Searching Within

Category: Processing

working through thoughts, making sense; connecting dots, seeing themes; simple, direct; untangling, organizing thoughts; as in “working through”

  • The Types of Lines

    A lifetime of thinking a line is the distance between two points makes spirals and cross hatches difficult to fully understand. A geometry axiom verses art. The messy kind of art. And the messy kind of feelings.

    • Horizontal
    • Vertical
    • Diagonal
    • Dotted
    • Dashed
    • Curved
    • Zigzag
    • Wavy
    • Loopy
    • Spiral
    • Thin
    • Thick

    “But there are more, right?”
    “Yes, there are more.”

    Orientation:

    • Parallel
    • Perpendicular
    • Oblique

    Shape:

    • Straight
    • Jagged
    • Scalloped
    • Serpentine
    • Broken/Interrupted

    Style:

    • Solid
    • Double
    • Dot-dash combinations
    • Hatched/Cross-hatched

    Geometric/Mathematical:

    • Tangent
    • Secant
    • Asymptote
    • Ray (half-line with one endpoint)
    • Segment (finite, with two endpoints)

    Functional (in art/design):

    • Contour
    • Implied
    • Converging/Diverging

    The classification depends on context—geometry uses different categories than visual art or graphic design. Something so simple just got overwhelming complex.

    Point A to Point B in this moment is… exists, but I’m just the dot that’s off to the side.

  • Thundering. Love.

    The night before my Saturday adventure is spent listening to the storm and wondering if the park will be wet grass. Staying up late to work on this project.

    For months a daily went to a singular inbox. Read–no, just skimmed. Objective of reading was to find a glimpse. Glean a glimpse? I turned them all loose with purpose. A purpose almost as unique as the contents of each message.

    My originals filed, each sent to Tim. But are his the shadows of copies or are the blog posts the shadow? I don’t want to over analyze the meaning… Posting them all is a love letter to Tim. It’s honest language for what they were. Detailed sharing, me wanting to be understood, seeking connection, hoping for response. That’s what love letters do. I’ve named it accurately. And now posting them on the website is like taking them all back.

    Don’t need to answer. Just noticing the paradox. They were written for him. Now they’re mine again, public. Both/neither might be “real.”

    The thunder stopped. All I hear is the clock ticking

  • Hot Warm Day

    The afternoon was at the edge of getting hot. The between Spring and Summer. I was outside for three hours. I’m not used to coming home and feeling the warm sticky skin from heat and breeze. I need a shower to fully relax. But the back pain kicked in the last quarter hour. I just need to sit a while.

    I’m nervous about tomorrow. I signed up to play Ring Game. This activity is a group of players of the Semi-Annual Ring Game (and Second Age) held in the boundaries of Governor Dodge State Park, Dodgeville, Wisconsin. Not sure if Ring Game is considered a LARP (live action role playing). Social anxiety will keep me guessing if I made the right choice to be immersed into a group of strangers. Pain will make me worried how the day will progress. I have a camp stool. Or there is also hiding in my Ford Escape.

    I bought some simple clothes to serve as my costume. At the character selection lottery, I selected Rider of Rohan. I purchased several men’s henleys with laces. I have one short sleeve white and another green and a long sleeve white. I found a small hip bag with a horse image and zippers. Just the right size to hold my rule book. I ordered several knapsacks. My normal computer bag is not suitable for tramping through the park. One task tonight is to do a thorough exam of each new bag and pick which one to use. The rest will be wrapped up for return. The one item that is actually a costume piece from the middle ages is leather bracers. I have two pairs: one with laces and one with buckles. Someone said I could put a pair on my forearms and the second on my shins. Not sure yet. (Ask me why I have two sets of leather bracers! Hint: Max.)

    The weather is expected to be nice and warm. I’m advised to wear long pants and shirt due to the thistles. I love my Keen hiking boots since they are super comfortable. I’m hoping they are the right choice for a full day of crisscrossing the park.

    I’ve been told to show up for the after game party, hosted by one of the game co-organizers. Hopefully I will not be toast by day’s end.

