my date

So... last night, after much trepidation and false starts, I got up the nerve to ask myself out on a date, and guess what? I said yes!

I had it all planned out. I was going to get off work at 5, get back by 6:15, make a really nice dinner, and then watch a movie with my feet in the spa bath foot massager that Steve kindly donated to our household. I was even going to stop and get myself some flowers.

Well, this morning I forgot my phone, and a bunch of other things, so when my plans went slightly astray, I couldn't even call to say I'd be late. But I didn't have a phone, so I didn't KNOW I was late.

I stopped in at Port City Java because I saw a sign that they were hiring. I filled out an application for a shift leader position (SHHH don't tell Helene yet!) which took longer than I expected. Then I stopped at C-town to pick up a few ingredients that I thought I needed but when I got in there, I realized you can't make anything but South American food when you go in there and I wanted fish chowder, New England style. I left because they didn't have any vegetable broth.

By the time I got to the flower shop it was closed, so I continued down the street and back to my apartment. I guess dinner and flowers are scrapped, but the spa and movie are still pretty intriguing. I'm gonna get off my computer and go do that.

Kendo

So, my brother's kinda exploring different martial arts. So I went with him to Kendo tonight, to see what it was like. I had to take off my socks and shoes, which instantly made me itch thinking I might be picking up athlete's foot.

But basically Kendo is a practical application of Iaido, or so it seems. And since posture and reflexes are about the only things useful I can imagine getting from Kendo, I probably won't be returning. I mean, its not really a common thing in the span of a person's life (in this day and age) to find yourself wishing you knew how to use a katana. They seem like a cool group of people though. My favorite part was doing finger flexes and counting to ten in Japanese and English... they gave us the option of counting in other languages too but only one person took them up on the offer... and it wasn't me in Italian. Or German. I spent a good ten minutes after the class met counting to ten at Steve. My brother now thinks I'm totally insane.

I think he thought that before too though.

Ok goodnight.

PS... We didn't do anything tonight that couldn't be done with socks on.

Rewriting Movie Titles

... in the style of Snakes on a Plane.

Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels: Guys Who Talk Funny Stealing from Each Other

Snatch: Guys Who Talk Funny Stealing from Each Other 2

ANY Superman movie: Guy Saving the World and Getting the Girl

Urban Cowboy: White Trash Who Don't Deserve Each Other In Houston

Yeah, I watched that last one last night. That is, I think, the longest movie ever made. It has great music, because its all country music. But yeah. The main character didn't deserve the girl, but neither did the bad guy. And the girl had no spine. What really should have happened was she should have moved to Montana and found a real guy. But she didn't have the brain or the guts to do that so she just stayed with her obnoxious husband because "they love each other" and they love the double-wide honeymoon suite.

Urban Cowboy 2 should start with Deana Carter's music video: Did I Shave My Legs For This? (Sorry I couldn't find it without little popups.)

dhaval

Dhaval put something in his blog recently... I was just going to do excerpts but its all good... so here's the whole thing:

"Wolff’s law is a theory developed by the German Anatomist/Surgeon Julius Wolff (1835-1902) in the 19th century that states that bone in a healthy person or animal will adapt to the loads it is placed under. If loading on a particular bone increases, the bone will remodel itself over time to become stronger to resist that sort of loading. The converse is true as well: if the loading on a bone decreases, the bone will be adapted and become weaker.

I think that this law applies to everything and not necessarily to bones and bone densities. I was watching fight science on National Geographic, which is a very neat show for all the people interested in martial arts. The show basically breaks down all the elements of martial arts, and shows how each technique effects the body and if it is actually as harmful to the opponent as they say it is. The coolest one was the ninjitsu move where one strike can stop your heart. Anyways they were showing how in Mui Thai the kickboxers kick cocnut tree trunks and those leg bones just become stronger over time. This is where Wolff’s Law comes into place.

So, I just wanted to mention how the person’s bone adapts to all the loading it undergoes, in the same manner the human brain and heart also get stronger with more load/stress put on it. Also the following comparision is ironic (don’t know if it si the right word to use). The human bone gets stronger after it breaks as well as the heart becomes stronger once it is broken……………

I have been wanting to write this for a long time but didn’t get around to it. I watched fight science about 2 weeks ago."

I don't know if I was with Dhaval when he watched it, but I remember that episode. It was a very useful episode... It helped me in my quest to sort things out before going back to jujitsu. I need a purpose for being there. Some people do jujitsu just because. I'm not the type of person to do that for anything. I have to have a reason, even if the reason is just "I like it." But I stopped liking jujitsu so I needed to find another reason to continue, and that is that I really admired the control those martial artists had over their bodies, and decided that if for no other reason, I would return so that I could continue to develop that control.

The other thing was this: "The human bone gets stronger after it breaks as well as the heart becomes stronger once it is broken."

