I'm slamming in and out of "cogitate!" and "run!" modes rapidly right now - have been for the past couple of days - so lemme see if I can merge the two into a nice balance of thinking-while-loping-along. Trying to write myself into a certain state of mind sometimes helps if I'm all set in other areas, and I'm now full enough (mmm, chocolate smoothie and far-too-large-and-badly-seasoned pot of chili) to not think about WANTS FOODS NOM NOM and physically calmed (yay, pushups + shower) to not run around madly and I've played the piano so my mind's calmed down (Chopin Nocturne in Eb major, Op. 9 No. 2), so let me start.

If I were to write about this past weekend again , it might go something like this.

Friday: A good day at FSOSS; I've finally switched from thinking of conferences as Things I Have To Utilize Fully As The Schedule Is Designed into Things That I Should Navigate So They Work Out Best For Me, and felt good rather than guilty about extending good lunch conversations, breaking to take a run through campus, and sitting quietly in a hallway for a session slot instead of going to a talk. Greg dropped me off at the airport and I forced myself to sleep fitfully on the plane on the way home because the things I would have thought about if I had been awake would have made me less able to go home and be present with my family for a while. (I love my family, and being with them sometimes requires a certain sets of states of mind, and when that's the case I need to make sure that I stay in those states of mind so I can be fair to them. I understand my different worlds in different ways, and operate in them in different ways.)

My cousin Mark picked me up at the airport, I went home and surprised my (very happy) dad, there was a giant pot of pork/bamboo/mushroom/etc. stew and almond jelly on the table, and I was home and I was a daughter and a cousin for a while, and then I went up to my room and went okay, can't think now, must to have unconsciousness again, and pretty much did the equivalent of shutdown -h now to push those thought processes off to later. It took a while, but it helped that I was pretty tired from a week of travel; I just let that tiredness spool out, and pretty soon I was sprawled out across a tangle of pillows and blankets snoozing intermittently (which is honestly about as good as I can ask for when I actually force myself to sleep).

Saturday morning: Went out to the soccer field behind the church and let those processes run through. I think better when I'm free to roam, and when I can't get words out I can always climb something or swing on something or kick something or just run faster. Got it from a giant unknown ("I'm not sure what thinking this way would do to me quite yet") into a giant unknown that's takeable-in-chunks ("I'm not sure what thinking this way will do to me, but I can step through it slowly and watch after each step.") That'll let me sandbox the thinking in small down moments later on. Ah, brain-rewiring. I've been doing it since I was 10 and decided to Be Hearing (a decision I'm now reconsidering) and it still throws me for a doozy.

Picked up my bass, good talk with Megan, dinner with my godparents. Long, lazy drive, going fast in the fading fall sun. (At Seneca, I learned that the local BMW Club does road racing and teaches car control classes, and that one does not need a BMW to participate. Toronto is approximately 9 hours from Boston. Hmm...)

I'm slowly beginning to develop a procedure for obtaining 'nice' clothing when necessary. Thanks to Mo, Mackenzie, and Skud for their help today - it was far less painful than expected. It's similar to shopping for parts - have specs, march in, match specs to item, march out. Use cases in my spec include things like "whoops, I accidentally played a game of football." No more discretionary income spending for this calendar year except for already-budgeted birthday and Christmas presents and the bass stand-up kit that's already coming in.

Speaking of bass: I should noodle around less and actually practice more, I've just been having fun playing Beatles bass lines for the past 2 days, and am beginning to get to the point where I can think about a simple melodic line and automatically play it out without having to stop and think about where my fingers ought to go. Emphasis on the word "simple." And my intonation sucketh, though that's also likely due to me not having gotten the hang of tuning in fourths yet.

Ah, that's nice. That's better. Now my brain has breathing room. Now I can wind it down and sleep more normal-like instead of grappling myself into unconsciousness as a toomanythingstothinkabout!!! coping mechanism. I'm storing up the breathing space now 'cause I won't get much more of it until 2010, and I'll take my introversion where I can.