Echo

9 positions 8 feet out, 5 shots each position, I went 45 for 45. And 5 for 5 from free throw line. Rotation is looking killer. Is it possible I’m a better shooter because of the surgery?
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Marion Cotillard is gorgeous.

What you learn shouldn’t bring you closer to trusting what you’ve learned. It should bring you closer to trusting what you know.

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;

my favorite poem.

people are always surprised by my hands.

My gut says the rental should cover 60% of the mortgage.

I did say I would perform at least once before I left Seattle. Got to prepare for May.

every time you close your eyes…

Nice! I forgot my phone and there’s no clock in this cafe. I’m out of time!

Everything I learn I use to hone my instincts. It’s like I’m whittling the world’s biggest shiv. I’m gonna poke a hole in the sky and climb right outta here.

A good way to live:

Take conscious processes, make them unconscious processes so you can work on more conscious processes.

Michael and I have an inside joke. We pretend to pick up the phone and say, “Hello? Hi Banana, how are you? I’m good. Just hanging out. WAIT A MINUTE BANANA! You can’t be calling. You don’t have fingers! How did you dial the phone?”

The other game is the Fat Throwing Game. This was a funny way we learned to cope with our mother’s insistent fussing about our weight. The game is easy. We pretend to grab big wobbly pieces of fat off each other. Then we either have a fat fight (the equivalent of an imaginary food fight), or one person holds the wobbly hunk, while the other directs him or her where to throw it. Michael always wants it thrown at our mom.

I’ve been listening to this song nonstop.

What is my totem.

She is the Princess of Disks. By birthright, Virgo Woman. The Warrior Healer, able to communicate beyond language. Father is a God and mother an entity. Carries a deep wound somewhere in all that swathed armor. Quiet bearer of great power. Sight. If she can not open herself to one person, she will pour her spirit into the ground, where it rises up around her. People are trees come to life. She has only one dream. It involves her hands. Few have seen her eyes. Few forget.

Hmm…I get the feeling that this last property is the sign post for some place else. Surprise trip. Going to SF on Tuesday.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you. April’s about to hit like a storm.

Do not sign contracts during a Mercury Retrograde, but it’s a good time for negotiations. Just remember to review everything, pay attention to details, and be very, very thorough. The good news is that if your opponent is not prepared for the skewing of the Retrograde, he will not be as aware, and therefore, will be careless. This gives you the advantage. Use this advantage wisely, but if there have been things you’ve wanted, now is the time to fight for it.

Think of the next 4 weeks this way…while the world buzzes with an electrical storm, the electric fence you’ve been wanting to climb deactivates.

Climb, my beastly friends. Climb!

Amazing.

What I would do, seeing as it’s going on 3 months on the market and its price was dropped Feb 22 (-65K), more than a month ago, is submit an offer at the avg sq footage price for that area ($691/sq ft) which would be $980,000. I would consider the reason it hasn’t sold yet is that it’s in  building where the HOA is $745 and parking is $100, meaning someone who puts down 30% is already looking at a $4000+ mortgage, and close to $900 in monthly fees that will only increase over time. Meaning that if you were to buy this place and sell it in the next 5-10 years, you’re likely looking at trying to pass on a property with monthly fees outside of mortgage, insurance and tax at well in the thousands. High built-in living expense is a tough sell.

Rent for a shared 2bd/2bth on the 5th floor overlooking the courtyard in the same building is $1150. This unit is 5 floors up near the top with sweeping views, meaning rent for that unit will be higher. If offer is excepted (if the owner is anything less than desperate, he won’t but nothing messes with people’s head like a Mercury Retrograde for making bad decisions), I would start looking for a roommate before the close of escrow. Rent would go towards HOA, etc, and to pay for the mortgage, I have positive income from my LA home to apply to this mortgage, or I could always take out a line of equity against my home in LA to put down a larger down payment.

But the most important would be that I’m backing myself in the corner, forcing me to work very, very hard to earn money. I’m at my most fierce from the corner, where you either claw your way out or die trying. I’ll risk losing some of my humanity. War is ugly. But I gave myself 3 years for this. And he happens to be 3 years away. So why not?

“Oh no…oh no…he pissed himself.”

Today was my 3rd day of trying to get up at a reasonable hour (aka morning). The last couple of days, my alarm goes off at 8:45 and again at 9:30, but I keep hitting the snooze button until well past 10 until I turn it off all together to get up closer to noon. Last night, I woke up every 2 hours thinking it was morning, and finally got out of bed just past 7. It was incredible! So this is what morning looks like!

I went to the gym and was really sluggish, but I shot around for half an hour (am hitting about 80% from just outside the key), and started Frankenstein while on the elliptical for 45 minutes.

I went downstairs to do some weights (I’m cleared for 5 lb bicep curls) when I ran into this guy I haven’t seen since last fall. He’s got curly hair and big blue eyes, kinda looks like that guy on Bones. He’s a massage therapist and he always looks at me like he’s watching the sun rise inside me. I don’t know how to explain it–kind of a senseless awe. He’d offered to show me around the last time I saw him, and I’d made some non-committal noises. This time, I saw him and his face lit up. I said hi, then beelined to the other side of the gym but he followed me over and was talking to me about how he hasn’t seen me around in a while. I told him I’d had surgery on my shoulder. I felt like a little kid, hopping from foot to foot, talking really fast, swinging my water bottle nervously, scared that he was going to ask me out again. I ended the conversation with something like, “I’ll be back on the court next month so I’ll see you then.” I went and did some lower back exercises but I noticed he was sticking close and watching me in the mirror, so I moved to do bicep curls, and he moved nearby to do shoulder presses. My instincts told me he was working up the nerve to say something, and my instincts said, “Oh shit.” So I only did one set, purposely ending while he was in the middle of his, then said, “Have a nice day!” taking a few steps towards the hallway leading to the locker room. “Oh,uh, what?” he said, stopping. “Have a nice day!” I said, inching a few more steps away.

“Oh yeah, you too. Hey, um, uh–”

“Bye!”

He was still kind of talking as I twirled and hurried off. I got my stuff together fast and took off before he could decide to stake out the locker room or something.

Sometimes I think I’m kind of a jerk. Do I use my shy awkwardness as a cover for my utter standoffishness? Once upon a time, I used to think, what’s the harm? You get to spend time and get to know someone new, and even if you’re not interested romantically, you make a new friend. But then I remember how terribly awkward I am at extricating myself from situations, especially when I worry about hurting someone’s feelings, and I think you know what? Fuck it. Why walk into something when you’re already planning ways to get out of it. It’s better to not get into it in the first place.