field offices, and I refused to play referee today. Made the day go much better than it might have otherwise. Of course, they’re trying to drag me in tomorrow, but I think I’m going to ask my management to intervene, both with the program people and with the field personnel who are a piecemealing their objections to what we’ve (HQ) told them to do. Tomorrow will be another day, and another year, and another set of messes. Gotta love it.

One more day left in the fiscal year. Thank heavens. With the impending doom coming (not, though it seems like impending doom from their attitudes), our program offices are increasingly nuts. And we’re pushing back just as hard. See, this is where attorney arrogance comes from – dealing with clients who insist on doing things which are, to legal minds, incredibly stupid.

Ugh.

The head cold stuck around through the weekend and my grandparents’ 70th wedding anniversary party. It’s still here, not quite going away yet. I suspect the driving Saturday and Monday and the resultant dehydration didn’t help any. It was great to see lots of family, cousins I haven’t seen in years, but was also good to get back to my routine today. I’ve been trying to look at my eating habits, and I counted it as a net gain that I didn’t gain any weight while eating out with the parents. Because eating this weekend was a mess, including far too much cake.

Still having fun flirting with Mike. This cold better be well done and gone by the time I get up there, as this is not how I would like to spend the limited time I get with him, with a sore throat and a drippy nose. In the meantime, I need to go shopping this weekend for more clothes before I head up (and in general).

And now I’m babbling, so it’s time for me to crash.

This particular song by Alanis came on in the car tonight, and it ended up meaning a lot more than on previous listens:

“I am someone easy to leave”
“Even easier to forget”
A voice, if inaccurate

Again: “I’m the one they all run from”
Diatribes of clouded sun
Someone help me find the pause button

All these tapes in my head swirl around
Keeping my vibe down
All these thoughts in my head aren’t my own
Wreaking havoc

“I’m too exhausting to be loved”
“A volatile chemical”
“Best to quarantine and cut off”

All these tapes in my head swirl around
Keeping my vibe down
All these thoughts in my head aren’t my own
Wreaking havoc

“I’m but a thorn in your sweet side”
“You’d better off without me”
“It’d be best to leave at once”

All these tapes in my head swirl around
Keeping my vibe down
All these thoughts in my head aren’t my own
Wreaking havoc

Ah, negative thinking, how much you run through the brain and won’t let it keep moving. Another breakthrough today, and something else to think more about, post-DLOC. One wonders where these thoughts come from, and why they’re taking so much of my energy with them. I think the DLOC journal will be getting some more writing this week.

Cold’s still here, but better. Not feeling the need for quite so much sudafed to keep the sinuses in check today, more like just the normal allergies dosage. Let myself sleep in, and now I’m sipping coffee from my SF Zoo mug this morning and missing my boys out in San Francisco. And as much as I love my apartment and my neighborhood, it’s times like this when I wish I’d bought a place up in northwest so it were easier to get out & about to places for things like “food”.

Brought some work home this weekend, so that’s what I’ll be doing most of the day. The newest political in my chain of command came from the private sector (with no gubm’nt experience), so I think his expectations don’t quite match the reality of being a federal attorney. He’ll learn. But in the meantime I’m going to try and redo this memo such that it doesn’t suck completely. 17 pages? I don’t think so. 5. Maybe. Note to field counsel: footnotes and glossing are your friends, especially with a busy management chain.

Anyway, off to go give y’all more gubm’nt than you’re willing to pay for.

I love when the body decides it’s time to slow down. Took today off from work to recuperate from a head cold that’s currently driving me nuts. The down time did give me time to finish up the last sock and start a new pair (I’ll take pictures later), and get the laundry done (clean sheets!), but otherwise it’s just been annoying (mainly because of the excess snot being produced now).

Did figure out patient zero this evening – a friend I saw out at a party on Saturday evening had something similar, and since the symptoms cropped up Sunday, that seems to be the likely vector. So far I don’t seem to have it as bad as he did, and am keeping my fingers crossed that it won’t get worse. Last night was the usual sleepless night, so should be on the upside soon.

Hopefully it’ll die off soon so I can get back to training. One month until the next race and I’m completely unprepared at this point.

For some reason the reintegration back into real life has been a bit difficult. There was the inevitable backup of work at the BGA (“vacation is its own punishment”), breaking things off with someone I’d been dating, adjustment back to east coast time (which means I have to try and fight my normal nature to be a night owl), and just doing the little things like unpacking everything and putting it all away, sorting mail, grocery shopping, etc. Still haven’t done the grocery shopping, so I’ve been subsisting on ever-shrinking supplies of staples from the freezer and cabinet. Not a bad thing, it’s good to clear those out every now and again, but not perhaps the healthiest meals I could be eating.

One thing I’ve been doing to integrate some of our practices from DLOC has been to post “appreciations” over on FaceBook. Just little things to acknowledge those things I’m appreciative of for whatever reason. It does help to make one more mindful of what’s going on in your life, which has made it a useful tool for me.

Past that I’m trying to find my motivation to get back to tri training for my last two races this season, and finish up my commitment with the club’s volunteer work this month. “The Pile” of books has grown since coming back, including some re-reading of classics I feel the need to reexamine in light of the DLOC and SF experiences (The Ethical Slut, the Tao Te Ching/Dao De Jing). I’m about 1/2 an inch from finishing sock #2 on pair #2, and I have another pull ball ready to go on the next set, but the one sock’s been sitting here unloved as I try to work myself back into life.

