for:

• change
• growth
• peace
• space
• joy
• challenge
• truth
• discipline
• power
• passion
• more
• balance
• hope

… now.

Dinner of a bachelor: canned lentil soup, frozen grilled asparagus and roasted seaweed. Not that exciting tonight. But after three very social evenings, a simple, if culinarily uninspired, evening at home was welcome.

Janie and I sat on the couch as I knit. It’s rare to enjoy a weeknight multiple-hour block of needle time. Elizabeth Gilbert hung out with us, reading Eat, Pray, Love. Funny how the book is different two years after my soul-searching sabbatical and so many changes in my life. We didn’t make it out of Italy, but there’s always tomorrow night.

C comes home from Portland on Saturday. The house feels empty without him, but there have been a few perks to shaking up the routine and being forced to be self- (and dog-) sufficient. The TV hasn’t been turned on once. I’ve seen old friends. I choose what to do next.

Like tonight.

Oh, no thought stringing together tonight. Just two sketches of the day.

I was at the intersection of personal beliefs, political issues and professional duty today. The college me wouldn’t have ever dreamed that I would participate in what wad asked of me. The world is not as black and white in reality. But it’s got me really thinking.

There was an event at Clif Bar tonight. In two weeks they are moving to new offices, so the building that was my daytime residence for nine years will no longer be. Life goes on and all that jazz, but it’s an end of an era. I never loved anywhere while growing up for more than 3 years. I will miss 1610 Fifth Street in Berkeley.

It was nice seeing old friends and colleagues. I teared up a bit. Janie Sparkles couldn’t have Bern happier to steal a toy and run around willy-nilly. It’s showing me I need to get a heck of a lot more social.

I guess the moral of the day is to know yourself and remember where you came from.

From an IM exchange today (thanks, TL):

can I be honest with you?

from knowing you all this time, I think you put way too much pressure on yourself to the point where you put “happiness” on your to-do list like another stressful goal.

You need to go back to Kindergarden where the goal is having fun and enjoying what you do not having to be perfect or the best because when you set up these unachievable-by-any-human goals for yourself you set yourself up to fail then you feel bad about yourself.

You are cute and awesome and gay.
You are great already.

I almost didn’t get this in. Too focused since 4pm. Wow, just realized that was 9+ of work. The weekend ended over an hour ago and I’m just headed to bed.

I would like to master shorter, more frequent bursts of productivity. Much progress tonight. More to do, however, this pace isn’t sustainable. Work- and wool-wise.

The coming week may prove to be a doozy. C is off to shoot OR by himself. I’m single-parenting and hoping to be social. A big launch MIGHT happen this week, assuming an agreement gets signed tomorrow (which is already today). And, then there are the challenges of feeding myself and leaving for/from the office at reasonable hours.

Perhaps not so much typing practice this week. Let’s wait and see.

Elizabeth Gilbert on nurturing creativity (video from ted.com) . Thanks to Wendy for sharing (not one of the knitting Wendys).

¡Ole!

Read it before you eat it.

At tonight’s Off the Grid, Hapa Ramen veggie bowl had pork broth.

Now I know what that tastes like.

Write or take a night off? Have I earned a night off or will it be the beginning of a slide into lazy sporadic postings? Project over or just begun?

There are important emails I could write, knitting to complete, yarn that arrived today that needs to be wound, and work always waiting to be done.

Clearly, this was chosen. But there’s no photo of my new (bad) haircut, no meditating on the joy So You Think You Can Dance brings this former ballet boy, no grumbling about progress promised by Wednesday on the big work project still not surfacing, no celebration of Judge Walker’s lifting the stay on same-sex marriages from his ruling on the unconstitutionality of Prop 8.

Just this. Enough. (For now.)

Did it.

A month’s-worth of daily posts.

(And, although not always here, I’ve taken a photo each day with this here phone.)

Unfortunately, I tend to do this at the end of the day, tired and not in the best frame of mind. So I do get a little self-indulgent. Or, whiney.

I’m proud that I made the space to do a little typing practice. The kindling of creativity and creation has been relit. The results aren’t incredible writing, just a return to self.

And it feels darn good to be here. Thanks for reading.

More to come. The question is simply what? A month of getting up early? A return to working out? Better living through better cooking?

Lucky me. I get to decide.

My left foot.

It hurts. Been hurting for over a year. Mostly at the start of the day. It’s often so bad that I limp.

I assumed the pain would simply go away. That perhaps I bruised it jumping down off the rope at circus class and it needed time. Then, I thought it was simply tired out tootsies from being on my feet all day teaching at Sock Summit. Around New Year’s I tried to run it off. Push past the pain.

I tried to treat it with ice, rest, massage, acupuncture, ART. I could get the joints in my foot to pop at times when rubbing them. When I started rolling it in a golfball, I was struck by a recovered memory. There was that one day I had accidentally kicked the metal leg of the couch. Really hard. Barefoot, of course. Was that it?

The hurt is difficult to describe. My first steps in the morning burned on the sole. Like a fascial irritation but centered on the ball of my foot toward the outside (unlike plantar fascitis). But there was also a dull ache on the top of the foot, but deep. The bones felt congested, as if there wasn’t enough room for all of them. I wanted to break open the foot and spread everything out.

As I haven’t seen any major progress as months went on, I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I may simply have to live with this. Another ache and pain as a result of getting older. My running and athletic days were over. C’est la vie, non?

Something just wasn’t right in my foot. If it had been broken, I assumed I would have been in excruciating agony. Instead, I couldn’t point my toe as well and never felt comfortable in any shoe nor barefoot.

Lately, my only solace has been five-toed socks and toe stretchers. They bring circulation and sensation to the area. I may have ordered some freaky looking slip-ons that should come later this week (they now come in wool!).

Looking at my foot today (being home from work), I noticed how off my “ring finger” toe is. Like a mis-mounted stitch, it has a different orientation than all the other four. One of these things is not like the others… Why did it take me a year to see this?

No wonder things feel out of place. No, I haven’t gone to see a doctor or had it x-ray’ed. I know what good used to feel like. And I miss it. I want it to get better. My foot is sending a message that hurt is not sustainable. I need to get aligned.

(this is also a metaphor.)