"Becoming Attractions"
It's been a while since I've had one of those full days where a wide range of activities and insights caused me to pause and connect to the moment of how rich a day's experiences can be. That makes today's experiences overdue and equally welcomed. I'm intensely conscious in this very moment of this seemingly simple existence being as thickly layered as humanly possible. Looking at Jennifer sitting on a couch in the same spot a prior couch once held a disconnected embodiment of Linda after resigning herself to a life of suffering I was deemed the cause of. All these thoughts occur while Phill Collin's "Against All Odds" plays, recalling a breakup with Holly in the early 80s as a defining moment at the outset of my adult character development and emotional maturity. Or lack thereof. I started the day with "Howes Your Coffee" after picking up the car from Leigh. This gave me the opportunity to put the newly re-acquired Thermos to its intended use. LeLe Cake with Johnathon and Brian followed that. Then I took Brian to tour Jikoji, hike the ridge and back down to the lake, over to Alice's only to find it closed, then down to Bucks, which was a first for Brian. It was more fun than I anticipated to take a friend around the place I've been devoting so much time to and consider a significant influence over the past few years. I dropped him off, picked up the donated TV for Jikoji and stopped by Costco to challenge being charged for a tire rotation when they state online that service is free for the lifetime of the tire purchased. There's nothing about being nontransferable to another owner of the tire. It's apparently their policy, but it's not worded as such, and I felt blindsided by the charge after all the work had been done. I got the refund and said I'd welcome a chance to talk to the district manager about, if nothing else, the wording of their commitments. While there, something upsetting came in the form of an email from an 'insider' at Care2 indicating that my friend Marlin's battle with cancer had taken a downward turn. This sucks and is going to hurt. I like Marlin a lot. We're not best buds, but we're sincerely and graciously grateful for the chance to connect every month or two. We dropped wine at their home during the Holiday, and Jen/I attended a wine festival with them. He's a good guy and has a well-seasoned character. Now it appears there may be some dire news, perhaps a timeframe, maybe not, I don't know, but it's difficult on many levels. As certain as it is that, until it's my time, I'll more frequently witness others conclude theirs. More and more often. So, really, I need to stay this connected, this conscious, this aware of my fleeting time while its passage through my hands can be experienced fully in the moment, and more so than a memory I'll inevitably lose. Back on a positive note, just before starting to write this entry, I heard from DPD about the ongoing 'group email' issue I have been wrestling with for at least 4 months. He found the issue. "Distribution Lists" are buried in the admin-level account settings! A totally antiquated and dated manner of managing what evolved to be 'groups' was left behind by whoever set it up a decade or so ago. It was the impetus of the massive efforts I've put into moving servers and other things, and it ended up being completely unrelated. That being said, the work that got done was going to have to be done anyway.