I seem to have far too much to say in this medium, and just at the point where I have too much to say, I have almost no time in which to say it.

Things have been super busy.  I've just billed the biggest month in four years of consulting history, and have been wrestling with the schedule that comes with such a high revenue.  With semi-daily calls to streamsandpools and what seems like it's going to be a weekly doctor visit, my nights end at dinner and often resume for a few hours to make up the lost time.  Toss in social events and housework needs, and it means most of my waking hours are spent either working or waiting to return to work.  It's a grueling schedule that will continue throughout most of May.  But surprisingly, I seem to be handling it fairly well.

I think I can chalk some of this up to my new daily routine, which involves a half hour walk each morning fresh from bed, followed by a shower and then a big steaming bowl of oatmeal with two eggs.  It's been transformative to start my day with exercise and a big breakfast, to be able to connect immediately with my physical self and give my brain space to process the neighborhood, the birds, the sky, the weather instead of the spin or the thousand things going on in the Big Life at present.  I find that, generally, it's caused a lift in my mood, or at least a decrease in the tendency for a downturn.

Waking up each morning and immediately looking forward to my walk and my oatmeal is a new experience for me as well.  It makes me feel more like the person I'm working on becoming.  Not that there is anything wrong with the person I have been, but he has some destructive patterns that need to go away in order for him to be the old man I'd like to be eventually.

I think this doctor journey, though it's far from over and may even just be starting, is something that is giving me the final last jolt into a healthy practice and a way of looking at myself, my life, and my body that I've felt was needed for years.  I consider the time after my divorce to be a time of reclaiming and rediscovery, and I'm feeling like that particular period is coming to a close.

In the meantime, I've been doing an experiment which involves my child, mainly revitalizing and remapping the places of joy in my life, an exercise that I will be trying to eventually feed into my writing and approach to writing.  I decided earlier this year that I was going to take myself to a movie a week, and see all the big action blockbusters of the year, all the comic films, all the movies that my child would have peed himself over when I was a child.

The experiment, though, hinges on losing the critic mind, which I'm finding to be both very fulfilling and very difficult.  My child never wanted to intellectually dissect a movie when it was over, discussing plot holes and weak parts of the direction and the script.  He never wanted to compare it to other movies, to the book, to other parts of the series or to analyze the actors and their commitment to the part or the part's fit for them.  And yet that's always what my adult does, sometimes even while the credits roll.

The idea is to go to these films without the critic, to find something in them that wows, to connect with the richness of the fantasy, to suspend disbelief.  The idea is to see good where there is good and to accept the good without pointing a finger to what could be better, yearning for more good, or worse yet perfection, to fill up the well of the child and let him swim in the glee of these otherworlds.  And it's been working.  Forbidden Kingdom gave me Jackie Chan as the Drunken Master again, and Jet Li  as the Monkey King.  Iron Man gave me one of my favorite childhood comic book heros brought to life.  And each movie introduced me to worlds that my imagination longed to linger in.

In a sense, I'm trying to get to a place where I'm better able to come to a thing in whichever mind I choose to come to it with, to be able to joyfully be the critic without feeling like I'm naysaying and to be able to joyfully be the childmind without feeling like I'm just swallowing pablum.

The implications for silencing my critic mind when it comes to writing are immense.  I plan to add my reading and writing practice back in to the mix once the work load softens.

And now it is late and I must to bed.  There is more to tell, about my upcoming trip to England, about my dread about Mondays, about my mother and my family, but these will have to wait.  I'll be back whenever I can, and until then, thank you.

I'm so tired I can hardly form words.

I walked in the door last night at 4am, three hours delayed from when I was supposed to arrive. The plane out of Columbus was delayed. The plane out of Vegas was delayed. The shuttle was delayed. And the airlines lost my luggage.

No vegetarian fare, no fish fare was found in Columbus, and with only 15 minutes of transition time (despite the fact that we sat on the runway for over half an hour before leaving) between flights in Vegas, there was only time to use the restroom.

The numbers are thus: Awake Friday for 21.5 hours. Only food in a 26 hour period was a can of pringles, a carton of animal crackers, two small packs of preztels, a power bar, and two cans of coke.

I developed a raging cold Thursday morning, which persisted throughout two days, but western medicine saved my head from exploding on airplane landings. Today the cold persists, but mainly the sleepiness continues.

