Personal Diary / Journal - art, addiction and a whole lotta love

2020 Mar 03 Tuesday

Woke up pretty good today. Spoke with Baby Love and discussed our multi-faceted interaction. The facets being our different roles toward one another. We are content with this, as we want to mean everything to one another. Mother, father, buddy, brother, sister, lover, gay lover, everything.

She asked me what my plans are for today. I asked if she thinks i'm just wasting my time. She said everybody would think that, but she appreciates that i invest in myself. I reminded her my goal for these weeks is to become acquainted with frustration, keep it under observation.

She argued though that she thinks i need to do the kind of stuff that you cross off your list. To have the sense of achievement. I argued i'm trying to not become addicted to this sense of achievement. Push my frustration a little.

I'm thinking however that today i may play a few games of chess during my non-entertainment hours. It's already 12 pm, so only two more hours to go before the entertainment kicks in.

I still feel like 2pm is too early to stop doing my regular activities. Problem is, i don't feel confident enough to push it to 3pm. I have an idea. From 2pm until 3pm, i'm just going to wait. Do absolutely nothing, not even write. Set up a timer on my phone, or not even that, coz i have my watch. Just smoke and lay down.

In fact, maybe it's a good idea to not smoke during this time either. Just wait out until 3pm when i can smoke and watch The Office UK. Now there's a good exercise for discipline, just wait it out for an hour, no smoking.

I should have more intervals where i just wait anyway. I think i could do more.

Right now i'm thinking of cleaning up the cat litter, then some waiting. Let's get to it!

[..] i've done some waiting, some showering, some cat litter cleaning. I think i want to check out a book about zen, part of the small collection we got from my folks.

[..] ate a bunch of beans with sausages, another one of Baby Love's hit dishes. I feel so full, even though it wasn't too much. Satiated.

Soon it will be time for the Big Wait. One hour. I'm thinking i should be able to smoke, i don't want to make it a smoking thing. Already i lost some of my enthusiasm about this Big Wait, the 1 hour wait. Feel the need to compensate with smoking, make it less of an ordeal. Haven't decided on music, i think i want music off. Hmm.. maybe just a different kind of music? No..

I don't feel prepared. Maybe just do half an hour? And then see where it goes? I wonder why is it so hard to close my options, even if just for an hour? Just don't change anything. Music or no music, smoking or no smoking. I feel the need to keep my options open.

I'll do 15 minutes without music, 15 minutes with music. Even this seems wrong. Hmm.. 5 more minutes until 2pm. Let me take a minute and figure it out.

[..] one minute elapsed. I would like music, but can't figure out the perfect music for waiting.

I have to confess, there's some anxiety related to this experiment. Let's ease the pressure a bit. I can change the music, i can smoke, but it has to be one hour. No writing, no other activity, no body/mind practice. No reading. No playing with the Jenga blocks. Ok time to smoke and get to it.

[..] the hour passed pretty uneventfully. No change of music, just one cigarette break. I noticed that in the lack of other activities, what remained unequivocally was my mind/body practice. It was extended enough that the lack of other activities means it automatically. I even modified it on our focus board: instead of "no focus (+let go) (+observation)" i added a "-" to the "+"s. I would add a "±" to the "focus" part as well, i don't want to be stuck in a form or other.

There we go, now it encompasses everything i do that's not something else. Sounds pretty mysterious. What i mean is that i don't have to call it "doing mind/body practice", i just have to eliminate other stuff. Or .. i can just eliminate the other stuff, and what remains is the practice.

During this one hour, i felt i needed to define what waiting means for me. In it's definition there has to be involved the mind/body practice. But! A reason for this waiting is to confront feelings that i'm having without trying to escape them through different means. So this mind/body practice that i would be doing during the time-outs should not have as the reason - to eliminate or resolve any tension i may be feeling at that particular moment. It should just be me being me, not doing anything else.

Of course i'm going to observe, to be attentive to things around, while doing at least small movements, adjustments to my position.

By the way of being attentive to things around, i was watching my Baby Love working. The only thing i can see from the couch into the balcony where she has her office is her head, and i must say: the generic woman hanging clothes out to dry has nothing on her. Her involuntary, unobserved movements resemble those of Hilary Hahn, the violin player i mentioned previously, but more human, very precise and ... .it was clear she was in the zone, what more to say.. so very very fascinating, i could watch for hours!

Very different from her movements while washing the dishes, which begs the question: does she even like washing the dishes? Or cooking? I think she doesn't mind them, but doesn't absolutely love these activities. I wish she would let me wash all the dishes. I'd like to be responsible for that. I don't have many responsibilities and on the other hand she works A LOT.

While talking earlier today about yesterday's entry, she mentioned a colleague of hers that spoiled her husband so much doing all the mundane chores, that the situation became: he didn't even bring her tea when she was in bed sick.

I don't think i could become like that, but i feel spoiled. That part is there. It's a bit frustrating for me that she does so many of the chores. I used to be an independent person, and now there are times when i deliberate wether i should wash the dishes at that moment or wait some. From the times that i decide to wait, there are times where Baby Love washes them. That's frustrating, like the universe doing me a favor. I think i should be the one to do favors to the universe. I feel i'm in such a position, blessed as i am with so many lucky circumstances.

Even addiction is such a first world problem, isn't it?

I'll wait until tomorrow for Baby Love's reaction to these ideas, we can discuss it then.

Right now i feel like more waiting. Hmm.. something, then after that some more waiting. But what is that something? I better call my parents about the rest of the books.

[..] played three games of speed chess. Got the juices flowing. It occurs to me that i could do 3 games, then time-out for 15 minutes, and so on, to practice my stress resistance. Let me smoke and rest for 15 minutes.

[..] repeated the chess-rest experiment. I just rested for 15 minutes but i'm not de-stressed completely, maybe i need more rest. I'll give it another 15 minutes.

[..] the stress has almost vanished, but a distance remained. I wonder if this distance is my mind's way of coping, the very defense mechanism that causes the psychosis. I increased the waiting time to 20 minutes a session, lighted a few more candles and will go for another time out. This time 20 minutes. I want to wait until i feel normal again.

Like she is reading my mind, Baby Love asked me to prepare the next meal, settling on me deciding when it should be done.

[..] I feel better, the distance has gone, only a bit of seriousness remained. I started the meal.

Since carrying the apocalypse groceries home that day, my bladder is different. It doesn't hurt anymore in the morning when full. On the day, my bathroom routine was a bit off, but since recovered and noticed that the system has changed. We will see as i get older if it's for the good or the ill. When i was younger, my bladder didn't use to hurt in the morning, now it doesn't anymore, so signs point to wellbeing.

I wonder what to do now. I don't think i'll wait with the clock, just free-roam it for a while. That's a gaming term, free-roam. Or at least i think it's a gaming term.

I think i'll change the music to something warmer, all this electro stuff is so cold and often dark.