Degrees of Freedom

The picture my grandfather carried into WWII

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 07 May 2010 15:18:00 +0000

Grandma - 1947, originally uploaded by jenniferisaacson.

A new direction

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 11:50:00 +0000

This blog is going to take a whole new direction. I am starting a meditation practice and this will be my journal. It is my intention to begin attending zazen at the Great Plains Zen Center as soon as possible. Until then, I'm on my own. I'm re-reading The Three Pillars of Zen right now.

My practice is counting the breath.

Today I used the memory foam pillow and sat in the office in front of the closet door. I fed the cats first so they wouldn't be meowing. I used a 10-minute meditation timer I found on YouTube. I sat in a half-lotus; I'll have to work up to a full lotus. My spine wasn't aligned quite right because my lower back hurt. It was really difficult to keep counting the breath without being distracted by many other thoughts. I kept hearing the song Flying Without Wings in my head, which we're using in our wedding.

I feel calmer and more awake now. It is my intention to start waking up at 6 am in order to meditate daily. Rick is almost never up that early.

A day for me

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 16:58:00 +0000

I have a whole day to myself today; well, at least the next 8 hours. I have an appointment for a haircut, but other than that, I don't have any idea what to do. Sure, I know what I *should* be doing - the kitchen is a mess, there are piles of laundry, etc. But damn, I just want a day with nothing, no expectations. I think that's what I miss most about being single. You're not accountable to anyone, there's no one to disappoint except yourself.

Don't get me wrong, I love my fiance and I love our relationship. But sometimes I really do identify with the "ball and chain" metaphor. I probably impose that on myself more than he does on me. And I know he feels the same. It's definitely time for a day away from each other, and I wish I had somewhere else to go. What with the price of gas, and the bills I need to pay, it's just not happening.

I'm just full of whine today - it's too windy/cold out to go biking or walking. The house is a mess but I don't feel like doing anything about it. I don't want to watch TV. I don't want to... the list goes on. I haven't any idea what I do want to do, and that feels odd and somehow pathetic. I should know, but feeling that only makes it worse. Just thinking makes it worse. The Nike slogan would apply here. Just fucking do it. Do something, do anything.

Nostalgia for the bad times

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 01:54:00 +0000

When I was a teenager, I guess I was what you'd call emo. I thought that everything had this impossibly deep meaning that spoke to me and I was this special snowflake and no one could ever understand the abyss of pain I felt inside.

I have volumes of notebooks from that period. Some bad poetry, but mostly angry or suicidal ramblings. When I was old enough to drive, I'd just drive as fast and as far as I could before I figured I had to turn around or I'd get in deep shit. I always drove west. East was out; there's a big lake there, but why I never went north or south, I can't figure.

I smoked. Not a lot. Mostly to be rebellious. I thought I was tough. I guess, considering what I've been through, that I am. People have used the word "resilient" more than once. I smoked Marlboro Reds for a long, long time, until my lungs couldn't handle it and I switched to Lights. Lighting up a cigarette was automatic once I'd started the car. I couldn't have coffee - or later, beer - without a cigarette.

I didn't drink much until college, and then there were a fair amount of drunken nights. I always seem to pull myself back from the brink; it's like my home is right at the edge of the cliff. I remember laying down in the middle of campus, looking at the stars, because it just seemed like the thing to do, and I don't think I could have walked much farther.

It's ironic that someone with panic disorder has taken so many risks. I could have died 500 times over. People call me "adventurous" and I just laugh. I wasn't adventurous, I just didn't give a shit whether I lived or died. Nothing, nothing seemed to matter. It was a perverse kind of freedom of feeling. I expressed it in all kinds of unhealthy ways, I guess, but I did something. I didn't fucking sit around on my ass and watch TV and silently hate.

And I guess that's what I'm nostalgic for; I miss feeling dangerous. I miss the will to destroy myself. That seems so bizarre at first glance, but I think that what adulthood brings is a complacency around misery. We just accept so much monotony and disappointment, we let ourselves get trapped in situations we don't much care for, we fail to acknowledge that angst that never really went away in adolescence.

That angst was my friend for years. That angst made me do a lot of things I probably shouldn't have done, but none of which I regret. Everything I regret has happened during my so-called adult life and is the result of acting responsible or mature instead of being true to myself.

I miss Highway 18 at two in the morning. It will just never be the same.

Life is short

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 19:30:00 +0000

This is unlikely to make a lot of sense because I just have to empty my head.

So, my grandfather died a few days ago and I just went to the funeral. I wasn't particularly close to him - I don't think anyone was, really - but I was really close to my grandmother. He'd had Alzheimer's for years so he hadn't been the same person I grew up with for the better part of a decade. My grandmother died three years ago give or take a couple of weeks. Losing him too just feels like the end of an era.

They were the epitome of "the greatest generation." They survived the depression, they both served in World War II (My grandmother was in the WACS, my grandfather in the army air corps). They were a devout Irish Catholic family, and they raised six kids. They had two more children that died while infants. They owned their own business and ran it for decades. When they retired, they went on cruises around the world. They were extra attentive to their grandchildren. They were the anchors of our family. We used to all live within 10 miles of them; now we're scattered across 5 states.

