Good Idea

Today at school I had an evening obligation from 5-7. This left me with the option of staying at school allllllllll day from 9 am to 7 pm without a break even for lunch as we had a noon lunch talk, or I could leave for a break between 3 and 5. I'm generally fairly useless that time of day anyway so I made the very sage decision of not staying inside when it was utterly gorgeous outside. Instead I ventured to the river where I splashed about, raxed and in general thoroughly enjoyed myself.

I thought the most brilliant streak, however, came with my idea to bring my Spenser novel with me into the river. Snuggled against a nice little boulder (a different one from the one that accosted me last week) and partially in the soothing cool water I finished off Small Vices. When I departed the river I noticed that my brilliant idea had caught on and there were several others reading in the river. As far as I could tell, however, they weren't reading Spenser. Takes all kinds I suppose.

Small Vices

I have an addiction.

Sometimes people start in on something during hard times. Maybe it is sleeping pills, maybe it is internet chat rooms, maybe it is watching Sex in the City. For many, when things get better they lessen the dependency on the sleeping pills, chat rooms, Sex in the City (or whatever.) For others, it is simply the start of an addiction.

Last September things were really quite rough and I turned to a number of things. Sleeping pills (natural-ish ones though), Cinderalla movies, beer and a sudden trip to California where among those things I employed to get through the rough patch. Premier among the XXX, however, was a certain author. And specifically a certain author's certain series featuring a certain character. The author was Robert B. Parker. The series was the Spenser novels and the character was Spenser, a Boston Private Detective.

I burned through about twenty Spenser novels in a little more than six months. I had to employ strick constrictions or it would have been much worse. No starting a new novel on the same day you finished another one. No more than three checked out from the library at a time, at least a few days between dropping off the last batch before picking up the new bath. Must read them in order (which slows you down because you have to procure a specific one as opposed to picking up the first one you see that you haven't read). And so on.

Between moving, traveling and starting massage school, the last Spenser book I read was in May. MAY! Friends and family didn't speak to me about it, but I could tell they were somewhat relieved and believed the addiction to have passed. Sweet Pea even thought she had managed to supplant the Spenser addiction with a PG Woodhouse (Jeeves & Wooster) addiction.

Alas and alack, yesterday I snuck off with the golf cart to the Penn Valley library where I furtively signed up for a library card and requested several Spenser novels. I wasn't planning on coming home with anything (I'd seen on-line that the next one in the series wasn't available at this branch) but then a dark room in the back called out to me. Okay, it wasn't really a dark room in the back. It was a room in the back, but it was fairly bright and cheerful. And chock full of paperbacks for sale. And it just so happened that for the bargain price of 50 cents I could take home and keep forever (and ever and ever) the next book in the Spenser series. It seemed fitting that I should own at least one Spenser novel and the title of this one seemed rather apt as well. So I plunked down my 50 cents, raced home (at the max golf cart speed of 12 MPH) and have begun, "Small Vices," the next of the Spenser novels.

It is quite exciting. I'm pretty nervous though, the back of the book implies that Spenser gets shot and gets put in a coma...

Stay tuned!!

Overwhelmed

Today I went to the Yuba River after class with a friend from school. It was utterly lovely. The day was hot (its been around 100 degrees for the last ten days or so straight) and water was exactly what I needed. First off, most everything around here is some degree of gorgeous. This particular section of the river has a lovely, big simming hole with fun boulders, currents, small waterfalls and rapids-y-thingies. We swam and clambered over boulders (sometimes totally in the water, sometimes totally out and often somewhere in between) up the river for a ways and then did a similar thing on the way down. The way down went faster, but I also got into a rougher route than I really intended. At one point I started to get sucked into a current that would take me into a fairly nasty bit that you don't want to tumble through and a strange woman (she wasn't that strange, we just hadn't been introduced) saved me. Later I did end up going over a small waterfall. It was somewhat intentional as it seemed like the easiest option from where I was but wasn't really what I wanted to do. Most everyone else seemed to careen over and pop up quite quickly. I managed to get shot into some different chute that swirled me around under water for a while bashing me into a few different rocks. I eventually emerged among some people who helped pull me right-side-up. The right ankle did get fairly bashed and there is some more notable damage in a meaty section of my back that is pretty stiff now, but we (me, myself, and I) are hoping that I wake up fully-healed tomorrow.

