Monday 27 November 2000 01:50 The thing that gripes me the most is that, some days, you look around and it seems that your life just plain sucks. You can do t'ai chi, you can meditate, you can tell your beads— rosary or dharma— you can smudge the whole house with sage smoke, you can practice any comforting ritual you've learned until you turn purple— you can even put on your lucky socks— My lucky socks are a pair of tube socks with green stripes around the tops. They wore out long ago. They became my lucky socks when once, just once, something lucky happened while I was wearing them. After that, whenever I felt I needed some good luck, I wore the socks. I wore them a lot. Sometimes I felt that bad things would happen if I didn't have them on— and sometimes it did, but I believe that was because of having had my underwear inside out. Anyway, I don't remember that the socks ever seemed to work as good luck charms after that one instance. But, as the wags are bound to point out, how do I know they didn't? Things might have been much worse if I hadn't been wearing them. I still have them in my slip drawer— Today, I practiced t'ai chi— mindfully, in proper spirit— for over an hour. It felt good— heck, I might even have been doing it right— and it was wonderful to be outdoors again in the fresh air... I took a long hot shower... I did the laundry (I was out of socks), cleaned up the kitchen sink... I went for a walk in the rain— The ice at the the edges of the heron's pond was gone, but ice remained in the center and fog formed there, making it look like a smoking caldera. Everywhere, the tree branches and dried stalks and pine needles were sparkling with water diamonds... I did my errands, helped Peter close up... I practiced my Chinese calligraphy... Ma gave me dinner and rubbed my shoulder for a while and told me that everything would "work out right." We watched Shanghai Noon. It was funny, very entertaining... I checked my underwear. It's right side out. My life still sucks. Really, there ought to be something, something foolproof and sure-fire, that one can do to put one's life back on track. Really there ought.   Copyright © 2000 New Moon Please feel free to comment at: The Madwoman's Message Board