Where is all the back-stabbing?

I figured out what's been missing from my blog: gossip. No name-dropping, no back-stabbing, not even the slightest mention of pop-culture (this blog cures the latter). Even though I do have a very cool writing community all around me, and even though there have certainly been "interactions" over the years, I guess I'm of the mindset that you don't fling hash where you live. Which isn't to say that I don't THINK it. I've just learned that my judgments aren't always that reliable, and they're usually defenses against something. It's only when I have a real grievance, when someone has "wronged' me in an undeniable way, that you'll hear about it. Yet, since changing my attitude about life, I rarely feel wronged anymore. I suppose I could seek out a good wronging if I worked on it. Since I'm much more house-bound these days due to the whole working at home situation, it's hard enough for me to get myself out into the world each day. When the weather is good, I force myself to exercise (note the word: 'force'), and that has been paying off, though it's painful too.

Speaking of pain

Last night on Sixty Minutes they did a feature on two runners who do these 70-hour races across some insane amount of mileage. They run for 70 hours. No sleep. They stop to eat as they run, calling for deliveries and having a team of friends drive just ahead or behind in case they crash or croak. Now, I believe that there is something rather beautiful to the challenge of exercise. Even my piddly little jogs test my endurance and prove something to me about how the body is as much driven by the mind as by its own strength. But 70 hours?? I can't think of anything--not one thing--that I would want to do for 70 hours. The woman featured, according to her family, couldn't NOT run. If they took a long drive, they'd have to let her out to run up ahead, go have a meal, and then catch up to her. So...it makes you ponder: what is she trying to outrun?


Today the test begins to see if all that they say about not drinking coffee is true. Better clarity, no "crashing" during the day, less stomach upset, etc. What that means is that if I seem cranky, I'm NOT DRINKING COFFEE. I've given myself just a week's break. If I choose to go on, you'll hear about it. I've now been a full-fledged coffee drinker for about eight years. Erik really turned me on to coffee as a regular habit when we met. I had always loved the smell, but not the taste, because I'd had it black, or in the form of a mocha, which was too sweet. Then he started making it in that little apartment on Slater street, with milk and sugar. Lo, I was addicted. It's really strange because I actually feel sad, like "what if I keep not drinking it?" Like I'm saying goodbye to a friend. Isn't that pathetic?

The New-New Age?

But if I'm going to be nice enough to this body in order to keep open to a higher plane of reality, to a spiritual center, I think sometimes you have to vary up the deal. You can't treat it badly all the time and then expect it to be the receiver of divine energy. Don't worry...when I say divine energy I haven't gone over the deep end. I just don't know how else to refer to spiritual things without using new-age language. I wonder if the newage is going to be like postmodernism. Because technically we're now post-post modernism...so are we also in a new-new age?

I'm a big fan of "The Sun" magazine, even when it's dreary and a little too radical even for my tastes. But i loved this bit from editor Sy Safransky:

"In an article entitled, "Where's the miracle in a Tsunami?" the spiritual teacher Marianne Williamson suggests that those swept away by the tsunami didn't die in vain because their dying "helped to awaken slumbering humanity to the sanctity and fragility of life." I doubt that a grieving parent in South Asia would find much solace in such new-age Sophistry."

Amen. Or, uh, something like that.

This was a ramble. So there it be.
J