Friday chickenBecause it’s Friday AGAIN. And because traditions are important. In which I cover the good stuff and the hard stuff in my week, trying for the non-preachy, non-annoying side of self-reflection.

And you get to join in if you feel like it.

Yes, it is Friday.

I don’t know how that happened either.

But here we are.

The hard stuff

Tired.

A bunch of things came up last weekend that needed urgent attention. And my Urgency Monsters were loving that.

Anyway, this stuff had to be sorted because my week was going to be full with the Rally (Rally!), so I worked on the weekend. A lot.

Not good.

Some tough decisions.

That’s pretty much never fun.

A lot going on.

And sometimes more than I can take in.

Being misunderstood over and over again.

It’s a terrible feeling.

And extremely frustrating.

Noise! And timing!

It turned out that Rally week was also … the week of Giant Repairs And Renovations for the building where the Playground lives.

So we had paint fumes the first day, banging noises through the vents during shavasana on the second day, hammering on the third day and paint chips rained on us on the fourth day.

Awesome.

The good stuff

Despite all of that, the Rally was still the most amazing thing in the entire world.

Ohmygod. Rally Rally Rally. How I love to Rally.

The insights: exquisite.

The costumes: outrageous. And divine.

The people: I adore them all madly.

We invented new rallying traditions (the Sneaky Moving of the Fairy Door), ate spectacular sandwiches, played with rainbow glitter balls (of love), had a Relegating Rallygator, and learned many useful and surprising things.

Much silliness, joyfulness, revelry and flailing was had by all. Rally!

Getting things done done done at the Rally, of course.

The magical properties of rally do not cease to astound me.

Huge progress was made on the five year plan (which is now the five year CHART).

And with the Great Rebrunching project.

And now I have most of my schedule for 2011 mapped out, and will be able to share it with you next week probably.

Plus there were conversations with negotiators and with foxes, lots of good journaling, working through stucknesses and remembering what I want to do with my life.

Again, I love Rally so much that I can hardly stand it.

A more sovereign response to bullying.

Another work-related conflict that involves a lot of pushing. A new one!

Here’s the part that is good:

I didn’t take things personally. I was able to craft a strong, clear response. And — maybe the best part — I really do have faith that this one can be resolved without resentment.

And while it might take a while to sort this one out, it seems like each time it gets a little easier. And I find that tremendously reassuring.

And not caring about the shoes.

Even though there was a barrage of shoes being thrown at the blog all week because my Bolivia post was on metafilter, and the haters of Hateville came out to play …. it didn’t even move me.

It was fantastic. Like I could see the shoes and the throwing of them, and it just did not matter. And then I could choose to not see them, because flying shoes don’t belong here.*

A magic trick.

Our lovely island here can hold its own culture, even when people who have no context wind up here by accident and think it’s okay to litter. That was a good thing to learn.

* Unless you have flying shoes that are shoes which give you the power to fly. Because I might be interested in those.

The Shivanautical epiphanies.

One of the things that happened at Rally (Rally!) were the insights that came from the hardcore Shiva Nata we were doing. And they were many.

We were all getting clear information and direct instructions that were … just kind of neat.

Anyway, I now know all sorts of things that I didn’t know before. And it’s messing with my head, but in a really good way.

Hey, it didn’t suck being a Giants fan this week.

The normal state of torture torture torture torture was temporarily alleviated this week when we beat the Braves.

Post-season! Not horrible! Though there were some serious moments of DOOM and it was all extremely stressful. But a little bliss to make things right.

Grilled. Cheese. Sandwiches.

Being alive. It is such a good thing to be.

Sometimes I remember that — often when I’m chickening on Fridays, and it is exactly the thing to remember.

This.

I thought this piece from Mariko about “skin in the game” was absolutely terrific.

And … playing live at the meme beach house it’s the Fake Band of the Week!

My brother and I have this thing where we come up with ridiculous band names and then say in this really pretentious, knowing tone, “Oh, well, you know, it’s just one guy.”

Okay, so we came up with about ten different band names at Rally but I left my notebook at the Playground.

Next time. In the meantime, I’m pleased to introduce you to the blah blah something something stylings of:

Drugs & Popcorn

They sound pretty much like what you’d expect. Except that it’s really just one guy.

And some of the lovely presents that arrived this week.

A beyooooootiful knitted shawl (made of old saris and kookiness and love) handmade by Bridget as a gift for the Playground’s Refueling Station.

She was inspired to make it after coming to a Shiva Nata class and meeting the Playground for the first time. And I absolutely adore it. Thank you.

Some smelling salts via Etsy. Yay. A giant pile of stripey socks and fabulous pajamas from Casey. Yay.

And somehow all these other presents just kind of mysteriously showed up at the Playground itself. The delightfully sneaky Rallions bought it snacks and more art supplies and monster stickers and a fuzzy blanket.

Oh, and Elizabeth brought us the flying hippo pig, and then the Schmoppet fell madly in love with it. Sweet.

That’s it for me …

And yes yes yes, of course you can join in my Friday ritual right here in the comments bit if you feel like it.

Yeah? Anything hard and/or good happen in your week?

And, as always, have a glorrrrrrrrrrrrious day and a restful weekend-ing.

And a happy week to come. Shabbat shalom.

The Fluent Self