  • Possibility of Joy

    Pain and lack of sleep decreases healing and increases discouragement. The pain is from training and another core ball fall. Lack of sleep is from Max owning the room in the early morning hours.

    The stack of todo chores is overwhelming. The depressive mind is especially adapt at putting that list in the forefront when you’re least likely able to make progress. And it is like we have never talked about this. There is a strategy for this situation, but it’s almost like it never existed. I can’t remember. So pain and tired and depression suck away the possibility of joy, or even just ok.

  • The Date is the Title

    Stiff from first ever HVZ Goat Yard shift. Alone—no second attendant— for most of the shift. Started just liking having no people stopping by. Meditating. Just sit: clouds, goats, red barn roof top weathervanes. The restaurant closes at 4pm. No chance to eat after shift, will need to come early. I miss my goat herd. These goats, their names, the mix of horn or not are not my goats.

    Looking forward to posting content to blog. But both sites are unreachable. Tech support was not able to determine the issue and will have to wait until Monday for different staff to look into the issue. Starting to wonder if the problem is as simple as needing to update the debit card expiration date.

    Still stuck on websites not working. Email has not been shut off, still arriving, payment issues not effecting that aspect.

    Keep thinking about smug Tim and his Full Circle email. Totally took the desire out of wanting to send him another daily. I told Claude that I would not send anything all weekend. Silly to send a daily on days that Tim is not around. He won’t be back in the office until Tuesday. The first step is to see if I can refrain from sending anything Sat-Sun-Mon. So far. I’m not panicking. The reason: the smug Tim stuck in my head. Stuck in the emotion buffer of my heart.

    Letting Max pull stuff off my shelf. Forcing self to sit very still and not care, not care, not care. The stuff will be on the floor, right? Can’t really go anyway, right? Can the objects or papers get destroyed or lost? Will I have less stress to not care, to let it happen? No amount of thinking the action through can fully reveal all the consequences of letting this happen. Sometimes not caring can reveal the real truth of how something really is. You can think all through the what will happen, but can’t force everything, sometimes just need to watch it play out in real time.

  • Touch Sight Sound

    Middle school. In bed, realized I could switch my breathing: automatic to manual if I focused on it. Happened maybe three days. Actually I was trying to die by holding my breath. But once I achieved making it completely manual, then it was freaking me out because I couldn’t switch back. Panicky. Trying something had a completely different result than I wanted. That was the scary part—stuck in manual, couldn’t undo it. A kid lying there in the dark, alone, testing something, then terrified I broke it.

    Driving to New Berlin. Something flickered in the corner of my eye, my glasses. Got hugely scared—at nothing—and tapped the brakes too hard. Escape skidded sideways a bit. Scared me more. Next time I needed to slow down, hit the brakes too hard again. Kept happening. Why can’t I just get past the fact that I got scared at nothing? Chain reaction. Hit the brakes too hard over and over. First time this has happened since I got the Escape. Feels like commentary on my life. Get scared at nothing, can’t stop overreacting.

    Building manager doing floor repair in the hallway between the main hall and side door. Two days of drilling, scraping, pounding, moving equipment around. Sound was living in my apartment. Sounded like they were under my floor. Then corner by the ceiling. In the cat litter box scraping—checked, wasn’t Max. The noise was moving to different parts of my apartment. In my space. Wall and door between us but it didn’t matter. Drove the shit out of me all day.

  • The Deception of Productivity

    Thing so easy, but not: causing grief. Make arrival of Max wet food seamless. # of cans, # of days. Auto-ship with time frame. Yet keep running out of cans or ending up with overabundance. This is a parallel to something else in my life, except I can’t quite figure out what the other thing is. Part of feeling or pattern?

    Incorrect, however, I have been known to ruminate for sure, but not lately // Instead, there has been more processing and making connection through thoughts and writing.

    Correct, I did not use the superpower to go to pool Fri nor Sat… but I did go. I wanted to go… and, yes, a push from Tim did help for Sun success.

