I even planted a plant, like in the dirt with a trowel.

I must report an excellent weekend! apfelsingail was visiting, and having breakfasts with her gave me actual reasons to get up and out of the house in the mornings. (For those not in the area: these were the first really summery days Boston has had. We opened all the windows, I wore a skirt, and in an especially thoughtful moment I even took our winter coats for dry-cleaning so they'll be nice for next season.)

So, I was productive. Had an expensive dinner, saw a silly play, and got down to three starred emails in my Gmail, both of which are from within the last week and thus hardly count. That was a multi-weekend effort that I started in late February, but now feels goooooooooood. One annoyance I had, which I expect will continue, is the other people who have their email under control; they tend to write back quickly and thus land the ball back in my court, damn them. :)

I've been off coffee for 8 days now. The cravings faded fast. I had decaf twice on Saturday -- small amounts -- but that doesn't seem to have reawakened the beast.

So, what makes it onto the List of Things Worth Doing? I realized it's tough to write one list. Some things trump almost everything daily, but only need to be done annually. Some things on my list are ingrained habits or tendencies, they just happen to still be important. Here are some vague tiers of priority, not counting the low-level eat/breathe/shelter type stuff.

1) Work to ~48 hrs/week, Sleep on a good schedule, Hygiene, Exercise like a mad weasel
2) Communicate, Create (this mostly means Knit), Chemical Bonding With Family
3) See friends IRL, Consume (this mostly means Read, but also includes Shop)
4) Clean & Organize (on weekends)
5) Chill

Things not to do for now: extensive house projects (Just say no. Noooooooo.) Any kind of repeating classes. Active looking for new IRL friends. Recreational coding (though I might be doing a bit of recreational PM work). New hobbies. Cooking very much.

I think 3, 4, 5 and some of 2 mostly happen on weekends. :P

Acrophysics

I haven't told LJ anything about my acrobalance classes, ever since I found out about them. I've been to two now, one of which was even recorded on LJ in some detail, but not by me. Aside from finding out that there's a strange, gaping hole in the bus schedule to get there (you can be 20 minutes early, or 20 minutes late), they've been tremendously awesome. The teacher, who I will call Zed, is awesome also, and nice to stand on.

I have this one particular insight that I was given with respect to front handsprings: after starting a strong drive with my back leg, I should tighten my abs in order to transmit that force to my upper body and bring me upright as a single unit.

Duh! Force transmission! If my middle is loose, the force and momentum in my legs won't affect my upper body much (until certain limits of flexibility are reached, at which point ouch). But if it's tight, it acts as a conductor. This is the answer to soooooo many of my problems where I thought I couldn't kick hard enough to "get over" in some rotation or other. The same EXACT insight is what's going to get me my back kickover and then walkover soon if I keep going. And the same exact insight is going to get my cartwheels faster the way Zed wants them to be. (Mind you, I still think slow cartwheels are pretty, but I'm happy to practice them different ways.) This makes me incredibly happy because I have a strong core already; it's not like I have to develop some esoteric strength where I currently have nothing. I just have to apply what I have.

As a side note, today in yoga class I touched the ball of my foot to my forehead in a wall-assisted backbend. I love that -- it's just not something you get to feel every day. I always wiggle my toes on my forehead to distract myself from the discomfort of the stretch.

(After class I was talking with the teacher and some people, and tried coming down from tripod headstand into one-legged crane after the teacher said she thought it would be impossible / really hard. I succeeded, and she said "Rock star! I guess it's possible.")

I'm hoping that tomorrow I can get Zed to walk around with me a little bit while I'm standing on his shoulders. He's turned in place but not really walked, yet. And I'm kinda proud because so far it's only me he's tried moving with -- the other fliers are too nervous just being up there.