I tell this story because it seems illustrative of how I've been feeling about life today. Its exciting and fun, but I've been feeling rather overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by school a bit - that is probably the most tangible thing I could latch onto as the source of this overwhelmed-ness. There is so much that we are learning in such a short amount of time and I don't see how I'll be able to let it all sink in even if I did have more time between training for the bike ride, wanting to hang out with friends and family, dealing with lingering moving details and so on.

But also feeling overwhelmed by everything in general. I've been really excited and am really happy with all the changes I've made in the last two months and know that it has been the right thing, but there have been so many (so so so many) really huge changes and I don't know where I'm going with all of them (or any of them!) I don't think I've really had time to process what is going on. And I'm struggling a bit with having the faith to trust that it will work out "okay." A big part of me knows that and can rationalize it, but the more emotional side of me is sorta wiggin' out.

Like today at the river - it is beautiful and fun and I wouldn't change anything I did, but I also feel a little bit like I'm falling over that waterfall and am being totally swept away by currents I have no control over. Its going so fast, I'm having a bit of trouble breathing and I don't know where I'll end up or how bashed, bruised and broken I might get in the process! So maybe look at the prayer flags here (from when I was in Ladakh) and send me some soothing, calming, reassuring, healing vibes...

Perspective

I was talking with a fellow classmate at school the other day and I was commenting on how "crazy" and "amazing" the traffic and parking (respectively) situations are around here. "Yeah, I know!" she said. It wasn't until a few minues into the conversation that I realized she thought that the traffic and parking were BAD when I had been trying to say that they were nice! Each day when I walk to my car (parked just a block or so from school) I'm shocked to see that there isn't a ticket on it. Not that I've been parking illegally, its just that to have a whole street side available for parking at 9am on a weekday must mean that there is some mysterious reason that one isn't allowed to park there. Because if I was allowed to park there then the whole street should be filled with cars, right? That's what I was used to in Philly. And then the traffic - there really isn't any. There are a few cars on the road, but rarely am I impeded in my aim to drive 5 miles over the speed limit. Occasionally (like when I merge from one highway to another) I have to negotiate with some others, but never has the road speed dipped significantly below the speed limit. But, for my classmate who lives in a REALLY rural area (17 miles from a small town) that there are other cars and merging and sometimes a logging truck or something, that is bad traffic. And since we have to park a block or so away (and not right in front of the school) that is a trying parking situation as well.

I guess it is all about perspective.

In some places I'm exotic. In my native western climate I'm about as far from exotic as you can get.

With some cycling groups I'm a strong climber. With the crazy bikers in these mountains I get my assed kicked and arrive at the top red faced, sweating, wobbling and gasping for air with 180 beat heart rate while they are starting to feel stiff from having to have waited for so long.

My parents' condo in Palm Dessert was robbed. The thieves cleaned the place out taking everything from the computer to the TV to the car even. It was someone with a key who knew the place and where things were and that no one was around. The thought is that one of the contractor's doing work on the place at some point has a nefarious worker who swiped the key and made a copy. It really sucks. Financially it is a wreck (and at a time when my mom and step-dad put everything they have into the house they just moved into) and it also makes my mom feel very violated. For me, it makes me feel really sad that someone we knew did it (we just don't know who exactly.) I don't know their situation and maybe for them the perspective is that they don't get paid shit and here are these fat cats with a second home so why not take their stuff? My perspective is - financially it sucks, practically it is a major major pain to replace everything and deal with the insurance. But they are just things. Some nice things, some useful things, some things with sentimental value, but just things. I'm just glad that everyone is safe and no one was hurt.

