Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Reese's Links: Inner Peace URLs

So apart from my writing, I (like many others) have been searching for "inner peace". It's safe to say this search has been fruitless so far, but since quitting my job at Ghetto Chopper last week it seems things have taken a turn for the better. It's always nice not to be abused and threatened by drooling, dangerous-looking people of questionable sobriety whom you can smell before you see.

Anyway, I thought Buddhism might be a good place to start with all this. And so, a glimpse into my Browsing History as I look into this whole "Spiritual Quest" deal:

-Dalai Lama's Instructions for Life, in conveinent poster form
-Checking out a field trip! Directions, About and Hours of Operation of a Peace Pagoda in Grafton, NY (close to Albany)
-In one page or less, these people will tell me How To Meditate.
-YouTube's take on Instructional Yoga Videos, complete with relaxing tribal music (non-pornographic version)
-More Yoga videos from iyogalife.com, which as far as I can tell is not pornographic, at least not in these studio-backdrop settings that I've been finding.
-I was raised Catholic-- how do Buddhist practices work with that? Historical interpretation here; then here's a real-life blog of a Buddhist-Catholic (complete with pic of Buddha and Jesus hugging!). I'm not trying to find a new religion, at any rate. Just some new insights. Maybe you can do both.
-Or, according to these people, maybe you can't.
-If I Feng Shui my apartment, will it help me achieve inner peace? About.com tells me so.
-This man wants me to "Tame The Raging Storm Within" me. And he's gonna tell me all about it using the 7 Deadly Sins. Although he seems a little off, timewise, when he says the economy is doing 'great'.
-I prefer the Non-religious approach: the psychological reasons I'm so unhappy and how to fix it.
-According to Newsweek, happiness is all a bix hoax anyway.

That's it for now. More to come later!

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Pieces of What?

Hi. I'm Reese. And most of the time, I'm in pieces.

I mean that in a few different ways. My interests are all over the place: a piece here, a piece there. By proxy, then, so are my experiences. And the thing that ties that all together is my writing. It's my therapy, my chosen profession and one of the many lenses through which I see the world. And it, like everything else about me, is hardly confined to just one style. So what do I do? I take all the "pieces" of my life, and write about them here.

This is more than a hobby; writing is my chosen profession. I write (and edit) weekly for Saint Rose's newspaper, the Chronicle. I do all the work I can for my family-owned publishing business, including travel writing, which suits my nomadic self just fine. And- shhhh- one of my very best dreams is to, someday, write a book about all the wild experiences I run into in my life. But as far as I can tell, that's a ways off still.

If you wanna call this a writing blog, you can. I mean, it's in the URL. But it's not just about my projects. Reese in Pieces combines all the aspects of me and my writing that usually have to stay separate into one big, fun, shiny mosaic of information, emotion, wordplay and caffeine. But that's not all. As writing "is my life"and my life is my writing, the two are inseparable. And so in this blog being about writing, it's also about my life. Which means sometimes I'll write about writing. And sometimes I'll write about crazy new ice cream flavors I just tried (wasabi ginger anyone?), or chasing bears through the dump at my summer job, or an impromptu trip to Texas for an editors convention. I pretty much write whatever I see that I think is cool enough to share with all of you.

If that sounds like fun? Buckle up and keep readin'.