First, I have to thank the fantastic beckyb for the gift of Brazilian coffee from the far off land of Brazilia, which I believe to be near Luxembourghe. It's been a while since I was in school.

The coffee came in a nice, OCD-pleasing vacuum-packed block, which I plan to open on some very good morning. This coffee will not be consumed in the stress hurry of work days, where I often find myself sucking down the last grainy dregs from the sugary-thick bottom of my cup as I parse syntax. No, it will be had on some morning and on many mornings no doubt, when I arise and am engaged in the practice of sensory pleasure.

Which honestly, should be every day…

Speaking of practice, the need for practice, all practice, is I am finding the hardest, hardest, hardest thing for me to learn. When I do the things from this list (holds up list) that I have worked on for the last few years and honed down to the essential elements of the happy magic brew, I am more grounded. I am energized and pleasant and hopeful and connected. When I go more than a few days without any practice, I begin to suck down into the depressions and the distractions and the addictions, however minor or major they may be. I lose myself and I lose my outer interfaces and I lose the flow of my being. I lose them to things like cleaning out my Season Passes to remove the shows that the networks have cancelled this year (goodbye "Raines", "Andy Barker", "Studio 60", "Thank God You're Here"…)

Luckily, all it takes is taking the time to do the things I have in my practice. And every day is the opportunity to return to the routine as if no routine was ever missed in the past.

That sounds a bit like a broken record, but I'm going to keep sounding like one, keep writing this same post over and over until I really get the lesson. There is one solution to the problem, to all the problems. I just have to learn that there is one solution, and it's within my power to choose it, or not to choose it. I have to learn that not choosing is a choice in itself and is not the default, and that choice holds with it the same consequences as any other choice.

The weekend, otherwise, is quite good. I felt an extreme and good level of Williamness last night when I attended both a reading from The Community Theatre's new Carver production and a dinner/drinks affair with company members, followed by a quiet party at imtboo's and trochee's apartment. Though I was feeling quite tender, I turned my tenderness into energy and let that flow through me as connection. Nights like that make me think about how happy my mother would be to watch me interact and make friends, how many years she tried to get me out of my darkness when I was young and painfully wandering through my life.

And now, I'm going to lay on the floor and Ab-Roll, while my cat tries to bite my chin. And I'm also going to try to figure out what my writing practice should be. Without that as a definition, without it as a intent and commitment, nothing will happen at all. But I think some of it will mean more posts here again.

I don't ever mean to leave you, you know. Sometimes I just get involved in the examination of shiny marbles. It's an occupational hazard for us trickster spirits.