Reclamation Project

You may remember that on our wedding day, I went to a yoga class. The teacher taught a beautiful, heart-opening class (she was coming to the wedding and, thus, knew what I'd be doing that afternoon), and, as always, she ended class with a line from the yoga sutras: "Surrender to your heart." Lately, though, when I've managed to haul my sorry ass to her class, I find myself in tears by the end of class, even before she gets to that line. The class (but not practicing by myself at home, for example, and probably not classes with other teachers) ends up reminding me that I won't exactly "celebrate" the first anniversary of our marriage. But, in part thanks to a conversation with a friend about this dilemma, I've decided to reclaim the whole thing. The other thing I was thinking about today was a woman who was a fellow guest speaker in a smoking cessation group I did awhile ago (maybe last summer or the summer before). Unlike many people, she quit smoking in the middle of an extremely stressful time in her life--getting a divorce, a couple of small kids, had to find a job--which isn't always a good strategy. For her, though, the stress actually helped her quit smoking; as she said, everything else in her life felt so out of control, she decided that quitting smoking was the one thing she could control. So I asked myself: what can I control right now? And I realized that I can control my yoga practice--when and whether I practice, most notably. That didn't make me actually come home and practice, but it was nevertheless an important realization. Maybe it'll help me reclaim the class, too.

What I did do was come home--late (after 5:00 when I got here, which is late for me), because I worked my ass off today--and pour a bottle of Liquid Plum'r (or howeverthefuck they spell it) into the tub (still! from this morning!) full of water; talk on the phone for an hour or more; balance my checkbook (though I can't do the end-of-the-month accounting that's joint with Craw until he does the same); clean up some of the crap around this pit; eat some dinner; and lament that my tub remains full of water and Liquid Plum'r. Looks like no shower for me in the morning, which is a drag, because that's how my brain knows to wake up. They should have it fixed by the time I get home, though, which is one of the advantages of living in a building this expensive, at which point I will be able to clean the bathroom, which was on the original list of chores for today. I still haven't vacuumed up the dust buffalo roaming freely around the apartment, and I won't get to that one tonight. I also haven't done more than an initial sort of my mail basket, but I've done enough to know that there's only one bill in it right now.

Yes, I'm still stressing mightily about finding a place to live, and I'm starting to get on my own goddamned nerves already. It's probably a way of not thinking about, for example, the anniversary party for my parents, to and from which I must fly and which I must attend with Craw, or about what I'm going to do next, or whatever. It's as if I've poured all of my potential anxieties into this one arena. Whatever; I don't have endless patience for my own crap. I had a nice little pity party on the way home from work today, and by the time I walked in the door I was pretty tired of it. Cleaning things up around here didn't hurt, either, standing water in the tub notwithstanding. I know: maybe I was just sad because my apartment was dirty, and cleaning it up made me feel happy! Yeah, that's it!

Om Shanti

Saturday night, instead of coming back to an emptier apartment, I went with a friend to see/hear/chant with Krishna Das. I'd never been to a kirtan before, and I had no clue what to expect, but I like his CDs very much and I figured I should take advantage of his presence in my city. He was very personable; I liked his warm stage presence, and his voice is lovely. The venue was a church, which was a little strange, in that we were basically trying to fit an Indian worship form into a European setting. This was notable in two regards. First, though I've never been to a kirtan, my impression was that it wasn't set up in an audience-facing-performer kind of way (and, when you think about it, it's interesting that a church is set up that way, too). The fact that the venue imposed this arrangement meant that we couldn't hear our own voices quite so well and also meant that movement was constricted, perhaps even moreso than at a concert of some other kind. The other notable part, though, is that this form of worship is explicitly both interactive and responsive: Krishna Das said right up front (jokingly but seriously, too) that if we didn't respond, he was outta there. That is, he would sing/chant a line, and we were to sing/chant it in response. I'm no expert on western religious forms, but I don't think that that's how most worship services go. (Someone who knows more about gospel singing could perhaps compare the two.)

I did, in fact, enjoy it; his voice is very rich, and the interactive nature of the event is pretty cool. I don't know that I'd go to another kirtan on purpose, but I wouldn't run screaming if I found myself in the middle of one somehow, and I'd particularly like to see KD in a different venue. Some of the participants were a little . . . off the beaten path, not surprisingly, most notably the two males and one female dressed all in white, with white gauze turbans wrapped around their heads. That always seems odd to me, but I suppose it isn't that much more odd than Krishna Das himself, who's a basic middle-class American guy by birth, I believe. It does raise the question of an authentic self and how one knows one's own, but I think judging someone else's enlightenment is a risky business at best.

