Angus & friend

Chris took this picture of my sweet puppy Angus this morning. He's standing next to a dog's-eye-level pic of a wolf i put on the bottom of my bedroom door (hey, dogs deserve to have decorations too, don't they?).

The office door-bottom has an early snapshot of Sun Bear, and i'll try to have Chris take a pic of her similarly posed by her baby pic. Hee hee hee, digital cameras are fun!

:)

the barriers within

oh my, tired i.

a long week of work--subbing for someone tuesday night in addition to my regular schedule--left me feeling a little drained this afternoon. i can't imagine FULL-TIME work.

this new year finds me making $300 LESS a month due to losing 3 private clients. this is not really an issue right now since chris is here and able to help with bills, but it's time for me to get proactive about attracting new clients to bolster my sagging economy!

having such a sweet helpmate has pointed out 2 things to me:

1) it's amazing how much i do on my own
2) it's equally amazing how resistant i am to accepting help

when chris was sick and i had just gotten better (but was still not quite back to normal), i got so irritable over the stupidest things. things that ordinarily wouldn't bother me were suddenly HUGE pains in the hiney, and poor chris was the one doing most of them (of course). i even said, jeez, this is really incredible how annoyed i am getting over nothing.

i now think it was just my own resistance, trying to keep chris out. now why would i do such a thing?

ahh, my mistaken belief in my intrinsic unloveableness, i think.

barriers to love usually sprout within, and then grow wings to fly out and get projected onto those who are trying to love us. weird shit, man.

we are doing so well now, i am thankful for every lesson i learn at the side of this most wonderful teacher of mine.

How do you spell that thing where you put your finger in between your lips and move it up and down and go "pbpbpbpbpbbpbp?"

ok, it gets worse/better/more the same. chris and i went to a housewarming party at a friend's this afternoon, and i found out that a guy i knew from my early hippy days in tucson in 1987, passed away last night at another friend's house. it is too much to go into detail, but ceremonies were done and directions were called in and his spirit flew out on a waft of white sage.

so bye, mick, you sweet sorry hippy you. what memories i have of the gem show parties, the street fair parties, the new year's eve parties at your house! the san pedro cactus tea, the rooms thick with smoke. all you had to do to get high was walk in the doorway and take a few really deep breaths.

EVERY MOMENT IS PRECIOUS. EVERY THOUGHT IS IMPORTANT. what will you be thinking in the moment you are drawing your last breath?

i am feeling like a hot bath and an early bed would be just the ticket. maybe i'll try a glass of that mead that chris brought from minnesota. meanwhile, how abnormal are YOU?

You Are 28% Abnormal

You are at low risk for being a psychopath. It is unlikely that you have no soul. You are at medium risk for having a borderline personality. It is somewhat likely that you are a chaotic mess. You are at low risk for having a narcissistic personality. It is unlikely that you are in love with your own reflection. You are at medium risk for having a social phobia. It is somewhat likely that you feel most comfortable in your mom's basement. You are at low risk for obsessive compulsive disorder. It is unlikely that you are addicted to hand sanitizer.

How Abnormal Are You?

An intense week it's been

Man o man, this is my winter to be sick.

Last Sunday night--well actually, Monday in the wee hours of the morning--i woke up with the upchuck blues. Then the other end of the tube wanted to get into the act. You know, the "which-end-do-I-put-to-the-toilet" kind of sick! Ewwww!

I was immobile all of Monday with a fever, which continued into Tuesday along with an exquisite headache. I tried to go back to work Wednesday, but came home after 2 hours.

That was also the day i found out about a friend's husband, who had a fatal fall off a ladder Tuesday morning and was taken off life support Wednesday afternoon.

Can you imagine?

Buddhism class Wednesday night found me leaking tears throughout, as the teacher kept mentioning that 1) death is certain, 2) the time of death is uncertain, and 3) so get busy using this life to care for others!

Thursday i got a message from a former bf to let me know that the woman we used to work for out in Cascabel, is in Tucson for cancer surgery. I didn't have his number, so i put off calling him back for a couple of days until i could think coherently enough to track him down. I don't do well with headaches, especially ones that last 4 days!

I finally started feeling more like me Friday, and went back to work Saturday--the same day Chris woke up with a headache and fever. So here we go again.

I called my friend--the one who just lost her husband--last night to offer help with her dogs, a massage, what have you--and she said, "Is there any way you could come over tonight? My sister tried to commit suicide today and I really just need some healing. I have to get some sleep tonight. A massage would really help, but if you need to move a lot of things around, don't worry about it."