Ridiculous!

The overwhelming feeling I've been having lately is, "This is ridiculous!" Occasionally it is replaced with a variation such as "This is just plain silly."

What is ridiculous or silly you might be asking?

Everything! That I get to be in such a beautiful place, in such a lovely house, with such a lovely bed and lake and car and birds and do things like spend my days at massage school, bike in the mountains, swim in stunning (stunning stunning stunning) lakes/resevoirs, go out on boats and all with such fun, neat, nice, friendly people (family, schoolmates, neighbors, and more!)

Yesterday I woke up at 5 and started biking in the early light before the actual sunrise. Heading back toward Lake Wildwood (where my abode is) I came up on Wildwood Ridge (a ridge above Lake Wildwood) just as the sun was lifting up over the mountains. The light was reflecting on the lake and all over the sky was pink.

That alone is enough for a great day.

But then I get to go to school where I spend the whole day getting massaged and giving massages. Well, not the WHOLE day. We did do some Tai Chi, meditation, discussion and such (I know, its pretty rough right?) But a good three hours of the day (at least, it was probably more like 4 hours) were allllll getting and giving massage.

Also enough on its own for a great day.

But then, I get out of school early, its about 100 degrees and I get to go to a resevoir to go swimming. And not just any old muddy hole but a gorgeous, big resevoir that is surrounded by big hills (what would pass as mountains in the northeast) and was so lovely and cool that I stayed cool throughout the evening.

Lovely lovely lovely. And I didn't even get into the fabulous dinner that my parents had made.

And what is this big Buddha all about? It is also crazy and ridiculous and was from the other big thing I was doing that was crazy and ridiculous (that bit about getting to play in India for so many weeks!) It is from a monestary up in Ladakh (the eastern part of Kashmir) that is pretty close to Tibet and actually seems more Tibetan than Indian.

A Word From Our Legal Department

On July 5, 2005, during the course of narrating my adventures getting home the previous evening, it was stated on Wayward Princess that "[Franko] was also a bit loopy (aka "tipsy" "smashed" "tight" "drunk" and so on)."

I have been informed that this is being received as "libel" (a written or oral defamatory statement or representation that conveys an unjustly unfavorable impression) and a threat of legal action has hung in the air.

Cases concerning libel suits with regards to statements made on blogs have yet to determine just what can be said on blogs but we all know how just about any lawsuit (no matter how frivolous or legitimate) can seriously cripple almost any enterprise.

Therefore, in the interests of conserving energy and resources, Wayward Princess would like to publish a statement concerning the posting of July 5th.

What should have been written was:
"[Franko] had also had a number of drinks during the course of the night."

Wayward Princess also acknowledges that there had been no testing of alcohol blood levels or objective assessments of functionality. Wayward Princess can not state with any certainty whether or not anyone was "loopy," "tipsy," "smashed," "tight," or "drunk."

A-typical behavior

I've been acting rather strangely lately. Well, I often act in a manner which people find strange, but I mean I've been behaving in a manner that is different from how I generally behave. I would say that I am a relatively friendly, outgoing person. However, I also have shy streaks to me and I have a hard time reaching out to people. For example, when in a setting with new people I'm often rather quiet, wait for others to open up conversation, don't take the initiative to get in touch later or ask people if they'd like to hang out again. I even have a hard time doing it with people that I like and have known for a while - like with people from work or my swim team or something. I actually rather agonize over it sometimes. In my mind I think "Oh, I really like Jim, he seems cool, it'd be great to hang out sometime. But what if he doesn't want to? I'm also kinda busy, I don't know when it would work, I don't want to bother him 'cause he is pretty busy too. I'll just wait to see if he suggests something." And so it becomes this big "thing" in my mind, which then makes it that much harder and more agonizing!

Quite silly. I've noticed it before and commented on how silly it is.

