Tango in the fog

Friday night I went to dinner at the zen center. They have a regular thing on the 4th Friday and it was also an opportunity to meet the new practice leader, Y. I was very unimpressed with him. He came across as passive-aggressive, diffident, falsely humble; he started an argument about how much of a commitment he was being asked to make as practice leader, and kept whining "What do you want?" I got disgusted and left after a while, not even knowing if he would go through with this practice leader thing at all. Goodness knows they’ve managed to alienate potential practice leaders in the past at the last minute, but in this case I would blame him. He did show up this morning to lead zazen, though -- more about which in a moment.

Saturday was supposed to be my day of working on my book, but with Cris out of town for the weekend, I completely took advantage of slack atmosphere and wasted almost the entire day. I worked on my website, talked on the phone with Dina, watched the ballgame on TV, and exercised on the treadmill. The mouse on our new big ($$$$) Macintosh stopped working, to my disgust. Finally, in the evening, I went to my office and managed to crank out 800 words.

Sunday I went to church, to the ballgame, to the park (where every Sunday evening, tango students take over the Golden Gate Park Bandshell, a quietly bizarre sight in the fog that’s usually pouring in over the treetops) and to Sara’s to watch “The Sopranos” with a dozen others.

This morning I got up at 5:15, drove over to Hartford Street, went into the zendo and sat down. Just before starting time, a new guy named Lucky, who has come five or six times, came in and sat down too. No sign of Y. But just as Lucky got settled, Y. made a grand entrance. Then he confused everyone by going straight to the altar instead of sitting down. So we didn’t do the Robe Chant (the one that starts with the funny phrase, "Now we open Buddha's robe"). After that, everything proceeded pretty much as normal. But when it was all over, Y. made a grand exit to match his grand entrance and never came back to say hello or anything. We did soji on our own. So far, the guy has shown himself to be a complete pill.

This is just a few things I did over the weekend. A truly interesting account would say not only that Sunday afternoon was a gorgeous day to be at the ballpark, but explain what was gorgeous about it, the texture of the sopping nachos I ate, the way Marvin Benard went back to the dugout in anger after hitting a first-pitch tapper that must have been his first at-bat in three weeks, the sight of the dark red fireboat that floated past. It would explain how and why I take such pleasure and comfort in the warm friendliness at Sara's house, the usual amused expression on the face of Jeanne, who was briefly my editor last year, the way all the boys were sunburned after going to the Folsom St. Fair. It would say how much pleasure I took in the presence of the cats this weekend when I was around the house, it would say how messy I left the house this morning hoping that Cris is actually coming back tomorrow and not today, it would describe the quality of the light today and how the slightly hazy pearl-colored light this morning was actually more beautiful than yesterday's brilliant sun.

Instead, I report that I took two naps today: one in the morning, and a longer one in the afternoon.