Digs

A Different Setting

I like being alone.  I don’t want to continue having roommates.  I enjoy peace and quiet.  I like being left alone.  I like privacy.  I like being right, alone.  I want a studio.  If not this one, then one like it.  I want this one, honestly.  It’s amazing.  I would enjoy starting over, here: Getting rid of most of my clothes, most of my belongings, and doing my old routine in this new space.  Exercise, reading the news, writing my blog, reading books, listening to music, walking dogs, and visiting my family.  There are some new things here I might enjoy, too: the apple tv with netflix, this unexplored neighborhood, and sf nightlife.  Daylife.  I only want friends.  I’m not looking to be in any other kind of relationship.  If it happens, it happens.   

I can exercise at a gym, or inside my own living quarters.  I like to swim, yoga, and hike.  I can immerse in martial arts and self-defense books, videos; and maybe train with experienced teachers.  I can wake early and be a disciplined bodybuilder.  It’s not too late.  Maybe I should jog a bit, too.  Sweat! Every day.  That’s a pretty good rule of thumb, I think.  I’m after improvement, not just maintenance.

I can read news, and olds, ha.  Daily history, and history books, biographies, anything.  What’s new?  Besides me?  I can read the ny times, the economist, the cs monitor, time magazine, wikipedia, yahoo, the onion.  Listen to my daily flash briefing.   Spanish news (la opinion, online), or spanish language radio from anywhere on earth.  Hopefully, the world will improve with me, as I improve - mentally, physically, socially.  Sanity, strength and fitness, friendships with family and others, and keeping healthy.   If I’m sane, then I should be able to work and earn good money, doing something I enjoy (love?).  That would be something.   But I enjoy myself now.  I'm not very ambitious.

The libraries in SF are exceptional.  I would be happy, however, with most any library, truth told.  Plus, libraries these days can order almost anything, from Link+, or whatever.   The internet could keep me busy forever, too, I realize, with its own content.  I could surf google questions, ted, arts and letters, J! archive, wikipedia, blogs, poetry, philosophy, almost anything, really.  But solid paper books will always be close to perfect.  I could work from home.  I could be a professional cuddler.  I could try it, anyway. 

Music?  My amazon echo is great, here.  Better than the tv.  And I can listen with my headphones, too.  The tv might be nice, once in awhile, but I don’t need it.  I like national geographic videos, documentaries, some comedy, an occasional movie.  But books are better.  I might want to get noise-cancelling headphones.

I don’t know what the demand for Wag! walks is, around here.  If I had a car, I could go further to provide walks.  My ebike is good.   I mean, my range is further than just walking, of course.  I don’t need to own a dog.  Maybe some day.  I’m happy just being there for the Wagsters.  

Mom and dad are nearby.  Greg and Liz and Ben and Declan.  Vicki and Erin and Dan and Esme and Summer, and Patrick.  Rose Marie, and Jeannine.  It’s good to have a support system, network, whatever.  Like Michelle and Shawn, come to think of it.  And of course, Julie and Sam and Miette, in San Leandro.  And Marlen and Austin, in Oakland.  And Teresa, in Berkeley, in addition to ex-housemates like Edgar and Michael and Eddie.  I should keep in touch with everybody.  I get by with a little help from my friends.

All that said, where do I want to go in life?  Am I happy just reading my kindle and listening to music, all the time, by myself?  Do I want to travel? (with someone?).   Do I want to publish?  Start a cult?  Make art?  Be a professional?  (law, psych, medicine).   I think I should be an author.  I enjoy it, I’m good at it, I have a lot to say.  What’s my passion?  Not sex.  Oh, well.  

I have a bucket list that doesn’t need anything added to it.  I wonder if I’ll be able to finish it, in my lifetime (another 50 years, say;  I’m 48 years young), actually.   It’s all the music in my book of songs, all the books in my 3 books of must-reads, and my chambers dictionary, my atlas, the wordbook encyclopedia, my trivia collection, J! archive, and all the newbery winners.  And other booklists, like Bill Gates recommendations, and Hugo/Nebula awards.  I could attempt to read a small library!  Maybe I should get serious about speed-reading.  Just to read the award-winners would take decades.  I’m not sure if setting the goal of a book/day is wise, or feasible.  The daily History (5), daily Times, weekly Economist, and email, is plenty enough.  And I don’t want to read myself blind!

Also: Learn martial arts, every day.   Exercise daily.  I need to be disciplined and systematic and motivated.  I’ve given myself homework; I don’t want to flunk myself!  Maybe I can ace life.  I am my hardest critic.  Meditation (daily?) Is part of the project.  In my process toward perfection, I will remain happy with all I have done, and who I am now, in the understanding that One can always get better, but that I’m perfect already, in another sense.   But making money and seeing the world and being engaged, like the Scientology ideal (without joining in that madness), will always be lurking in the back of my mind, until I become Enlightened and Actually Engaged, as a Realized Adept.  Will I get where I'm going?   Will I ever finally reach a point of knowing?  Can I make a mistake?  Can I just sit here?

In the past, I’ve wanted to volunteer, planting trees, getting books to prisoners, leading nature hikes, opening my room for use as a “salon,” and distributing business cards with the link to my blog.   I wanted to get J! Archive on the apple watch.   I wanted WBSM to publish a book of the show’s questions.  I wanted to get paid to be an audiobook narrator (Encyc Brittanica?).  And I wanted a family.  No more.  Maybe my blog will go viral, and I will get a measure of fame.  I think that would be nice.  I can leave my cards in books or the GTU or bulletin boards.  Maybe I don’t need to write about a vision for social change, as it’s in the air already, in what might be called “silent transmission.”   Maybe I’m channeling all my ideas from others.   I do believe in Emptiness, the buddhist teaching.  The whole world is thinking.  The ideas wash around the psyche sphere.  Maybe no one’s ideas are original.  Maybe God thinks everything!   Now everybody's me!