Completely uninterested in football and only moderately interested in TV commercials, I was not one of the hungover masses trying to make sense of the world on Monday, but I staggered through the work day as if I were. 

Didn't get the chance (make the opportunity?) to meditate before leaving the house, promising myself, I would do it in the evening.

Came in to the news that my boss's father had died.  My boss is a problematic person, but this, the latest in his string of crises, was sad news. 

The day was busy, very busy.  It's the busiest time of year.  Hurtled through it, then drove to the Village for my Russian class.  I love my class -- it's probably the quickest two hours of my week, requiring total concentration, for me, anyway...if my mind drifts it quickly forgets the Cyrillic alphabet, the prepositional plural, and the rules governing inanimate vs. animate masculine nouns in the accusative case.  When I leave class, I am usually as energized and refreshed as when I have meditated.

So this was what I was thinking about when I got home at about 9:30 and ate dinner and that jazzed feeling left me: studying Russian is not a meditative practice, it's cerebral, all mind, the mind in overdrive.  But perhaps not uselessly in overdrive, perhaps it's the mind in the present, not attaching itself to desires (other than the fleeting, "I wish I could pronounce that"...) or narrative ("When I get to Russia I still won't be able to put a sentence together and then what will become of me...")...there's no time for any of that. 

I get it, studying is not meditation, but it had to suffice on Monday.

I'm thinking evening meditation is not for me -- it has yet to happen.