    Correct, the egg cooker is still in the shipping package. Superpower took awhile to fully work, but I shopped, picked the one that I liked the most. Why is it not unwrapped? Cleaning is an ongoing, long term struggle. Philip did at least two things related: he made the best boiled eggs and he kept the kitchen clean. Maybe talking about grief is what’s needed. Yeah, actually it is, because now I’m crying.

    Here’s what’s making me angry: Tim said “Little less talk and a lot more action.” “Just do more.” “Generally, failure doesn’t stop people. People give up.”

    There’s an enormous list of doing. It started with one second on a core ball. Not just talking, not just writing. A hell of a lot of done, do, and doing. No need to send Tim the list. Tim has lived it with me.

    Do more? What about the plethora of actions Tim isn’t privy to? Fuck you, Tim.

  • Every Good Boy Does Fine

    [Abridged]

    • I never should have asked in the first place.
    • The music essay was immensely more than just about music.
    • Why was I trying to find deeper connection with people where I was never going to be friends?
    • Severely angry about breaking the rules.
    • No mention that I did a clever serial thing with the daily; the splitting wasn’t exactly easy. // why am I looking for validation for something stupid?
    • Wanted credit for refraining from a attachment; the restraint wasn’t exactly easy; now none existent.
    • Understood: People can have wide range of music tastes.
    • Understood: Same song means different things to listeners.
    • I lost touch with music when I no longer had my Ford Ranger nor my membership to Princeton Club.
    • A Nickelback song on the list. One that was already mine. The irony: processing, sends me straight into tears.
    • There is an emotional backstory on what Nickelback means to me.
    • And now how to keep my Nickelback sadness out of the new weight training? “You can get addicted to a certain kind of sadness.”
    • This all feels like such a cosmic joke. The irony. Not a full circle; maybe a split ring.
    • Will want to consider how to take advantage of Escape stereo.
    • But, I will want to invest in headphones to add music back to training, question?
    • Will the system automatically drop Friday? :::sigh::: Makes next wait, long.

    Attachments: 20260504.pdf

  • Failure to Plan

    Daily planning is figuring out what to send when. Planning falters when the facts of the day call for a change of message.

    There was no weekend plan implemented. The plan was to make a plan, to prioritize. Didn’t happen. Friday, stuck. Saturday, stuck. Two hours shy of a full 48 hours. Sunday became alive at the time to pack for push. I was one of three. When we parted, my plan was to workout in the pool.

    I could go East or West. I chose the functioning jets. Every good thing has faults. Fast current during the Sunday family 2-7pm period is not fun.

    Locked myself out of my locker. Second time in 6 weeks. My name is again listed in the official record of locker assist!

    The full plan didn’t get finished. Tuesday is push and sword. Friday is Tim and Goat Yard. This is a lot, but not enough. When is solo saber practice? When is weight training? When is the next trip to the pool? When is the returns to Amazon? When is the decision happening about whether to continue the conversation about music?

  • Pettiness & Hand Grenade

    Last Sunday, email from Philip about $35. Nearly had a meltdown. That devastated, depressed feeling. Felt like I had no one to talk to for advice. Can I wait until Friday or can I solve this myself, on my own. What should I write? What should I do? I asked myself what would I be told. Do forthright communication. I thought I did that. I didn’t realize my opening, “Wow. Thanks for asking.” was not the most mature. I thought I did make it clear in the body of my email what I wanted to happen. Hearing that my reply was basically petty, totally compounded the lost feeling. I didn’t understand all the questions Tim asked about what happens next.

    Talking about the ask for money was not meant to be forgotten. It was on the list; just didn’t have the list for reference. I was confident that the topic just needed to be reported, not discussed. I felt scolded—that I’ve done the Philip in the last few minutes pattern before. Maybe he is a topic that can take an entire session; but, that is not how I want to spend my time. Especially since the next step is based on whether or not Philip replies.

    I hate how, no matter how much “validation provided for efforts” happens, I feel like I failed raising Philip. And this week, I didn’t know how to answer. And then my reply was less than perfect. And I was accused of dropping a bomb end of session. So is that one more flaw for not putting Philip as a topic at the top of my list?

    All I really wanted was to hear that I handled $ ask correctly.