Uploading in Order to Free Space on My Mental Flashdrive

Hectic,hectic,lazy,lazy,lazy. I'm coping by making too many plans and offering favors to other people that I don't always have time for. Schoolwise I'm a wreck until Monday, and personally I have a million and one things to do before I leave for Maine on Thursday, which I'm totally impatient for anyway.

Greg and I are talking every morning, making plans for the day, helping each other out. He's going to visit after I get back from Maine, and come to the last day of my class at the Shambhala Center. Ty is supposed to be coming through town around then, too, which is great, since I always tell him he's my personal bodhisattva. Also, Jasper is going to give Evan, Greg, and me a private yoga lesson. Yay! I'm always so happy when someone starts doing yoga, or even does a couple of classes, because it's so totally awesome for mind and body, but it takes actually doing it to realize how great it is.

I'm going up to North Carolina at the end of the month, too, for a good visit with my college friends and my fam. It seems like a lot of people have been having a rough time lately (to say the least, in some cases), but I'm so glad that Guilford left us with an amazing, loving support system. When I was there it often felt too small, especially since we were young and prone to making many mistakes, but in the end I guess the drama left us all closer and wiser.

I've renewed my efforts to be mindful (read: present) in the last couple of weeks, which has in turn made me think a lot (is that irony?) about the very fine point that is the gap between opposing forces. In a lot of aspects of my life, my goal is to exist in that gap, but it's difficult to find. How do you locate prudence between unneccessary risk and overworrying, the point of being between ignoring and clinging, or forgiveness between anger and exposure to more emotional harm? Its like the gap you look for in meditation, where your inner dialogue stops for just a moment, and that doesn't happen very often for me. I guess right now I'm just glad that I'm looking for it, and that I've become honest enough with myself that I sometimes get close.

Enough personal journey stuff, though. As soon as my last exam is over on Monday afternoon, I'm going to make a whole mess of pillow monsters and bring them to Tuscaloosa to put in a friend's shop. Then when I return to Birmingham it's t-shirt printing time like a mofo. Stay tuned for greeting and news from Portland, ME.

oh, p.s., Red Mountain Family Band and Beaux Animaux played last night with Neeta (sp??), Kirby Russell, and Important Eagle. Way fun. RMFB shows are greatly improved by a reasonable number of mics. BA ruled, per usual, and have several new fans after last night. They're patiently awaiting final cuts from their recording sesh. Gonna be so rad.

Currently reading: Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism by Chogyam Trungpa
Currently recommending: A Path With Heart by Jack Kornfield (a great book with a really unfortunate title and jacket design); The Miracle of Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hanh (if you want to know a little about the basics of meditation); drinking lots of water; red Civic hatchbacks; Brass Bed from Lafayette, LA; summer in Birmingham, AL; awesome friends