interesting tidbits

“When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bounds… and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be.”

- Patanjali, physician and “founder” of yoga

“I do not try to dance better than anyone else. I only try to dance better than myself.”
- Mikhail Baryshnikov

via my facebook feed—http://www.marcandangel.com/2011/12/11/30-things-to-stop-doing-to-yourself/

it’s good advice, for the most part, even though it’s worded in a ‘stop this or stop that’ form, which i usually wouldn’t like…

i especially find useful numbers
6
8
10
11
13

i haven’t been as active on 43 as I used to be
While I’ve missed a closer connection to you all, I think this was a natural result of getting out there and “living my life”

i have not updated my books list and movie list in such a long time, it’s now a laughable list.

and yet, i’m going to try to reconstruct them, from my admittedly spotty memory….

wish me luck my forgiving 43 friends!

mwah!

serendipity is the word of the day.

there’s this old friend of mine, D, whom I met in 1993, back when we both worked for two summers for the California State Park up in Tahoe.

He and I kept in sporadic touch over the years, but completely lost touch since 2003 or so…

Well, today i just got this sad feeling like, I sure do miss D, and I really wish I hadn’t gotten out of touch with him and his wife.

And then my mind went to, well, this is a long shot, but the last place he worked is for this one recreation center… and so what that that was 10 years ago…. Yeah, he probably doesn’t work there anymore, but what’s the harm in giving them a call and asking for him.

Well, i called. And not only did they give me his direct line, and not only did i talk to him, it turned out that s was his Very Last Day at work. So basically, I jumped into a window of opportunity that was rapidly shutting.

I am still marveling at the serendipity of all this.

How on earth did the little something inside me know to get in touch today of all days?

In any case, as I bemusedly wonder at it all, I am so happy to have regained touch with him and his family - for now he and his wife have twins! And we’re going to try to get together next time I visit out in California.

What a wonderful world we live in.

i tried couch to 5k, but then i gave it up, feeling that running wasn’t my thing (anymore – since i did run cross country in high school when i was about, oh, 50 pounds lighter)

but hmm… in the last few days i’ve been thinking about it again… Just don’t want to injure myself… also, my asthma gets very annoying when i run… hmm

yesterday got some annoying but oh-so-necessary to graduate paperwork done!
(thanks, Librarian, for the nudge!)

and then, this morning, i found my lost nosestud… (it was only ‘lost’ for a day… but i was feeling pretty sad about it, as it’s my favorite one, so… yeah, that’s a great way to start the day!)

i like the way both taste…
but i usually like the way tea makes me feel, which is this calm sort of current of energy, smooth and warm, that flows through me, while coffee is more of a jolt.

sometimes when i’m craving the taste of coffee, i wish it taste like coffee, but feel like tea…

i saw… in a subway station the following:

... a man about to sit down on one of the ancient wooden benches. Before he sat, he spit, yes, that’s right, he spit on the seat adjoining the one he then sat down on. No, he did not spit on the ground; he spit on the seat. the seat. oh yeah.

why oh why…

So, there’s this bagel place that’s a few (long) blocks from my place. I often go there for the awesome coffee. What’s great about the coffee station is that it’s self-serve, so one can doctor one’s coffee just as one pleases. Plus, one of the few places that have hazelnut and vanilla coffe in addition to ‘regulah.’ (I used to eat bagels from there on a regular basis, but have had just one since the beginning of this new year, which, believe me, is progress)

But I digress.

The owner is this salt-of-the-earth Brooklyn guy, who I’ve often seen hanging out outside his story, shooting the breeze with regulars. I remember overhearing him telling a friend a few months ago, that he was seriously considering getting some kind of stomache “staple” operation, as he needed to lose a lot of weight.

Fast forward to Friday, when I went for coffee… He looked fantastic, and was actually working behind the counter, instead of just sitting outside. I almost didn’t recognize him, he’d lost so much weight, but not just that, he looked so vital and energetic!

I congratulated him, and asked him his secret. He confirmed, yes, he’d lost over 100 pounds in 8 months. He said, “I went from being barely able to walk down the block to running 6 miles…” His secret? Reducing his calories to 1500 a day, and exercising. Go figure. It ain’t rocket science. But 1500 calories a day? (I whine, within). That must have been hard. I find it hard, and I’m much shorter and smaller than him.

I told him, admiringly, you know, you are inspiring! congratulations, and thanks for being an inspiration.

he replied, with a look of pride and shy amazement, almost as if to himself, “look at that, now I inspire people.”