Yea, so practice period half over. Yea. It surprises me that I've been able to keep up with getting up at 5 in the morning, and part of me is worried about when practice period ends because waking up and doing something makes me feel useful and worthwhile. But let's be honest with myself. Once practice period is over and I can take an hour lolling around in bed trying to drag myself out of it by 9, 10, 11 . . . 12, I'll get used to it.

But practice period has been really good. I think the biggest fault in it is that I'm doing it solo with no external support or feedback, but that's also something I appreciate, too. Support would be nice, but recalling my attitude during religion seminars in college and also listening to people at SFZC when they do talk (lay practitioners and guests, not the residents), I'm probably saving myself a lot of exasperation by not interacting.

And the accepting realization I had several months ago, accepting the chanting in Japanese when no one there is a native Japanese speaker because it's for the entire lineage? Well, it doesn't do "the lineage" any good if they can't understand a word these people are saying because there is no attention paid to pronounciation!! If Shunryu Suzuki wasn't dead already, he'd die just so he could roll over in his grave. Sheesh, my pronounciation is hardly perfect, but come on, people, basics! As Stephanie mentioned, it maybe really should be done in Pali or Sanskrit.

But no doubt, the benefits of basic practice can't be exaggerated, although too personal and subjective, and too much of a conundrum to explicate.

Practice period trumps 50 Foot Wave. There are things that are just more important than going to see a band. And I'm old, what am I thinking going to shows? And sitting through three other bands, only one of which I like, before 50 Foot Wave? Good thing, though, as it still rains.

Oh, four and a half weeks, my personal practice period is half over (SFZC's goes on for 10 weeks, ending in a weeklong intensive retreat which costs a wad (several C-notes if I remember correctly) so I'm not doing it. I don't know what that means there). I should reflect on it thus far, but I'm really tired and think I'll nap before this evening's sitting, dharma talk, and then if I'm still up to it, 50 Foot Wave. Gotta find my ear plugs.

I had a bizarre "lapse" last night that kept me from going to SFZC this morn. It was bizarre because I can't put my mind back into those moments to explain what I was doing. You know how you can think of what you did yesterday and remember what you did and what you were thinking or feeling and why? I think back at last night and wonder "what the hell was I doing that for?", and can't explain it. Or I can't identify with making those choices. It may have been a lot of subconscious rendering going on.

A couple weeks ago I had a bout of sleeplessness and the resulting mindset the next day was rather taxing, and it looked like last night was going to be another round of sleeplessness. So after an hour, and one frustrating near-miss with sleep, I had a shot of vodka. Don't ask me why I have a bottle of vodka in the apartment when I'm not supposed to. Long story short, I ended up falling asleep at probably around 1:30, I have no recollection of it, after 4 shots of vodka, which in my alcoholic days was no problem, but now probably explains why I can't relate or identify with the whole experience, and after reading a chapter of one of my favorite books that eerily reminds me of a past flame, and writing a failed blog posting on said flame and weird connection to this book.

Needless to say, although waking up at 4:55 was no problem, staying awake and getting out the door with a head made of glass was not going to happen. Mid-afternoon, I'm feeling more or less recovered. Man, how did I function like this year after year after year? So fifth week of practice period got off to a bad start. Fortunately, there is no good or bad regarding it. In fact, I've been feeling quite light recently. Or is it light-headed?

Anyway, my new camery battera that I ordered on Friday has arrived at a San Francisco post office, according to tracking. . . . I mean camera battery. I might even get it before this Wednesday's 50 Foot Wave show. A show? On a weekday? What about practice period? Click the link and shut up. I almost plotzed when I heard Kristin Hersh formed a new band. And I almost plotzed again when I saw they were playing in San Francisco. Double near-plotzes trump practice period.

