Hey everyone.

Overnight at the TA in Binghamton NY tonight.

My hands are getting a little rough from work. My old GF Erica told me at least once that I have beautiful hands. Which I guess I've often thought myself. But now I'm getting older and working them pretty hard for a living and they show it. Bah.

I've decided that what I want for Cristmas is a magic Kerouac Express Card. This is a charge card that covers your expenses while you're touring the country on a motorcycle, photographing and writing about what you see.

I guess my journals may well have been a lot less interesting of late. I've just been working a lot and not seeing so much of the country. The short days and cold rainy weather play a role in that. I dislike what the stress does to my mind. Now and then when I've changed jobs or changed positions in the company I've come into a few days off and I really notice myself recovering from work. My comments that I leave in peoples' journals or in various groups get longer and happier and wittier. Work wouldn't be so bad if it left us more of ourselves for our own time.

Long time ago I dabbled lightly in Dungeons and Dragons, where my friends were deeply immersed fanatics. At one point I was thinking of playing a monk, and I noticed that the highest level a D&D monk could attain was Grand Master of Flowers. I do not find such a title for any monkish attainment in the real world, but that title has always stuck in my mind, as one that I would like to have. I read an article in either Tricycle or Buddhadharma about Tibetan Embodiment meditation, where you visualise yourself as embodying a quality. I try to visualize myself as embodying mellowness. The Grand Master of Flowers is one very mellow person. He is one with life itself. He is the unfolding of leaves in the spring. I find stillness in imagining myself as that. I wish I was better at focusing on that sort of thing for longer periods than I am.