So, the new behavior: I'm reaching out to people frequently and easily. This is only the first week of school (massage school yeah!) but another student was telling me she likes to swim and so - without even thinking about it! - I said there was a gorgeous resevoir (the kind you can swim and boat in and such) about ten minutes from my house and did she want to go swimming sometime? I also saw that another student had a bike helmet and so I asked if she rode and would she want to go for a ride sometime and we're going on Sunday! And then, my BIG triumph - I was out riding yesterday evening just trying to start to get a sense of what is around and where one might ride and so on and I saw another person out riding. A total stranger. A total stranger who was clearly in the middle of his ride - and if one is concerned about "bothering" people this would be a good example of doing just that. Never-the-less, not only did I wave and such, but I flagged him down so I could interrogate him on riding groups in the area, places to ride and so on. We talked for about ten minutes by the side of the road and I thorougly destroyed his interval training, but he was quite friendly about it.

So there you have it, very a-typical behavior on my part



"And you uploaded this image, because... ??" I'm sure that's what you are thinking. What does a cute little donkling have to do with acting differently?? Ummm.... nothing, it just makes me happy. This is just my favorite picture from India. This donkling (the Brooke-technical term for a young donkey) came across my path while trekking. He walked right up to me, turned to the side for the lovely profile shot and gave me the cute little pose you see here. Every time I look at it it just makes me squeal with delight.

Massage School!

Massage school is quite nicey. Everyone is lovely (so far - it has only been two days) and the approach of the school seems really really great. On the grey scale of tone or mood of schools, ranging from clinical and technical on the one side and very touchy feely on the other, this one is definitely on the touchy feely side, but in really great ways. We are definitely getting the technical information as well, but the grounding or foundation is in the mental, emotional, spiritual plane and intuition is big.

I don't have a whole lot else to report. The whole "uploading photos" thing isn't going particularly well. For some reason most of the time I do the simple steps to upload photos to past posts something misfires along the way and instead of the next screen coming up, all I get is a blank message box. Sooooooo..... some of the posts have photos added and most don't. Bear with me. I did manage to get one adhered to this post - it is of the gardens at Chow Mahal, a palace in Hyderabad (Vaidya's hometown.) It seems to go along with how I'm feeling about massage school and so I thought I would share that one.

As for other doings - the most amusing thing going on in the world o' brooke was probably the 4th of July celebration that went down here last night. I went with my parents' to a little gathering they had been invited to (yup, it was me and the retirees kickin' it) and we had a very lovely cocktail hour out on Lake Wildwood in their speedboat. It was quite lovely to be out in the sublime CA summer evening. Many were hot, but after India it felt quite mild to me. Following dinner we also went out onto the lake, this time to get a ringside view of the pyrotechnics, which were quite lovely. All of this is lovely and nice, but I'm sure you are thinking "why are you filling up cyberspace with this rather unexciting prattle??" Well, first off 'cause its MY blog and I can do whatever I want. And then also it seems that the majority of blogs are mindless babble and I have a hard time understanding why anyone reads them.

BUT, the real reason for my "unexciting prattle" is just to set the stage. The real excitement was in the ride home. It was only about a mile away (if even that, probably more like a half mile) and so we took the golf cart. What I hadn't realized (being limited in my experience with this golf cart) was that the golf cart has no lights. Wildwood (the area in which we reside) has no street lights. Franko (the driver) is rather blind under the best of circumstances. Now he was also a bit loopy (aka "tipsy" "smashed" "tight" "drunk" and so on). We were offered a flashlight and I suggested that I drive as I could discern to a degree the road. Both offers were strongly repudiated leaving me in the passenger seat calling out "go left, go left" or "go right, go right" depending on where we were, where the edge of the road was and so on. The journey then commenced with a wrong turn (how do we take a wrong turn when at a neighbor's house trying to get home?). We did discover the boon of approaching cars' headlights (both oncoming and from the rear). It was a tad bit humiliating that the first such "car" ended up being a fellow golf cart that was much fancier and faster. Finally we turned onto our little street and crept up to our house amid friendly heckles from our Sicilian neighbor Tony (and his cousin Vinny.)