Picked up another bike yesterday. I wanted something a bit better for zipping around town than my mountain bike (which is a good bike, but not the best for commuting). I went in a slightly different direction, a single gear, and put “campus pedals” on it (clipless on one side, regular pedal platform on the other), so I don’t have to throw on bike shoes just to zip somewhere if I wish to bike out. My goal there is to bike about more to things in town, and sweat be damned. It even came with a kickstand! I feel so retro with a kickstand on a bike – I don’t think I’ve had one of those since high school. With the bike, though, comes the last big purchase for the year, I think. Need to back off and pay off the remnants of vacation and the bike and plan for the end of the year and Giftmas. And to plan for the next body electric workshop next year, of course.

It’s hard to fully describe the changes wrought by DLOC, but I’ll be working on them this year.

I still have a lot of stuff to process from this past two weeks. Dear Love of Comrades (DLOC) was simply amazing, and precisely what I was needing. It revealed a lot of things to me which I needed to see and experience to help clarify where I am in my life and where I might want to go. But it’s going to be difficult to reconcile those with my daily practices. There are changes I will need to make, and I’m not entirely sure where I’m going to make them yet.

Two of the big things that were revealed were the extent to which I have let fear dictate so many of my actions. Fear of change and fear of my body being at the top of that list. And then, as I dwelt on those, the incredible sense of anger I felt at how I’d let that fear dictate things, and especially anger at my body and how it sets me aside from the norm (more specifically the lactose intolerance and all the problems associated with that, and the extensive history of cancer in my family and how that affects me and my behaviors). Most of this was revealed on Friday, first during the daily movement practice before breakfast (an exercise where we were visualizing our obstacles and chopping, pushing, dropping them, and then pulling toward us what we wanted in our lives), then in a large heart circle we had before and after lunch.

I knew there were emotions that were going to be revealed as part of the week – no one gets through Body Electric without some sort of emotional experience, large or small – but I don’t think I expected these particular ones. Of course, my previous experiences with Body Electric have all been ones where I felt this overwhelming joy at the connections made. I got a lot of that joy during the week as well; the big draw we did on Wednesday was the most intense, and the most intensely erotic, that I’ve experienced to date. Unlike last fall where I felt the build up of energy in me, but didn’t know what to do with it, so released it, this time I held the energy, moved it over and around my body with my hands, and claimed it as my own. It was incredible to hold that much energy and be able to channel it rather than simply releasing it into the cosmos. I did laugh again, from giggling to full body, shaking laughter. Even thinking about the experience now, a week and a half later, gives me goose bumps. There was one moment where the masseur was working on my lower body and one of the assistants came over and put his hands under my back, helping me arch up and throw my head back as I lost track of where was up and down, simply concentrating on how awesome (and erotic) the whole thing felt. I spoke first when we were done, describing the marvelous experience I’d just had, and started by repeating the word “wow” over and over again (when asked to breathe into it, the coordinator said to breathe into “Wow to the ninth power”). I don’t normally speak first for those, but it just came bubbling out this time.

Comparing that amazing experience and connection to the much more mellow and introspective weekend after Friday’s revelation feels somewhat unfair, but they’re part and parcel of the same body of experience. There is incredible joy to be found in the connections with other people, but there are barriers I’ve erected to fully giving myself over to the connections I could be making, and I need to change that.

One of the hardest things about coming back into the Bay area from up on the mountain in Guerneville was the lack of practiced movement. Each morning at DLOC you got a choice between a walk/hike or practiced movement (yoga, sufi meditation, etc.). All but one morning I did the movement exercise, all of which were wonderful (and, as written about above, cathartic in one case). Even when we were getting together during the day we were able to move and dance and stretch, experiencing the wonder of being fully present in (and thus mindful of) our bodies. Wandering around SF I kept wanting to stop and drop into yoga poses when the feeling arose, but of course even in SF there are expectations of behavior (and public sidewalks aren’t conducive to yoga). I had to content myself with stretching my arms above and to the side when I was able, and that just wasn’t the same. I suspect one thing I’ll have to do more is that type of spontaneous stretching during the day – close my office door and take a few moments to stretch out and be present in my body. It can’t hurt, and I’m lucky to have that freedom to be able to close that door and take a brief break, even in work drag.

One thing I’ve already brought back into my life is posting those things I appreciate, both to FB and to my main countfour blog (it wasn’t like there was anything else going to it!). Just noting something every day which I’m thankful for has been a good practice. It helps to focus on the positive, and to be more mindful of the experience of living.

The school set up a yahoo group for our class, at first to share rides up and otherwise coordinate travel, but also to keep in touch after the experience. Thus far it’s been pretty busy, with folks posting regularly to describe their transition back to “normalcy”. I’m glad to have this group of men, and this forum to stay in touch with them. It’s all too easy to let these experiences slip back into the background and fall back into old patterns, and I don’t want that to happen if I can avoid it. I can’t go on living as if this had never happened; I’d be miserable if I did.

Been loving being here in the bay area the past two days. I’ve worked on my tolerance for beer, wandered around in town, run into friends on the street, and gotten to meet several folks I know, at least one for the first time. Went dancing last night at the local every-other-week bear get-together. Stayed out late yesterday. Crashed early Friday. Eaten lots and lots of good, inexpensive dim sum.

And I can tell I’ve relaxed considerably because I actually have fingernails and cuticles again (I tend to chew them off when I’m stressed, and so they’ve not much been in evidence lately as they’ve been thoroughly taken down at work). Precisely what I’ve needed, and while I’m looking forward to the retreat this week, I’m also very much looking forward to seeing more friends the week after.