Changes/progression

Sometimes I feel like a Time Lord who regenerates every so often.

If you look at my music list in the right column, you'll see that I haven't had any music going in the house for, as I write this, 23 days. This after literally years of non-stop 24/7 chants, Tibetan bowls, shakuhachi songs and Indian sitar music. It's been nothing but silence here for more than three weeks.

I haven't had a haircut since October. For eight years, I wore it almost exactly 3/32 of an inch long, and cut it myself with electric clippers. Now, it's almost long enough to put in a ponytail, which is how I wore it back around Y2K.

Meditation practice is gone. Fuck it. I still consider myself nominally a Zen Buddhist/Taoist, but I'm doing without all the Tricycle/Shambhala Sun/Buddhadharma stuff.

If you look at it, you'll see it; if you look for it, you won't. That's what I've got, and it's all I need.

As you may have read, we had the hottest July on record this year. Not just the hottest July for this state, but the hottest July for any state, ever. Now, as I write this in the second week of August, it's cloudy and 68° outside, and I am lovin' it. My usual summer depression has lifted, at least for today.

There have been some other changes in my general outlook/demeanor/thought process lately, but they're not the kind of things I want to post on the Internet so anyone and everyone can read them. I worry that I've given up too much privacy already. Suffice it to say that the changes are fairly profound – profound enough that I actually wonder if, given my long history of hypertension, I've suffered some sort of micro-mini-stroke that has affected my personality. The changes surprise me – pleasantly, I guess.