No problem waking up at 5:00 and being out the door within 8 minutes, but my body is hating these sleeping hours I'm forcing it to adjust to. I stopped being able to live on 6 hours of sleep several years ago. The first night I woke up early, getting 6 hours of sleep. Second night I didn't get to sleep until 11:00, ergo six hours of sleep. Last night I figured I'd be tuckered out enough to get a full 7 hours, and I did get to bed just before 10:00, but then woke up at 1:30, and then again at 4:08 without having really gotten back to sleep. I'm not looking forward to the rest of today.

And I'm starting to understand the value of peer support. Imagine that.

Uoigh . . . so I'm not participating in SF Zen Center's Winter Practice Period, and not that I had any plans to return to Deer Park, but I did completely block off their Winter Retreat period as to be avoided, but instead, I'm following the spirit and intensifying my personal practice for the duration of SFZC's Practice Period. This primarily entails participating in their two daily sittings in addition to my own. Today was the test day to see if I could get there for the 5:25 AM sitting. It worked. I can do it. It does mean that I have to go to bed by around 10:00 and have my clothes laid out, so that when my alarm goes off at 4:55, I don't give myself time to slag off and fall back to sleep. Alarm goes off, throw the clothes on, and be out the front door by 5:05. That's seriously the only way I'll be able to do it.

I'm hoping to be pretty strict about it (whatever that means), especially the morning sitting since that's the hardest aspect of it, and it also dictates the rest of my day by dictating my wake up time. I think, I think, I think I'll still allow for Beale St. Tuesday evenings, but not every week. Also as a trade-off, weekends will be more relaxed to prevent burn out, but I haven't decided how yet. Rain falling in the morning means I don't go for practical reasons, as it probably won't do to show up soaked. And rain actually has to be falling to stop me. Other contingencies will be considered as I go along.

The purpose will be to be more aware of my practice and putting it on a stricter time schedule. I don't know what the ultimate purpose is, as I'm maintaining my wariness at organized religion, and "being a better person" makes me guffaw (yea, like that's gonna happen). I'm still critical about SFZC even though I'm trying not to be.

I think I'm hooked. I took my mountain bike into the Marin Headlands yesterday to get a taste of trail riding. Nothing serious, just to see what it was like. I knew of one trail that went down towards Rodeo Beach, and thought I'd go down that trail and back. I don't know the first thing about trail riding, I wasn't even prepared for a "ride", just keeping expectations low. Once I hit the trail, I felt an immediate "whoa!". For one thing, on a road bike, when the wheels start losing traction, you slow down or get that feeling of anticipating a spill, going down, biting it. I take it on a mountain bike, you just get used to riding it through, speeding up even to maintain momentum.

It was fun, though. Tricky. I had no idea how fast people go on trails, but I kept my pace slow at a "trot". Which was a good thing for when I came across a coyote. I turned a corner and there was a coyote hanging out, and another rider coming up on the trail. We stopped to chat about the coyote and he made a comment, "It's a good thing you saw it and slowed down, or . . . you were going that pace?" I don't know if that was a yuppie macho dig, but even if I wasn't a newbie, I don't care about that sort of thing. Anyway, when I got to the bottom of the trail, I ran into a Park Ranger who had just shot the coyote with a paint gun to try to get it to be scared of humans. Apparently the coyote has been around for about a week and hasn't shown signs of fear towards humans, and apparently some hikers have gone so far as feeding it, which is inexcusably stupid if you ask me. It hasn't been threatening or aggressive, but it's just not good for a wild animal to be so comfortable with humans, and the Ranger said that they might have to shoot it if he hangs around for much longer :(

But yea, trail riding was fun, and when I got to the bottom of that trail, I found some others to play on. They were still wet and muddy from the . . . rains, I don't even remember the last time it really rained. Now, road riders, I've noticed, keep their bikes pristine. I don't know how they do it, I sure can't, but their bikes are always nice and shiny and you could eat sushi off of their drivetrains (as long as they lube the chain with soy sauce and wasabi). So at first, I was like, "ew, mud". But hey, I was on a friggin' mountain bike, you're supposed to get muddy, so then I was, "LET'S GET MUDDY!! WHEEEE!!!"

