I don't want to be doing Crisis Line work today. Nope, nope, nope. Not that I'm doing any work around the unionizing thing today -- just fundraising stuff. But what I'm wishing I was up to... is playing with the formatting on this blog. Gads, I can get sucked into making things pretty. Back when I was working on PBA, I could spend hours on graphic design, making my posters oh-so-pretty. Which, ultimately I realized, was not my best use of time. Far more effective to spend those three hours calling people on the phone, if what I wanted was to get people out of the house and to my events...
And I want to be cleaning house. Getting back into my seat of control, you might say. After this lovely "blur of a weekend", I went out to pick up the new DVD release of Angel season 2, because (self-mocking tone) I had nothing to watch, and wanted to zone in a puddle of tired decadence for awhile. On the way to the store, I'm listening to OPB on the radio, and I have the sensation that I've just returned to the country after having been in Mexico or Canada. So what's going on in America? I've missed so much while I've been gone...
I have a 3-ring binder that I call my "mission control" notebook. Like the big room where they monitor space launches from. But "mission" also kind of in the sense of a non-profit's mission statement. I've tried on various occasions to come up with my personal "mission statement"... When I moved into this house, the one in my mind was "to create".
...And this is part of why this blogging experiment is strange to me. Because (as I was thinking a half-hour ago), I'm the sort of person who imagines his thoughts like arrows. Let them fly straight and true. Purposeful intention. Know what it is that you have in mind, and then with an economy of gracefulness, bring that idea into being with the minimum number of deft strokes. This blog (at least as exemplified in this now self-referential post) is more like the roots, rootlets, and root hairs of a wiry and wandering tree. Gnarl!
Maybe this is what pulled me into the idea of a new blog: the appeal of escaping purposefulness into poetry. Permission to engage the meandering part of my brain in text. Show a little style for once.
"My heart is the moon."
[I'm just aching to figure out how to use that line in a poem!]
Oh, duh, of course not like I'm without style! But as my mind revisits "what the hell am I doing with that blog?" throughout the day, one of the options is "keeping an online journal" -- and I find an interesting dose of anxiety coming up. "But if I tell the truth, I'm going to get caught!" Always a veil between myself and the perceptions of others. Don't accidentally wander into trouble -- choose trouble, or politely half-smile. ...I don't think I'm quite ready to overcome this one; it's unclear how many secrets of my own I carry -- but it seems like I carry a great deal of confidential information for others. Which means that an accidental slip in the telling of my own life comes out as betrayal. I hate the way that other people's confidentiality embroils you in mask-wearing as well.
Back to the mission control notebook. Or rather, not the mission control notebook itself, but the thread in my clipboards that I title at the top as "self-reg" or "efficiency" most often. I've been playing lately with the metaphor of doors. When I start working on Crisis Line stuff, or start cleaning house, or meet with a friend -- it's like I pass through a door, from one space into another. And each has it's own laws of physics to observe. Wouldn't I be more purposeful if I could recognize these doors as I'm passing through them, perhaps revisualize my days and weeks in terms of what passages I'm going to be crossing through?
I like finding ways to make mental shifts physical. Manifest. Ritualizing, so to speak. Candles are great for this. I like to light candles when I'm writing essays. Kind of like "burning the candle at both ends" or "burning the midnight oil" -- it's an obvious metaphor for expending energy, and to actually do it (lighting the candle) somehow makes what I'm doing more real. ...So with doors: oddly enough, it hadn't occured to me until this morning that I could use a real door for this kind of ritualizing.
Lately, I don't always get up and get on with my day. I get up, go to check my email, eat breakfast, check my email, write some poetry, oh is it four already? ...The door as ritualizing metaphor seems like it would be good for making the transition into my day. I'm playing with the idea of clearing some brush in the backyard, making a little (tiny) altar area, and putting a marble there when I get up. ...Going for my walks on the butte used to be the action that put momentum into my day, but it's so tied to having a regular sleep pattern, it's gone by the wayside for a while now. Wanting to think about "mission control", that's one of those thoughts where I'm thinking "hm, I have a thought there that needs to be thunk through, need to give some thought to when I'm going to get around to thinking it." Eh?
