Walking the Buddha

The bylaws committee for Tantalus met last night and got some fantastic work done. We managed to rough out, in only a very few hours, the structure of our bylaws. Which I think is pretty impressive. We'll have a more complete version in a week or two. I was elected to write the preamble for the bylaws, because we thought we should have one, and because I'm the writer-type guy in the committee. Last year I wrote a disclaimer for Dreadful Penny... that included a preamble, but I don't think that'll work this time. The IRS has a notoriously poor sense of humor where things like demonic possession are concerned.

In two days, I'm going on vacation. Friday night, after work, I hop a plane to Philadelphia for a week and a half of hanging out at the beach, writing, and most importantly, seeing my family for the first time in months. This will be the first time in my life that I have a paid vacation.

I mean to spend a great deal of time in my favorite coffee shop, the Last Drop. The Last Drop is a great, out of the way little coffee shop, which is well lit and quiet with a good cup of coffee. And most importantly, the other clientele are often perfectly willing to get into a conversation with me, a complete stranger, on the merits of my being from Philadelphia.

I'm also excited about visiting the Mutter Museum, which is the museum of medical oddities. Really, once you've seen one hydrocephalic fetus, you've seen you've seen them all, but sometimes they have a good exhibit. Even if they don't, it's well worth it to see the skeleton of the world's tallest man stand next to the skeleton of the world's smallest woman. And the woman who turned to soap is always worth a look. Hmmm...there's times I think I should have been a doctor. A mad doctor, naturally.

I bought two books for my trip, Brooks Hansen's The Chess Garden, which I found out about on Jeff Vandermeer's blog, and The Encyclopedia of the Dead, by Danilo Kis, which I found out about on The Modern Word. I'm especially excited about The Encyclopedia of the Dead. Short stories in the Borgesian vain: I can't wait. Nothing says relaxation on the beach like complex explorations of metaphysics. Um...or maybe I'll start with the other one.

as an aside...
I've been kind of anxious lately, loosing sleep. Someone who I haven't seen in a while is coming back soon and I'm worried about that, because the last time I saw her, things got bad for a while. I went a little nuts and lost control. I'm afraid of her return and I don't know entirely why. Because I don't know where I stand with her—what is she thinking about me, will we be friends, will we start arguing again, was I missed, etc. It's all so uncertain, which the future always is, but with her, somehow, it's different. She has power, because I care so deeply what she thinks, and because I don't know what that is. She and I stand at a place where we could go anywhere: toward something really special or just towards apathy. She means so much to me that I'm terrified of it moving toward apathy.

I'm just afraid right now, plain and simple. I'm afraid because the future is so vast and I care so much that it has a specific outcome. I'm afraid to move because I don't know which move to make. Which is why I'm walking. Looking for the Buddha in me so that I can move and know it is the right move, because there isn't any right move. It is as my roommate always says, "It is what it is." And that's all it is. The path is long and winding and it doesn't always end in the same place it seemed like it would.

So my first step toward that is writing my fears out here, in the hopes that, maybe she'll see this and understand that, if I seem a little weird the first time I run into her, it comes from here and not from anger or bitterness or anything of that sort. And I'm writing it here in the hopes that, by saying the name of my fear out loud, in public for everyone who reads this to see, I can gain power over it. Fears are cowards; they don't like to be exposed. This one is, especially. I'm anxious over nothing, because it hasn't happened yet.