taipei, taiwan – airbnb4, banqiao district
i have somehow become intimidated by my own writing patterns, which is weird. it’s the first time it’s happened. i’ve never had writers’ block in my entire life, but somehow in the last few weeks the gears in my clock have become encased in peanut butter.
i have written some, but it most cases it took too long, and the plot lost itself, and i looked back and it wasn’t good. for what seems like forever, i’ve written in about 60-minute chunks. 50 minutes or so of actual writing and then a 10-minute resurfacing. it’s worked forever. i’m not sure what changed, but whatever material is present is malfunctioning.
so let’s try something different. i use the ‘2’ rule a lot. 2 of something. 2 minutes, 20 minutes, 2 hours, 2 days, 2 weeks, 2 months, 2 years. right. most things that i do or think or plan, especially recently, fit there.
so i set the timer for 20 minutes and am writing until it’s done and then creating a piece of artwork and then publishing. i suppose if i ever come back to them i can edit or fix grammar and such.
i miss my writers group! it was such a cornerstone of my expression for so long. but between time changes and moving and ramshackle details, i haven’t been able to go. maybe that’s why things are out of sort.
meditation sessions have been going well. 2 per day for 20 minutes each + the one one-hour round i did (yoga asanas + pranayama + meditation + downtime). each one is different and i feel loopy after. don’t make decisions for 30 minutes after a meditation, so the saying goes, because unrelated particles are particling together.
the trip with elyse to the animal shelter was important. then there were the e-bikes with the handlebar throttle and the normal bikes with the fixed gears. rain rain rain on me. escalators are something.
moving moving moving i am headed to another place of maurice’s tonight, a couch in a living room – set for seven days but maybe i can extend until after the Pan-Asian university of michigan alumni gathering and the i can volunteer one place for three weeks and then go to korea and then fade into the grass somewhere until four weeks at a monastery in september – i have to get emails back from people i sent requests to last night
and i need to pin things down before i get caught up and carried away.
i’m so dramatic. i will die in 8 days of your absence! i’ve been watching too much of the advertised segments of “my husband is a big shot”.
this next week each morning is an adventure to find another tai chi master / class to see if they deal with foreigners . i’m not sure . the goal is to get a certificate from an association by the time i get back to the states. even though, and how did it go – the outcome is the process? so i don’t personally necessarily care about the paper of the validation but some people might as a form of verification.
out of the compound to the left there’s a small vietnamese food stand. i can’t say its a restaurant. a big bowl of soup today, in the rain; i should remember to always get the small bowl or serving. i’ve made this mistake a few times lately. i haven’t eaten in a while so i pick the bigger option, which is too big.
the purple ice cream tasted like purple, not blueberry. maybe more like apple, like the primary ingredient in grape juice. or is it the other way around?
i’m planning a pajama party some night with my two favorite people from the last hostel. beer and ice cream. green ice cream though, not purple i don’t think. i’ve started to lose track of so much geography though.
i had a dream last night that i should buy a compass. there’s a compass on my phone, but how fun to have a small handheld one with a slightly incorrect, swinging red arrow that mostly points north? this area is madcap.
i have been reading Maharishi’s book from 1963. I’m surprised that more people didn’t catch on? here east meets west in a relatively simple way, though the language is abstract, and there is a small gate to climb over to get the key, but they are things i believe, even from back in the early teens inside the ideas of zen and taoism and all that. which parallels umbanda fire portals and such, i think – the kingdom of the saints and all that, loosely transcribed.
i threw away, rather donated, some clothes. my new pack is smarter and bigger, but still unnecessary things have heft, and there is *lots more motion in the near future. in a few hours i’ll be wrangling again. i wonder if there’s a scale somewhere around here? a compass measures direction, a scale measures weight. important statistics.
personal training session yesterday. back to basics. poor form all around. my structure is a sun-bleached red balloon once you add weight.
i have no felt so silly in quite some time as trying to do a proper seated shoulder press. my arms looked like packaged noodles in the mirror.
20 minutes is up.