So I want to go again soon, properly attired and nourished. I wanted to go today, but the weather wasn't as nice, but that was probably for the better anyway. Instead I went and saw Monster, with Charlize Theron and Christina Ricci. Excellent movie. I think the only fault with it was that I didn't feel challenged or emotionally drained enough, considering the subject matter. The performances were incredible, but who cares about performances when the hotness that is Christina Ricci is being projected 10 feet high on a screen. I know that's shallow of me, but I don't know when I'll get tired of seeing that face on the movie screen. Although god forbid Pumpkin is ever allowed to be shown in a movie theater again.

Only Eliza Dushku could save Tru Calling, and . . . she doesn't really. The bad script-writing only serves, unfortunately, to emphasize the limitations in Dushku's acting abilities. I was hoping that she would prove to be a good actress, not just one of the many young, hip, trendy, flavor-of-the-month actors out there. She was great as bad girl with attitude, Faith, in "Buffy". I liked her just fine in "Bring It On", another bad girl with attitude role. But as Tru Davies, a decidedly non-bad girl role, well, the qualities in her acting that came off as edgy and with attitude as a bad girl, are just bland when she's playing a non-bad girl role. It is only the hotness that is Eliza Dushku that can keep my TV on the same channel for the hour the show is on. I know that's shallow of me, but I don't know when I'll get tired of seeing that face on the TV screen.

Seriously, were the writers so aware of the poor writing that they include a recap of the first half of the show halfway through?

I guess even with my pathological indecisiveness, I eventually have to make decisions. Today, on the day of the deadline to register, I decided not to participate in the SF Zen Center's Winter Practice Period. I'm thinking all monasteries have this sort of thing, as Deer Park Monastery is currently in its Winter Retreat. I don't mean to be critical, I don't want to be critical, but I just don't gel with the community here, and it's probably due to the pool of people. If I don't like the type of people in the San Francisco Bay Area, I'm not going to very much like any microcosm that draws on the San Francisco Bay Area pool of people.

I recall visiting SF Zen Center not too long after I arrived in the Bay Area, and I just got a cold vibe from the place. It just wasn't for me and I didn't go back until after visiting Deer Park, just to be exposed to any community, to draw on that energy, regardless if it was wrong or right. I've been going there twice a week for Dharma talks to get what I could out of them, and I haven't met anyone, even though there does seem to be a social aspect to the place, not unlike a Christian church. It's kinda clique-y. And I can stand in the hallway and listen in on conversations and goings on, and I know this isn't the community for me. Too white liberal, too NIMBY, too hypocritical, too AMERICAN, I don't know what it is. They just rub me the wrong way.

I rented Steve Vai's Live at the Astoria DVD last week, and the result was that I had Steve Vai songs going through my head for the course of a weekend of bad music, primarily in the car driving to and from Portland. Not that I'm a huge Steve Vai fan, but his "Passion and Warfare" CD is an un-friggin-believable "guitar" album. So although the DVD might have better been named "The Wank of the Overrated Musicians", it did save me this weekend. At least in my own head.

How much can I gush about Portland? Actually, how much can I gush about anywhere that isn't San Francisco? I just hope it really isn't "how much can I gush about anywhere where I'm not?" Oregon, again, is just a cooler place than California, with our Austrian governors and Republican Democratic mayors.

Anyway, I could have done without the roadtrip. I just went for the halibut. Hell of it. Helluvit. In retrospect, that doesn't seem like a good enough reason to go. Or it could have been Melissa's smoking which kept me constantly nauseous. I'm starting to think smokers are verifiably evil, but that's neither true nor nice (I personally know several angels who smoke, and the smoke just gives their halos a nice copper hue). Or maybe it was just Melissa, who I neither particularly like or dislike, but if given a choice whether to be engaged in a conversation with her or eat a pineapple, I'd choose the pineapple. She's a great conversationalist, very interesting, very intelligent, very articulate, it's just that our personalities do not support any connection of meaningfulness for whatever we might talk about to make them worth it or matter.

Portland was rainy, but nevertheless beautiful and beery.

Holy cow! Where did this week go? It hasn't even been significantly rainy to excuse hunkering down with books and DVDs and doing nothing. No, the weather has been mild compared to last week, and I've put 50 miles on my bike without going on a "ride", and otherwise hunkered down with books and DVDs.