I returned home to find a note announcing that my apartment complex was being sold and that maintenance was being handed over to a realtor while they searched for a buyer. I have no idea what exactly this means for me, but I would suspect that it means I'll be moving this year.

And then finally, I woke up today to more ringworm on my cat's face. Either that, or he's been in a tossle and cut himself. Results and continued cat health diagnosis will happen Monday when I wake up and cart his furry ass into the vet. I'm trying not to spin too much about this.

On the good side of things, I had a fantastic talk with the very supportive, lovely, and quite partnership-capable streamsandpools today. And I opened my presents from her to receive two fabulous books, but more fabulous than words can say, the most perfect of all perfect stuffed bears who I'll keep with me for the rest of my life.

During said talk, my luggage arrived, putting a better spin on the day.

I also received a visit from monagrrl with the touching, much appreciated, tear-producing gift of veggie chili so that I don't have to venture into the cold and dark to find food.

Hooray for community.

My visit to Columbus was pretty good, and one of the better visits in years past. However, the highlight rising heads and tails above all events were my visits with drshorn for some good laughter and deep connection that friends who've maintained a friendship for almost 20 years can have.

Now I go start laundry and eat my chili in hopes that tomorrow I'll be more centered, more rested, and more gassy.

When I was growing up, I received the cut-rate version of everyone else's toys. Video game systems were purchased at Radio Shack. Clothing came from one of the many odd-lots or discounted super stores. Before Target was established, K-mart was the mecca for all things.

I knew my family didn't have the kind of money that was all around us in our affluent Columbus suburb. I was aware I was living in the "slums of Arlington". And apart from some serious issues with not being heard or witnessed as a child and young adult, I had a pretty happy time of it. I didn't want for anything, and I quietly accepted the fact that I'd probably end up playing my Tiger Electronic Football game while other kids talked about how exciting Intellivision was.

( I had my own game... )

There will be some changes here at the circle W, my friends. They aren't changes most of you will notice, being friends of both blackwingedboy and blackwingedboy, who are of course me. They aren't changes anyone but me will care about. However, they may affect the availability of this journal for a short period.

Back in June of 2006, I split myself again in two, as I've done (and regretted) many, many times in my diary/blog/journal experience. One of those places, this one, ended up with all the writing and the other place, that one over there, ended up being largely abandoned. In the meantime, I kept commenting not as the me here, but as the me over there. That's resulted in a journal that I write in and a different username I comment with, but whose journal hasn't seen activity for over six months.

I've become fragmented. And with the notion that I'm going to be moving more experimental, comment-disabled, somewhat fictional ideas over to blogger, with its ease of multiple blogs and ability to stop and go on a whim, the current blackwingedboy now doesn't belong. I'd like to unify again. So I'm doing away with this journal, blackwingedboy, which will soon be magically renamed by the Live Journal gods as blackwingedboy. All entries, comments, images, userpics and styles will remain intact since June 2006 when I started it.

What is now blackwingedboy will be archived, and potentially then renamed to reflect that. All entries previous to June of 2006 will reside there, and I'll provide a handy link to that from the new blackwingedboy.

Still with me? If you are friends of both journals, you'll keep getting my entries on your friends page and nothing will change. However, they will not longer appear as wolfishsunshine, but as blackwingedboy. There's no need to friend the archived blackwingedboy user, because no new entries will be posted at that address. Therefore, there's nothing for you to do, and in fact reading this post was an interesting waste of your time.

My feeling about my constant desire to split in twain, and my tendency to want to see wolf and raven as two separate, not entwined pieces of my energetic makeup are very obvious to me. That's a part of this decision for sure. But mainly, I'm feeling the need to simplify things in my life, and choosing my beloved blackwingedboy as the center of linked blogs and journals makes me happy.

I expect to get all this underway by December 1st. Thanks, all.

Sometimes I think I should have left this house when I had a chance, when my father died, when the marriage broke a few months later. But instead I decided to root here and heal in the place where everything stung. I've lived at this address for five and a half years, the same carpets and the same walls around me. Sometimes it is the heaven that I dream of, and sometimes it is the loneliest place I've ever been. Mostly, it is somewhere in-between.