The people in my generation are complete and utter pussies compared to our grandparents. We've never had to go through what they went through. We've been handed a middle-class life on a platter; we didn't have to scrape and save and work our asses off for it. I can't even imagine working 6 days a week and raising 6 kids and having any kind of life left over. I can't imagine being the one everyone relied on, for advice, for a hug, for help fixing your car, for organizing family gatherings.

I was just struck by how short life is. We're here for a blink of an eye and then we're gone. What the hell are we doing watching TV and surfing the net and playing videogames?

To be continued...

This is horrible, and yet I LOL'd.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 16:09:00 +0000

A little late, but...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 23:15:00 +0000

Flowers fall, while weeds flourish

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 20:05:00 +0000

So I'm reading Sit Down and Shut Up by Brad Warner, and on page 20 he quotes Dogen:

Flowers while loved fall, weeds while hated flourish.

Warner goes on to say "Whether we like or hate what life hands us, it is what it is and that's all it is."

I feel like I can stop reading right here, because this is really it, isn't it? It doesn't really matter that we love flowers if what we've got is a garden full of weeds. The universe doesn't give a rat's ass. It just presents what's there. Before I sound too depressed, I actually think this is an incredibly useful way to look at life. Our desires, our selves, are really irrelevant in the big scheme of things, yet we make them the central focus of our lives.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 22:43:00 +0000

I LOL'd

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 14:22:00 +0000

moar funny pictures

Another way to waste time

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 00:28:00 +0000

I couldn't see what the fuss was about stumbleupon until I tried it. Basically, you tell it what kind of stuff you're into (music, art, technology, etc) and it sends you to a web site it recommends based on your interests. You tell it whether or not you like the site, and its recommendations get better and better. I doubted this last part, until I told it a few sites I liked. Its recommendations were dead-on, and I immediately found incredibly useful sites I hadn't even known existed.

Nothing to lose

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 19:07:00 +0000

I had an epiphany of sorts the other day, when I was feeling desperately low. This isn't really making sense to me yet, so I'm going to try and flesh it out a bit here.

I wanted to say something to a loved one, but was afraid of the potential reaction. Then I realized, I have nothing to lose. I've already lost everything at some future point, given the impermanent nature of all things. It could be said that I never "had" anything to begin with. Nothing is mine. I don't own any thing. I don't own any person. Or relationship. Or concept. There's nothing I can hold in my hands and say, "this is mine, now and forevermore."

When I operate under the delusion that I can "have" things, people, relationships, I act in ways that facilitate gaining or keeping them. I act in unnatural ways because I don't want to lose the one I love, lose my source of income, lose some thing I own. I can't act in any sort of pure fashion, because I'm concerned with keeping these things intact. In the process, I become just a collection of these things I keep, and I lose my real self.

When I have nothing to lose, I am perfectly free. I am not concerned at all with grabbing and clutching and holding on. Nothing has a hold on me, either. I am unfettered by possessions, by concepts, by that-which-I-can't-live-without. I can live without any of it. Or not. I don't even own my body. It will die and fade away. I can't make it younger, I can't keep it alive indefinitely, and to cling to it is a kind of madness.

There is no such thing as failure when one has nothing to lose. Failure is losing, and if there is no losing, there is no failure. Therefore it frees one to try anything - absolutely anything at all - because there is no clinging to some idea of "success" or even worthiness. I can't succeed at this blog post, or at my relationship, or at life. I can't lose, either.

to me, this lays to rest the conundrum of emptiness in buddhism. Why try, if nothing matters? Why do anything, if it's all empty and impermanent? Realizing there's nothing to lose, one can say "Why not?" Time is infinite, not limited. Everything that's ever existed, and ever will, exists right now, and it's not going anywhere - just constantly changing form. The leaves that were on the tree yesterday are on the ground today, and will be swept up and bagged tomorrow. No leaf was lost. Nothing went "wrong" in that scenario. If I had picked the leaf, if I had burned the tree, it would produce a different outcome, but still nothing was lost.

There is no point in keeping it all in. There is no point in restricting oneself. Consequences abound, but when acts with compassion, you cannot go wrong. Only when you fear you have something to lose will you go astray, for then you will cling and clutch and grab to avoid losing that thing. You cannot have love and fear in the same breath. Only the truly fearless can truly love.

Stay tuned

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 22:44:00 +0000

You know the old adage, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all? That's why I haven't been posting. I feel as if I'll drag down the collective mood of the Internet with what I have to say.

I have been twittering, however, and the short sound bites seem much more manageable in a state where taking a shower is a major effort.

These look exactly like mine. Well, a year ago.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:13:00 +0000

So funny I cried.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 15:12:00 +0000

OMG. I am sitting here with tears flowing. This is possibly the funniest thing I've seen on the Internet, period.

(Some knowledge of the stupidity of Yahoo Answers required to get the joke.)