I forget if I mentioned that I got back in touch with Lisa and that whole lesbian crew associated with "the band" back in January. I'm exaggerating, it's not really a crew, just her, Denise, and Jen, but there's inexorably a crew of lesbians attached to them, but since I'm no longer in a band with Lisa, I've pretty much lost my "dyke cred". Anyway, Lisa was playing an acoustic solo set at a place called "Canvas" in the Sunset, somehow finagling Denise into playing bass on some songs, and I decided to go after Dharma talk this morning. (NB: Denise wasn't in the band, she's a hobbyist on bass, but being Lisa's girlfriend, she did a lot of promotion for us.)

I met up with Lisa and Jen in January, but this was the first time seeing Denise since the band broke up a couple years ago (in the interim, Lisa and Denise also went through a harrowing break up and eventual, tenuous reconciliation). At the same time as it was great to see and hang out with them, it was also a bit weird. Not Jen. I don't know what it is with Jen, we just sort of match so well, I think we'd be incredible friends if the circumstances arose for us to really dig into it. We couldn't take advantage of the brief stint that we were housemates in Noe Valley because her chef's schedule had her coming and going at weird hours totally contrary to my uber-normal legal assistant hours. It just wasn't meant to be. We should have met when we were in college or thereafterbouts.

Lisa played a few songs that we had played in the band, and that was . . . curious. It wasn't feelings I was feeling, it's just that it seems so long ago, ancient history. And those songs were from when I was playing bass in the band, which is when I first joined, even longer ago. That makes sense, though, since when I switched to drums and she switched to bass, she wrote on bass.

She writes good songs, I thought her set was pretty good. I was just pressed to consider that chunk of history as having happened at all. We were bandmates, were we really friends? We were friends, did being in band get in the way of that? Feelings raising questions that don't need answers. All that doesn't matter. She's returned to Denise even though their relationship screams of cycle of violence in which she's the victim, so it's all good if she comes calling after two years. She makes the effort, I'll at least meet her halfway.

Sun is shining in the sky, but there are clouds in sight. Scattered showers today, but I want to get out and run some errands, so I better go soon. Maybe it's the sunlight that's the source of the good mood, maybe it's The Beatles singing "Good Day Sunshine" going into "And Your Bird Can Sing". Yes, folks, it happens every time I get a dose of Beatles. Down the slippery slope I go, and I'll be listening to them for a few days more now. I've paid my dues in purchasing my share of Beatles LPs when I was young, so I don't feel bad about having a bunch of albums burned on CD, especially since a bunch of them were quite short and the CD liner notes are minimal and not worth owning. I burned Abbey Road and Let It Be and included outtakes and alternative versions from the Anthology series. I have Help! and Revolver on one CD, also with extras from Anthology. The Anthology version of "And Your Bird Can Sing" is hilarious because it's so obvious Paul and John are so stoned. One can just imagine George Martin in the control room, bemused and taking the lads in stride.

I did get my wish Monday morning when I woke up and it was pouring rain. Missed sessions because of rain are like when professors don't show up for class - they don't get made up, and I don't have to do the session at home. Besides, the ride to SFZC at 5 in the morning wakes me up. Trying to sit at 5 in the morning at home would most likely end up with me at a 60 degree angle with my head resting gently against the wall. Yesterday afternoon was a quandary, though. Afternoon sessions shouldn't be missed because even if it is raining, I can still make it there in time by planning ahead. But the criteria is if I can't get there not soaking wet, I don't go. And it was not only raining, but it was gusty, too. As in "don't bother taking an umbrella" gusty. As in, I'd get there soaking wet regardless of planning ahead. I didn't go. I ate cookies and fielded phone calls from people who knew me from way back when, so I can't blame them for calling and appreciate it, but would have preferred that they hadn't. I stopped answering the phone by the time my mom called *whew*.

Rain is forecast for the next several days, and I'm praying for rain first thing in the morning. I won't say I'm not ready to start another week of practice period, but I'd be so very happy to wake up at 5 in the morning and find it raining, thereby triggering the only condition I've allowed myself to not go to SFZC for the morning sitting - arriving there soaking wet.

