15 July 2003: Relevant

Friday night I went to a salon at the home of Sherpa and Syrinx, for a three-hour exploration of the question "What is relevant to you?"  I found all of the conversation to be highly relevant to what's been up in my mind and in my life lately.  I am pleased to note that I am no longer shy among strangers.  This is good, especially because in the past I've been one of those unfortunates who is shy, but poised and powerful enough that others assume we can't possibly be shy, and that therefore our social reticence must be haughty superiority.  I don't know how I made this headway in overcoming my shyness, since I haven't been consciously working on it.

I may end up helping Sherpa do the layout for his upcoming self-published book, Ritual Tech.  To do this, I have to teach myself to use Adobe PageMaker.  Which is what I'll be doing with all my home-at-my-desk time for the next few weeks, starting right after I write this entry, which is why journal entries may be sparse for a while.

Circle: Ritual Tech is the same book that I did a series of illustrations for back in December of 1998, which is what reawakened my interest in the visual arts, which is why I became a Multimedia major, which is why I am now capable of teaching myself PageMaker in my spare time over the course of a few weeks. 

After I did those illustrations, Sherpa ended up deciding that it wasn't the right time to publish the book yet.  Now it's the right time.  Back in early 1999, when I thought the book's publication was imminent, I put it on the Aikido Shusekai website's Recommended Reading list, where it's been ever since.  Apologies to those of you who've been hunting for it for the past three years.  Your wait is almost over.

Zebra and I picked Moly up at Oakland Airport on Saturday afternoon.  Spent the evening hanging out at Aleph's.  Sunday Moly dropped in on my aikido class.  He wasn't planning to practice, but I coaxed him onto the mat for 45 minutes of kumi-tachi during the advanced class ("kumi-tachi" is Japanese for "hitting each other with swords" - wooden ones, in this case). 

Sunday night I went to see Pirates of the Carribean with Dragon Lady, Moly, Zebra, the Khan, Berkeley Slim, and Sister Sisyphus.  It proved to be one of the most fun movies I've ever seen.

Yesterday I went to work, went to tae kwon do, hung out with Dragon Lady.  This morning Dragon Lady left to spend a week in Dallas.  This morning I also finished reading Daniel Quinn's latest book, The Holy, a present-day fantasy novel that isn't part of my "Books Everyone Must Read" canon, but is certainly interesting and engrossing. 

I have a lot to write - essays, stories, long journal entries about the work I'm doing - but I'm not going to write any of it right now.  I'm going to do the dishes, watch The Simpsons, and start in on PageMaker. 

"I'm just learning and growing so that I can make better mistakes."

- Bitter Pie