August 6, 2012: Post 573 (2012 Day 219)
August 6, 2012
Daily Comment
There is a "higher purpose" (or an ulterior motive) to me writing this blog. It started with the purpose of keeping track of my food and my weight loss, the two things being related, and the blogging being a part of the weight-loss plan.
When it had served this purpose, I decided to re-purpose the blog (health issues are not superficial, but they are also not that interesting and just one more thing in life that keeps us from enjoying the here-and-now), de-emphasize the food and weight part, and take a few minutes a day to write about what I'm thinking about in that time-slice.
My goal was gaining insight by self-expression; secondarily, to give anyone interested some insight into what I'm thinking about, in small, somewhat random doses, and perhaps start a useful discussion. The nice thing about a goal like that is that, unlike weight loss, it is open-ended.
During the workweek, I tend to write the commentary at work, because I have periods of low-activity boredom, and no appealing outlet available. I open up a file (creatively called blog.txt), write the commentary and send it to myself to put in the blog later. I do very little editing in this process, and, usually, none at all once it's been emailed.
I'm often interrupted in the writing process, and that affects the blog as well.
I try to do the commentary like jazz: I write the first sentence (the "head"), then start riffing, and see where it goes. Sometimes, when I'm interrupted in-process, when I come back to it and write, I'm in a different head-space, with different ideas. I re-read what I wrote previously, sometimes having been consciously or subconsciously mulling it around in my head, and the comment takes a different direction than what I had in mind as I wrote those parts earlier. Sometimes, I don't know where to take what I have written before.
But the thing is, it is just like playing music to me - I am motivated to do it for my own selfish reasons: Just to improve my writing, entertain myself, and, along the way, see what there is to learn about myself; is self-improvement too cliche?
Like performing music in public, I hope it is entertaining/interesting to someone other than myself, but whether it is or isn't, that isn't really why I'm doing it. If the music or the story is satisfactory to me, as I write it, then I feel good about it. Feedback is the icing on the cake, and always has a positive effect both immediately (attention!), and when I process and incorporate its lesson, and it becomes part of my life going forward.
I surprise myself sometimes, in that my written stream-of-thought takes an unexpected turn. That's exactly like jazz. It is what happens whenever I make music, because I don't think about, plan, or use someone else's idea when I do that, either.
I channel all the influences, conscious and subconscious, and all my feelings about the other musicians, the set and setting, into making music as I actually do it, and it is always as though it were for the first time. That is the ride, the path, the train, whatever metaphor works for you, that is it.
Getting to that point is my everyday goal.
This blog is part of that.
Please leave a comment if you visit my blog. Thank you!
Food and Diet Section
Today's Weight: 203.2 lbs
Yesterday's Weight: 204.0 lbs
Day Net Loss/Gain: - 0.8 lbs
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| Year 2012 daily weight from December 31, 2011. |
Diet Comment:
25-hour fast. I was still feeling full when I broke the fast at dinner-time. Ate a light dinner. Hungry by the time I got home at 2am, had a late-night snack, probably undid all the good of the fast. No biggie.
Food Log
Breakfast
Skipped.
Lunch
Broccoli slaw and roasted turkey breast.
Dinner
At Ruby Tuesday's:
Skipped.
Lunch
Broccoli slaw and roasted turkey breast.
Dinner
At Ruby Tuesday's:
 |
| From the salad bar: Spinach, Spring Mix, cucumbers, mushrooms, tomatoes, green peppers, hard-boiled egg, blue cheese dressing. Two plates like this. |
 |
| Cajun fish (what kind? Who knows?) with grilled zucchini. |
Hard-boiled eggs and guacamole.
Liquid Intake
Please leave a comment if you visit my blog. Thank you!
posted by Reverend Ken at
7:47 AM
5 Comments:
I am starting to feel like the dumb little kid I always felt like as a child. I know this isn't true but I am feeling left behind by you two. I am content with exploring this as a memory but I didn't know if you knew that that is what it felt like growing up with you. Love you both
Joan: This is a disturbing post to me. First of all, let's get this out of the way, I have never, ever, not in my most immature, mean thinking 50+ years ago, and certainly not later, thought you were dumb. Never.
