November 15, 2010

Since I’ve been making all this hoopla about starting a new phase of this journal, and since said new phase more accurately represents a new phase of life, it might be time to set down some rules for what’s about to come.  I love rules.  Even if I’m frequently not too good at following my own and considerably worse at following all others.

If you’ve been following Geese from the beginning you’ll recall I had a long string of Rules by which to govern my wanderings.  (Refresh your memory here.)  Obviously though most of these aren’t applicable to a stationary city-bound life.  And for the ones that are, while I still don’t plan to do my shopping at Walmart or fast-food binging at McDonald’s, in a major metro area with so many other options what kind of statement can that be?  Nor do I plan to buy any gas from BP/Arco still, though now I’m only filling the tank about twice a month rather than once a day or more I don’t think that’s going to make much of a statement either.

And yes, making a statement is important.  Don’t ask why – if you don’t already know, I almost certainly can’t explain it to you.  All I can say for certain is when you don’t have much money, you are left to make a statement with how you live.  And with that in mind, here are the Rules I came up with in Meeting For Worship yesterday:

1. Walk and/or take the bus as much as possible.
2. Save the greatest effort/energy for that which furthers my goals for living in Oakland during this period.*
3. Count the days and be aware of them as they pass.  This period is finite.
4. Watch money as carefully as when none was coming in.
5. Pay the rent, tell the truth.
6. Keep a low profile.
7. Stay sober.

A little more general than before, yes?  Meaning, except for probably #7, overall more ambiguous.  But that’s because life in one place gets a lot more complicated for almost everything not strictly logistical.

#1 doesn’t need much explaining.  It’s good for my health (and self-respect), good for my wallet and good for my relationship with the city.  Yesterday (Sunday) I parked Blanche in a primo spot right in front of my house and I’m going to see if I can go until Friday without moving her.  Or maybe even Saturday.  One can only hope.

#2?  Also self-explanatory, although I guess I’ll need to figure out exactly how to do this as I go along.  Work, although it may be strictly in support of the other, more important things, gobbles up a huge amount of my energy/effort and it would even if had, or more accurately will even when I next have, a brain-dead job.  That’s just how it goes.

#3 is something I didn't do when I lived here before, nor for that matter during the period between in Austin - I never saw an end to either of those stretches until I was almost at it.  This is different.  I’m estimating I’ll be good for two years here minimum and we’ll see about more when 2012 rolls around.  But during these two years my days are precious and I want to remind myself of that constantly during them. 

#4 is just good sense.  If I’m an idiot with money I won’t be going anywhere once those two years are up.  Of course I may not be anyway, but damned if I’m going to let it be my own bloody fault, not on this account anyway.

#5: Yeah, I know, WTF does that mean?  It’s a phrase borrowed from my former therapist in Austin that I translate as, essentially, meet your obligations.  Also, don’t take on any more than you can meet.  Which is all too easy to do in the whirlwind of the Bay Area, I know from experience, but between #2 and keeping a paycheck coming in I think I’ve got just about as full a plate as I can handle.  That’s my truth at least at the moment.

#6 you might think shouldn’t be too much of a stretch for me as even in my social-glutton days of the 90s I was still much more a homebody than not.  But this time it means a lot  more than not putting bumperstickers on Blanche: it means causing as little drama as a historically drama-prone type like me can get away with.  It’s in a way a variation on #5: conduct relationships discreetly, and with honor.  Good to follow especially once I do resume some semblance of dating.

#7?  After nine-plus years of abstinence from the weed you’d think this would hardly bear mentioning, and maybe it doesn’t.  But now I’m back in NoCal, the land of the Kind Green Bud, and I wait for the bus home everyday in front of an Oaksterdam University building for chrissake and this is only to say that temptation in the form of reminders of what I’ve given up await around every corner in a way it never did in Austin.  I’m equal to the challenge, I’m pretty sure – otherwise I wouldn’t be here.  Even so, eternal vigilance is the price a recovering addict pays.  If it gets bad I’ll just wait at another bus stop.

As with the previous set, these are more guidelines than hard-and-fast rules.  (Again, except for #7.  That’s no more negotiable than at any point in the last nine-plus years.)  Telling the truth isn’t always the wisest policy.  Neither is being ultra-scrupulous about expenses, because you can flip over into obsessiveness without knowing it.  Ditto counting the days.  Ultimately I do believe in letting each day take care of itself, otherwise I wouldn’t have been so quick to leave that secure government job at UT. 

But you get the idea.  You might even say I’m getting started on my new year’s resolutions a month and a half early, if I did new year’s resolutions.  I like Rules better.  They’re just as easily broken, but generally fewer people know it when they are. 

 

*For your ease of reference, as laid out two or so months back:

1. Advance my writing practice, primarily through Clive and his circle;
2. Immerse myself in nature and develop the aspect of my wonder that brings me;
3. Be again with the friends I’ve missed;
4. Experience and appreciate the diversity I missed so much the last 10 years, racial and cultural and culinary and so on;
5. Resume something resembling a spiritual practice, or anything that will aid in re-opening my heart; and
6. Last but not least, resume having something that might be called a dating life.