Can you imagine? Her husband isn't even gone a week, her sisters (4) are all here for that--and now this on top. I mean really.

Of course i went over and gave her a massage and Jin Shin Jyutsu treatment. She was amazingly OK considering everything that is happening. She said his last hours were incredibly beautiful. He never regained consciousness after the fall, but there's a lot that can be communicated even in that state.

Now i'm off to Tucson Medical Center, to do some more Jin Shin Jyutsu with my ex-boss. Turns out that in addition to colon cancer, she has Stage 4 liver cancer as well. She's an original--a real firecracker, opinionated and outspoken, very very smart, and really intense. I will be happy to see her, but sad for the reason.

How It's Been So Far

It's been wonderful, busy, at times unusual....to go from being long-distance lovers to living together in one swell foop, as they say! Having to work in the midst of all this bliss certainly balances the scales, and it's sweet to go off early in the morning (2 days a week) knowing that the dogs will be walked and the dishes will be done (yes, he really does the dishes!!!).

Way back when i was first blogging i wrote about some Buddhism courses i was taking. Then Angus got parvo and i basically fell off the Buddhist Bus for several months. I stopped going to classes, stopped meditating and praying even the one or two days a week i was managing....fell off the bus and fell in love, which occupied a lot of time and energy!

Well, a week after Chris arrived, my teacher Geshe Michael Roach and his partner Christie McNally came to Tucson to give the third in a series of teachings on Spiritual Partnership. Chris agreed to go and we really enjoyed the 3 nights of lectures. That was last weekend, Friday-Sunday. Then, Monday night we went to Diamond Mountain University in Bowie, 2 1/2 hours away, to attend the first ordination ceremony held on the University grounds. I knew both people who were ordained--one monk and one nun. The ceremony was quite beautiful and i was moved to tears more than once. Unfortunately the ceremony has not been translated yet, so it was conducted in Tibetan, but that lent a certain mystical aura to the event, and Geshe Michael did at least give a summation before each long declaration with a general idea of the contents.

Afterwards there was an incredible feast of blessed food--much sugary bliss! Then as Geshe and Christie prepared to leave the temple, we were among a group of about 5 people standing around them, and Geshe shook hands with us and thanked us for coming! That was certainly a wonderful and special moment for me.

Chris has taken all this in stride remarkably well. He's studied Buddhism a bit in the past, but i think it's been awhile. I have longed for a partner with whom to share more than just an ordinary life--to participate in something larger, something holier, than "shopping and the new movies" to paraphrase another teacher in this lineage.

Anyway we are off to dinner at a local funky Japanese restaurant, Yoshimatsu--funky in decor and atmosphere, but great in the actual food department. So excuse if this sounds a little off, i've not had time to proofread. Just wanted to give y'all an update!

Ciao for now....

Mmmmmmm!

Ahhhhhhhh!

Yippee, Chris is finally here. Actually he arrived on the afternoon of the 31st, and i was basically too sick to entertain him in the way that most of you might suppose i would be entertaining him, but he was awfully tired himself from an extra 3 days worth of journeying (and being stuck helpless in Des Moines) so it worked out just fine.

He says being here is like going to sleep in December and waking up in June, as far as the temperatures go. It's been consistently 70-80 degree weather for the past few weeks. Hard to imagine this as a high, when all around me people (chicken-bloods such as myself) are wearing fleece and sweatpants--Chris is sporting t's and shorts, and noticing the strength of the sun even in the off season.

We spent New Year's Day at the sweat, lolling about with other like-minded folk and taking in the sun's rays and the cleansing properties of steam. I declined to go in the sweat as i felt lizard-like and didn't want to exacerbate any of my URI symptoms--Chris went in for a couple of rounds and seemed to enjoy the day.

Since then we've done some shopping, a bit of bike-riding, a little movie-watching, and a lot of dog walking! (Don't even ask about the extracurricular activities. I'm not saying anything except, big grin, "we are very compatible"!)

Angus and Sun Bear aren't too sure what to make of the suddenly ever-present extra human being--Sun Bear is too mellow to do much objecting, but Angus has stopped sleeping on the bed at night and whines every time we embrace, which is often. He's not aggressive about it, just concerned--I think. But they are getting 2 walks a day now, not just one, and both of them love the extra outing. It's a lot easier to manage with company, that's for sure!

The next school session begins tomorrow, and i'll need to be at work at 8. This is way different from Chris' last visit, when i took a complete time-out from my working life--now i'll be working and he'll be doing whatever he feels like! But so far, so good--so far, very good! After 4 days, i'm declaring this experiment a wonderful success!

Ciao for now!