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Category: Poor
This day hasn’t started off very well
And it’s the one year anniversary of my move to The Hill. No, I still don’t have a driver’s license, because I also don’t have the title for the junker and thus nothing to learn on. I also never got a bike. It’s dicey around Dosch Road though, even for experienced, competitive (and young!) bikers. I live with two of them.
The joy of dealing with cell phone providers…
Wading through the AT&T website and service line makes you want to scream (I did, several times, scaring the dog) and bash your head into a wall (not yet but the day is young). My contract ends on the 20th and I could not let it renew and get locked into another 1½-2 year contract. I can’t afford it! I’m getting charged an extra $31 in fuck-you fees… I might be on C’s plan, but we don’t know for sure cause he can’t get through to Verizon.
The My AT&T website wouldn’t let me change my address, and of course there is NO button or link to “terminate my account”. I got a “need some help?” message which informed me I should go to chat, which of course was “busy” as in “not functioning at all” with a little banner informing you of such. So helpful!
In contemplating the potential of life without a smartphone I realized I wouldn’t have a camera! There’d be no Instagram in that case. Hrrrm… IG is fun cause even bad at social media, middle-aged types like myself will get noticed. Thinking of the artistic self promotion here. The thing is, I’ve never gotten a solid lead in that way.
I’m just trying to type it out before I sit for meditation. It’s going to be a fun one.
Fucking hell I wish that last job opportunity had been real.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. Oh well.
I worked steadily in NYC. I want everyone to remember that, myself included. Not that I want to dwell on it, but ok I’m rambling.
Meditation & a customized “Middle Pillar” ritual
We happened to see black, beeswax, tapered candles at the food co-op the last time we were there…
I’ve been both cursed and blessed. Sometimes even now I still look around and wonder how I got here. Of course I know! I’ve grown a tremendous amount though… pauses to think about the return to art. When I “put it down” in favor of socializing and endorphins, I always had in mind that I could return later, because fine art isn’t ageist. Of course I didn’t think about it in those terms exactly. I had no idea how things get for women past a certain age in the working world. Men too, but much less and much later.
I’d have never had a serious, intimate relationship again if I’d have stayed in NYC. I know this for 100%, gut certainty. And now? Cooking, shagging, a cat and a dog, a secluded lifestyle, daily meditation, hermetics, witchcraft… But no money. Zero earning power, and absolutely every time I’ve had my hopes raised, it’s turned out to be a false hope.
Video says I need to focus on why I want what I want. This would mainly serve as a vibrational correction for the doubt and despair of noticing its continued absence.
- I need to get a solid foothold in regular, well-paid illustration work because I need to earn money & art gives me the most joy.¹
- I’d regain some independence and purpose.
- I need a reason to be.
- It’d inspire and focus me and give me tremendous energy.
I’d gotten one bite on my latest Craig’s List Portland ad. If it’d been a real opportunity it’d have kept me busy for 3-4 months, paid a NYC worthy salary and given me a whole boatload of drive and purpose. After I’d talked to the agent I had a couple reasons to think it wouldn’t happen, but this morning I found out for sure. Some tears rolled down my cheeks during meditation.
OK then! Forget about it. Take a nap. Skip exercise if you want. Fuck it.
I’ve been working on visual notes & studying to create a personalized version of the hermetics Middle Pillar ritual… I’ll fill in some information on the correspondences (chakras, archangels, planets etc), but this is enough to do the intoning and (not pictured) the energy moving exercises. This ritual needs to be practiced standing and takes about a half hour.
¹Not that I’m being elitist or anything! The corporations around here aren’t interested in hires over 35, no matter HOW qualified, as they’ve made abundantly clear.
The Renunciate’s Elevated Cave
I once was in a place where I could get anywhere at all times, and I had about 20 appetizing restaurants within a 10-minute walk, plus two health food stores and the largest Whole Foods in Manhattan. Now I’m on The Hill and have been without ANY public transportation since January 11th. There was some on the 10th, but then it started snowing heavily that evening and it continued through the morning. After that, everything froze for a good, long while, and Portland neither salts its roads nor owns more than two (I think) ploughs. They should pay all the unemployed creatives to shovel! LOL. But then they’d advertise it as a volunteer, no doubt. And they’d probably have a strict age limit of 35 because liability.
