Clearing out the attic.

A quick summary of The State of Things In My Skull:

~Zen is probably a boxer. I love this, because of all the dogs in the world, I decided I did NOT want a boxer because they are so bulky. The Universe, in typical fashion, deemed that I don't get to set such limits on my own existence. In an effort to keep me free-flowing and unjudgemental it brought Zen in to our lives. I love him dearly, pray he won't get the severe end of the ridiculous pugged noses found in the species, and don't give a damn that he is at this point. I have often thought the puppy would be my teacher concerning Buddhist principals and his mere presence in our life starts out in this tradition. Zen-sama, I welcome you and await your further wisdom.

~I didn't have a story to write for NaNoWriMo this year and was getting antsy. Redoing last year's story felt like cheating, as did laying down anything I'd thought about prior to November. For me, National Novel Writing Month was about the act of pure creation from the void, having no plans and no pre-conceived notions. Even as I acknowledged that this is what I wanted, I felt like I was possibly being too harsh on myself for thinking to redo old stories, or ones awaiting birth. It isn't like I'll sully this grand tradition by not doing it how I did before. It's only my third year of doing it, pretending there is any pattern that might be irreparably destroyed is me just fooling myself.
I get a kick out of the pure rush of coming up with something that didn't exist and that hasn't been living on borrowed brain-space for months. It feels cathartic, astringent, and generally freeing. It needs to happen, and maybe I need to taste failure this time around. I need to understand that the perfect version will NEVER be written the first time, and last year went a long way to do it. I hated the main story and loved my secondary characters. In fact, if I can ever talk myself in to making the time, I want to sit down and revisit the secondary characters. That will require an entire rewrite of the story. A second draft. And I am not flipping out about it for the first time in my life.
All that aside, I had invested quite a bit of angst and energy in to all of these thoughts without even having a story yet. I spent all last night in the Cat Hat of Inspiration (wondering if the Fox Yip Hat of Inspiration might do a better job) and nothing came to me. I sat wondering dolefully if this might be a week that went without a story idea, or if I gave up and wrote a story pre-conceived in my head, beating myself up the entire time for it. I was even dwelling on that as I drove to work today, and found myself coming to a complete stop in the middle of a residential street so a cat with a single white paw could cross in front of me safely without being hit. He was young, only 6 months, and grey with black stripes. And in that moment of watching him cross and seeing him turn back to stare at me, I got my story idea. It seems so silly to go through all of that now, but perhaps it was necessary so I could be at my wit's end when the cat crossed? Who will ever know. Either way, I intend to sit down tonight and write my 3,400 words to catch up.

~I sometimes worry that with each day I do not do zazen or yoga I am losing more and more control over my body and my mind. Some day I will be old, ill and senile and just beg the nurses to let me sit and breathe, as I could not do it properly yet...such a scene. Yeesh.

~I was ready to give up on Heroes based on the really crappy first few episodes of the season. I wanted to, almost, as there were so many good shows and my TV viewing schedule was getting ridiculous. Heroes had hurt me in the past and I wanted to just write it off once and for all as something capable of greatness that just never fully materialized.
But then we watched an episode we'd recorded, the one I was going to use as the final axe-blow to justify ignoring it forever....and god damnit, it was good! Then Bob mentioned that a recent article had said the last 2 (the 2 we'd had to DVR and hadn't seen when they broadcast) were actually very good. GRR... okay, so maybe I'll finish watching what's recorded, catch up, and go from there...

~I miss Japan. I get a wicked case of ennui any time I recognize something from there, and I want to go back really really badly. But I also want a house with a yard for Zen-dy to run in. Unless the lottery is won in the future, I don't see the two happening anywhere near one another. Perhaps I should just suck it up and sally forth. It's just that it's been bothering me a lot lately. It reminds me of how I used to feel sad about Seattle, except I've never liked in Tokyo and I barely speak or read the language. I don't know how to remedy it, and it only shows up when I see something that reminds me of the trip. Perhaps I should just travel somewhere else that's closer and switch my ennui to that where it'll be more convenient to dream of.

~We have tickets to Pax East. I am hella excited. Something about having plans again for the future that are beyond calculating when the puppy last went outside makes me feel like there will be more to life. So much for living in the moment. On the other hand, it's nice to know there'll be a tomorrow, and that this tomorrow will involve awesome video game goodness in a city that my beloved knows and that I've come to love parts of with him. I look forward to geeking out, but also to weaving a new story with him in Boston amid the places of his youth.

~I want to paint. I want to draw. I have too many projects going. 5 months until school is completed. After that I can do whatever I want with my evenings and weekends. Nothing will be clean, but everything will be creative!

~I'm craving veggie burgers. Something seems odd about that, but I don't care because they're delicious. I'm also craving spinach, bell peppers, and portabella mushrooms in a good cream sauce. Praise Italian, Indian and Chinese food for making our lives easier during the switch over to vegetarianism!

~Halloween didn't feel like Halloween. Maybe it was the road trip that ate up most of the day to NJ. Maybe it was because everything was so hectic I didn't get to really decorate anything. Maybe it was the fact that I didn't put on a costume, or get to watch my traditional scary movies this year (The original Halloween and Nightmare Before Christmas being foremost). Halloween evening felt weird. I loved handing out candies. Zen escorted me to the door and hung out as costumed kids came and went. But somehow it just didn't feel like Halloween. And now it's November 2nd, All Saint's Day has even passed, and it's another 364 days until we do this again. I am a bit depressed, but I also enjoyed what ~did~ happen in all the confusion. I just hope next year I get a chance to go all-out again. Maybe even have a Halloween party that friends attend. I think part of this year was remembering last year's fruitless Lovecraft Party. I'm still bummed even a year later. Perhaps we need to work on letting go of the past a bit more.

~Can't wait to walk with Bob around Longwood Gardens for Christmas again. Also can't wait for a few family things coming up, but very glad they'll be spread apart so we (and Zen) get a chance to relax. We probably need to have fewer things occuring in November as a family unit, though.

~The autumn has been beautiful, and I will be sad to see it give way to the grey days of pre-winter. I'm hoping we have a beautiful snow-ridden season I can recall clearly following the blaze of colors that erupted. It would be nice to have a year fully recalled and behaving appropriately like in my childhood before the global warming bullshit struck.