Entries this day: Books state_of_my_life zzzzz

Books

4:53pm CDT Wednesday 17 April 2002

Walking to lunch today, I stopped by 1/4 Price Books and asked for Miracle of Mindfulness, though I didn't know who had written it. Larry, the owner, suggested it could be Tic Naht Hanh (sp!!), but he (Larry) didn't think he had the book in the store. I found a book by Ramm Das and got that instead.

Paid with a $20, and took most of the change in Larry's drawer, so at lunch, I broke another $20, then brought four $5s back to Larry to buy back the $20. He said, "A guy like you should be writing books, not just reading them."

Wonderful compliment.

state of my life

2:10am Thursday 18 April 2002

With all due respect to Ashley, I'm using the email I wrote to her as a state of my life address. I haven't written one in quite a while.

From: Rob
Sent: Thursday, April 18, 2002 2:06 AM
To: Ashley

To be clear, I am looking only for friendship - I have just recently
dis-engaged from my girlfriend/fiance of 6 years.  I'm not all torn up about
it, but just am intentionally single now, and plan to stay single for a
while.

So, who is Rob?

I like to run around barefoot as much as possible.  I don't wear shoes to
work (unless I ride my bike or unicycle), and I just keep them somewhat
handy in case I need them to enter some restaurant or something.

I can ride a unicycle, though not incredibly well--just enough to ride
around on slighly non-flat surfaces.  I can ride down curbs on occassion,
but not up.  Speed bumps are usually no problem.  I learned how to ride a
couple years ago, after my brother (4 years younger) decided he was going to
learn how.

Thus began my decision to learn a new something each year.  That year was to
ride a unicycle.  The next year it was to learn Spanish.  This year I've
been learning sign language, French (a tiny(!) bit), and Japanese (slowly).
I haven't been practicing these much, but they are still in my head
somewhere.  I don't find many places to practice these languages in Houston.
I know there *are* places to hang out with deaf people, and other places to
hang out with Japanese people, and I'm sure I could find a french culture
here, but to hang out with these people would mean adding to or adjusting my
already busy schedule, which I'm somewhat loathe to do.

On Monday nights I am usually with my men's group.  http://www.mkp.org.
This is a spiritual (but non-religious), nurturing, encouraging group of
men, who are pretty much all learning how to live life in integrity with
themselves and relationships with others.

Tuesday nights are open lately, so I will chill at my apartment or work on
my website.  Wednesday nights for a while had been Wednesday Night Dinner's
at Dude's house (his real name is Robert, but he's gone by Dude since he was
zero years old), but lately he's been at MCSE training, so that's off.
Tonight I went to MB (Mission Burrito (yummm)) with his wife Veronica.

Thursday nights are yoga (actually tomorrow night is my first night, but
hopefully it will last for some months), and Fridays are often free unless
they begin a weekend lock-in with my youth.

I'm a youth advisor for high school youth in YRUU http://www.uua.org/YRUU,
an organization designed to give youth a safe place to create their own
programming - to learn leadership skills, to plan activities, to be socially
active, etc etc, all good stuff.  This is part of Unitarian Universalism, my
church, in which I've been raised all my life.

I'll quickly interject that I'm not super religious, and certainly don't buy
into the Christian mythology (if I may be so bold).  I am not a biblical
expert (and at this point don't intend to be), so I can't debate thoroughly,
but my favorite conversations are about the nature of god and the universe
and our lives and karma, dharma, etc.

I'm not religious, but I'm spiritual.  I remain in close contact with my
angels/spirit-guides/whatever, who are available for me all the time.  They
give me guidance when I ask, if I can just get my ego out of the way ;-)

Um, I enjoy keeping a random-ish schedule; I loathe the idea of going to
work at the same time each day, although that sorta turns out to be what I'm
doing lately.

For money, I'm a computer programmer for a small company that hosts
customized surveys online for big companies, mostly human resources
departments.  A company owner (our client) will be all, "what are people
thinking on the front lines of my company?" so they'll figure out a bunch of
specific questions to ask everyone, we put those questions online and let
everyone provide feedback.  Then we compile the responses into a report,
keeping everyone's individual data anonymous and send the report to the
owner/boss/whoever wanted the survey.

I have told *my* boss that I'll be leaving at the end of this year.  During
the year it's my intention to pay off my credit card debt $5000, save some $
and then move to Japan next year, after January 31st, when I'll celebrate my
12,000th day.