( Continue on… )

Tonight I dragged my sick-feeling body out of the house, as promised, to write at a coffee shop, Chocolati in Wallingford. My prediction was that by venturing into a coffee-loving city on a dark night and keeping close to a major American university in the middle of term, I'd have the place largely to myself.

I'm horrible at anticipating trends and outcomes.

( And then what happened? )

To the Great White North.

I'm off tomorrow morning on SwedeTrip 2007, with a special guest appearance by Mrs. Shorn. My flight takes me through the exicting airports of Chicago and later Denver, and extended tours of the exciting airports of Columbus and Seattle. It also includes two exciting tours of the inside of drshorn's car. All this and more, coming soon!

Okay, it also includes a roadtrip to Toronto for three days and nearly front row Rush tickets, plus much media and laughter.

I'll be posting from Columbus. And I'll be posting more when I get back. It's been a very rough three weeks, but I'm feeling a bit more firm-footed in it.

I'll say hello to Lerxst for you.

Back into it. I was just heading to bed tonight when I thought it was maybe too late for a post and that I was far too tired and deserved the extra sleep. And then I thought that as long as I kept thinking things like this, I'd never get back to practice.

I feel like after the wedding and J's visit and the subsequent incident of our blossomed relationships, I was put back down into my old life, but was utterly transformed. As a result, everything is new. This is both joyous and tedious, as with everything being new, everything also feels a bit alien and uncertain. Living in-between two states of change is hard for me and I think it's taken me nearly two weeks just to get my footing here with all that has happened. Neither J nor I am happy with the situation of long-distance long-term, but we are dealing. And I think that dealing will eventually lead to bigger shifts as well.

I'm learning, and for that I'm thankful. I'm having to look at things that have gone hidden for a long, long time, and it's really very exciting to have loads of new and juicy areas to explore and with which to continue to build myself and widen my spiritual life and personal growth. I felt very connected to the storytelling and creativity in my last post, which is a great sign and for that I also feel thankful.

But it's time to get back to practice, which I'll attempt to try to do on a structured basis this weekend. Good thing too, as I leave for vacation with my buddy drshorn in just over a week, and then two weeks later, have my own mini vacation (thanks to a gift from J), at my dream location - a weekend silent and writing retreat at Lake Crescent Lodge.

And now, bed calls. Thank you all for your good words and support.

Hi folks.

Lots of you have been asking what's become of me, and honestly what's become of me is that some really postive and major things have happened in my life recently, and I'd like to share them with you. This week, however, I'm in a big reflection phase and in more than a bit of a "missing somebody" place, and I just haven't felt like hooking directly into words and blinking, shiny boxes. I've greatly enjoyed my place of silence and stillness while all this washes over me.

But this weekend is my weekend, all three days, and I'll catch you up on the ways of the Willum and the ways of the heart and the ways of the future.

I love you all. And I promise I'll be back very soon.

Well!

Yes, it is true that I haven't written a single thing about my vacation, about the wedding that I officiated, about life in general and the big shifts therein. But all those things will be told. I have some very large and involved posts coming in the next month in which I promise to catch you up on the ways of the William.

In the meantime, many words can be found at:
streamsandpools' blog, and many pictures here.

Why? Because somehow SHE managed to get her act together. I must have been picking my toenails with a spoon.

I'll be back soon. But until then, big thanks to Mister and Missus (imtboo & trochee) for a life-changing opportunity and the chance to fully step into my power and my purpose. I married those two crazy kids, and it was fucking awesome.

Enjoy the dessert cart. Checkout is at noon.

Thank you.

I seem to have this problem with politeness in many areas, but most notably when it comes to pretending that I understand what people with thick accents are saying to me. This happens frequently when I take cabs to the airport, but also happens when certain people are staffing my local Subway. And this becomes a bigger problem because once I pretend that I understand the words in the accent, and do so the next half dozen times I order my tuna sub, it's too late to go back to hand holding.

What's freaky is that I always seem to guess the right responses. So I end up in long conversations with somebody who is happily telling me a story about the thing I just said, while I strain to try to pick out any word I understand to supply an ounce of context.

I hate being misunderstood, and I think that's probably what drives this urge to feign understanding of language.

I was also over 35 before I began to ask people the definitions of big words I'd never heard.

Anyway, the point is I wanted to give you all an update on the state of the Willum. And I intend to do so pretty regularly for the next few weeks at least. Some very big life events are coming up and I want to be sure to document them in some fashion.