Fuck the close-minded fuckers all the way to hell
And once again, I had every reason to believe I’d succeed. I had to acknowledge the risk, but I thought it was a small one. I have REALLY learned what our society thinks about women since I moved. It is what it is, I guess. It’s funny but now I’m doing some free design work for Trey, who lives up here on The Hill also. He’s Cymon’s boyfriend. (Unpaid work is plentiful… Meanwhile I’m still forking out $50 a month for Creative Cloud. It’d be nice if I could get at least that covered but… Portland. It’d also be nice if these volunteer samples resulted in paid work, but the last time I was hoping for such a result it did not occur, mainly because I’m limited to the free advertising of Craig’s List Portland.) Anyway, I showed him how to Air Drop some image reference to me and he was all, “Oh man, cool!” Hadn’t been aware of it. Does it fucking matter that I’m fucking UP ON THINGS? No. It fucking does not if I’m immediately disqualified due to age. And I know from past experience I can run circles around most designers in terms of efficiency, once I know the product and this does not take long.
I got my workout in. Tomorrow I think I’ll do the 1/3 HIIT / 2/3 yoga format.
Warm-up: (10/30×6=4min) jump rope intervals
New Years Eve Workout by Christine Comeau
20:17 no rest tabata pairs (20 secs move #1, 17 secs move #2 x4) 6:23
With 8lb vest. Kicked my ASS. Haven’t been wearing it lately.
1. Tuck jump burpee (tuck at top and the bottom)
a. Toe touch jacks
2. Box jump burpee
a. Box jumps
3. Plank hop + vertical frog jump
a. Plank hops
4. High knee runs + drop and pop
a. High knee runs
5. Broad jump + bunny hop back
a. Bunny hop
6. Skaters
a. SL box jumps (on the floor)
DumbBELL Time Pyramid (50:10:30:10:15:10 complete for each move before moving on) 18:45 mins
1. Squat slam + halo up 20
2. RL fwd lung and lateral raise chop 10
3. SA snatch to split lunge right 15 I was thinking I wouldn’t like this move & was right. I’d rather do a stationary clean & press w/ SA and 20lb
4. Staggered push up + tuck jump over block
5. LL fwd lunge and lateral raise chop
6. SA snatch lunge left 15
7. Squat and press, drop weights and squat jump 40 This really DID send my heart rate through the roof, and for some reason swings with a kettle bell (next move) are extra rocket-y for me.
8. Kettlebell swing 35 Reg height, to shoulder level Had to hit pause after 50-sec interval to let my heart rate lower. Took the time to make notes 🙂
9. Staggered push up + t-stand press 15
AMRAP (5 minutes- start at 10 reps per move, every round remove one rep)
Score: only got thru the 10s and 9s complete & to 6 star jumps in the 8s.
1. Toe touch jacks
2. SL tricep pushups
3. Star jumps
4. X & O abs (low boat x to tuck abs)
Reps This set was counting down in reps from 10-1, for a NYC thing. I get that it’s a change of pace & is playful but I wanted more reps so I did 10 of all & changed the last move.
Time = 12min Hadda run out of the room a couple times to fetch equipment I’d forgotten
10 reps plank + leg kick through 2=1, feet on bench
10 reps decline pike push up
10 repsV-ups hold 3lb weight bet feet & 10lbs in hands
10 reps handstand leg squeezing ball + shoulder taps (2=1)
10 reps hamstring pulls on sliders
10 reps reverse curls, 5lbs bet feet
10 reps v ups (2=1) 3lbs
10 reps tucks 3lbs
10 reps slider pike tucks
50 crunches leg squeeze plank hold 30 seconds
Combo moves pyramid (from 8-6-4-2)
Time = 18min
1. Tricep pushup / plank hops / tricep kickback 10
2. Alt rows 20s / plank hop / standing, fast, alt rows This was tough w/ two 20s!
3. Squat jump (weights in hands) 30 + hammer curl in squat
4. Bench flutter kick abs and punches ankle weights, C-sit on bench, 10lbs each hand / Reverse Curls w/ ankle weights Decided to make this one a combo move too rather than having a descending order of reps with a somewhat arbitrary break.
(Total time = 1:28)
Yoga
- About 15min
A moderate temperature is SUPPOSED to be 1 of the things Portland has going for it
Not this year! It’s a good thing I kept the 22 year old Grizzly. (Wish I had the money to get new faux fur put in but I don’t.) It’s a tights under jeans kind of day. I’m actually heading downtown to do some office cleaning. Moving from NYC to Portland is the same thing as moving from a “3rd world” country to the USA. Your previous credentials are rendered irrelevant. I’m a doctor in my country.
So I started the 2nd hermetics exercise. This time I’m going to keep a log & publish it as one entry when I’m done. Makes more sense. I tacked it onto a 22min sit. Normally I sit for 30min but I’ve gotta catch the last bus 51 of the morning at 9:08. If you wait longer than that, you’re fucked, in this zone.
