not many people just talk into nothing

not many people that I know in real life anyway. Of course the internet is filled with people talking into nothing. But I don't actually know them. It's probably because most people I know use that time and energy to talk to people they know. When I say talk into nothing I mean something like blogging. Putting your thoughts and feelings out there for anyone who comes across it to read or watch. 

But I think even the people who are really good at it, the professionals, I'll never meet them. And I really enjoy spending time with people but I think there's something unique and special in hearing another person talk to themselves or talk to nothing.

On social media people either like what they think is funny or interesting or cute or use it as a platform to show what they think is important and that's what it's for but some people use it to narrate their lives almost. Like you get a picture of who they are. And that will never not be interesting to me.   

I don't know what this post is. This is me doing a nothing and saying I like it when other people do this thing too. As if that should be a surprise to anyone. I don't know. Do it.

One thing I've been working on is doing things that are special for myself. And doing things to make days and moments special. And the way that manifested itself today was I gave my plants plant food. Every two weeks I mix a teaspoon of plant food into a gallon of water and I water all my plants with it and they're looking a lot greener and happier than they have been. As I've said many times I love my plants and I really make an effort to take good care of them but to me and my simple brain 'plant food' felt like a complicated thing. Anyway I'm glad I got some and took the time to do it because my plants look better and that makes me happy. 

Something I really value is consistency and showing up and doing the things I committed to doing and I think I avoid going above and beyond sometimes because in my mind it's like now that's where the bar needs to be and if I go all out one time  but it's not repeatable then I'm letting others down. So I just try to do what's manageable every time and do it well. But maybe that's inflexible thinking a little. Do a good job and then sometimes do a great job. And sometimes do a bad job and feel bad and then do a better job. Yeah. Anyway if you've read this far as always I love you and wish a million blessings upon your head.

How do the trees know that it's windy?

Today I was coaching at a climbing competition and fueled by lack of sleep and overstimulation I said to one of the climbers I coach,

"Look out the window. See the trees? How do the trees know that it's windy out?"

How do the trees know that it's windy??

Because, because because

Right? Because the trees don't know that it's windy out. Obviously. It is windy out and the leaves are blowing in the wind. It's humans that are always trying to know if it's windy out. Not windy--like windy--but like 'oh me oh me oh my what should I be doing? Am I doing the right thing? Am I doing it the right way?" We're always trying to figure out how windy it is and if our leaves are blowing too much or not enough or the right way or the wrong way. 

How silly would it be for a tree to be anxious or uncertain about the wind. A tree just trees.

But what about all my precious choices and decisions??? You cry.

Nah. If it's calm-be still. If it's windy-- sway and rustle. Make fruit and grow.

Yeah but trees don't really do anything.

Trees do so so so much! All the time. Just most of it isn't labor that can be exploited efficiently. Or confer status. Trees do real stuff that make the planet habitable and nice to be in. Nerd. 

Anyway there you go there's your discount Alan Watts and Ram Dass for the day I'm gonna go eat potatoes.

sometimes I feel like I get messages that are meant for me to see

and even if they aren't

it's an experience worth having

worth sticking around for

what I did today

 Today I woke up and then went back to sleep. Overall a pretty good slumber.

Then I got up and made my usual smoothie with canned mandarin oranges, protein powder, vanilla Greek yogurt, banana, and frozen berries. I did the sudoku in my sudoku book and watched Youtube. I'm on them medium difficulty puzzles now and they take twice as long to do. I also made coffee. I was noticing a lot of noises happening outside and I was trying to concentrate at the same time and I didn't want to sit in silence but also I couldn't find anything to play in the background that wouldn't start giving me a headache. But I powered through and solved the puzzle anyway because I'm a champ like that I guess. Then my friend stopped by to give me some eggs and we made a little zine about eggs and hung out and then I went to the track and met up with my other friend and we did a sprint workout that went pretty dang good! I was happy.

I showered and ate plant burgers and then I went to the gym and did squats and hung out with folks there. Squats weren't feeling great but then I did 195 and 200 and it started moving pretty well so I went for 210 which would've been a 5lb new best and got stuck about halfway up and fought for what felt like a really long time but was probably only 2 seconds at most. It was really close though. On a day when I actually feel good I can definitely get it. 

