X: Wherein I speak of Flowcharts

Hello!

I started to write an update the other day, but the foul spirits that live in my Internet connection chose to cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war, thus crashing the computer. Ah well, any excuse to use the phrase "cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war," because let's face it, that is pretty awesome. Anyway, this is how my weekend went!

On Saturday I was feeling restless, so I told myself that as long as I was going to not get together with anyone, I would do some interesting new things! I checked out the park and ran a few miles, which was actually quite surprising, as I have not run in a while. Astoria Park is very nice, and I have come to like it quite a bit. Despite going to bed late (I think I was watching more Monty Python), I set my alarm for 7:30 so I could take the subway down to Brooklyn. Reason being is that there is a Zen temple located on State street, and I thought it would be a very cool thing to check out. I enjoyed it very much, if for no other reason than it was a very new experience. However, there is one point that bothered me, which was that there was a lot of ritual. This wouldn't be weird anywhere else, but I had thought that one of the whole points of Zen was to avoid ritual, as it is unnecessary. I don't get the feeling that this was just a particular place that carried out services in a very ritualistic manner, but that this is the norm, and that my understanding just happened to be limited. This left me quite adrift for a while, and I still do not exactly know what to think. When I think of Zen outside of practice at a temple, I find it fits me very well and whenever I have practiced it on my own I found myself very in line with its ideas. Now I wonder if I have always had a warped vision of what Zen practice entails, or if this i sjust the nature of the beast. Whatever.

Haha, now that I think about it, I have a few humorous, totally unrelated stories. I was on line for the ATM the other day and there was this little old lady in front of me. Over her shoulder, I saw that her balance was something like $48.00. "This is awful," I thought. "Here I am, a college student with no real responsibility, who can just cruise on by, while this poor old lady has to struggle and worry over money." Then I checked my balance and it was $28.00. I felt better.
The other incident occured when I was watching Monty Python. a commercial came on that was like, "Bla Bla Bla for centuries art has glorified the beauty of the female form," and had all these pictures of classic renaissance art, and I was like "Hey I know these paintings, how nice." Then it said, "And hundreds of years later, we are doing the same thing." It was an advertisment for a strip club. I sat there, dumbfounded, and thought "Oh they did NOT just go there!" But they did. They just compared classic art to strip clubs. And I died a little inside.

On Monday was an audition for directing projects. I went in not really having my heart set on any sort of a part, and I felt that my audition did not go too great. And even though I didn't really know any of the plays or care much, I still felt irritated with myself. It is hard to deal with the more perfectionistic side of myself gracefully. However, of course, I got an e-mail saying I got called back for one of the parts, hurrah. It is amazing how even a simple thing can make me feel so much better (even though everyone can come and try again if they want to. Don't ruin my good mood with facts).

I was feeling pretty junky, as I am tossing about on the horns of a dilema, as usual. I can't decide whether to make the effort to go out, or stay inside. I actually made a flowchart A FLOWCHART for god's sake of my options. It was clearly labeled and highly logic, listing possible consequences and concers. Does everyone do this, or am I just that big a loser that I can't make decisions without charts? Oh well, at least I didn't color-code it...yet.

-Emerson

PS- I really do love flowcharts. So organized. So dependable.