I'm glad about the rainy forecast. With a new chain and rear cluster on my road bike, I've been spending time on the trainer preparing for the riding season, and rain is motivation to sit on the trainer watching music DVDs, piping the audio through headphones. It also gives me the satisfaction of riding without getting the now-squeaky-clean chain all mucked up, as it tends to very quickly on my bikes. I've just been sitting in my living room admiring my drive train.

I just rented The Beatles First U.S. Visit on DVD. I can watch that over and over. It's fascinating historical stuff now, too. It also makes me think that our current times will be the quaint and simpler times 40 years from now. It's a wonder to watch thinking about how much has happened since then, and that the film-makers had such unprecedented access to shoot them candidly for 10 days. They're icons now, but this is actually them, the real deal.

The Beatles are simply one of the best rock bands ever. Incredible talent, charisma, character, personality, humor, and professionalism. At the Washington D.C. show, Ringo feels like he's speeding up, but they're so tight that the other three manage to hold the tempo back and keep it from getting out of hand. It's still apparent why he was considered the best drummer in Liverpool. And Paul McCartney performs the most incredible bass lines with seeming effortlessness.

I feel like this third week of practice period got off to a bad start, with skipping yesterday morning and all. There's more to it, but not worth going into. It's fascinating, but probably only to me. Last week was pretty structured, too, as I spent most of my afternoons at Border's reading a new book by Thich Nhat Hanh, Opening the Heart of the Cosmos: Insights Into the Lotus Sutra.

Truth to tell, I'm not a huge fan of Thich Nhat Hanh's writing, strange though that I'd be considering entering one of his monasteries, but I really like his treatment and exposition of various texts and sutras, and since the Lotus Sutra has always been of interest to me, I ate this one up. I'm not a fast reader, nor do I have the longest attention span when reading, so it was an accomplishment for me to read this in six afternoons.

So maybe it's alright for this week to be a little more lax.

I did go for that ride in the Headlands yesterday. The rip off is that I went on a 30 mile ride, but 10 miles was riding there, and 10 miles riding back, so the amount of time on the trails is always limited unless it's gonna be an all day outing. I did come to a revelation about mountain biking, but I'm not sure exactly what the revelation is. Let's just say it came when the trail took a steep downgrade. After about 3 seconds of considering walking the bike down the grade, but then realizing that's not the point of mountain biking, down I went, eyes wide open, riding the brakes, praying to almighty God, Jesus, Allah, Mohammed, the raven spirit, and Buddha himself in Pat Robertson rapture to see my wheels true. My that was harrowing. Some people consider that fun. I'm just not that "extreme" (47 mph on a road bike coming down a mountain is about as extreme as I like it).

But this week is still salvageable. It's only Wednesday. Only the evening sitting at SFZC for the rest of today, and then Dharma Talk, which replaces the second evening sitting on Wednesday nights. Otherwise today I need to return a bike lock to Sports Basement, I need to retrieve my road bike from the shop, I'd like to stock up on Joint Juice from a place in the Richmond that is selling boxes for $2.99, and I really wouldn't mind stocking up on Ben & Jerry's from Trader Joe's, advertised at $2.50 a pint!

It's hard to imagine that while we in San Francisco are being washed onto the shores of February and finding Spring-like weather, most of the rest of the country is still under a freeze of Winter. We, on the other hand, are out of the worst of it. The sun, which never carves a low an arc in the southern sky as it does, say, in New Jersey, is rising higher in the sky, and although we expect more rainy days through April, even May, we don't expect any more week-long storm-outs.

I took my road bike out for the first time this season on Sunday for an easy 20 mile jaunt, and it felt so good! No comparison, road bikes rule over mountain bikes. They're so much lighter and more powerful (faster), and of course they're designed for different purposes, so there's really no point in comparing them, I just like road bikes better.