In any case, I managed to avoid returning home until this afternoon, and the time away included, in addition to the kirtan, two delicious dinners (one at a restaurant, one some homemade lasagna), wine, chocolate, good company, and not one but two lovely walks in the woods and sun. The original walks in those woods were in the fall and winter when the leaves had pretty much gone completely--now everything is GREEN and blooming, and it was really, really nice. This afternoon's walk reminded me that getting outside, and getting outside my head, is important. In those and many other ways, it was a really nice weekend. Every so often I'd remember that my husband was moving out of our apartment, and it would feel less nice, and then I'd just move on. Why dwell on things outside my control? Which is most of life, so far as I can tell.

I still need to find a place to live, but I've decided to put that on hold for a little while. This lease isn't up until the end of July, and I just need to chill a bit. I want to sort and pack my things properly, I want to find a good place to live, and I want to make sure that Craw and I have a financial arrangement that works before I sign a lease. He has been extremely reassuring verbally, and his actions have, so far, lived up to his assurances, so I'm not as uneasy as I could be, but I still want to see how it plays out, especially once he's no longer getting severance pay (which has given us a cushion). When I think about the various bits of things going on in my life, I can manage any given bit; when all the bits converge, it's kind of disconcerting: a lot has changed dramatically in less than four months. So I go back to dealing with whatever bit is in front of me right this minute and focus on that in whatever way makes sense. There isn't much else I can do, really.

Being Elsewhere

I thought perhaps the stars would align, but, alas, no go. I called the managers of the current apartment building to see whether there were still people in line for this apartment, but they didn't want to wait any longer and signed a lease two doors north of this building. Okay, then: I reminded myself last night that (1) there's more than one good apartment in the city, and (2) it really would be nice to have a chance to pack my stuff deliberately (e.g., dust books before I pack them; get rid of clothes I don't want), not to mention (3) at least two friends have offered space in their abodes, for me and/or my stuff, should the need arise. That would not be the preferred option, of course, because it would entail moving twice when, really, once is enough, but I don't have to worry about being without a place for my stuff (thank you George Carlin). I still have to find a place, of course, but it won't be right this minute.

Craw is moving out some of his stuff tomorrow, so he and the Kid and I had some dinner at our usual Friday night place and, despite Craw's announcement to the contrary a couple of weeks ago, he and the Kid will be staying here tonight, the better to get an early start tomorrow. I have to work, and it's just as well, if you ask me. The croissants still haven't learned to make themselves, and I really don't want or need to be here to watch the physical dissolution of a shared life.

The Lam(b)inator

I needed some crumbs the other day and there weren't any in the cake room bin, so the boss told me to use the six leftover lamb cakes, but to behead them first, because there were toothpicks in them (to hold the ears on). There are now lamb heads in a couple of locations around the bakery . . .

I still haven't found a place to live. The place with the gut-rehab kitchens gets no damned light. The place that gets light and has two bedrooms and so on is for May 1, and I can neither manage that date nor justify spending the extra $860 it would take to get the apartment and have two of them for a month. Three, really, counting Craw's. It's extremely tempting, though, because it's otherwise a pretty great apartment.

But I can't think about it any more, at least not right now. It's making me crazy.

Tell Me a Story

Sometimes it seems perfectly normal, the right thing to do, the only rational choice. Other times, I'm overwhelmed by a sense of unreality. As I've said to several people recently, I've gone from "everything's (mostly, apparently) fine" to "we're splitting up" in four months, and it's a bit much and a bit fast. I mean, really, what the fuck? But it gets us out of the endless loop we were in, where we'd have the same conversation, over and over, usually with tears in there somewhere and no resolution with which both of us could live. Feh.

So Craw went and found a new place to live today--basically, a one-bedroom apartment in the building where he has his office/studio. They're going to let him move from the latter to the former, without penalty (though there will be some costs, like moving the phone and internet connections and so on), and they're going to add an additional deadbolt lock, and it has a new kitchen (with a dishwasher, no less), and the whole thing is much bigger, but not a whole lot more expensive, than the studio apartment, in which he kept contending he would live if necessary. Now I have to find a place to live. I'm looking at two places this Thursday, the one I mentioned below that will have a new kitchen and another one (or more) in a different neighborhood. Actually, Craw's joining me for the apartment look-see, and we'll then head to his new place, if he has the keys, so I can see it, and then to grocery shopping, and then back here to start dividing up our stuff.