This weekend was crazy. Thanks to a sudden lack of work, I turned my attentions to a very sweaty, tiring, and back hurting series of tasks in the housecleaning, pest removing, recycling vein which took me until very late at night Friday to complete. Saturday, I spent 13 hours with imtboo and trochee in a combination of wedding errands, eating, drinking, and theater seeing. Again, got home late enough so that the cats flipped on the light and were seen sitting and tapping their claws on the carpet, paws crossed against their chests.

"Do you KNOW what time it is?"

Today was my Do Nothing Day, which I spent mainly thinking about my upcoming visit from streamsandpools, who is staying with me for a few weeks. That happens next Monday and kicks off a month's worth of adventures, which seems to have a wedding in the middle of it that I am officiating. I'll be posting updates along the way, and who knows, maybe Team Sprout will be tossing pictures of our travels to the Internets.

For now, cartoons. Lovely cartoons. And some porch sitting awaits.

Last night, beckyb told me that even if I posted about the spiders on my window ledge, she'd enjoy it and that I should. That made me happy.

Today it was 97 degrees in Seattle. And even though it's 74 outside right now, inside my house its probably still above 90. Windows are open. Fans are running, and we'll see what happens by morning.

But the point is, I have two options. I can sit on my porch where a new flock of mosquitoes are eying my sweaty legs, or I can sit inside and drip with sweat. Neither one of those options lets me focus very well. So I'm going to give you and me a rain check.

i will say that a new, very black, very round spider has taken up residence in my home. She keeps to the corners above the front door and seems to vacation in the spaces between the window blinds. Today, she crawled on my hand as I started to open the door and I had to let her slide her silk down to the floor while kicking both cats away with my feet. I am the Shaolin Spider Saviour.

I'll be back soon. I'm feeling the energy move again after a long time it seems. And thanks to miss B for the encouragement.

No, way too much going on still to dig out from under it and post.

So, a quick list:

1. My new MacBook Pro arrives Wednesday, thus making my platform switch official. I began my computer journey with a Sinclair ZX80, moved to an Atari 800 (quite a coup (Coop) on our block, as the 800 was the "elite" machine), and then settled into a long run with Apple (2e, 2c) before finding love in the Amiga camp, where my heart still lingers (500, 1200). Commodore sunk the ship and I floated to the PC world where I've been ever since. So in a way, Wednesday, I return back to where I started. I had plans to blog about my transition, but I found it far too geeky to contemplate. This is geeky enough.

2. I'm not sleeping or not sleeping well. I'm not sure why this is. I'm constantly raccoon-eyed. Overthinking? Hm.

3. Tonight I purchased ALL of my wedding clothing. Yes, folks, you heard me. I was hard sold in accessories after purchasing for and having tailored my BEAUTIFUL suit, and finally just rolled over and said "dress me". Shoes, belt, shirts, ties, socks. All done. I might play around with another pair of shoes, but other than that, bingo!

4. I've had two major epiphanies today. Major. More later.

5. I see three concerts in a week. Tomorrow, Keren Ann at the Triple Door. Saturday, Jonatha Brook back at the Triple Door. Sunday, the Indigo Girls at the Zoo.

6. In lieu of my favored and addictive strawberry juice ice pops, I have discovered the most incredible lusciousness in the COCONUT flavored pops!

7. The Blonde Swedes can now be found on iTunes!

8. This list was never meant to be more than 3 items. I need to get to bed now.

The conversation went something like this. I asked myself if I was happy with the way my body felt, which is a different question than asking myself if I was happy with the way my body looked. And the answer, which would have been the same answer had I asked either question, was "no".

I walk regularly now and I have a stationary bike. I eat or try to eat better than I have. And I do my crunches. But I'm also 40 years old. It's not enough. My body in the last few years has softened, and the reason I've allowed it to do so, fed my body crap, denied it sleep, and pushed it to some hard limits is nothing more than self-abuse fed from fear and anxiety and hate. But I don't hate my body. I just used to. And I don't hate myself. I just used to. I'm comfortable with the cycle of abuse and ironically of the level of protection that I can get by not stepping into my love for myself. But that cycle is just an echo cycle now and can be stopped simply by stopping, as it no longer exists.

