rose marshack : whyamistillawake.com

New: My theory of temporal dieting.

For example: The Ice-Cream Sundae is not measured in material quantity; i.e., English liquid or dry measurements. It is measured in units of time. For example, a mini-ice-cream sundae at Cozy’s Custard Cup (US$3.85) is 5 minutes long. A large 3-scoop sundae at My House (US$.25) is about 12 minutes long. I put forth, however, that during the 12 minutes, there is a 7-8 minute Chocolate Coma, where you don’t remember eating during that time anyway. With the Mini Sunday (5 minutes) you are pretty much mindful the entire time you’re eating it.

Now, of course, herein lies “the Rub.” During the Chocolate Coma (7-8 minutes) you gain an extra 8000 calories, which you can only take off by doing 2 months of Yoga Pilates or 45 minutes of running for 3 weeks. Who wants to do that? So stick with the 5 minutes of Mindful Cozy’s Mini-Ice-Cream-Sundae.

Why AM I Still Awake?

This is an exciting topic to me tonight, because I’m almost beginning to practice Not Being Awake at this time. I have lately really gotten off the Simplicity track; I’ve bought lots of new clothes (ostensibly for the New Season) and I’ve been staying up late doing stupid things like shopping online For No Other Reason Than To Acquire Things.

In order to give these things up (things like Staying Up Too Late and Shopping Without A Good Reason) you have to be ready to Let Go. That’s something I used to practice on the stage all the time, except now I’m not on a stage, I’m in a Very Comfortable Office. I’m not sleeping on people’s floors, I’m sleeping on Slightly Expensive Sheets. When things start getting too good, you start wanting Even More.

I’ve also been reading an Inordinate Amount of Winnie-The-Pooh to Gram, hence the Strange Capitalizations.

So tonight for meditation practice, I just practiced doing absolutely nothing and Resting. That worked for a good 2 seconds, actually. I was very impressed. And then I got very impressed, and it all went downhill - or uphill, I guess - from there.

A lady at work had chest pains today and was dragged against her will to the hospital. The hospital gave her stress tests and other things and then told her she was ok, she just had probably a muscle spasm. This is a beautiful older (than me) woman at work - always looks very well put-together and laughs a lot. I worried about her. She came right back to work after she spent her day at the hospital. I might have actually gone home after spending a day wondering if I’ve had a heart-attack. I thought that if work stress was causing her pain, she might want to rest from it. That’s when I started thinking about the giving stuff up.

The stuff you need to give up is the extra stuff that you don’t really have to worry too much about. Like tomorrow, I worry that I should not go to a new Yoga-Pilates class at 9am instead of going to work. But I’m not even supposed to go to work on Fridays; that’s my day off. I just have so much stuff I need to do. But the thing is, an hour of Yoga-Pilates is probably much better for me than an hour of sitting at my desk drumming up even more trouble for myself and others.

The Martial Arts Festival

The Martial Arts Festival that will happen at the Krannert Art Museum on October 14th is going to probably be the funnest day of my life. Unless someone accidentally sticks a spear through a Lichtenstein or something. The Festival will start with Tea Ceremony - then lots of other martial arts - then a very short seminar on Kung-fu cinema - then more martial arts! Here’s our workspace for it:http://cu-martial-arts-festival.pbwiki.com/ — doesn’t it look amazing?

I hope I’m not the only person in the world who thinks - no, KNOWS - that martial arts belongs in the Art Museum. We’ll see.