Okay, I need to go do my homework. Whoo hoo!

A Thousand Words...

The Taj Mahal. I won't even try to give it words as well.

Yes, I've managed to figure out how to upload photos (turns out it is beyond easy - I think blogger has updated itself since I first investigated uploading photos.) The plan, now, is to go back and add in photos to previous posts.

"What a lazy princess that one is," you might be thinking. "She can't be bothered with new posts, just new editions of previous posts."

Well, life at the moment revolves around resetting my body clock, unpacking and chores, so the things for me to write about are pretty boring. However, I do have miscellaneous stories that I would like to share from my journey to India so I'll try to put those up as well as update with photos.

A Moment of Thanks

I am arrived in CA without much incident. "Weather" in the mid-west seemed to have snarled most all travel anywhere but, despite a route taking me NYC to Chicago to Kansas City to Sacramento, I landed a triffling hour and a half behind schedule.

And now I have a couple of days to unpack (including all the boxes from Philly I shipped) and get ready to start my summer of massage school.

Before that though I would like to take a moment to reflect on how much people did that made my adventure to India so crazy amazing. Forgive me if this starts to sound like a very poor Oscar acceptance speech, but consider yourself warned (you always have the option of surfing away.)

First off I want to thank Sweet Pea. I don't even know where to begin with all the things to thank her for. She took such good care of me. She was my tour guide, interpreter, roommate, travel agent, financier, host and so much more. She didn't even let me get kidnapped once! And she was a downright amiable companion. At one point (a number of weeks into the journey) I found myself thinking, "wow, we've been spending just about every waking (and sleeping!) moment together and I'm not sick of her yet!" In fact, I really (really really) enjoyed getting all that time to hang out. I think I'm going into a bit of withdrawl right now. It could be jet lag, but I think it is probably Sweet Pea withdrawl. I don't know what I'm going to do with her captured by law school for the next three years.

Also deserving incredible thank yous are Sweet Pea's parents, the Raos, for also taking crazy good care of me. I was fed, housed, involved at their places of work, shown the sites, taken to restaurants, RAMOJI FILM CITY!, movies, weddings and more! They also invoked their network of family and friends (which I still think is part of the Indian mafia) to take care of us in all the places we went. And, like Sweet Pea, were so pleasant and enjoyable to hang out with through the whole thing.

And then the folks that backed it - my family. The ticket over there was a belated graduation present (or rather, I cashed it in belatedly) from my mammita and Franko and thus made the whole adventure possible. Along with my other set of parents (my dad and Marsha) and other family (aunts, uncles, cousins, brother, etc.), they also provided the "moral support." In many families when a 20-something-year-old daughter/niece/sister/cousin talks about quitting her good job, chucking aside the scraps of "establishment" she has built (apartment, furniture, worldly belongings) and adventuring to India for a spell before going to massage school there is a quick family conference about how to save said daughter/niece/sister/cousin from this rash action that will surely wreck her chances for "success" in life. In my family it was quite the opposite, however. Everyone was very excited for me and instead of trying to hold me back from the precipice, helped hurl me off the edge with enthusiasm. And for that I am very thankful!

And then there is the network of "friends" to thank as well. First off in that lot would have to be the Trivedis. Mr. Trivedi specifically helped me to procure the ticket to India and they both were very supportive and encouraging of my trip. They also provided me with a travel book on India and answered all sorts of questions I had about the place. Similarly Ajay and Lotta (both half-breeds who've been to visit family in India) helped me in my plannings and thinkings about and preperation for India. And so many other lovely friends and colleagues who supported and encouraged these crazy plans I had, even though it meant abandoning them a bit.

I think I'll end it there for now and start with all the things I need to do before massage school starts on Monday!