#365Gratitude Day 269: Cat company

Saturday night we were out late, playing Ingress with our friends Kate and Leah, who were also visiting.  Then when we got home, both Missy and I had a case of the late-night-can't-sleeps.  I had a bunch of stuff on my mind, including just seeing my awesome cousin, being fueled with a creative storm of ideas and next-step-actions about a side software project I'm beginning, and the book I'm writing.

Somehow this little guy got into the kitchen cabinets, and is hanging UPSIDE DOWN out the bottom of one.  Hysterical!

Missy was no help either though.  Not that I mind.  For some reason. she got looking at funny cat pictures on the internet.  Specifically, she was looking at this blog post about the various silly ways that cats ineptly hide.  I don't have the link to the post, but the two of us lay in bed next to each other, paralyzed with laughter over how ridiculous some of these pictures were.  I did find one of them to share with you just now.

We laughed until our stomachs ached.  Eventually, we managed to get to sleep.

I did pay for it on Sunday though.  I was a useless bag of slop all day.  I napped.  Eventually, everyone but Marybeth left the house, too.  Kate and Leah had to go home.  Missy was off to take pictures of the blood moon with Richard.  

I worked on my software project for a while, making wireframes so I could discuss them with my partner-in-crime Moliére, and then called my mom.  

Yang looks tired, but Yin, on her back, is really showing her sleepy best.  THAT is some prize quality laying about.

I hit the recliner, and stayed there.  As we talked on the phone, and I felt my lingering exhaustion, my awesome cats modeled the way I felt for me.  

I laughed, a very tired laugh.

#365Gratitude Day 268: Once every four years or so

I have these two cousins, S. & A.  They're wonderful, and I love them both very much.  One lives in California, and the other in Vermont.  I don't see them much.

A. was in Baltimore on Saturday, and I got to see and have lunch with her before she left.  I worked out how she could get from Baltimore to me, in Virginia, without too much hassle.  I picked her up at the train station in Alexandria. took her to lunch at a place I like, and got her to the airport without hassle.

Since she's not from around here, I sent her a helpful map with some funny annotations showing where I'd pick her up, and how close we really were going to be to the airport.

She laughed, good and hard.  Then at lunch we had a really goofy, funny waiter, who made us both laugh.  We spent great, quality time together, that made me miss her all that much more.  

I'm not thrilled that it's been four years since I saw her.  I really want to make plans to see her more.  But I'm thrilled that when we were together it was like no time had passed at all.

I'm really grateful she's family to me.

#365Gratitude Day 267: Again.

I listen to a lot of Alan Watts lectures, and audiobooks on philosophy.  I do this a lot in the car.  

It can be challenging.

For one, fairly often my GPS will interrupt the book to announce a turn.  Or, even more common, some concept I'm listening to is so darn dense that when I first hear it, I don't quite get it, and need to hear it again.

Fortunately, the audible app has this great "go back seconds button."  But it's not like I can tap it while I'm driving.  That's just not safe.

Well, the other day I made a small but wondrous discovery.  I have an audio control button on the steering wheel of my car.  When I'm playing an audible book that "go back a track" button is just the same as tapping the software button to go back 30 seconds!  

AWESOME. 

(I also realized that I should only do this when I'm in the car by myself.  I can't even imagine how annoying it would be to have to hear the same 30 seconds of a philosophy lecture three or four times in a row as a passenger.  If you like, you can have your gratitude be that I won't do this to you.)

#365Gratitude Day 266: There's an app (and a movie) for that (and there isn't)

So I've been contemplating shenpa lately, because I've been listening to Pema Chödrön's fantastic lecture, Getting Unstuck.

Shenpa is a tibetan buddhist word that means "attachment."  It's the way in which we have a thought, and get hooked by that thought.  It drags us down, drags us away from the present moment.  That attachment comes in generally three varieties:

1. We get angry.
2. We go numb.
3. We cling to pleasure.

The problem isn't the thoughts themselves.  We are thinking beings.  It's the hook, the attachment that keeps us from staying present.  Instead we get stuck in our mind.  But we don't have to do that.  Or rather, we can mindfully unhook ourselves.

There's a scene from a favorite movie of mine, Peaceful Warrior that shows this happening.

A bit later on, Dan, that soggy looking, wet angry gymnast goes to the gym to tryouts for the pommel horse position on the team.  Fresh from his de-bridging, he takes a shower to prepare.  As the water pours down on him, he consciously unhooks this time.  The water slows down.  There are no thoughts.  He is fully present.  Then, without worry, without attachment, he performs his routine.  He's amazing. 

Yet still later, he goes back to visit Socrates (the guy who you just saw push him off the bridge), to celebrate his victory.  He's thrilled at the success he's had using Socrates' "mind trick."  Socrates chides him, telling him he's not learned anything.  "How long did you stay like that, Dan, clear?  You're already in the past, gloating."

I love the combination of these two things - Pema's lecture, and the lessons in these scenes.  It teaches me that attachment isn't always about negative things.  It can be positive things that hook you too.  Both keep you from staying, from having prajna, clear vision.

So what do you do about it?  You practice.  A great way to practice is to realize that you are playing a game.  Alan Watts called it The Game of Black and White in, The Book On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are.  In the game, we obsess about binaries.  "This is good.  That is bad.  Good must win."

We fill our lives with musts, shoulds, and wants.  All of which are, you guessed it, shenpa!  But you can notice yourself doing this, getting hooked, and not staying.  

Which brings me to the app.  It's called Bodhi Play.  I found it several years ago on the app store.  It's a sort of mindfulness tool.

It's got a yin-yang symbol hanging atop a zen sand garden.  Every time you catch yourself celebrating something, you tap the yang (white half).  Every time you catch yourself bemoaning or angry about something, you tap the yin (black half).  As the day goes on, you can see how often you got stuck, in each way.  You can see a bar graph for previous days, too.  You don't win the game.  You just play it.

It's a cute toy, with a lesson floating around it.  If you catch yourself thinking, you can unhook from it.  Pema's version of this is a visualization of touching a bubble with a feather, popping it.

Funny thing, just now I went to link to the app store to share where you can get the app, and I couldn't.  The original publisher of the software must have withdrawn it from the app store.  I got very upset about that for a bit, trying to find it, thinking I must have made a mistake, then searching for an alternative I could suggest to you instead.

Then I laughed, realizing that I was hooked, I was playing the game. Then I stopped playing.

#365Gratitude Day 265: No guilty pleasures

I have this good friend, Michael. He's geeky and nerdy in the best ways. He's constantly introducing me to new things to like, like Bee & Puppycat (a very strange and wonderful web cartoon), the game Portal, and lately certain seasons of Dr. Who.

The best thing he's introduced me to though is the concept that there is no such thing as a "guilty pleasure."  It's totally okay (and in fact great) to like things just because you like them , and no fandom opinion for or against something has any bearing on that feeling.  

I know! When I say it out loud, my overwhelming feeling is, "Um, duh! OF COURSE! "  But you'd be amazed how pervasive that feeling of "people will think this is stupid" can be.  I'm grateful that I know better and can get over myself about it.

I've got plenty of esoteric or downright odd things I love. I love Alan Watts lectures. I also love cat macros.  I even make my own, from pictures of my own cats, or ones I find that strike me funny. 

Here's one:

Cat poking his head out a hole in the side of an upside down box that's "flaps out."  Caption: "I am airplane. NO TOUCH LANDING GEAR!"

Dig that. Guilt free!