I just wish I could come up with a way to talk about this, something that makes sense, but doesn't make one of us sound like an idiot or a bad person, because neither of us is either of those things. So how do two reasonably smart people make such a dumb mistake? Or maybe that's the wrong question.

But, right now, I have no clue what the right question is, and I'm tired and hungry, so I'm going to make some dinner and maybe watch some television (!), and then get some sleep. Maybe the right question will come to me in my dreams.

A 93.5% Solution

Not very long after Craw and I met, we were having dinner at the place where we had our first date (and where we ate together last night, for that matter). Craw said, "You're the most amazing person I've ever met." He was shocked to see me get this slightly sickened look on my face--until I explained to him that I've heard that more than once, from more than one man, and it's usually a precursor to being told that the person doesn't want to actually be with me. The weird thing is that, in at least a couple of instances that I can recall, the men were quite serious; it wasn't a case of them coming up with a version of "It's me, baby, you're great, you're amazing, but I just can't, I'd only hurt you, blah, blah, blah"--the old let 'em down easy tactic. When I explained this to Craw, he understood the look on my face, and, over the past nearly eight years, he has repeatedly informed me that I'm still the most amazing person he's ever met. (I'd argue that he doesn't get out much, but leave that aside.)

What we realized last evening is that that wasn't a good reason to get married (or perhaps even to get into the particular relationship we were in). It might be the case that he wanted to keep me in his life--and I wanted him in my life, too--and the only path we could imagine is the one that led to that ceremony last June. It wasn't all bad (and still isn't), but it's become clear to both of us that Fighting To Save Our Marriage probably isn't a good strategy for either short-term or long-term peace and mental health for either of us. We think we can come up with a short-term and long-term solution that will enable Craw to give back to me what I've given to him (in the form of financial support) and will enable Craw to pay back money he owes me, and probably even allow us to be friends, which wouldn't be the craziest thing we've ever done. It also enables us to delay telling our parents for awhile, which suits both of us just fine (his mom was very happy to see me, and I her, and I think the Kid likes being around me, too, and Craw wants me and the Kid to be able to stay in each other's lives, even if we don't spend as much time together). I know better than to think it's all going to be fuzzy puppies and pretty flowers--no relationship is ever that, and one that's been this fraught would certainly not be an exception--but at least we can move forward in (separate) ways that make sense for each of us and that enable us to stop making each other crazy.

Wish us luck.

Space Odyssey

I forgot how much I fucking hate moving. Actually, I take that back: the moving itself is relatively painless, thanks to my many systems (more on that in a second), but the finding of the apartment just blows. I'm now dashing out of work (yesterday, today, and probably tomorrow, too) to go see prospective apartments, and what I've mostly seen are uninhabitable (by me) shitholes. The first one wasn't too bad--except the laundry was outside and down the back stairs and then into the basement, and I am WAY too fucking old to be doing that in the middle of February so I have clean socks. The second two weren't much better, though the laundry was in the building. The fourth one had incredible counter space, but not much else to recommend it, plus it was on the first floor, which I don't particularly like. The rest of the place was tiny. The fifth and sixth ones (in the same building as the fourth one) had kitchens the size of closets, and that's just not workable for me. The guy who was showing those apartments told me about another building, however, where the rent is a little bit higher BUT the kitchens are being completely redone AND there are separate dining areas. I'm hoping to see those tomorrow. Today's apartment got a fair amount of light, but it was on the first floor and it had an electric stove. The building manager also manages the building across the street, where they have jacuzzis and in-unit washers and dryers, but no vacancies right now. The biggest problem is that not everyone knows what they're going to have for June, but I don't want to break the lease for this place unless and until I know I have a place to go. Cross your fingers that the ones with the new kitchens will be nice.

As for the move itself, well, what a surprise, I have systems for that, too. Only pack things you actually want to take with you. Throw shit out. Start packing as soon as you can. Pack everything you're taking in an actual box. Label each box with the contents and where it goes. Have enough people (if you're not hiring movers, and I don't think we can afford to do that)--this one may prove to be the biggest challenge for me. If you can, think about where things will go. Unpack in an order that makes sense. Unpack each box completely, rather than randomly opening boxes. Have enough beer and pizza for your movers.

