Different Kind of Meme

Saw variations of this on a few blogs. My year in blogging, one can take the first paragraph of one’s first or last blogposting of the month for the past year. So here we go:

February 2008
As I've no doubt recounted here a time or two, I was raised Catholic and am now Buddhist, took some vows a few years ago. And it's interesting to sometimes hear how complex theories get dumbed down for the mainstream. I heard karma described as 'that's Buddhist for I'm rubber, you're glue'.

January 2008
Most days my commute consists of a 100 mile round trip and I decided to use my time slightly more wisely by listening to books on cd. So today, I'm listening to Pema Chodron "From Fear to Fearlessness". She speaks of maitri - loving kindness meditation and compassion and how we are connected to all beings. I've been doing a variation on the compassion meditation for years (having taken vows and such it's all part of the deal). I've heard several people speak on the subject, read about, listened to various other Buddhist teachers on the subject and gone to Buddha camp. and each time I've caught the part about being compassionate with oneself but it never really quite sunk in until today.

December 2007
I have been coughing up a lung for the better part of the last 10 days. And loath as I am to venture into a doc's office with the other germ spreaders (actually started into the doc in the box the other night but someone was vomicking into a waste can and I said to myself, "self, this here hack is not so bad", so I kept right on stepping.) Anyway, I hadn't previously realized that the antihistamines I take to keep the everyday allergens at bay (ya know, like the 3 cats) actually dry matters out so that I end up with this persistent evil cough. So, I've knocked off the friggin' antihistamines and the cough is dissipating finally. Yay!

November 2007
In a recent conversation with my friend S, we happened upon the topic of business casual. In her world, which is necessarily more formal than my world, business casual is casual clothing appropriate for business. In my world, business casual simply means your business is covered up, and when people come to work with their business showing we send people home.

October 2007
This one was entitled Epithets I’ve used more than once today.
Fucking moron
Quasi-literate sparrow fart
Living Proof that Evil and Moronic Can Peacefully Coexist
Fucking Idiot
Raving Douchebag
World's Only Living Brain Donor
Fucking Loon
Fartface
(This suggests what I’ve always suspected was true, I’m a foul mouthed relic with an extremely vivid vocabulary.)

September 2007
I sometimes get twisted up by mindfulness and my lack thereof, and then the even less mindful folk I'm often surrounded by, remind me that I'm not meant to get it all perfectly right. I just need to pay attention but if I pay too close attention I will lose my mind.

August 2007
While I am quite fluent in English, having spoken it all my life, I consider my native tongue to be Douchebag. Douchebag is a lot like English yet far more profane. Even when the preface douchebag is unuttered it is implied and at work it seldom remains unuttered these days.


July 2007
I have spent 23 years of the 46 working at the same place. 15 at the same job.
Spent 21 years, 10 months of it sober (some at the beginning, oddly more in the current phase of me life).




June 2007
Today is the 9th anniversary of Puppy the cat having adopted me. She was a grown cat at the time so I'm not sure of her age or date of birth but I am sure of what day she came home with me. So for the sentimental jackass part, to celebrate I ventured to Wegman's for a half pound of tuna (yellowfin, $21.99 lb. But it gets worse, I fire up the charcoal grill wait for the coals to become grey and hot for searing (but not too much because the cats don't like it) and grilled the tuna, sprayed with PAM for the grill but otherwise as is. No garlic, no lemon, no pepper no nothing. When it was done, I split it and seasoned mine and we sang happy birthday to Puppy(ok, so I sang and the other 2 just looked) and chowed on grilled tuna fish. It was lovely but I am a sentimental ass.

May 2007
My friend J and I were chatting via email and she asked me what animal does she bring to mind. Hers is a very leonine energy, coupled with a hawkish awareness and vigilance. So I said a lion hawk if there was such an animal. When I asked her what she thought I might embody, she said a wolf. Because, I'm a loner when I choose to be, social when I choose to be and mysterious. I can work with that.

April 2007
Got home at midnight on Friday, noticed a missive from the IRS in the mail, the were merely explaining that my serial killer like handwriting precluded them from reading my banking info to direct deposit my refund. If you've got to get mail from the IRS or the initials as I fondly refer to them, that's the kind to get.

March 2007
Wireless networking should be idiot proof for an ably accomplished idiot such as my self and my even more ably accomplished idiot friend but nooooooooooooooooooooooo..... Goddamn router.