Just thinking these days. Considering hell or high water giving notice on my apartment on March 1st and see where the chips fall, but on April 1st, I'll be out of this apartment, out of San Francisco. Possibility one is that giving notice will be the spark and send me down to the monastery in April. Possibility two is that I'll have loaded up a truck with my remaining stuff and be driving back to New Jersey, to decide after I get there to go to the monastery. Just considering.

But for this weekend, it's a roadtrip to Portland with Lisa and Melissa to visit Amy. Looka me, maw, I'm doing stuff with other people! It didn't take too much arm-twisting, but they did assume pretty early on that I would be going. And by next Wednesday I have to decide whether to commit to the SF Zen Center Winter practice period. It's nothing major, not a big actual commitment. Just a commitment in my head. And of $75 for nothing too much out of the ordinary.

Isn't there a new federal ban on spam? Why am I getting more junk email than I got before? Or is it a ban on Spam, the fake meat in a can that Hawai'ians like enough to use in everything from sushi to milkshakes. At least the telemarketing ban seems to be panning out.

Pan ban on canned Spam
Irate fans of Spam can't stand
Mostly Hawai'ian

So I donated blood on Wednesday. It's Sunday and traces of the iodine stain are still there and is still causing an allergic reaction. No biggie, I have freakishly allergic/sensitive skin, which is also fortunately very responsive to Cortizone-10 Plus, a tube of which I always have around. Seriously, all I have to do is run my fingernails across my skin with a little bit of pressure and I'll have red lines. Or is that normal?

There's a blood shortage in the Bay Area so I went to look up where to donate blood. It said, "Schedule an appointment to donate whole blood online". For a second I was almost amazed that we had the technology to do that, but I know that my dial-up connection can't handle blood.

AARON BURR IT'S COLD HERE!!!!! Actually, I heard that temps in New York are about what they are here, and that it is mild and "nice" there. The difference is that we're not used to it. I was reminded of an apartment in Oberlin one winter when my bath towel wouldn't dry over a 24 hour period. Fortunately, I have a nifty new hat to keep me head warm, and an Irished up hot chocolate. Literally Irished up - with Bailey's Irish Creme and Bushmill's Irish Whiskey. Maybe I'll put on some U2.

Welly, welly, well. 2004, according to my clock. Actually, my clock has not the year on it, but it is 8:04 in the evening, so that's close enough, isn't it? I didn't do anything today, total break day, rainy and dreary day, let myself drink, got a little boring by the evening, watched "Monty Python and the Holy Grail". I love how parts of that movie never stop being funny no matter how many times I watch it.

Yesterday afternoon I rode out to the Golden Gate Bridge to hopefully catch a glimpse of the U.S.S. Midway that was sailing out (being towed, actually) of Alameda to go into retirement in San Diego. Maybe they're turning it into a museum. But no such luck, and apparently, riding the 8 miles from the Mission to the bridge is slower than it takes to tow an aircraft carrier from Alameda out to open sea.

I spent New Year's Eve at SF Zen Center, helping with the New Year's cleaning, having a snack of noodles, and then sitting and walking into the new year. They really probably should have ended the sitting when the fireworks and the car horns honking started, since it was obvious it was midnight, and distracting, probably, for most of us. We ended about 10 minutes after midnight. After that we did something they called a "fire ceremony", which was just lighting a bonfire in the courtyard and people writing things down on pieces of paper or wood, things that they wanted to let go of in the new year or something like that, and tossing it in the fire. I couldn't think of anything, I should have written "indecisiveness" as that seems to be a hallmark of my being, but I wasn't taking it or myself too seriously, so I just wrote "moo!" and tossed it in the fire. Poor mad cows, come to think about it. I also tossed in one of my old business cards, and to my horror it took a while for it to catch on fire. I was close to exclaiming, "My business card won't burn!"

I'm glad I chose going there for New Years instead of a party with the girls (I did talk with Lisa on Monday) or a show with Delphine. No drinking, no socializing, no hubbub, so that was just right. That was the first time I sat with the SF Zen Center sangha, and it was comfortable, same thing as with Deer Park emphasizing the importance of the community, although not necessarily connecting with this community. I'm still being guarded with my association with them. I still don't know anyone there and taking care not to really meet anyone there. Their importance for me is just by being there, but not to socialize or to form a relationship. It was a big enough step for me just to be open to them.