Feeding the Heartbeast

My first day of Inner Homesteading was experienced through tremendous tiredness. I think this means that my only owned livestock, my body, must be cared for better. I'll look into how to tend to this beast better in the coming days.

Clearly I could take more time just to pay attention to myself; do some yoga; make an effort to relax. But I have run out of time for that. The best I can do is simply get to bed at a reasonable time.

I was not able to get my 8-year-old camera to interface with my MacBook; they don't speak the same language. I found a driver, but it was for OS 8.6, and I could not find any tool that would run 8.6 software in X. And that is assuming that the installation would actually work. No deal.

So I went ahead and paid $1.40 on a USB adaptor for my camera's memory card. Big freakin' investment. It should be arriving pretty soon. At that point, this blog will have photos.

Instead of tending to my body tonight, I've been continuing with project #1 in this urban homestead: clean out my old laptop so I can put it away and have more desk space.

I spent my morning, the pinnacle of my daily energy, reading and playing the accordion. Not exactly agrarian tasks, but they are important in self-cultivation, so I'm happy. I decided to set up my music stand permanently, decked with music, reminding me of the reedy activity I can engage in every time I want, instead of letting it gather dust under my couch. It's sitting next to my desk right now, gazing at me lovingly as I type.

The book I finished was The Lady and the Monk by Pico Iyer, a travelog of one year spent in Japan. Really a beautiful book. Pico kind of annoyed me from time to time, showing me how intellectual his filter is, but, as he says about another person he travelled with, of course I see myself in him.

So I'm going to continue with my first project of clearing out the Dell. I want a nicer desk space to be working with here. There's not a whole lot to change once the Dell is gone; my To-Do pile is simply going to have a more prominent place. But I can see if I can't make a few changes here and there; make the working space a little more alive. A plant, maybe? That's agrarian.

Also, I'm not decided about whether I want to keep the Dell around. My worker's instinct says: no. Get it out. Remove old junk. Do not hold onto things. What would I use it for, anyway? Fears that it would limit my ability to study programming (which I haven't picked up in over a year now - also, there are plenty of decent development environments for mac) and play some games (which I can get around by upping my wine skills). I think it's got to go. Once I've rescued all the files I want to rescue, I'm going to purge the hard drive and donate it to the Shelter. It's pretty shitty (completely unsellable due to the physical damage), but it is a laptop with a wireless card and could be useful to somebody without one.

So that's my project right now. Computer stuff. I feel a little concern about the amount of time I've been spending on these somewhat intellectual (but yet still practical) tasks as opposed to physical, feeling ones. But they will come. Body and heart are not going anywhere soon.

Maybe my sign-out tag will be "How I'm feeling right now:"?

How I'm feeling right now: congestion in the nose. A little excitement in the belly. Possibility of feeling at home and comfortable. Looking forward to sleep. Suspicious of myself; wondering what else I might do - anxiety about possibilities. A tense balance between ready curiosity about the future and ingrained pessimism. Security in my sense of rootedness in who I am. Pleasure in writing.

Maybe this would be better at the beginning?

I'll need to think of another tag.

I'm running in the morning; not sure how much time I'll have to blog. But I will. Good night, all.