It caught my eye because I don't know much about Dhaval, so I don't know if he is referring to a personal situation or not. But it gives me hope all the same, that maybe in time my heart will become stronger.

what a day...

question for taylor... is it bad to mix herbal remedies with modern western medicine? will either be less effective because of the presence of the other?

contemplating this as i drug myself up at the coffee bar...

"warning, do not operate heavy machinery..."

that was my away message this morning. as it turns out, i opted for just being miserable instead of being drugged and miserable. that was a good thing... because i acted as if i were drugged anyway. i kept giving people the wrong change, i felt slightly lightheaded, and moved sluggishly. the clincher was the coffeepot incident. our pots are hand pumped, so pushing down on the top of it pumps air into the container enough that the pressure pushes the coffee up the pipe and out of the container. (capillary action? are you proud of me james?) the pipe is removed in order to refill the coffee pot. except in cases when the barista is acting like she's high on benadryl and puts the coffee pot under the brewer without removing the pipe. in those cases, the brewer drips a tiny bit of coffee into the pipe, where some of it reaches the inside of the pot. the rest of it covers the countertop, drips into the ice bin, underneath the flavored syrups and cups, and into the lipton tea box.

occasionally the brewer does this all by itself, in which case we imagine that management does it to make sure we're thoroughly cleaning the counters. today though, the brewing machine had help.

not only that, but something weird happened with helene today. this could be just me hallucinating from all the congestion in my head, or it could be her being possessed by a demon. i swear, i heard her speaking, and then i heard her voice saying something else at exactly the same time. are the vocal chords capable of that? i'm not sure.

anyway, i'm home now, and feeling a little nauseous. i'm gonna go lie down.

Jujitsu

I forgot to add this stuff to the post I put up about an hour ago.

If any of you don't know, I have been taking a bit of a break from Jujitsu lately. I have come up with a myriad of reasons, none of which seem to hit 100% on the spot about why exactly I have left.

I've had joint problems... I've been busy with work... I've been trying to find a focus for jujitsu... I've had trouble keeping my emotions off the mat... I've been on the mat wondering and longing for 9:30 to come so I can leave... I can't deal with Barb... "Its interpersonal, so we can just have you not work with that person" (Barb's psychoanalysis of me)... I can't be pushed to do things... I can't take the challenge... I am simply cursed by starting things and then quitting. (Ex, 1 day of gymnastics, 1 month of horseback riding, 9 months of clarinet, 3 years of piano... nothing I really stuck with enough to be very proficient.)

None of those ideas are the real reason. I don't know the real reason. But I remember once hearing about some former students of Barb's who left under less desirable circumstances. I remember Andrew telling me that it takes a special kind of person not to quit after Rokyu because of personality differences in the dojo, a special kind of patience. I remember thinking that I wanted to be one of those people who had that kind of patience.

Yesterday was the involvement fair. I went, not to hang out with the people, and not to do jujitsu, but to help recruit freshmen who might want to join. And I did. I talked to a lot of people, and it was really good. Working at Nordstrom has made me more comfortable pitching a sale... even though I don't really pitch anything at the Ebar, I guess its just the personal contact or something.

Anyway... It was good seeing everyone. Seeing them work out made me feel out of shape. But seeing Barb gave me a strange sensation. I'm not one of her star students anymore. I felt like I somehow mattered less to her because I haven't had the heart/desire to work out. I know you'll probably tell me it was in my mind, but maybe it was. Barb gets in my mind a lot. Senseis do that sometimes. It wasn't anything she said, it was the energy she gave off. I guess I can understand... I don't mean to do this, but in rebelling against jujitsu, I am in a sense rebelling against her, since she is the sensei. She loses a lot of people a year who simply give up on jujitsu, and I guess when you've done it as long as she has, its hard not to take it personally. Jujitsu is her life, and she doesn't understand why someone wouldn't want to make it their life as well.

Yesterday, I had mixed feelings. I realized that, as much as I want to go back, its going to be a lot harder than I originally thought. I'll do it, eventually, but it will be tough. It might be just as hard to do as it was for me to get involved with my youth group. Not that any of you reading now know anything about how I felt that many years ago. But... yeah.

I'm kind of nervous about the future. I think that I'm changing. I'm starting to know a little more what I want and what I don't want. And I guess if I'm still Barb's student when the time comes for me to want a certain something that I have in mind, she's not going to agree with me. I hope she agrees to disagree.

EDIT: I wrote this before the jujitsu class I was skipping ended. When it ended, some of the people who were there came and complained to me (and Anissa who also skipped). Apparently there are people who are going to class who are feeling similar to how I feel (except for the fact that I can't seem to put my finger on a definitive point). Anyway, it apparently was a particularly bad class (by bad I mean Barb was prickly) which made me glad I skipped and glad that my brother wasn't there (it would have been his first night and he would have been turned off by it).