And, while you say you know it isn't true, the fact that you FEEL you are being left behind by Andy and I means that you have discounted the intellectual truth you say you know, and are living with the emotional truth.
I am certain being the 'kid sister' in our family was a punishing ordeal, and I live with the guilt of being part of the problem back then.
I don't know how to 'fix' the emotions you are feeling right now. I want you to feel loved, not abandoned, and also feel like the love I know you have for Andy and myself is accepted, cherished and returned, without qualification.
I agree completely that writng on this blog is like playing jazz.. I'm reminded of something that happened when I was playing with a band out on Long island. The pianist John Coppola was the most evolved musician in the group, and he and I were the dominant personalities in the group, although by mutual agreement nobody was annointed leader of the band.We were experimenting in free form music. One day, 4 of the 7 people loosely affiliated with the band - myself on flute and sax, John on piano, his wife Lorna singing and drunning on bongoes, and Larry Gordon on sax, were playing and we were unable toget into any kind of a groove. John, who had a short fuse and a violent temper only sporadically controlled, slammed his hands on the piano top,stood up, and pointed at me,practically screaming, his finger and voice shaking from his passion, he said, "You're fucking up.you're fucking this up. When I play this, then you play that." I felt offended and automatically went defensive, in my typical passive aggressive way, with sharp, hurt intended, provocative words.the gist of which was"you're not the leader of this band, you can't talk to me that way, and FUCK YOU! " John immediately jumped on me and tried to wring my neck.We struggled right out the door and ended up rolling around in the snow, like the assholes we were being.The band never played together again. I understand now (in retrospect) that
there were mitigating circumstances, a tension between us that was completely unrelated to making music. The unresolved issues between John and I were never acknowledged, both of us caught up in this ego trip that blinded us to what was actually going on., I think that if we could have remembered our aim of forming a freeform jazz band, after we had cooled off, we could have talked it out, uncovering the " real " issues dividing us, rather than "running away" from the situation , the band could have played on.
Joan, Its only natural to feel that way. I think that our sibling dynamic has always bee dual, competing and assisting at the same time I think we each compare ourselves to the other two and each find ourselves lacking in one way or another. Remind yourself of this - we're each lost in the dark and trying to find our way to the light.We're just trying to get through the night at peace with our life. These discuusions can be of use. If we each share how we have individually tried to make our way ( stories, experiences ,thoughts, memories, questions, ideas , what has worked for us and what has not)then perhaps through discussion of our very differnt approaches, we can cherry-pick from these disparate ways, accepting from each whatever resonates to assist us getting further down the road. If you disagree with something said, say so. if you don't understand something, ask the appropriate questions.We each know and understand things that the others don't.
Love.
First of all, you have nothing to be guilty about. I am sure every youngest feels this way. You are always behind and there is no catching up. Second, I have to deal with this because I do know that I am not stupid. It is probably one of the few things I can really hang on to. This is an old memory. I think the two of you use a different vocabulary (and obviously, one you share) to talk about experience. That does not make mine less legitimate.
So, I am also interested in fear. In fact, anxiety disorders are my clinical specialty- not by any accident. I have been hounded by fear since I can remember. And, like Andy, I know that if I push through it it has no hold on me. Sometimes, though, I just can't do it for a while.
Joan, if Ken and I seem to share a diifferent vocabulary than you, I think its because we haven't bee forced to learn to communicate in formal technical academic language, but rather have only developed our vocabulary by osmosis from popular culture. Ken has a great command of language and a great vocabulary and chooses his words with great care for their specific meaning and nuance, as do I. To speak and understand the language we're using, you won't be able to transpose it into technical terms that you've been accustomed to. I think understanding some of the concepts is more challengin than the language for all of us..
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