Radio Shack, Mindfulness and PMSing

I need to start moving my body a little bit, I'm so prone to sitting around. I work in downtown Denver, so there are a lot of neat places to walk to.

Today during my lunch hour, I walked to Radio Shack and bought a $15 radio.


Then I blew $40 on a set of V-Moda headphones at Virgin Records.


Then I walked to Barnes and Noble, picking up books and walking around through the stacks listening to my new radio, antennea jutting out of my backpack. I picked up a book that caught my attention, called The Mindful Woman. Wow, I read through the first section of the book, and was sort of blown away. A lot of ideas there at once.

One of the ideas is that in a lot of cases, to really know someone is to love someone. I had to let that sink in. I thought of the few people I've really spent the time to get to know. I understood Sue Patton Thoele to be saying this: rarely do you find a person with such bad qualities (once you really know them) that you cling to the notion of disliking them. The author says that paying focused attention to someone is an invaluable gift. It allows you know someone when you spend time being focused on them. Really focused.

Then the book leaps to: if you pay good and close attention to yourself, you get to know yourself better, and love yourself better.

I've struggled with this all of my life. This loving myself thing. Even through Whitney Houston's debut back in middle school- "learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all". It's amazing how knitting has helped, because it is my one thing that no one can stop me from doing. Mine all mine, completely focused on me the whole time.
I'll never fall out of love with the mindset knitting puts me in, and with the idea that there is fruit to show for my time on the planet.

I look forward to making a habit of walking to the bookstore, maybe the farther but quainter bookstore, Tattered Cover. They have a large staircase I can climb up and down.



I like the simplicity of using my little radio. The static at turning a corner reminds me that I'm a part of the world, my movements carry consequence. The family owns a 20G Zen at home that would offer zero static, but, I just can't seem to find the songs I want to listen to with all of the stuff we have put on it.

I heard "Right Here Right Now" on KBCO while walking away from the bookstore. "Right here, right now, there is no other place I want to be....then watching the world wake up from history." I was thinking the chorus goes along well with this idea of being in the moment and focused, really focused. (Also, how appropo can an 80's song be in 2008 with the election coming and all?)

If the radio plays a song that goes along with my mood and mind that well, why the heck do I need to go and search for that perfect song through directories albums and song lists? By that time, the mood is kind of over. I'm old school. I'm nerdy. I know. (Of course, not everyone has a KBCO, I'm so so spoiled with KBCO.)

P.S.
While still at the book store, I also flipped through "Knitting For Peace" and Project Linus brought tears to my eyes.

Anyone else PMSing out there today? Anyone?