"He is the most typical man in the world..."

"He is the most typical man in the world..."
------------
Part of me wants to hash out a series of expectations made of me, by reason of my gender. Not sure how researched they would be, versus just personal feelings... but maybe an exercise in gender roles?
Example:
"He went hunting deer on Thanksgiving weekend, because it was too cold to go fishing on Lake Travis. It was tough, though, pulling him away from the college football games, and they had to bribe him with a case of Lone Star beers and a couple of bottles of Jack."
"He is the most typical man in the world..."

"The Question"

"Life is an unanswered question, but let's believe in the dignity and importance of the question."
- Tennessee Williams
("Zen Calendar: Wednesday, 16 April 2014")

"Noting Notes"

A time for noting is upon me:

1) Recognize the thought has come to my mind.
2) Detach from the thoughts, possibly thru returning to
A) my breathing, maybe my heartbeat
B) what sights, sounds, smells are around me
3) In detachment, note now those thoughts are out of my control
A) this is fear, hope, fantasy
B) this is past, future
C) this is trying to read another person's mind or motives
D) this is.
4) ...and let the thought pass, like a cloud in the sky
5) Realize this is cyclical, and more thoughts will bubble up

Right now, I'm on a bus... So, I'm grateful for:
- relatively reliable public transit in Austin
- the recent contest that placed local short poems beside the ads on the buses
- driving time converted to time spent on mail, Facebook, news
- big windows to catch glimpses of local neighborhoods
- passengers usually respecting each others' privacies

"Things are..."

"If you understand, things are just as they are...
If you do not understand, things are just as they are..."

~Zen Saying

Grateful for:
- long weekends
- loving, caring family
- free activities like computer use and reading
- volunteering and its appreciation
- warm welcomes

If I shared everything that's been on my mind, I'm afraid I'd wind up locked up at ASH.
However, if I just shared rainbows and unicorns, I would be dealing in half-truths.
Probably, the best plan is to consider where to share it; and not what to share...

(Found on Capital Metro, via Austin Poetry Society)
Pigeons at Phil's Ice House
Pigeons jive their heads
In rhythm with the traffic
Sleek grey heads bop it
Back and forth
Tiny panhandlers
Forsaking flight between the tables
To wait for French fries
To fall from the heavens.
- Diana Conces

Today, I'm grateful for:
- good friends
- working
- plenty of food
- hobbies and volunteering
- broad perspectives

Ah, snap! Another V-D come and gone, with no romance in my world...
Perhaps I am fated to be a monk or a priest, living a solitary life of quiet contemplation...
Then again, maybe I'm just blinder than Cupid, oblivious to the romantic possibilities already present in my life? With my shoestring budget, though, it's probably wiser not to date, right now.
Still, I curse at our cultural "conditionings"...

My mind's trying to take me to bad spaces, this week. It's tough, fighting back the urge to jump in front of an oncoming bus...
Is there an easy fix? Maybe redouble my efforts to change my career, possibly find a purpose, I don't know...
Yah. Bipolar blows...

"Happy Haiku" (P.o.t.D. 2/9/14)

Try to be happy?
No. Do great acts, and your joy
Will rise, without thought.

What words are percolating,
colliding in passing...
some times sticking,
other times flowing?
What ideas power that current -
distant memories of this morning,
or random conjectures
of tomorrows,
marching into the cement
of actual experience,
or fading away
from physics falsely found facts..?
what is that you say? Whimsy?
Like so many other scribbled notes,
I try to begin in the meta-,
A sign perhaps,
That I am scratching at vapors,
Not at all sure what's happening
Right now, Right here,
In the Present Moment.
Then again,
Maybe I want to stoke
The creative fires,
And let loose the imagination,
To try to glimpse those alternate realities,
Where pigs DO fly,
(...and women ask me on dates, for a change...)
And...
Like that, I suddenly want to end it, and post it.

I'm conflicted...
Part of me wants to slip into the shadows, and become mousy quiet.
However, then I'm not sure how I'll spend my time, as I got accustomed to the old routine.
The challenge is that I'm entering my first 6-day weekend of 2014, and I want to create some changes that lead to a better life balance.
Maybe, instead of 'hiding more', I should instead take more direct approaches, such as phone calls and personal letters and lunch chats...

Some of what I was pondering, during the 12@5:30, tonight:
(Topic started with page 164)
- What am I relying upon?
- What are you?
- What is the path by which I seek God, or maybe just seek comfort? ...like, my first seven years, I was still smoking at least a pack a day... And there are some who seem to be in "the relationship of the week"
- the dangers of self-reliance, or co-dependence...
- differences between meeting-based sobriety, and step-based sobriety...
Part of me wants to quip, "I **THINK** I'm relying on God by _______, but I'm actually relying on God by _________"
And then, I think that an addict doesn't feel complete without relying on some thing or activity external to themselves - so we may have dropped a drug addiction, only to pick up a different addiction in its place...