Not that anyone who has had any part in my eratic sleeping (or eating for that matter) should feel guilt. No! Put that down, and nobody gets hurt! I'm going through a period of living poetry. And like love, (or lust or wanting or hope), that's something we only get a few times in our lives. It has transcendant importance. Used to be I'd say to myself, "insomnia is having ideas that are too important to let go of, too important to sleep through." Same principle.
My heart is the moon.
[What is that going to mean?]
And I want to be cleaning house. Getting back into my seat of control, you might say. After this lovely "blur of a weekend", I went out to pick up the new DVD release of Angel season 2, because (self-mocking tone) I had nothing to watch, and wanted to zone in a puddle of tired decadence for awhile. On the way to the store, I'm listening to OPB on the radio, and I have the sensation that I've just returned to the country after having been in Mexico or Canada. So what's going on in America? I've missed so much while I've been gone...
I have a 3-ring binder that I call my "mission control" notebook. Like the big room where they monitor space launches from. But "mission" also kind of in the sense of a non-profit's mission statement. I've tried on various occasions to come up with my personal "mission statement"... When I moved into this house, the one in my mind was "to create".
...And this is part of why this blogging experiment is strange to me. Because (as I was thinking a half-hour ago), I'm the sort of person who imagines his thoughts like arrows. Let them fly straight and true. Purposeful intention. Know what it is that you have in mind, and then with an economy of gracefulness, bring that idea into being with the minimum number of deft strokes. This blog (at least as exemplified in this now self-referential post) is more like the roots, rootlets, and root hairs of a wiry and wandering tree. Gnarl!
Maybe this is what pulled me into the idea of a new blog: the appeal of escaping purposefulness into poetry. Permission to engage the meandering part of my brain in text. Show a little style for once.
"My heart is the moon."
[I'm just aching to figure out how to use that line in a poem!]
Oh, duh, of course not like I'm without style! But as my mind revisits "what the hell am I doing with that blog?" throughout the day, one of the options is "keeping an online journal" -- and I find an interesting dose of anxiety coming up. "But if I tell the truth, I'm going to get caught!" Always a veil between myself and the perceptions of others. Don't accidentally wander into trouble -- choose trouble, or politely half-smile. ...I don't think I'm quite ready to overcome this one; it's unclear how many secrets of my own I carry -- but it seems like I carry a great deal of confidential information for others. Which means that an accidental slip in the telling of my own life comes out as betrayal. I hate the way that other people's confidentiality embroils you in mask-wearing as well.
Back to the mission control notebook. Or rather, not the mission control notebook itself, but the thread in my clipboards that I title at the top as "self-reg" or "efficiency" most often. I've been playing lately with the metaphor of doors. When I start working on Crisis Line stuff, or start cleaning house, or meet with a friend -- it's like I pass through a door, from one space into another. And each has it's own laws of physics to observe. Wouldn't I be more purposeful if I could recognize these doors as I'm passing through them, perhaps revisualize my days and weeks in terms of what passages I'm going to be crossing through?
I like finding ways to make mental shifts physical. Manifest. Ritualizing, so to speak. Candles are great for this. I like to light candles when I'm writing essays. Kind of like "burning the candle at both ends" or "burning the midnight oil" -- it's an obvious metaphor for expending energy, and to actually do it (lighting the candle) somehow makes what I'm doing more real. ...So with doors: oddly enough, it hadn't occured to me until this morning that I could use a real door for this kind of ritualizing.
Lately, I don't always get up and get on with my day. I get up, go to check my email, eat breakfast, check my email, write some poetry, oh is it four already? ...The door as ritualizing metaphor seems like it would be good for making the transition into my day. I'm playing with the idea of clearing some brush in the backyard, making a little (tiny) altar area, and putting a marble there when I get up. ...Going for my walks on the butte used to be the action that put momentum into my day, but it's so tied to having a regular sleep pattern, it's gone by the wayside for a while now. Wanting to think about "mission control", that's one of those thoughts where I'm thinking "hm, I have a thought there that needs to be thunk through, need to give some thought to when I'm going to get around to thinking it." Eh?
Not that anyone who has had any part in my eratic sleeping (or eating for that matter) should feel guilt. No! Put that down, and nobody gets hurt! I'm going through a period of living poetry. And like love, (or lust or wanting or hope), that's something we only get a few times in our lives. It has transcendant importance. Used to be I'd say to myself, "insomnia is having ideas that are too important to let go of, too important to sleep through." Same principle.
My heart is the moon.
[What is that going to mean?]
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