Yesterday, I brought in the road bike in for a long-needed maintenance, and I left it there until tomorrow because the guy said I needed a new chain, which I figured, and a new rear cluster, which I'm just a little suspicious about, that he had to order. But considering how long it's been since it's had a tune-up, and considering how I've been riding it, and considering I don't know the ins and outs of week to week maintenance, I'll give him benefit of the doubt that the rear cluster is worn. As long as the road bike is in the shop, I think I'll take the mountain bike up to the Headlands and have my second go at trail riding.

I skipped going to SFZC with no reason this morning for the first time since the start of the practice period. The only other time I skipped was because it was raining. I'm a little burned out going into the third week, but that's really not an excuse. I knew I'd regret skipping, but I also wanted to experience that regret as motivation not to skip again. And I did regret it, I totally could've-should've gone, and I don't think it'll happen again. The key is still to be out of bed within a minute of the 4:55 alarm, and then dressed, prepped, and out the door within 10 minutes.

And I still want to see The Fog of War. After watching The Killing Fields this weekend, it seems fitting to see it this week. Ya, that's what I watch for fun.

Open letter to fotolog:

Dear Fotolog:
How dost thy sucketh wang. Let me count the ways. . . . hm, not enough fingers.

or toes for that matter.

Bwahaha!
So sometime last year, I was at a show with Delphine to review for Bay Area Buzz, and one of the opening bands was Built Like Alaska. We weren't reviewing them, but I did mention them here in this blog, and apparently I didn't write the most glowing comment. It wasn't a review; for reviews I try to be even-handed and even if I'm not enamoured by a band, I'll mentioned what I liked and what fan-base might be interested in them. Anyway, they found the comment and posted it to their website, but creatively edited it so that it's positive and makes me seem a bit silly. Absolutely brillig.

The Bay Area needs bands with a sense of humor, and don't take themselves emo-istically seriously. If Bay Area Buzz wasn't slated for defunc-dom (and if I didn't have this live show-unfriendly Winter practice period schedule), I would check them out again and submit a fair review, biased towards the positive.

In other news, I would be Julie Luck's personal love slave.

Man, I had one of those nights. I got into bed at 10:30, anticipating waking up at 5:00, and couldn't go to sleep. At around 11:30 I started listening to Genesis's "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway" since I had some of those tunes running through my head, and ended up listening to the entire first disc. It wasn't until after 1:15 that I at least started fading in and out. You know, that wonderful experience when whenever you realize you're conscious, you're not sure if you'd been asleep or awake, but if you haven't been asleep, then you must have been awake.

When my alarm went off at 4:55, I was half-awake. I know I looked at the clock at 4:08. I got out of bed and looked out the window, hoping it would be raining, but it looked pretty calm out there. I tried to convince myself that I was too tired to go to SFZC, but that wasn't working, either. I was fully alert. So I went. Good boy, have a cookie. Of course, it started raining while I was there and clearly the best move I've done all year was take along my rain gear at the last minute. I walked my bike home in the rain which is really quite pleasant at seven in the morning. And you're not working.

Insomnia, I can manage a night of it with a concerted bit of patience, but the poor suckers who have it as a problem, I can't imagine. It just ravages the inner depths of the psyche. Doesn't it?

So I'm not looking forward to trying to stay awake and lucid for the rest of the day. I'm waiting for it to sufficiently dry out outside so I can head out to Borders to read and have more coffee, and then to Beale St. for NTN trivia and beer, luscious, delicious beer. I'm cancelling the rest of the day's sitting since the lack of sleep would make it unproductive. Even this morning's second sitting, my mind was wandering all over the place. It found a pretty patch of daisies over that hill over yonder. No, not that one, the one beyond it. Who am I talking to?

About the whole Buddhism thing, I'm not really the worshipping type. So as far as any worshipping aspect goes, I'm not really with that. I see it as a practical extension of the existential quest. I can follow cosmology, astronomy and astrophysics until I'm blue in the face (and not having a math or physics background, I take on a nice indigo glow really quick), but it's still only a theoretical musing on the big questions of why and how, and what are we doing with it.