January 1999 Archives

4:30 PM, Thursday afternoon: drinking ice-cold water and listening to Art Blakely and the Jazz Messengers. Smooth. Clear. Glide. And the day is pristine and wide all around me.

I’m just be-bopping along today. My eyes are pleasantly tired, the rest of me following behind in a mellow stroll. Earlier this week, I bought a "classic" analog watch from the Timex website (I don’t know about you, but I’m all-too intrigued by those "Indiglo" electroluminescent dials). This afternoon I got my hair cut. Things are still in short mode on that front. I’m looking forward to the weekend in a low-keyed sort of way. I want to hang out with my friends, have a drink, maybe find a girl to dance smooth and smoky slow with.

Hmm, just switched to Robert Johnson; the jazz was making me a bit too sleepy. He’s singing "Cross Road Blues" -- talk about a storied life. I know very little about blues (even less about jazz). I’ve just started listening to this stuff and have no vocabulary for it yet. I like both, though.

I’ve been doing pretty well at the treadmill -- rambling on, you might say. I should be able to clock a total of just over five miles this week. Marathon boy I’m not -- but it’s not too bad for only having started two weeks ago.

Hey, just to keep things interesting, now it’s time for Garbage on the CD player. I saw them at Metropol when they were touring for their first album -- great show. I love "You Look So Fine" off of Version 2.0, especially that extended "fine" Shirley Manson hits near the beginning of the song. Cool.

Smooth.

My mind is like a butterfly in a slow-motion snow fall today: flittering from one bit of mental fluff to another. At least the scene has an interesting soundtrack, though. Different tunes weaving together under a sky that is now a luminescent cobalt blue. Evening time. Time to glide...

--- JWR, 1/28/99

3:06 PM, Thursday afternoon.

Two mugs of home-brewed "PassionFruit Peppermint" tea and I’m tapping my foot and ready to roll...

In an exercise in positive visualization, I’m looking at the New Beetle brochure from Volkswagen again. A silver bug is still my top choice but I’m continually drawn to the yellow version too -- probably because a car that color is fairly out of character for me. I can’t seem to help liking the brightness of it, though.

You see, I have the feeling (make that: creeping certainty) that I have to shake things up. Alter my orbit. Indulge in a little re-invention. I’ve babbled about it before but the point keeps being driven home to me: I have to change...

Once, when I was snorkeling in Kitty Hawk NC, I swam out to where the waters deepened. As I glided along, I watched the sandy bottom drop off into hazy, greenish-blue shadow. It felt like my body was suspended over a cliff. Ahead and below me was this deep wide space, potent with uncertainty. A little shiver of agoraphobia slipped through me as I felt the coolness of those greater depths against my bare skin. I held my breath for as long as I could, looking into that shadowed space and thinking of Nietzsche’s quote.

Then I rose to the surface and cleared my breathing tube. I removed my mask and rolled onto my back, floating, looking up at the tall sunny sky. Swells lifted me up and lowered me down as wavelets lapped at my body. I thought about the depths below and above me for a long time, letting the sun warm my face.

Then I slipped my mask and snorkel back on, turned over, and swam back to shore.

I feel like that now.

--- JWR, 1/14/99