Drawing My Gaze Upward

For the second time this winter, it has begun to snow.  No accumulation, just a few wispy flakes dropping down but when you haven’t seen them in a while, they are lovely. I was talking to my wife in the kitchen and watching them fall I was distracted.  I notice that I was looking upward and that it wasn’t a view I’d seen much of from this kitchen location.  The flakes were drawing my gaze upward.  And it held them there for some time.   Catching me staring she looked out too and criticized the snow.  “If you’re going to snow you should really snow.” she said, breaking the mood.

My head was facing up when I was on a conference call this morning too.  This gentleman specified “video conference call” on the invite.  So I combed my hair and but a button down shirt over my tee-shirt. He needn’t see that I was in shorts.  The camera was aimed to profile the bookshelves behind me.  But as the conference began, I found myself staring at the same large screen I’m staring at now.  It’s at an angle to my lap top, allows for a convincing screen save rotation but considering it from this angle I make myself look like an ‘upper-class-twit’ with my chin in the air, staring up at nothing in particular, as captured from the video camera.  Right.  That won’t do.  Straight ahead then.  Until the spotty internet collapsed completely and I dialed in via Skype-out, instead.

Our international internet was down all morning.  A service we use to navigate things was not functioning.  I used my phone, and a software VPN.  This had me landing in Kansas, and Phoenix and Albania, and Switzerland.  The logic of where you chose to spoof-land certainly has nothing to do with the real logic of finding a place that isn’t and won’t be blocked for the next ten minutes.  In the past, I’d found that, ironically, landing in Russia worked well.  Google products are not blocked there, I learned last summer and it doesn’t seem that the local authorities here fret much about people exploring the Russian web.  Well, that didn’t work today.  Nor much of any of the rest of the former Soviet block.  I found a strange home in Fremont, which regularly went down, but then repeatedly reemerged. 

I hadn’t fasted for a full day in a while.  The holiday season seemed to knock it out of me.  “What?  You’re gonna fast on Christmas?”  Tuesday was always my day.  So I fasted today. I can recall the first day in the fall when I tried this and it was epic.  There’s an entry about it.  And though I’m out of practice, I knew it wouldn’t be such a big deal.  I got ravenous at 2:00PM and tired at 3:00PM and by 4:00PM I knew I was over the hump.  Cheese and peanuts now, by my side. 

Tuesday, 02/12/19