Oh and my replacement 20lb dumbbell finally arrived! I’m not sure if it’s exactly the same weight as the old one, but I can alternate which hand holds which weight. At least now I don’t have to hurt my hands trying to hold two 10s at the same time, and I can up my load by 10lbs in many more moves. Gonna do a late afternoon routine today.
Woke up with a start from my drug-induced nap
And half the day’s over. Excellent! And it only took 1 tablet
I guess I don’t have mono but that weird, nervous churning feeling in my upper abdomen, spleen area, reminds me of my bout, long ago. It was the first day of eighth grade. My sister and I both got ready in same bathroom, each perched on one side of the counter. I was applying my blue sparkly eye shadow (I’m that old), when I sort of crumpled, slid to the floor and passed out. You could call that sudden onset! My sister accused me of always being “so dramatic”. My dad had to come in and pick me up off the floor and deposit me on my bed. There was a moment I scared the fuck out of everyone by being unable to respond. Soon after I had the worst sore throat you could imagine, like strep at mach 10. I needed help getting from the car into the doctor’s office later as well, but by then I could speak.
It was a rager of a case & I missed a full month of school. My throat felt like that last night. It’s hard to get any liquids down when it’s that painful to swallow.
Maybe I’ll have to go back to vegetarian again and see if that helps my immune system as much as it did in my late 30s. I still think vegan is the only ethical way, but it’s just too damn hard when you’re this isolated and poor. I’m lucky to have a roof over my head and food to eat. When I’m buying my own groceries again then I can be pickier.
It’s a good time to practice razor focus & thought control #election2016 #hermetics
So now I’ve read through the first couple chapters of Franz Bardon’s Initiation Into Hermetics, the theory and the first chunk of the practical exercises. I haven’t started practicing any of them yet exactly, though with my background in yoga and meditation – not to mention minor dabblings in witchcraft, herbology, tarot, candle magic, gemstones and essential oils etc. – I’m definitely already out of the starting gate. I’ve been meditating daily since October 9th or 10th this stint. Usually it’s 22min but sometimes, like today, it’s 40.
INITIATION II – THE PRACTICE OF MAGIC
Each exercise to be practiced at least 14 days (for those with some prior development) before moving onto the next. You start with 5min twice daily and then add 1min per day until you’re at 10min twice daily.
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Thought control
- This is more like thought observance, but it’s different from my seated meditation because you’re supposed to see what you remember AFTER. I tried it once after my morning sit. It’s surprisingly hard! I will have to add it though, when I start my hermetics project for real. I’m just waiting until after the birth stage of my current thing.
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Thought discipline
- This talks about performing all tasks with complete awareness, and what THAT means repeatedly pushing away any thoughts that have nothing to do with the task at hand. Unless you’re a US politician that means you shouldn’t be thinking about what just happened here. I was reminding myself of that this morning: Batcave. Focus on something else! Something you’ve selected as personally relevant. I decided to think before practicing the banishing ritual. That’s right. Morning’s are my favorite study time.
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Mastery of thoughts
- This is about avoiding thoughts! It’s the closest to the seated meditation I already practice. When I first learned formal, seated meditation (29 years ago, age 20) I developed a technique for myself of moving my inner awareness in a clockwise fashion around my area of focus.This was the edge of the nostrils, watching the breath, as per a very traditional method.
- Outrunning my thoughts? It would help me get away from the verbal language thoughts anyway, not sensory impressions or strong emotions.
That’s six weeks of specific work right there, and I need to keep a detailed, hand written journal. What I really want is this though of course I can’t have it. I’ll be forced to use a recycled notebook because poor.
I consoled myself with the thought that the fancy journal is made with leather, and though my diet has returned to the dark side, it doesn’t mean I should be supporting that industry.
I’ll need all my notes for the self analyses exercises of the next section.
Too poor for friendships
Just did my morning sit & banishing ritual practice, but before that I sent Juliet an email I’d been putting off. I cannot go to the triple 50 birthday party in Nashville! I’m way too poor. When Ch offered to get me a plane ticket, I was just getting ready to start at the latest menial job, and I was counting on saving some money for things like cabs, dinners and other entertainment. You need money to hang out! If only they’d meant the 3-days a week they’d promised. Perhaps I should’ve tried to negotiate, but when I’d tried to get reimbursed for at least a couple hours after a last minute cancelled shift at the last place they really doubled down on the abuse.