I have no hate for myself and I have no deathwish. What I have is a disconnection. I have a disconnection in the way my body feels with the way that my spirit feels, and a disconnection in my sexual self with the way my body functions. Note this has nothing to do with belly fat or chins or arm flab or any of the earmarks of body image. It has to do with the fact that I feel sluggish and that I sense inside this softness there is the me that I want there to be.

He's not too far down even, reachable with just a slight effort. But if I don't reach down now, with my sedentary lifestyle and years to pass, he'll slip. In a sense, I have a simple choice to make, Yes or No.

So tonight, I purchased an exercise bench. I cannot afford one, don't really have the money to be tossing around on one right now, but you know, I made a choice for my health over my bank account. I talked to my mother for two hours before I pressed the submit button, as today I hit this level of absolute spin-out over many things. I was going to make jokey-face here about the fact that JC Penney no longer sells my shirts I've purchased from them over the last few years, or that I ruined a pair of jeans today by spilling a bit of bleach-cleaner on them, or that I had the most stressful four hours at Alderwood mall yesterday, or that I fell asleep Saturday night after sushi and missed out on my creative spaces as I woke up drooling on the cats at 4am Sunday morn.

All good and somewhat bad stories. But I like this one better.

So anyway, when I told her about it, she said, "Oh (B WORD), you'll never use that."

And I said, "That's what's been stopping me from trying it for years, mom."

Thing is, I love benches. I've had two in my life, which coincided with the two most in-shape periods of my youth. They allow me to work out when I want to, whatever hour is convenient, as often as I want to, in the comfort of my home by my shower with my iPod on. This time around, I've chosen something that is a low-impact, whole-body solution, after spending a good five hours churning over options, prices and reviews.

Point is, I'm moving care of my body up in priority over most other things in my life. And that alone is going to make me sleep easier and happier tonight.

This weekend was a panic, churn, processing mess. In a way, I'm glad to get back to the sanity of working with unreasonable clients and ridiculous deadlines tomorrow.

How's by you?

First, I have to thank the fantastic beckyb for the gift of Brazilian coffee from the far off land of Brazilia, which I believe to be near Luxembourghe. It's been a while since I was in school.

The coffee came in a nice, OCD-pleasing vacuum-packed block, which I plan to open on some very good morning. This coffee will not be consumed in the stress hurry of work days, where I often find myself sucking down the last grainy dregs from the sugary-thick bottom of my cup as I parse syntax. No, it will be had on some morning and on many mornings no doubt, when I arise and am engaged in the practice of sensory pleasure.

Which honestly, should be every day…

Speaking of practice, the need for practice, all practice, is I am finding the hardest, hardest, hardest thing for me to learn. When I do the things from this list (holds up list) that I have worked on for the last few years and honed down to the essential elements of the happy magic brew, I am more grounded. I am energized and pleasant and hopeful and connected. When I go more than a few days without any practice, I begin to suck down into the depressions and the distractions and the addictions, however minor or major they may be. I lose myself and I lose my outer interfaces and I lose the flow of my being. I lose them to things like cleaning out my Season Passes to remove the shows that the networks have cancelled this year (goodbye "Raines", "Andy Barker", "Studio 60", "Thank God You're Here"…)

Luckily, all it takes is taking the time to do the things I have in my practice. And every day is the opportunity to return to the routine as if no routine was ever missed in the past.

That sounds a bit like a broken record, but I'm going to keep sounding like one, keep writing this same post over and over until I really get the lesson. There is one solution to the problem, to all the problems. I just have to learn that there is one solution, and it's within my power to choose it, or not to choose it. I have to learn that not choosing is a choice in itself and is not the default, and that choice holds with it the same consequences as any other choice.

The weekend, otherwise, is quite good. I felt an extreme and good level of Williamness last night when I attended both a reading from The Community Theatre's new Carver production and a dinner/drinks affair with company members, followed by a quiet party at imtboo's and trochee's apartment. Though I was feeling quite tender, I turned my tenderness into energy and let that flow through me as connection. Nights like that make me think about how happy my mother would be to watch me interact and make friends, how many years she tried to get me out of my darkness when I was young and painfully wandering through my life.

And now, I'm going to lay on the floor and Ab-Roll, while my cat tries to bite my chin. And I'm also going to try to figure out what my writing practice should be. Without that as a definition, without it as a intent and commitment, nothing will happen at all. But I think some of it will mean more posts here again.

