I find it a constant struggle to try new things. Tonight, I was content
to eat at the places I already knew. Hence, it was a great delight for
me to end up at Sabuy Sabuy, a Thai restaurant close to the
corner of College and Broadway
in Oakland. I found it hard to believe that it could be so nice
outside; the wooden fence certainly helped shield up from the busy
traffic of the corner. Now, watch how what is new becomes what is old
if I keep wanting to go back there!

I've been struggling to do much public writing (though I've been hard at work writing reports). That's why it may seem that I have dropped off the face of the world -- at least from the perspective of someone who sees me primarily through my blog.

I used to promise that I would be back in the saddle in my blogging, that I would be regularly writing. That remains the goal. I just won't promise to do until I know I am able to deliver.

I've been amazed with the intense ups and downs of emotion that I've been experiencing the last several months. At the highest of high moments, I feel as though the world had become suddenly transparent, all complications melt away, barriers to change crumble as I can effortlessly jump up to a new plane of existence. At the low moments, the bad old things not only re-emerge but do so with a haunting vigorous condemnation; I then feel all-too-limited and frail. This morning, I'm learning to move ahead with a quieter contentment that is sober and resolute.

In the past, I have found writing very early in the morning to be a very productive and rewarding discipline. I've been spending time far away from such a habit but decided last night to attempt a return this morning. So here I am, trying to write. Surprising revelation: nothing comes immediately!

As we were flying in last night from Boston at about 8:15pm, the sunlight was still illuminating the hills, valleys, and waterways of the Bay. Light and shadow that late in the day! I was really happy to come back home -- although my time in Boston and the Albany area was quite wonderful. Actually, wonderful is not quite the right word -- since it does not do justice to the richness of the time away. More later perhaps....

While trying to upgrade my wiki software this morning I broke my setup. Normally, I wouldn't consider that a problem -- where I messed up was trying to do an upgrade 15 minutes before I needed to hop in my car to get to a wedding! I did what I have told others not to do: to give oneself plenty of time in doing software installations (since errors are bound to happen, especially at the most inconvenient times!)

Now I'm trying to fix my setup but am running into other problems. Please be patient with me. (Besides, I'm about to head out to another, very important engagement -- so my wiki may be down for a while yet.)

On the white planes of my imagination grew tender shoots of grass. They were few in number but luxuriant in composition. You would expect them to be the type of grass that cows would heartily ruminate on. Not so our odd little cow. She had greater ambitions than to find her sustanance on the lowly plane/plain. The lunar sliver hung from the great ceiling, beckoning our friend to jump over the moon. Last time we saw her, she was standing on her hind legs, front legs in the air, head held up high. You might have thought her to be an oversized grasshopper, the way she was ready to spring forth. A grasshopper-cow, absurd on so many levels, was soon ecstatically in flight.

The falling sun set the city on fire
That enchanted night
And I wondered if flames came every night
Whether I saw or cared

Why shouldn't such phenomena occur
That lived beyond my ken?
Indeed even the little I ought to know
Is actually out of my hand.

When I was around 10 years old, I concluded that key to understanding the world was physics, specifically theoretical mathematical physics. I don't remember how I came to such a conclusion or exactly the arguments that buttressed such a view, but I was deeply affected by it. Albert Einstein was an early hero of mine. So was Dr. Who,
the BBC-based Time Lord who wandered not only the spatial but temporal
reaches of the cosmos. Both Einstein and Dr. Who were romantic figures
who mastered the essential nature of the world. I wanted to be like
them in their fame and in their fashion sense; Einstein's unkept mane
and the long scarf of the 4th Dr. Who figured large in my imagination. Thus did fame and fashion become linked to physics and ultimately to my Ph.D. work in Berkeley.

I don't know which is sadder: the row of unread books or the raft of unfilled binders sitting on my shelf.