The people who are paid the least have to work the hardest, and they also suffer the most abuse.
As a corollary, those who speak up in those conditions suffer immediate consequences. If your opinion were important in the slightest a company would not immediately disregard the schedule described during the interview. That’s just the way it goes. I used to stick up for and support those I saw getting abused in the workplace in NYC. I was really popular with the mailroom people, with the cleaning staff… Unfortunately this attitude has not helped me, karmically, on the west coast.
Anyway I kept moving “look for plane tickets” in my iCal. It came up again today… How much money would I want to bring with me? Considering I haven’t seen these long term friends of mine in two years, I’d want to be able to let loose. In the old days I know I’d arrive with about $400 cash.
The chances of my earning any money at all before the end of the year are slim. I haven’t been posting in Craig’s List for awhile because the Portland page resulted in only one client, and I totally lost money on that set of illustrations. That’d have been ok it they led to new clients but it did not. This morning I looked in the ads for creatives. I saw one for chainsaw artist in Sherwood. They’ve got a bunch of old trees and logs they want made into art, but they don’t have much money. They want to pay in meat, lol. Not that I know how to carve with chainsaws but that’s a pretty typical listing.
If I got lucky enough to make some money before the end of the year I could check out the ticket prices then, but it’s probably not going to happen.
I’ve ALWAYS been a #renunciate by nature
Or as Greg, formerly known as Fucknut, once said to a friend while pointing at me, That one’s a Sadhu in training. He made a gesture like this
and goes, She cares this much what people think. Him included!, As it later turned out. But I delete my digression. I’m no longer pissed about the ending.
I like to get really involved with things for awhile – passionate obsessions – and then (almost) totally abandon them: studies, artistic endeavors, NYC, ashtanga… I like to say I’m no longer this or that. I have a lot of practice in the fluidity of self identification, though I think sometimes I err too strongly in that direction…
Post meditation thoughts
Read a really long FB post by Matthew Sweeney this morning. I do regret I wasn’t ever able to participate in one of his month long intensives. He’s one of the few major, old school teachers I can ever read or watch without extreme eye roll. I was lucky enough to witness the end of his practice during my one and only, short month visit to Command Central. I ended up in the same spot in back of the room a few days in a row, starting my practice as M was finishing his, one or two rows behind me. Can’t remember which. I DO remember watching his tick tocks in awe while I was in my Suryas. I couldn’t fucking help it. He was right within driste.
Out of my previous, extensive collection of yoga books, this is the single one I decided to keep. It’s really all I needed to take with me to the west coast. It’s the best reference tools there is on the vinyasa, as far as I’m concerned.
Some rare nostalgia
Back in the golden days when Christopher was teaching me 3rd series as fast as he could, and I got the first eleven poses my first day in, I’d be studying the vinyasa from this book in the evening. If I messed it up C would make me repeat! And I was still doing full 2nd for a bit, though I’m pretty sure he took off the seven headstands within a few days. He gave me all of the arm balances within the next three weeks, and then gave me the split he’d already worked out, before he left for an India trip. All of my friends got new split instructions too. He’d want talk to you seated on the floor, right before you were going to roll up your mat to go. He’d sit RIGHT in front of you & lock on the mind control stare while he told you what YOU WERE GOING TO BE DOING the next six weeks. Everyone’s split was completely unique and made sense per student. That was C!
My first 2nd/3rd split was a helluva intense practice! I’d do suryas and standing and second to Kapo. Then I’d skip to Karandavasana and after that straight into 3rd. That’s a steady crescendo right there. Boom-boom-boom all the way through the freaking arm balances.
Anyway, to wrap this up so I can get on with my day, I’ll say that while I’m definitely interested in working more yoga into my exercise, some legitimate practice rather than merely minimal closing stretches, I’m hugely wary of getting over attached again. I am proud of myself that I broke my addictive relationship with Ashtanga. The only way I could do it was to steadily extricate myself further and further from the scene of The Cult, of course. Happily I’m in no danger of temptation there because I’m couldn’t afford any involvement
If you can sit without asana, you don’t need the asana #meditation
Other forms of physical exercise are much more efficient and far less damaging to your joints!
I’m not exercising this week but I’m meditating daily, 22 minutes in the morning. Of course with a head cold you’re obliged to break your seat occasionally for coughing, sneezing and nose blowing. Still… I’d like to do a second, 18 minute evening sit but so far no.
I’ll get in two workouts this week anyway, Friday and Saturday. (Hopefully I’m not scheduled again until next week, but I’m not in the system yet so… Will find out during my shift.)
Boodiba 