Finally, some common sense.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 13:24:00 +0000

One person died and hundreds were hospitalized during the Chicago marathon last Sunday, when temperatures were unseasonably warm and water supplied by the race organizers ran out. Immediately after this story broke, I wondered, "Why didn't they just stop running?!" It just seems unfathomable that you would run until the point of total exhaustion, unless you were being chased by a bear or an ax murderer. Finally, someone in the media is asking this question. "If the water supply runs short, here's a helpful hint: Stop running. It's just a race. Don't die for it."

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 18:19:00 +0000

I don't think I've written about politics at all in this blog, though it's probably not hard to guess to which end of the spectrum I gravitate. All I have to say is that my conservative fiancé is now going to vote for a Democrat because of the war in Iraq. Also, 3 out of my 4 grandparents served during WWII. Two of them think this war is a complete load of crock. The other one passed away before it really kicked into high gear.

The war is a big middle finger to the people of this country (never mind the rest of the world!). This poster, found on Annoy.com, sums up my feelings just fine.

Doing, not thinking

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 20:16:00 +0000

My life has seriously gotten off track in the past four or five months, and I've come to realize that a large chunk of that is because I spend a lot of time thinking, and not enough time doing. I think about my situation (financial, emotional, relationship). I think about where I got off track. I think about why I got off track. I think about what I should be doing. I think about why I'm not doing what I should be doing (yes, I see the irony in this post). I think about making plans to do what I should be doing. But I actually do very little.

La Pianiste and sadomasochism

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 19:16:00 +0000

So, I watched the Michael Haneke film La Pianiste (subtitled into English, my French is not that good). I've become something of a Haneke fan, having recently also seen Funny Games (the original) and Caché. I like movies that make you think, that aren't predictable, and though Haneke could be considered pretentious, predictable is definitely not a word you'd apply to his films.

La Pianiste and Funny Games made me feel like I needed a shower afterwards. They're disturbing to watch and make you feel as if you're an accomplice to the horror that unfolds (which was precisely Haneke's point, at least with Funny Games). When I saw that La Pianiste had to do with sadomasochism, I was picturing something more like Secretary, but I should have known better coming from Haneke. His version of SM is incredibly raw and twisted. There were parts that made me uncomfortable precisely because I identified with them, and then there were parts that just fucking creeped me out.

I've been doing SM for what, six years now, and it's interesting to get outside the bubble of the BDSM "community" and see how others perceive it. There are plenty of people who practice power dynamics in their relationships who've never heard of "BDSM," yet almost everyone seems to have an opinion about what it is. It's kind of funny watching people act like they've just discovered some new cult - and then pretending to know what it's all about. Really, you can't. I have no deep understanding of why adults dress up as babies. I can't even fathom what motivates furries. So I don't feel qualified to offer any opinions on their mental state.

I'm disappointed that Haneke didn't break the mold of OMGPERVERTZ!!11!. It seemed too trite to depict the main character in La Pianiste as this tortured soul who sought masochism as an escape. He made it too easy for the audience to feel disgusted by her desires, and too easy to avoid confronting their own. Sexual masochism was portrayed as necessarily a dead end. Haneke's not known for happy endings, and I didn't expect one here. Yet I'm disappointed by the misunderstanding of SM.

Tearjerker redux

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 21:20:00 +0000

If this doesn't make you cry, then just never speak to me again.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 21:15:00 +0000

Why I don't keep in touch

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 16:24:00 +0000

Recently I've become horrible at keeping in touch with my friends. I haven't been an every-day-phone-call kind of girl since high school, but lately I've gone months without contacting a few friends. It's weird, because they're interesting people, there's no bad blood between us, and I truly care about them. Yet I find it hard to pick up the phone or shoot off an e-mail. I know it's partly guilt because it's been so long, and I don't know what to say ("sorry, I was abducted by aliens"). It's also because my life has been in something of a rut these last few months, and I don't want to drag anyone else down, nor do I feel I have an abundance of interesting tidbits to offer.

I'm also not the most social person unless I'm prodded. In college, I was forced to interact with people. One day two concerned friends showed up at my dorm room after I'd been MIA in the cafeteria. (Unfortunately, I was in the middle of having phone sex when they started pounding on the door.)

Furthermore, my friends are widely dispersed, so it's difficult to see them or get any two of them in the same place at once. (Actually, only two of them have ever met each other, and they don't get along well.) Here are the locations of my six closest friends. The closest is two hours away. (Sorry Canadians, I was too lazy to find a map with provincial boundaries. Those markers are supposed to be Calgary and Vancouver.)

Anyway, whine whine whine, I need to make some friends nearby, and I need to keep in touch with the diaspora.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 16:11:00 +0000

This is obviously political humor, but I'm also a geography buff.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 14:39:00 +0000

I forgot our anniversary.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 13:44:00 +0000

Is it horrible that I forgot it was 9/11 until I got online?

Is it horrible that I don't feel anything about it anymore? I didn't know anyone who died, I don't know anyone who had family or friends die, and I'd never been to NYC before 9/11 (just once, a year and a half later).