But I don't need to bore you with this shit; there are several weeks before any actual moving will occur, and I have plenty of time to obsess.. Meanwhile, I have to make plans to go to my parents' 50th anniversary party--yes, with Craw. We decided to not dump our drama on my parents before their party.

At the bakery, we have a person working with us for a month who grew up in this city but has spent the last 12 years in England; she's a baker in a fancy hotel over there. She's sort of apprenticing with the boss, learning as much as she can. She seems nice enough, and a good enough baker and all, but she's acquired a British accent, after only 12 years, which just seems . . . odd to me. She's in her late 40s, so that makes it even stranger. I mean, I've lived here for nearly 20 years, and I still sound like where I came from rather than from here. I can see picking up some expressions and so on, but a whole accent?

We've also been making a zillion Easter and Passover products: today I was dipping the heads of lamb cakes in chocolate (white chocolate for the white cake with buttercream and coconut lambs and dark chocolate for the chocolate cake with fudge lambs). We've got macaroons, and honey cake, and multi-colored bread, and I don't know what all. Today i got stuck next to the radio for the lamb-head-dipping operation, which meant I had to listen to the shitty Spanish music for awhile, and then the whistler put on the baseball game, which was somewhat better, except I don't like the teams here. Whine, whine, whine. As you might have figured out, the drama has continued around here, and I'm still not going to write much about it. I'm going to return my library books and make some dinner, and maybe have a glass of wine, because I think there's a little left in the fridge.

One Headlight

That's what S had until yesterday, when I went to his place and helped him replace the one that had blown out. (He's got a Jetta, and it's difficult to replace the driver's-side bulb without taking out the battery, but my hands are sufficiently smaller than his so that I could do it for him, which he appreciated greatly.) It's a fine day here--nearly 70 degrees, sunny, clear--and I must get outside again eventually; maybe when the laundry is done. (I have to do at least a load of whites every week so I have clean chef clothes.) I dutifully made lists of apartments yesterday, but haven't done much about it today. There are several chores I'm avoiding today--send shoes off to one of our commenters here, return the library books and get some new ones, buy a few groceries, price moving boxes, get some facial moisturizer so I can stop smearing body lotion on my face, corral the dust buffalo roaming the apartment, wash the pans from the other night--and I can't bring myself to give a rat's ass.

Sunrise

I want to live alone in the desert
I want to be like Georgia O'Keefe
I want to live on the Upper East Side
And never go down in the street

Splendid isolation
I don't need no one
Splendid isolation

--Warren Zevon, "Splendid Isolation"

Of course, that's not true at all for me. I lived alone for 20 years and liked it just fine, and the prospect of doing it again doesn't bother me, but I don't really enjoy isolation per se.

In this apartment, the buildings east of it are spaced such I can sit up in bed and watch the sun rise over the lake, which is about four blocks east of here. I've enjoyed doing this--way more than I would have predicted--for the past four years. Even this morning, I woke at 5--one's brain gets into these patterns, I guess--and, burrowed in the flannel sheets, I watched a particularly beautiful sunrise. Of course, that, too, makes me sad, because, while Craw is not so much with the getting up early thing, that early-morning quiet was something we shared, and, if I'd gotten up to make coffee for us (decaf for me, thank you), he'd be awake enough to watch some of the sunrise with me.

I hate thinking about these things.

So I'll go to a yoga class in a little while, then come back here and clean this place, then start making lists of apartments to see. I spoke with the people in the building, and there's apparently a waiting list for two-bedroom apartments here, so we might well be able to move out early, which would be useful.

Incidentally, kStyle tells me that the blog has been eating comments, which just blows. If you remember what you said, particularly about the last post, email it to me.

Space Considerations

The great apartment search is on, even though the lease isn't up until the end of July. Craw and I can't afford this apartment plus parking on our current household income, so a move is necessary. The upside, such as it is, is that we've been spending so much on rent plus parking that we'll be able to find something cheaper without a problem. It remains to be seen what we do about our living arrangements, but we know we're moving out of here, so I wanted to start seeing what the other neighborhood possibilities are. I've been pleasantly surprised so far, though I haven't looked at any actual apartments (a lot of stuff is online, so I can check out floor plans and the like).

