_www.FantasyLibrary.com [Visit Who Is Joseph Teller?] Synthesis & Synchronicity 017

Synthesis & Synchronicity #17

Yesterday, July 7th, Kiralee convinced me to join her at the Karma Yoga Studio for a Chi Kung class for the first time. It was one of her intermittent "Monday off from work because I worked the 4th of July" kind of days, which had been otherwise limited in scope because of some of the recovery efforts from last column's in a nutshell of chaos in our lives. (More on this later.)

Anyway, Chi Kung is a physical practice related to Martial Arts and Tae Chi on many levels. It primarily involves a lot of high-tension physical postures that one holds for periods of time, strengthening muscles thru prolonged tension-and-release systems. It also involves several complex breathing patterns, designed to assist in Chi control and manipulation along a 3-point chakra system (Digestive System, respiratory/cardio system and the third eye of the mind).

I've been doing yoga now for more than 3 months, primarily restorative form, which uses a lot more equipment (and involves a lot more prone positions). Chi Kung uses no equipment at all, but does involve a need of movement space to acquire the positions, cannot be done while performing other tasks. Unlike Yoga, where once you have achieved a position, after a number of stretches, you can often carry out a non-physical activity such a s reading a book or listening to music). Chi Kung uses your full body, and requires constant concentration on the breathe and maintaining balance.

I did not do as well as I do in Yoga, in my opinion, doing Chi Kung. In many ways its more strenous, there are no work arounds for problem areas of your body. I have a bad knee and scoliosus of the back, which means I don't bend as well as some folks, and trying to balance on my bad leg in a Crane Position was very painful. The Bear Positions (sort of a sumo wrestler stance) left a cramp in my back that has not gone away. My body was definitely working more, but I'm of the mind that I can walk away tired from a physical class but I shouldn't limp away in pain.

I suspect its another one of these body arts/practices that assumes a person is in perfect health to begin with, or is capable of overcoming the pain thru repitition (forcing the body to drop a pile of endorphins into the system whenever its practiced). The breathing exercises were far more interesting, and I might incorporate them into some of my Yoga routines, but I don't think I'll become a regular Chi Kung practitioner.

I was still limping this morning. My back has more tension in it than I've felt in months.... the sort of tension that was one of my prime reasons for taking up yoga for in the first place. If it hurts, as far as I'm concerned, its not good for me. I'll keep to Yoga, it can leave me tired, but its that good kind of tired, the one that says you've worked hard on the various twists and stretches and deserve a nice peaceful meditation position stint for a bit but can go back to your normal life afterwards.

Chaos From A Nutshell

Ok, last column (I write columns, not blogs, diary entries or journal pages. Its a form that works better for me and is easier on the reader in many ways since I can be more intermittent and not simply babble like some bloggers do about stuff they've seen on tv or heard second hand from others).

Our refrigerator died at the tail end of last week. I managed to get Sears to deliver a replacement (slightly smaller, by about 2 cubic feet of space, because of warranty limits in regards to space) and get things back to normal before our food would go bad. This also involved buying a big cooler and lots of ice.... Luckily I was prepared for these problems, having lived previously in a household that lost power from a Hurricane for a week. One learns from problems and mistakes (and this is why I will not buy a standalone freezer without a backup generator in the building, period.

Now I need to call them back (Sears) as it turns out the freezer door has a hole in it the size of a quarter along the bottom edge (you can see the insulation). Unfortunately their phone lines have been swamped and I have not been able to speak to a person to report it. This bodes ill, since we got a 5 year service warrantly when we bought it, but if you can't call for service what good is the warranty? I hope its just a holiday weekend mop-up problem and will get thru later in the week.

Cindy's 3 week old computer had a catastrophe. A CD disk (the Morrowind game) exploded in the drive while she was using it. We managed to salvage about half the pieces out. Now the drive doesn't work, and her sound system has also stopped working. I've spoke to HP, and they've told me to deliver it to the nearest service center for repair.... in this case its going off and away today to Microcenter (the folks we had to work around and buy it online from HP for in the first place because they didn't have a similar machine in stock). I have no idea how long it will be gone, but Cindy is good at driving me crazy while she lacks such a machine. (I backed it up on DVD for her yesterday so she won't lose her data).

Our porches have been torn down and are in the process of being replaced by the contractor. $16k to remove the old ones and build the new ones ($5k a floor, and $1k for the deconstruction and cleanup). So far they've gotten the 1st floor done, are 1/2 done on our 2nd floor as of this morning and have a supposed deadline of this weekend (when the other owners of the building are supposed to be holding a barbacue for their new tenants that are moving in on this weekend.

New Tenants approaching, of course, has meant a lot of work being done on the rental unit (owned by the other owners) and that means I've been delivery and doorman for the past week or so in spades. This means a lot of time stuck in a house filled with construction noise. Not helpful for my tensions levels, my health or my writing.

I'm now running the Wed night fill-in game. The first session went well, better than I expected, since this was the first GMing I've done in many months.

Our cable TV is back, mostly, after ComCast discovered the Porch repair folks had managed to cut a cable in their work. That is except for 3 channels that I prefer to watch over everything thats one, which are still a broken signal. Need to call them about this AGAIN today.

The laundry room is vaguely working again.... but the wash machine is having some problems that may mean a repair call (to Sears!) and the dryer doesn't have a proper vent set up (fills the basement with steam!).

The very HOT weekend has been followed by a almost-but-not-quite-so hot week. My allergies are driving me up a wall in the morning, and making me generally miserable. I can medicate for the allergies, again, and be brainless, but then nothing gets done. My Stomache has decided to dislike the weather again, leaving me off and on dehydrated (with all the fun bathroom trips that involves).

The crime wave seems to have been ended, after several police arrests in the area, except for the attacks by various gang members on rival gang members getting out of prison. These never seem to go out of style.

We've replaced our broken floor fan for ventilation, with a sturdier more expensive model.

I've had to do some repair work on the bathroom, as the shower was leaking and damaging the wall (again). So its been re-caulked and the wall re-spackled. Looks like it may last this time, if I'm lucky.

Kiralee spent a good chunk of the holiday weekend depressed and anxious, in part because her check from work failed to direct deposit on schedule.... so she had no cash to work with (and of course house cash and my cash were also affected). It finally cleared on Monday.

I've updated the Irregulars page and have removed the folks who were previously listed on Sabatical and basically have dropped out of contact or said that they were not coming back to the groups because of time schedules and other life interventions. They're missed, but we understand that nothing is permanent and that the roster will change. I've been gaming for too many years not to realize this.

Looking To The Future

I need to get back to work on Audacity and getting the settings prepared for that. Work on the Department of Things That Go Bump In The Night, as well as the various life complications, have kept me from the design stuff I want to do.

Kiralee is considering shutting down the Wed game after we finish the Dept. run, to get more free time for her too full schedule.... and possibly turning back over the helm of the Western Ave Irregulars to me along the way. I might vote otherwise, perhaps with a re-organization and/or re-scheduling for the game. Since she works most Saturdays, it might be good to have a Sat game that she wasn't involved in, and possibly recruiting some new folks for that.

I'm considering a number of article ideas that I want to write, probably as columns here on the website. I'm also considering doing some fiction writing again in the near future.

Greg's Puzzlebox campaign has paused, and next week we'll be returning to Greenstone. I'm looking forward to playing my character Jordan again, although we may be facing some in-party conflict with Kiralee's character from some ethical conflicts.

Thanks for taking the time to read my ramblings.....

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