2018.06.16 - Day 94

Storm: Thanks for the poetry course link! Maybe I will do it as a break from music - it's only 3 weeks long. I am still interested in Mastodon but haven't joined as yet.

Alma: Yes, I watched an ET video and he asked people to move their hands away from their body and then notice you could still feel their presence very powerfully. I have learned lots of types of meditation practices over the years and just do which appeals to me at the times. Often I just do a kind of shikantaza, just allowing whatever happens to happen without trying to control it.

Eliza: I seem to have become slowly more and more interested in football (soccer) since around 1998. I find the more I know about the teams and players, the more interesting it is. I was discussing Ronaldo's brilliant free kick in the Spain/Portugal match last night with a friend in Sainsburys this morning :) So many matches on atm it takes up a lot of my time but who cares ?

Surprising Argentina and Iceland game just now, and YES, the game yesterday was fun! Love Ronaldo's celebratory jumps. :) Miami is poised to become a big place for soccer in coming years, with Beckham working out the politics but having already purchased the land. The process has been going on since 2013, but they want to contend for WC 2026.

Morning practice? Sigh, no. I woke by way of phone call from the vet saying George's allergy medicine was in, leaped to go pick it up, since he's been scratching like a maniac for days and making sleep impossible. I've been working at the computer a lot, eating badly, and not walking enough. Must make time for the treadmill... wonder if I can get the next game on the gym TV. edited 15:28, 16 Jun 2018

Zen, I enrolled today for that short poetry course. Depending on how that goes, I’ll try the fiction one you suggested in September.

I realize I’m not good at writing descriptions. I couldn’t describe you if you were sitting in front of me now. Seriously. I’m much better at narrative and alluding to occasional details in passing. Perhaps I like to let the reader fill in more with their imaginations rather than spoon-feed with an extensive exposition. (Which is why Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast trilogy was an effort sometimes to get through as each and every chapter began with its own descriptive smorgasbord.) I remember as a 12 or 13 year old having to write a description of an aquarium for English homework. I was the only one in the class who turned it into a short narrative (but won a prize for it).

I’ll not mention Mastodon anymore after this short tale... After joining wandering.shop, which was originally an SF/F instance but which has become more like a quirky writers’ coffee shop, I did some ‘people surfing’. I looked through the local timeline and found some interesting people. Then I checked out who those interesting people followed, again found another lot of interesting people, and checked out the people they followed, etc. It’s a fun activity that can easily soak up an hour or more. I didn’t need to go the full Six Degrees of Separation before - by complete accident (as I certainly wasn’t trying to do this) - I found someone I thought I knew. An exchange of private messages confirmed it was indeed someone many of us here in PaB know in some degree (though I’ll not say who as they may prefer the confidentiality). Our metaverse can seem a small place sometimes. edited 21:53, 16 Jun 2018