Ordinary Days, On Confidence and Muses

I am planning on working from home tomorrow - I have 10 one hour meetings scheduled in a nine hour day, so there isn't any point in going into the office.  I can sit on the telephone from here just as easily - and I can wear my sweats.  So, tomorrow is going to be a day of teleconferences and email and incidental odds and ends that I can squeeze in between the meetings.

Today however was a good day.  Had a great conversation last night for about two and a half hours, then slept fitfully through the night, but was mostly rested by the time I headed into the office in the morning. The morning was meetings, a quick lunch (Los Gatos Chipotle Alfredo Pasta at Hobbee's) the back to the office for a productive afternoon working the reporting that I am going to take over for one of my co-workers while she is on maternity leave.

Then, home in the evening, a sandwich, a quick trip to the pharmacy, another great conversation, then a second conversation with my step-father  He and my mother are moving aggressively, with the assistance of their doctor, trying to get into the assisted living facility.  It is hard, as a son, to sit aside and not rush in and try and fix everything, but it remains their life, to live as they choose, as long as they want. I can offer my best advice, but in the end, until they can no longer make those choices, the choices belong to them.  "We must allow everyone the dignity of their own journey.", to use my favorite John-Roger quote.

Somewhere, in the last couple of years, I lost a part of myself.  I think I might have shaved if off due to stress and attachment.  It has only been in the last couple of months, as a result of quite a bit of wall staring meditation, that i have regained it.  Now, I just need to figure out how to describe it. I think, tonight, I would describe it as a certain self-confidence.  I don't know where it went, I don't know how I lost it, but it seems to have come back - so I assume it was always there and I just lost sight of it.

My great conversations within the last two days have been with TR and I've loved every moment of them.  She is an extraordinary lady in many ways - and, in her own words, mere in others.  It is that combination that makes here such an enthralling muse.  A person should have a muse in this world.

A Need For A Magnificent Obsession

One of the things I've learned about life is that life is always an unexpected journey. We never know the direction we're going to end up traveling in. It is guaranteed to be a surprise. Sometimes it turns out to be a lucky surprise and sometimes it doesn't. I think the ability to embrace whichever turn of fortune rushes towards you is a gift. I think that as long as you look at it that way you will make the best of the circumstances whenever they happened to be. Lately my life seems to be comprised of twists and turns. Not only my life but the life of the people around me. Maybe it's just a heightened sensitivity on my part or maybe we have entered into a season of twists and turns. I kind of like that idea. After all, life is the ultimate force of nature.

As I mentioned earlier it was a crazy, busy, week at work. I worked way too many hours in way too short a period of time. Today, which was my day off, was rewarding. First I slept in a bit, then I met Tony for breakfast over at Goodies II. After that I ran a couple of errands, including a rather fruitless search for a special type of VGA cable. Then I met my friend Marjorie, from Southern California, for lunch over at Hobbies. I only get to see her every couple of years when our paths cross either here in Northern California or down south. So was very nice. 

From there, I stopped at computer central, and then Best Buy, all in a fruitless search for that VGA cable. There is a design flaw in my Sony laptop. It has to monitor ports, a VGA port, and an HDMI port. Unfortunately, they are side-by-side, and separated only by about a quarter of an inch. Take a look at your VGA cable and notice just how wide the connector is. Do you notice the little screws that secure it to the VGA port? Do you notice the little flange at the edge of the connector? Well, that little flange is enough to prevent you from plugging in two monitors. Now, I've seen VGA cables without that flange. I think they're one point I actually had one. It might still be around here somewhere. But, from this moment in time, it looks again going to have to do surgery on a VGA cable so I can hook up both monitors to the Sony VAIO. Well, I guess it's nothing my Dremel tool can't fix.

I don't really have any special plans for the weekend, other than the routine stuff, I think I'm going to try to take it easy through the weekend. I need some quiet time. I need some time to listen to the silence. I need some time to be alone with my thoughts. It always kind of amazes me how difficult it is in the modern age. We run, constantly, and we never stop. Even when we think we’re stopped, we’re not, we’re running. It's like we are the servants of the mad master and we don't even know it. Well I'm going to try and shake that master for a bit this weekend.

About four years ago I was in a strange place. At the time I characterized it as seeking a magnificent obsession. That is about as close as I can come to explaining it. I think I'm slipping back into that time and space. I think that's part of the journey of life that, periodically, it takes us back over familiar territory. It takes us back to those places where we still have a lesson to learn. I am not sure what that lesson is, I didn't know then, and I don't know now. All I know is that inside me there is a need for a magnificent obsession.

Oh, and speaking of Magnificent Obsession - I happened to turn on the TV tonight and stumbled upon Casino Royale, the old one, with Woody Allen, Peter Sellers, David Niven - and the very beautiful Ursula Andress. This is a picture of her from the first movie I ever saw her in "She" as "She Who Must Be Obeyed".