good day

At the start of the day I thought that I might tell the story of my red right ankle, but the day was so good to me that I didn't want to waste a post on a story about ruining my socks. The day started off with me on the treadmill (17), running the slowest pace that one could still consider running, and getting interrupted by some very good news about a friend of mine. It's not really my place to tell the news, but it put me in a shiny, happy mood all day. Not long after hearing the news, I got to talk to this good friend on the phone, and that made me shinier and happier.

In this good mood, I set to work on turning the garble of skills and experiences into a respectable resume (12). It actually took quite a bit longer than I had expected. But I feel proud of what I produced. It makes me feel like someone will hire me. Soon.

After finishing the resume, I finished the cleaning of this room (24), which involved removing all of the furniture so I could really clean under the bed and behind the various dressers, bookshelves, and whatnot. It was a slow process but needed to be done. Of course, when I took the bed out of the room I found five cds that I now need to put into those cd books I wrote about before. I had left room in the books for new cds, so it shouldn't be too hard to get these cds in there.

When I moved the chest of drawers from the corner, I found my bokken (a wooden sword) from the Kenjutsu class I took when I was studying Kenpo. The weight of the thing was more comfortable in my hands than I had remembered, and I swung it around as much as I dared in the confines of the space. It brought back a fond memory of mine. We would have our regular Kenpo class for an hour on Saturday mornings and after that the advanced sword group would have an hour session. While they were having that class, another guy from my Kenjutsu class and I would take over a little corner of the room and just drill the material. Over and over. He was a lot more coordinated and flexible than I, but I was the one who was able to keep the moves straight. No, gedan is low. Jodan high. Chudan middle. Over and over. Less than ten minutest into it, our thighs and forearms would be burning, but we kept at it for the whole hour. I remember feeling sweat drip from my nose onto my chest, from my forehead onto my arms. Neither of us really acknowledged it, but we both knew whenever the Si gung looked over at us from in front of the other class. Whether they were meant that way or not, those glances felt like great compliments, and we felt proud. When I think about moments like that, and there were quite a few in my time with that group, I regret having quit. But then when I remember the lost written assignments, the classes that started fifteen minutes late, the collection of testosterone (students and instructors alike) bragging about the glorious bar fights they'd been in, I realize that it was probably for the best that I quit.

Further along in my cleaning I found a picture of my grandfather, who died a little over a year ago. He was the member of my extended family that I felt the closest to. He was so sweet and loving and accepting and understood people better than anyone I've ever met. But I never kept in touch with him. I only ever really had contact with him for about a week every year or two, depending on how long it took for me to go out there or for him and grandmama to come back here. I never talked to him on the phone. The thing was, I knew, I just knew, that he understood why I didn't talk to him much on the phone. It was simple. I was uncomfortable talking to him when he wasn't there in person. I didn't know what words to use with him and couldn't use expressions and actions to fill in the void. I always felt like he knew that and accepted it and wasn't offended. When I was a lot younger and he and grandmama would come to visit, he would walk me over to Dairy Queen or A&W or somewhere with ice cream, and we would just walk and talk and eat ice cream. Later, when he wasn't healthy enough to walk that far, we would have miniature versions of those trips but without the ice cream, walking to the end of the block and back, talking. I don't even remember what we would talk about, but those were such meaningful and pleasant experiences for me that I'll never forget them. Why couldn't I talk to him on the phone though? Today I wanted to call him up and tell him about this latest endeavour of mine, that I'm finally starting to try to do something with my life, that it's hard and exciting and scary, and it feels good. It feels so good. I think he would have been happy about that.

Sorry. I'm kind of a sap today. I could tell you more about stuff from the list. But I think I've taken enough of your time.

I'm grateful for the time we did have (20).