6-17-08 The Party Boat

The company I work for rents a boat to take the employees out for a night. The food is decent, the company pleasant, the drinks free, and the music a (very small) step above a wedding DJ.

A full moon rises above the city, one of the greatest cities in the world. We pass beneath Brooklyn Bridge and I stand on the top deck, watching it all pass by, the city and the bridge and all of it glittering in the sunset while a huge orange moon slowly lifts into the sky, and I think, "I am so lucky to live here, so lucky to see this all right here and now."

4-3-08 Knight of Pentacles

The workload has been very light for the past few days, and though normally I'd be pleased with this, the boredom of it is actually starting to wear on me. I stare at a computer screen for hour upon hour and feel my eyeballs begin to crystallize and turn opaque under the constant bombardment of needles of gamma wave radiation from the monitors.

I meditate in the mornings, chanting my mantra, doing push ups, watching my body change, waiting for some kind of overwhelming epiphany to break upon me like lightning, but fairly sure that what I'm really looking for is coming gradually. Maybe I'm looking for an enlightenment more subtle - less like flipping a switch than watching the sun come inexorably up after a long, long night.

2-22-08 Wii Would Like to Play (with your balls)

Sighing with envy at work over the trailer for the newest video game/time waster, I turn to my fellow cube-dweller, Jonathan.

"I really want a Wii, but I know I wouldn't get anything done if I had one," I say.

"I had to start leaving my NintendoDS at home, 'cause it was worse than porn," he says. "At least with porn, you know when you're done."

2-21-08 This Old, Cold World

The bus lumbers up to the frozen morning busstop, packed to the windows with commuters on their way to work, bodies and jackets and blank, bored, sad faces. In spite of this, more people do their eager best to get on, earning looks of disgust and exasperation from their fellow passengers. I have decided that I am not an animal, and so I let this bus go. There will be another bus, and besides, I don't really want to go to work that badly anyway.

2-07-08 Of Course

For the past two months, I have taken the same route from my home to work, a route I have gradually perfected: which train car to get on, which staircase to take, the beeline route I weave through the multitudinous crossing paths of my fellow commuters.

Today, I took a totally different route: different stairs, different cars - and I found my entire outlook shifted. I have always looked for the way forward through life, hoping I won't dislike it too much, waiting to put my foot down until the path appeared, never expecting to choose the way but instead waiting for what's available and choosing then.

Suddenly it came to me that I might actually be able to choose, if I wanted, to create one of the paths that came up - maybe not wholesale, but with a little bit of effort make another path, listening, head half cocked, for the voice that everyone seemed to have but me, that told them, "I want this", and which, of course, everyone has always told me to listen for, but which I never knew I had.

1-14-08 Tunnel Vision, and, I got an award

Walking the tunnel under 42nd street this morning with the swarming tumult of commuters, I hear a man playing an asian bamboo flute. He is invisible beyond the press of thousands of bodies, each of us bustling along in the hive on the way to our cells. The music is plaintive, longing, begging our souls to awaken, and I pass him, seeing his face, eyes closed and rapturous, until the music stops and starts again, fading into distance.

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Mrs. X over at The Young and the Infertile has been kind enough to nominate me for a Thinking Blogger award, and for this I am grateful to her.

1-2-08 - On Why I Am Well Suited for an Artistic Life

I have been making my lunch to take to work for several months now, and as I am both lazy and poor, I have stuck with the old impoverished standby, rice and beans. I use Goya canned black beans, along with powdered garlic, bay leaf, basil, rosemary, oregano, balsamic vinegar, Angostura bitters, and a seasoning packet that you can buy from Goya that's kind of like Tony Chachere's spicy, salty seasoning (which I have yet to be able to find in my neighborhood), but not quite.

I make this meal at least once a week, either for dinner or for lunch, and I am sort of in love with it. The seasonings and substantial heartiness of it warm my heart, and every time I put it in the microwave to heat it up at work, I find myself singing a little song: "Rice and beans, rice and beans, rice and beeeaanns".

12-11-07 - There is no good in tarot cards.

I've been freaking out all day about the turn that my life has taken since my separation from Stephanie. Things seem to be spiralling out of control, and no good seems to be coming my way, just more and more darkness and frustration.

I did tarot reading after tarot reading, and all I got was cards like the Ten of Swords (reversed), the Ace of Swords (reversed), Nine of Swords (reversed), The Chariot (reversed), The Lovers (reversed) - not that that means anything to most people, but just basically shit piled on shit, all in a shit sandwich.

I think (I hope!) I'm just scaring myself, though, and I probably just need to stop doing tarot readings before lunch.