23 July 2004: Events and Obsessions

I’m back.

Or rather, I’m assuming that from your perspective, as a reader of this journal, I’m back. From my perspective, I’ve been right here with me the whole time I’ve been gone (or, from my perspective, the whole time I haven’t been gone).

Which is to say that the month-long gap between the previous entry and this one was not the result of any extraordinary interruption of the monastic routines of my present life, nor the result of my physical removal from the small set of locations in which those routines are carried out. In the past month, I have scaled no mountains, sailed no seas, slain no dragons, languished in no prisons, and fought in no wars. I have, in fact, spent as much time as ever sitting here at my desk, typing, thinking, sipping green tea, and watching the wind stir the fronds of the two palm trees visible from the window to my right.

Things, however, have happened, as things will tend to do when one is incarnate and experiencing time in a more-or-less linear fashion. I even remember bits and pieces of some of these things.

On the weekend of June 26th and 27th, Dragon Lady, the Khan, Gemrise, and I took a road trip down to a small town near Santa Cruz to watch Argus and Wolfina get married. There was much good company there, including Bonky, Fandango, Wonderboy, Omega-7, and Aleph. And Anthem and Greybeard, all the way from New Jersey – two people whom I hadn’t seen in about fourteen years, though I interact with them on the Moot email list frequently. Anthem looked exactly the same as the last time I’d seen him.

The following weekend was the weekend of July 3rd and 4th. The 3rd was my 36th birthday. July 3rd is a good birthday to have; I recommend trying it sometime. My parents came to visit. Geminica came to visit. I had a fabulous birthday dinner at Fellini, with my parents, Dragon Lady, Geminica, the Khan, Speaks Like Silence, Gemrise, Foxfire, BZ, Bonky, Fandango, Wonderboy, Laramie, and Stagewalker (which comes to 15, and I’m sure there were 16 of us, and I can’t figure out who I’m forgetting). After my parents and Dragon Lady went off to sleep, and Fellini closed, a bunch of us went to Bonky & Fandango’s place (a block from Fellini) to drink and talk until three in the morning (along with Aleph, who showed up just as we were all walking out the front door of Fellini).

On the 4th, my parents and Dragon Lady and I went into San Francisco to see the SF Mime Troupe in Dolores Park, and there were many people there, and (joy!) one of them was a Lexicat!

That night, after my parents and Dragon Lady went off to sleep, I went to a party in the apartment of Lilim and Da Rong Jo, and I had a fine time seeing many fine people, and (bliss!) one of them was a Lexicat!

On Saturday the 10th, I did homework until I burned out on it, and then I went to Stagewalker’s and watched classic episodes of The Muppet Show on DVD in the company of various people, and (jubilation!) one of them was a Lexicat!

On Sunday the 11th, I taught my Sunday aikido classes and then went into San Francisco to facilitate a paratheatrical ritual session, part of the summer Tree of Life lab which I have thus far not been writing about and which I’m not going to write about in this entry, either, apart from mentioning that it’s what I’m doing with most of my Sunday evenings this summer.

On Saturday the 17th, I finished the last of my assignments for my Creative Writing class. Fifteen minutes later, I was immersed in Neal Stephenson’s The Confusion, the sequel to Quicksilver. The Confusion has been sitting on my bookshelf since April, and for the past few months I’ve been promising it to myself as my reward for staying focused on my schoolwork through the spring and summer terms. I’m about 400 pages into it now.

On Tuesday evening, I attended the first session of a six-session weekly butoh class, along with Stray and Alaska. While I’ve done some work that resembles butoh in many ways, this is my first time doing actual butoh. I love it. It’s perfectly suited to me in much the same way that aikido and the Paratheatrical Research work are perfectly suited to me. I must seek out more butoh in the future.

Yesterday was the last day of the summer term. At exactly 9:00 in the morning, I kissed Dragon Lady goodbye, and walked the two blocks to my World Religions class to take the final exam, which I completed before many of my classmates had put pen to paper. I handed the exam in to the teacher, shook the teacher’s hand, and exchanged whispered speeches of praise and thanks with him. I walked home, kissed Dragon Lady hello, and looked at the clock. It was 9:20.

In the afternoon, I went to the final session of my Creative Writing class - which consisted of a party, since we’d already handed in all of our assignments.

That writing class was mind-bogglingly great, by the way, and I’ll probably write more soon about its effects on my life.

Tonight, I’m going into San Francisco to watch Crux with Finder, Stray, Alaska, Rebis, and any other paratheatrical orphans who show up.

Next Saturday, the 31st, the orphans gather at the home of Sherpa and Syrinx for a sneak preview of the newly-completed Orphans of Delirium movie.

I seem to have grown my hair out.

Yoko and Geminica have each done journal entries recently in which they’ve listed their current obsessions. I love it when a bunch of us all do journal entries on the same topic, so here are my current obsessions:

• The Confusion

• Butoh

• The nine Aikido Shusekai students who are currently training to take their 6th kyu tests in October

• The other Aikido Shusekai students who are currently training for other tests

• Who to vote for in Lila’s rematch bet with Valkyrie (the one with the most votes wins, ans gets to tie up the loser... for details, see Lila’s journal entries for this month... tough choice... on the one hand, I’ve seen so much of Lila-as-bottom and almost nothing of Lila-as-top... on the other hand, Valkyrie seems like such a fine person that my conscience balks at the prospect of putting her at the mercy of a vengeful Lila...)

• The writings of Jerzy Grotowski and his students and colleagues, and how those writings apply to my aikido

• The word “research”

• The phrase “the things that life is showing you”

• The phrase “The Kid on the Trip”

• The concept of kokyu as it applies to ukemi

• The potential uses of the huge luminous spiderwebs that I’ve started to see during aikido practice

Some of these obsessions may become the subject of future entries, which will appear, God willing, in considerably less than a month. For now, though, I’m off to seek food.