Stuff I've Been Thinking About Lately - A List

• Does the fact that I don't have a regular job, a family, and a significant other make me a loser or does it mean that I have more freedom than even I thought possible?

• In little over a week's time I saw five plays/musicals: Harper Regan (a sort of female version of the Odyssey), Clue (based on the board game/movie), Next to Normal (a harrowing but amazing Pulitzer prize winning Broadway musical), Spalding Gray: Stories Left to Tell (excerpts from his monologues, notebooks, letters, and journal), and East 14th: True Tales of a Reluctant Player (a fantastic monologue by a guy who grew up in Oakland whose father was a pimp).

• Just how many films can I watch at the SF IndieFest (Independent Film Festival) anyway?

• One of my horoscopes for the beginning of the year said I wouldn't have to worry about encountering fire demons, wart-ridden vampires, two-headed dogs, moaning ghosts, wayward werewolves, or extraterrestrial robots this year. Well, he's blasted wrong about the two-headed dogs already and may be wrong about the extraterrestrial robots.

• I'm not spending enough time with my novel and my characters are getting pissed off. Hopefully they won't mutiny or stage a protest.

• I'm in love with my calendar.

• The most important and most difficult thing is forgiving yourself.

• Today I fell madly, deeply in love with the following image:

Glass of Water and Coffeepot (c. 1761) by Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin

• There's a strange tension going on lately with the good and bad. For example, my dog is dying and has diarrhea. One thing I've been having to do is clean her up after each walk. Yesterday, I was talking to her about how unpleasant it is to have to keep wiping her ass but I realized that the day when I stop having to do so is the day she's gone forever. I bowed my head and wept. Just me and dog, alone in the bathroom with the water running. A bad moment fraught with so much good.

• I'm tired and worn out but so happy lately. So many stressful things happening and yet it seems the world has chosen this time of all times to reveal itself and its beauties: the soft warmth of the night and the delicate sweet sun in the daytime, great friends and great conversations, the overwhelming feeling that love is not only everything but it seems to go on forever, inexhaustible. Not necessarily romantic love but love that comes from seeing all the wonders that reside within, all the great gifts. I suppose it's a fitting feeling with Valentine's Day around the corner even if I can't expect a box of chocolates this year.
  

I hope you are all doing very well. Thanks for reading.