Note: I'm not doing this post first thing in the morning because I wasn't at home.
Yesterday was my first experiment with this blog. I don't want to call it a failure —because I didn't put any standards in place by which I could measure its success— , but I know that it didn't give me the same sense of space that my in-bed Bodil-style meditations did.
One reason is that when I was typing up my blog post, I was constantly distracted by computer stuff: Facebook, email, etc. I turned those off eventually, which helped, and I'm doing the same now. But I also thing there's something less "space"-y about typing at a desk, compared to softly speaking aloud in bed. Also, I feel compelled to type in complete sentences, I go back and edit what I've said, etc. None of this was part of the original scheme, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised that a blog takes on a different form from private meditation. In any case, I'm going to keep the experiment alive a little longer.
So what did I do yesterday?
I woke up at 7 AM to David and his fuck-buddy talking loudly in the kitchen. They were having one of those "deep" metaphysical conversations where people speak very emotionally and hazily about their life experiments and their philosophies in a sort of self-congratulatory manner. It was annoying, and I put in my headphones to listen to some Phil Hendrie, but I could still hear them, so it was like ten people were talking in my head. Eventually they went back to bed and I fell asleep.
I woke up again quite late, around 10:30 I think. I went to the bathroom and weighed myself, reported in the diet blog, and started typing up yesterday's entry in this blog. As I observed above, that was an often interrupted, not particularly meditative experience. By the time I finished, it was getting close to noon, so I had my coffee, snacked a bit, brushed my teeth, packed, and headed out. I forgot my helmet, of course. :)
The ride was very smooth. I biked and walked to BART, and while waiting for the subway to arrive, had two surprising discoveries: First, Rose went to Hamilton (but we didn't overlap), and second, my entire Documents folder has been deleted somehow (the folder is there, but it's empty). I wonder if it has something to do with upgrading to Mountain Lion, but I guess I'll never know. In any case, the only I've lost are some edits to intimacy.xls. Thank goodness for Time Machine!
I spent most of the BART ride googling about the Documents folder fiasco, to no avail. The transfer to CalTrain was immediate, and I spent the second leg of the journey working on, and nearly completing, one of my crossword puzzles.
I got off the train, called Apurva for directions, and then biked over to his place. Deepa was over, and we all embraced and said hello. I had water and a few nuts, and then Apurva and I decided to bike over to the tennis courts and rally a bit. I ran into my usual difficulties but picked up three important tips: stay on the balls of your feet (this makes moving into position strangely effortless); I tend to angle my racket back, so I might want to correct forward for awhile; and keep an open leg position for forehand, and swing through the hips. I guess I also figured out a decent grip for backhand. We took a nice break in the shade, and then went back to playing. In the end, I kind of sucked, but I had some good moments! Another thing I remembered: follow the ball all the way to the racket. And on the way to the tennis courts, we stopped by Safeway to buy sunscreen.
On the way back we talked about life and our future. Back at Apurva's, I took an icy cold shower, washed my clothes in the sink, and laid them out on the patio to dry. Apurva took a shower while I snacked a bit and played on the iPad, and then we decided to walk to Red Rock and have some coffee and play backgammon. The coffee was great, and before backgammon we had a long talk about RecordBox and Apurva's next moves and desires as an intelligent programmer in the Valley. (We came to no positive conclusions.) The game of backgammon was fun, but it was getting late so we packed up and went back home.
We picked up Deepa and drove to Palo Alto to eat at a salad place. Deepa parked between two spaces and I called her out on her moral transgression. My salad was delicious (fennel!), but the steak was sadly over-cooked. We finished the meal just before 9 PM.
Back at Apurva's we had tea and played more backgammon. Chocolate was brought out, and I suppose I would have had some but I'm sticking quite well to my regime for the month and decided not to partake. First I taught and played Deepa, then Deepa played Apurva, then I played Apurva. A great time was had by all.
We got ready for bed, and I spent the next hour or so fiddling with Apurva's old iPhone 3GS, trying to get it to work. I came to the conclusion that the baseband needed to be downgraded, which I assumed was going to involve a very elaborate procedure (not true — see tomorrow's post), and so eventually gave up, did some crossword puzzles, and went back to sleep.
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