I hate moving, though, and the thought of doing that makes me cringe. In my previous city, I lived in seven different apartments in five years, and it was a complete pain in the ass. In this city, I've lived in five apartments in nearly 20 years, and only three buildings. (Twice I've moved within a building, including this last time.) I've lived in this building since 1998, and we've lived in this apartment since 2001, I think. It's not a huge place, so we haven't had the luxury of stashing stuff in an attic or garage or something like that, though Craw does have some stuff in the basement and in his ex-wife's garage and maybe at his mom's place. All of my stuff, such as it is, is here, which will make the packing and moving portion of the program slightly less onerous for me. It would be nice if we didn't have to hire movers, though we'll almost certainly have to rent a truck.

I've realized that the things I want are: proximity to public transportation to work; a gas stove; preferably a southern exposure and actual sunlight; heat included in the rent; and onsite laundry. A reasonable grocery store nearby would be nice. It would be very nice if friends with cars can find a place to park when they visit (in some neighborhoods that's practically impossible). A decent kitchen is pretty much a must--that turns out to be way more important to me than I once realized. (By "decent" I mean "enough counter space to cook and a nearby dining area, so I can talk to guests while I prepare their dinners.") Access to cable and high-speed internet is important, and likely not a problem, though we'll have to pay for it on top of the rent (it's included in the rent in this building). A dishwasher would be lovely, but not a necessity; since a fair number of the buildings at which I'm looking are relatively recent rehabs, it's not out of the question. I don't much care about having a microwave; we have one built in here, but I've otherwise always made do without one. I really like having a window in the bathroom, particularly in the shower, but that's just icing and not necessary at all. I prefer hardwood floors to carpet. I don't care at all about air conditioning; there are window units in this building, and I can count the number of times they've been turned on, mostly when Craw's mom is in town.

Yeah, I know, I know, I'm rushing things, but that's the way my mind works. I like to organize whatever can be organized, because I find it minimizes hassles. I've learned to pack boxes in an organized fashion, not least because it makes unpacking them easier. I've learned which things must be dealt with first: the cold/frozen food, the shower curtain, the bed, the stereo, just about in that order. I've learned to start packing as early as possible, which enables getting rid of the crap that one doesn't want to move and minimizes the chances of a last-minute-packing nightmare. There are various other nightmares in my head right now, but, luckily, it's getting late and I have to work tomorrow, so I'll put them aside for now; it's not like they're going to go away, but it's also not like I'm going to solve them tonight, or here. Out of curiousity, though, what do you consider when you move?

Freezer Bingo

My hands hurt, as they generally do on Sundays. In part I suspect it's a week's worth of work, because they generally feel much better by Tuesday. Yesterday I got the task of cleaning out the freezer, and that took a toll on them, too. Lately one of the fans has been making a noise that's a lot like sticking your head in an airplane engine, and the claim was that it was because of ice. First I moved everything off the racks: some stuff went on rolling racks and into the downstairs freezer, some went into the walk-in refrigerator, and some went in the garbage. I took the racks out of the freezer, and the dishwasher washed them while I scrubbed down the inside of the freezer. During this part of the program, however, I discovered that it wasn't ice causing the noise; rather, one of the fans was loose in its housing, causing it to rattle against the metal of the freezer. Thus began an effort (by the owner's dad, not by me) to fix the fan, an effort that hadn't become successful by the time I left around 2:00. I assume they'll get it fixed by Monday.

I don't even want to tell you about the crud in the freezer. Imagine your home freezer or refrigerator, except bigger, with more nooks and crannies into which things can fall or get lost, and 10 people using it, hundreds of times a day. It's clean now, or clean-ish, but . . . ew.

We were pretty slow yesterday in the back (they were working their butts off in the store, but I don't care about that, except insofar as people are buying the croissants I make), which is partly why I ended up with the freezer task. I had to make the croissants, though--mostly the ham and cheese, as I was ahead of myself on all the other kinds--and the Whistler actually hung out and helped me, either on his own or at Brad's suggestion or request. I was appreciative (it did speed things along), and I suspect it was partly because I got a little in the weeds one day this week when I had to do muffins for him.

The very first day I worked there, the owner showed me how to use this new machine that deposits a set amount of batter into whatever you've got under the spout. It's really great for portion control, and, once you get coordinated enough with it, you can zip along. (The first day I kind of made hash of it, getting batter all over the damned place, even though you can control the speed, in the sense of the amount of time between deposits. For awhile, I used the foot pedal to deposit each hit of muffin batter, because it was easier to control the speed that way, but I've since become adept at holding down the pedal and moving the muffin tin and doing so at a fairly quick pace.) I also have to take the machine apart and clean it and reassemble it, and that is the much bigger pain in the ass. It also seems to be the case that the owner doesn't want the Hispanic guys to have much to do with that part of the program--he certainly hasn't taught them how to do it--but I'm not sure why that is. And, of course, as with any place like this one, if you do a job correctly, especially if you do it more than once, it becomes your job.