(I celebrate my 500 day anniversaries instead of years.  I have no problem
telling people my age (32 (you?)), but as of last year or so, I don't
celebrate my birthday.  My next age celebration is 31 January 2003, when
I'll turn 12,000 days old.  If we're still in touch after then, I'll let you
know when is the next one after that.)

I know 2 people who are in Japan now, teaching English.  As of August, 1
more of my friends will be doing the same thing.  While visiting Paris this
past March, I met some guys from Japan, and I may contact them to expand my
Japanese network.  And, my friend Lee-eh (intentionally misspelled so
English speakers pronounce it correctly) is from Japan, and said she'd be
willing to go back with me to show me around when I go.  She's the one who
is teaching me Japanese.

The three people I know who are or will be in Japan teaching English are all
from KTRU, 91.7fm, Rice Radio.  I'm a DJ there, and am on air every other
Saturday night or so.  This coming Saturday 20 April, I'll be on from 7 to
10pm.  Call during my shift and we can chat.  713-348-5878.  Or you can just
listen.  Or both.  Or whatever.

Okay, that's all for now, but I'll scan your email to answer specific
questions.

Why do I keep my journal online?  Hmmmm.  Partially to be famous.  Partially
because people say they enjoy reading what I write.  Partially to record my
life for my own reading enjoyment later.  Partially as a service to the
world, who may find it interesting to read about my life before I'm *really*
famous.  Partially as a service to my offspring (gotta have kids first
though) if they do any genealogical research.

Oh, you mentioned being active.  I ride my bike a lot, and play ultimate
frisbee on occasion, and inline skate on occasion, and ride my unicycle on
occasion.  I also don't like country dancing, but I do enjoy going to a
club, so long as it's not too smokey.  I do not do bump and grind dancing,
but my own Rob's Crazy Dance, where I take to heart the quote that ends,
"and dance like nobody's looking."  I dance to sweat.  To exercise.  I'm not
particulary fond of dancing in a specific style (swing/contra/etc) because I
get completely lost in the steps.  I just let the music move me.

Food:  I enjoy eating as well, and lately-ish, I've been more intentional
about eating well, but this is a skill that is taking me some time to form.
If good food were readily available to me, I'd definitely prefer it over
junk food.  Most of the time.  Or at least I'd probably eat the healthy food
first before I chow on the junk food.

Oh, and at the very front of your message you indicate that you're looking
for someone who values strong-minded women.  I certainly value
strong/intelligent/powerful minds, whether in men or women.  I encourage all
my friends to make the most of themselves - to stretch beyond their comfort
zones to do great things in the world.  So please, be strong-minded.

Somehow I'm led to mention that I'm not easily offended, except by humans
doing hateful things to one another, especially on a personal level.  I have
no problem with cursing, or bathroom humor, or see-food.  But I don't like
racism, sexism, culture-ism (I made that one up, but you may know what I
mean).

With that, I say, holy shit it's two am.  I'm going to bed.

	- Rob

zzzzz

2:04am CDT Thursday 18 April 2002

I just spent a bit over an hour (two?) composing an email about myself for this girl/woman Ashley, who saw my entry on match.com. I'm careful to remain clear that I'm not looking for relationship.

Um, oh - today after work I visited Jennifer at Paint This! and finished the soap dish. This one looks ten times better than the first one, which I painted in a rush with a big paint brush. I'm thankful that it broke. While there, I picked up my bike (spoke is fixed; yay!) from University Schwinn. Super thanks to Jeff for not charging me for the fix!

I called Dude's house and Veronica answered, so I invited her to munch at Mission Burrito. (Dude is out of town until tomorrow night.) While at MB, Ryan Ray came up all, "Rob?" and I couldn't remember his name, but I asked him to say his sister's name, and I remembered his immediately. See, I knew his name was in my brain, but it was a bit buried.

We talked quite several minutes, and I met his friend Eddie (which I remember because of the cartoon Ed, Edd, and Eddie), who is quite interested in traveling. His face lit up when I mentioned that I'm moving to Japan next year. I *totally* encouraged him to travel just for the experience. Go go go go. Just do it.

Drove home, then carried Spot to my work so he'd have a fun excursion. He was meowing some and walked around the office some, then came back over to me like he was done. So I carried him back home and then rode my bike back over to work.

Moved online 1/2 of Day 2 pics from London.