Underworld coaxed me out of bed this morning, early enough that it may as well have been midnight judging by the darkness of the sky. The moon has been obscenely bright this week. Harvest moons. The dock was wet, though it hasn't rained. The sailboats were creaking gently. I put on my headphones, the pink and white earbuds with the pirates on them. "Tiny wires in her ears/sliding through the city..."
Running along the lake is a treat. It reminds me a little of running along the Charles in Boston, except the Esplanade is pretty much a straight shot for miles and miles. Lake Union is six miles around on foot. I'm trying to work up to running six miles each morning. It's a little frustrating when you're running three miles to run a mile and a half in one direction, turn around and come back. It would make much more sense to just do the loop. How many bridges is that? Two drawbridges. If I looped through Ballard, I could hit three. In any case, it was quite dark this morning, and with "Pearl's Girl" in my ears I trotted the pavement, the other pre-dawn, dedicated urban runners nodding to me while passing, mistaking me for one of them.
I'm going to do the Jingle Bell Run 5K benefitting the Arthritis Foundation in December. My mother has been debilitated by rheumatoid arthritis for over a decade. I'll be taking donations to sponsor my run -- perhaps I'll put up a PayPal button soon.
And so it's Wednesday, halfway through a highly-caffeinated week -- I've returned to my final remaining addiction with open arms after a cumulative nine weeks without coffee. (It makes me think of the Crowded House song "Into Temptation" when he says, "safe in the wide open arms of hell..." A little melodramatic, I know.) It's also Pay Day, and Go Buy New CDs at Easy Street Day (having missed the traditional Tuesday-new-release-run to Sonic Boom). Coincidentally, it's also 20 days until NaNoWriMo. I don't know what's coincidental about that. You'll have to think about it. But last night the Tarot advised that in order to rekindle my creative flame, I need a period of rest and relaxation, preferably in solitude. Then I would be ready to accept a creative community, which will lead to an interesting and unexpected collaboration with another person. That's pretty exciting. Maybe I will finally find an illustrator to do my Adventures of Mud Girl graphic novel with.
Oh and what else -- Kitten of the First and Kitten of the Second have once again called a social truce -- having two fighting cats in 200 sq. feet of living space is a little trying on the nerves. I slept with the bedroom door open last night for the first time in about 6 months since they don't seem to need to be separated when I'm home -- and Jasper slept quietly in his basket all night and Delia took over my pillow as usual, and there was no caterwauling outside the door by an abandoned kitkat at 3:45 AM to wake me up. I slept more soundly than I have in a while, which is quite exciting for a convicted insomniac.
Oh and I'm taking Paul Choi's "Meditation for Life" class at the Experimental College this quarter. I took it in the spring, but was slammed with an illness halfway through that made me miss 3/4 of the classes. This class is now seven sessions long, instead of just four. It also features a full-day silent retreat at a Buddhist center in Seattle. I can't wait to start -- the first class is tomorrow. He makes me laugh at myself, which I need desperately. During the first class, he asked me how the meditation session was for me. I told him I feel like I've got this headful of bees -- they are swarming around my brain and my ears, filling my thoughts, I cannot sit still with them there, I cannot be silent, it's too loud in my head, too busy. "I need to kill the bees!" I told him in exasperation. He said, "No. The bees are okay. You just have to sit with them. Make friends with the bees. Let them exist."
My mind, in a nutshell. Sitting with bees.
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