All this makes me contemplate the notion of (in)efficiencies, not least because I'll have to take some of them into account to have my own place. Would it really make sense to teach everyone to use and clean the machine? Probably not--but if too many knowledges accumulate in only one person, that's a different kind of inefficiency.

Language Games

Good lord, people! I leave you alone for a few days, and a war about words breaks out! It might take me several posts to sort through this all, but, seeing as how I actually wrote several hundred pages about language, I have something to say on this subject.

First off, I do not regard language as separate from practice, any more than I regard mind as separate from body. They are intertwined, at a deep, meaningful level, and efforts to extricate one from the other (classically, in a Cartesian fashion), are only going to make your head hurt. (You'll also notice that I'm talking about language, rather than only words: I think that glances, and acts, and so on, are every bit as meaningful as words.) The last line of the Tractatus that I quoted below is, in my opinion, the beginning of Wittgenstein's later and much more powerful work, the Philosophical Investigations. In the Investigations, Wittgenstein introduces the concept of "language games," by which he means language and the actions into which the language is woven, and throughout, he shows how we interweave language, practice, meaning, and judgment as we live our lives. In the Tractatus he tried to systematize language; he had been working with Bertrand Russell, and the idea of having language be as precise as numbers apparently were was very appealing to both of them, at least for awhile. (I suspect that Kurt Goedel's work would have been problematic for them, and maybe Heisenberg's too, while we're at it.)

After finishing the Tractatus, LW went off to teach schoolchildren somewhere, and, after watching how they learned, decided that the Tractatus was flawed, or wrong, or incomplete. ( I don't really know what HE thought of it; I see it as a kind of failed experiment, and one can learn from those as well as from "successful" experiments.) When he got back down to it, he started trying to elaborate the ways we use language, rather than trying to simplify language down to a mathematical or model-like (and, therefore, knowable) quantity. I'm not going to explicate the whole thing for you, but the Investigations basically enables one to see, and, in some ways, exploit, the dynamic, embedded nature of our language and language games. (By "exploit" I mean specifically "exploit for social science purposes.")

What does this have to do with the fight that broke out? First off, I think that words can, in fact, create reality, and in a short period of time, though I understand your point, Larry. I think that, in our personal lives, giving voice to something, naming something, can be a very powerful act--even if not everyone agrees about the name. However, I do not think words ARE our reality; words are embedded in practice, and vice versa. I do not think that there is a single ultimate reality: I really do think that, for deists, the world has gods, and that my world does not. We can agree about many other cosmological questions, but to try to argue a god or gods into or out of existence, well, that's another enterprise. (I had another friend who thought there was only one reality, but that we were only capable of imperfect, if shared, representations of it, and I can live with that view, at least up to most points.)

kStyle, thanks for the Lao Tzu; that was quite nice. I think that Asian texts, like that one, aren't so dissimilar in important ways from, say, church ritual in Europe--praying the rosary is probably not so different from other forms of prayer and meditation, for example. What I think many of those techniques do--whether or not there's a deity involved--is enable one to access some of the other information we take in on a daily basis. That is, there are more data out there, around us, flooding us, than we can consciously sort; we learn to sort it, and disregard this part or that part, and to pay special attention to this other thing, in order to make our way at all in the world. (Disorders on the autism spectrum seem to have to do with a flaw in that system, i.e., people with autism spectrum disorders have tremendous difficulty sorting and, especially, learning to ignore some stimuli.) But our sorting comes at a price: we may miss something that's important, because we've taught ourselves not to see it, and sometimes we're lazy, too. I think it's why so many people want a drug to treat their stress: that seems easier than exercise and diet change, for example. Our bodies are sending us messages, and we ignore those messages at our peril--even as we have to ignore some or many of them, or we become insufferable hypochondriacs.

And I'm still a fan of pragmatism, no matter one's spiritual take on any matter. I find that figuring out what the next thing to do is, and then doing it, is useful, and it often distracts one from too much thinking. It's why any kind of work is useful, and meaningful or sufficiently complicated work is even better. One runs the risk of doing the wrong thing, of course, or doing something badly, but, at least for me, it beats sitting and stewing. As I've been saying, the croissants won't make themselves.