I don't ever mean to leave you, you know. Sometimes I just get involved in the examination of shiny marbles. It's an occupational hazard for us trickster spirits.

Oh, you sweet, un-cherrylike-colored bundle of juicy heralding. How you lay upon my tongue and infuse my being with thoughts of summer, bare feet in the bladed grass, breeze against the beads of sweat on my neckline.

I'm eating Rainier cherries as I write this. First batch of the year. I bought them and went home, put my winter boots in storage and retrieved the tennis shoes.

Just a quick update here. I've been working like crazy this month, trying to put a large padded pile of green in my bank in advance of my summer of non-work. And it's going well. But I'm exhausted and my hands ache a bit unnervingly, and so my typing is not much.

Feeling a bit lost lately just in my practice and in my creative life, but more on that later. For now, just the yellow-red of this perfect fruit and the smooth body of future seasons on my tongue. It's all I need tonight.

15 years ago, and some months, I was a pimply faced 25 year old who had just landed his first real job at what was then the Holy Grail of midwestern technology... CompuServe. The Internet was young then. The World Wide Web wouldn't emerge for another three years (I ran the first version of the first commercially successful browser, Mosaic, at home across my modem on my pitiful 386). To give you more perspective, Windows for Workgroups hadn't been released when I started.

My first job was to support forums and sysops and run little custom Mac scripts (White Knight) on proprietary databases. The environment was your standard cubicle-based, sweaty, white-shirted drone hive, chain restaurants reached by a short walk across corporate greenways and drainage ditches, uncomfortable birthday-cake celebrations with bosses you'd rather not socialize with. In short, you've seen where I worked if you've ever watched "Office Space".

It was a Big Deal back then. And I was terrified.

I sat in my little walled-in, whiteboard-equipped cave the first few hours of the first day and felt really very alone and unsure.

It was then that I heard, over the wall, the high-pitched "ohhh moan moan moan" of the Pepperpots (Monty Python's largely Cleese and Chapman-inspired housewives with high squeaky voices, performed in drag). I paused. And I answered in a Pepperpot voice ,"Oh, Hello dearie?" And after a pause, the surprised Pepperpot voice answered me, "Oh, Hello!"

Ladies and Gentleman, please welcome markdascot to Live Journal.

After that day, Mark and I were inseparable for five years until I sold my belongings, quit my job and headed to Seattle. As two of a very, very small group of technically-able people in a growing technical field and environment, we became like Hawkeye and Trapper in M*A*S*H*, comparatively brilliant and irreplaceable, and thus with immense leeway to cause any sort of mischief and trouble. And we did. We were opportunists. We wanted to know just how much we could get away with, so that we could get away with it as often as we wanted.

We also worked our asses off.

I'm not sure exactly what my life would have been like had I not met Mark, but it wouldn't have been as fun, and I wouldn't have become half the smart-alecky person that I am today. Now you know who to curse. We've had many, many adventures together, windings from the halls of that building in Columbus to the trade shows of Atlanta and Las Veagas.

Earlier this year, his road finally brought him to Seattle, where we now live 20 minutes apart (on a good traffic day)

So welcome him here. He's already made quite a few posts and I think you'll see he's a funny and very touching writer. The side of himself he has chosen to share with you is my favorite side of him. He's an Eagle totem, and it doesn't take long to see it in his words.

A fond Live Journal Welcome, Baloo!

Off to Ventura to visit the lovely writeanya and her menagerie of hairy creatures. See you all in a week.

I love you all. Remember to play while I'm gone. And also to believe. What we have in this life, firstly, is each other. I'm glad I have you all.

Spending an evening celebrating imtboo's Birthday, surrounded on all sides by beautiful, amazing women, all whom I love dearly, and then driving home with mariachi music blaring as the city slides by in muted shades of lamplight and mist.

There are four possible reasons for radio silence of the Daily Wag
1. Depression/Sickness/Pain
2. Falling into the "I need to have something to say" trap
3. Extreme busy doing things I'm enjoying
4. Radioactive Mutant Sea Slugs

I'm happy to say, presently, #3 is the culprit. And I want to thank both imtboo and drshorn for facilitating my relative LJ absence by keeping me busy with fun.

I shall be back soon. Things are good.