Holy Mackerel!

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Yesterday seems hazy to me now. I think I may have had an allergic reaction to some nose spray I used to open up my sinuses so I could practice meditating without going through a half-hour ritual of nasal passage cleaning. I don't use that stuff much because sometime the after-effect is worse than what I originally use it for. I woke up several ti-me-s during the night as I usually do, and felt thick-headed, nauseated, and a mild, pounding headache that seemed to have a specific source different than mere tension or stress. Something external to my inner person, that my inner person could have stopped if it knew this stuff might conflict with the prescribed medicines I am is taking.

I had somebody ask me yesterday what meditation is all about. Over the years I've learned that explaining meditation is futile. If you sit down to it you'll eventually understand what you're missing. If you don't, no amount of explaining will satisfy. She was sincere, and somebody I've known for a while. We have mutual friends. I felt obligated to at least go through the motions. Even knowing it wouldn't get through to where it counts with her. Admittedly, I may not know exactly where that is with her, and probably never will. No blame.

Meditation is something one practices. Pretty much exactly as one might practice playing a musical instrument, except that it's done without artifices. It's done with empty hands and soft eyes. Ideally, palms up and open to whatever can be grasped mentally. It's a two-way street. Reaching for the meditative state in dire straits sometime requires it's constant nearness to facilitate easily. That's one of the reasons my middle assumed nayme is manos. Manos is Latin for hands. My hands are what the arthritis attacked directly, and it spread from there to the other joints in my body. Oddly, all my other blood work exhibits great numbers and no hint of diabetes. Well, presently.

Sometime I feel like I took this arthritis from someone to work it out through my body instead of theirs. As if I am is doing it FOR someone else, because their cup is overflowing. That's difficult for me to grasp, because truly, I am is not that nice a person, and worse, I don't try to contain my meanness at times. The results of my spontaneous lack of protocol reveals debits and assets that have sometime never seen the light of day. People only "see" what they think is over here, and I don't feel obligated to become what they need me to be to satisfy their fancies. I seem ruder and ruder as I age. Aging itself can be a rude awakening. It has been for me. Even if I'd ordered it up, I wouldn't know what page in the catalog to turn to. I wouldn't know what to pray for. I wouldn't gnow what to prey FOR.

I started to warn someone that someone they knew might start acting like me right in their face without realizing why they behaved in such a way. I have considered what their knowing might do to the mojo at hand. They will be-co-me more like me, and I am will be-co-me more like them. I guess I thought to warn to protect myself in the future, but then I backed off and hid my intentions from discernment by any other.

This ritual is the holiest one I am knows, and it's proud of it to so-me excessive degree. It's the I am instead of me that represents the classical ego. That could be a problem. It's not as though the ritual takes I am to some state of being it's unfamiliar with. It's this most recent body it has acquired in this way that might panic at the last moment. Either this one or the other one. Cum see/come saw/gone.

It's near eleven o'clock at night. I have been slack this afternoon and evening. I played the piano a little just to keep my hand in, but not with any real enthusiasm. I'm too astounded by the condition my condition is in. I don't know which of these medicines I'm taking now is responsible for what's going on, but my hands and wrists feel so much better than they have in years I'm afraid to acknowledge it for the fear that it will go away to spite me.

I still have a little swelling in my right wrist, and there is a knot of some kind that, although it's doesn't protrude out nearly as much as it did, it's still a symptom of the typical rheumatoid arthritis effect on the human body. My next appointment at the arthritis clinic in Durham is November 2nd. It might be interesting if this unusual node-like protrusion on the bottom part of my wrist just above the Mound of Venus of my thumb. Overall, however, The swelling in my wrists and even my fingers is less now than for a long time. I'm practically giddy that my flexibility has returned somewhat.

The only thing I've been negligent about today has been to work on the AppleScript tutorial. I don't feel too bad about it because I have read all the posts that show up from the AppleScript mailing list in their entirity whether I was in the mood at the time or not. Some of them I had to read out loud in order to focus my attention on the topic at hand.

That's a fairly recent development I started using when I was reading Sartre's tour de force, Being And Nothingness at night when I went bed, but before I went to sleep. The only way I could stay awake sometime would be to read out loud. Doing that appeared to assure me in some manner that I had actually read the material instead of just nodding out and pretending I'd read the material. Reading the English translation of Sartre was very similar in ways to reading the translation of the I Ching by Wilhelm/Baynes.

Studying AppleScript and the very idea of computer coding at any level is what I'd run away from for my entire adult life. It'll be a miracle if I keep on keeping on. It's like I've switched from attempting to learn to sight read sheet music to trying to make some sense out of programming computers, even at this purportedly easiest level of endeavor. Yet, the work and study I've done so far has been okay. I've only run into one problem I couldn't solve, but after fussing over it longer than I should have I moved on, and I'm still doing.

Meditation practice earlier seemed difficult. The nasal spray seems to have made me it's victim. The side effects of it (either that or I drank too much wine and woke up with a hang-over. It may have not mixed well with the prescription drugs I'm addicted to life to. The idea of using it again is disgusting. I've had to make quite a few adjustments to my diet since I've been taking what even the medicos concur are some very powerful drugs with potentially lethal side-effects. Due to the wonderful results I've been getting from my use of them, I'll take my chances.
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