My thought of the day is this:

As the sweet apple reddens on the highest branch,

high on the highest branch, that the apple pickers forgot-

no, they didn't forget; that apple they could not reach

scanner guys

 

oorbs mcgoo and duckthony quacktano

front desk guys

 

From left to right: Lil' Big King Rashes, Belt Sander, Oofus Wainwright, Cindy Clawford, Lt. Dan, and Booki Boomaj

april chalkboard

 

can you solve it?

march chalkboard

 

 Pixar movie called 'Doors' where the people is doors and keys are their food and this one mean door--everyone thinks he hates keys but then, um, it's just the one specific key that unlocks him and he never really hated keys at all. 

Right? Will this heal our wounded soul? What if we pretended to not understand the relationship between doors and keys and then solved it with the plot of a movie? Couldn't we all stand around then and pat ourselves on the back over the triumph of understanding and emotional growth?

Doors!

who wants to be my FOOL?

when I walk out of the grocery store and the night air is warm

 when I walk out of the grocery store and the night air is warm I can feel the signals being sent through my body saying, "things are okay. it's gonna be okay. we are going to survive. we are going to THRIVE."

It's intoxicating. The rush of optimism in my veins. There's nothing like it. 

The other smell is the smell of my bed when I've been able to leave my bedroom window open all day. It's fresh. It's rejuvenating. 

It's like when the weather is below 70 degrees I am some varying degree of uncomfortable, and it has to be mitigated by layers and heated blankets but when it's warm--when it's warm I'm truly truly truly at ease. 

I am luxuriating right now! Do you understand?! Luxuriating! The air is incredible.

hello :-)

 

Eydie Gorme The Look of Love Part II

 In 2017 I wrote a post called Eydie Gorme the Look of Love because I was in a phase where every day I would try to write continuously for 10 minutes and I read over that post and I was really happy with what I had written. There were a lot of good phrases and observations. It's rare that I read over something I've written in the past and feel proud of it. That was a good one though. Right now I'm sitting in the leather armchair in my living room. I got the chair from my dad who got it from my uncle who wanted to get rid of it. My feet are resting on the chair from my old house on maywood lane. My roommate didn't want the chairs or table from our dining room so they ended up with me. I really only need two chairs in my living room so another chair is in the kitchen and the other chair is hidden in the attic space above my stairs. Very rarely I'll go up there and sit in it just because. I need to eat so I'll probably make popcorn. My throat is sore. I think it's allergies. I hope it's allergies. 

Today I ate granola and almond milk for breakfast and drank coffee while I did the sudoku. Then I drove out to camp to clean the pool more. I brought a protein bar, an apple, two clementines, a banana, and two bottles of water. I ended up not eating any of the fruit or the bar until I was done working but I drank all the water. The pool is clean clean now so that's good. It took longer than expected but it always does. It was nice out though. A good day to be outside. When I got home I ate all the fruit and then made two of the wegman's fake meat burgers with tomato slices and mozzarella. Then I coached. Then I briefly went home to change and came back and did some pull-ups, some RDLs, and some squats. I saw my friend for a bit and we lifted together which was nice. 

My downstairs neighbor is coughing. I think about the person I was in 2017 and the person I am now. I like to imagine I haven't changed all that much. I've had a lot of experiences since then and I think I'm more secure in who I am. I don't think my view of the world has changed all that much though. I was looking back through the comics I made in 2016 and I saw that I had written at some point that my goal was to be part of a specific place and time and it surprised me how long I've had that goal and that it hasn't really changed. I am Shmandy. I am Wingdings.

flowers flowers flowers flowers flowers!!!

 I drew this in 2016

I took these today!

belphegor's prime

 belphegor's prime is probably my favorite number.

it's a 1. and then 13 zeroes. and then 666. and then 13 zeroes. and a 1. 

1000000000000066600000000000001

so crazy! And it's a prime. That's named after the Demon of Inventiveness.

And my thought is like, "Nah that's not a real number. That's just made up."

It was discovered by this guy Harvey Dubner who died in 2019 and it was named Belphegor's Prime in 2012! 2012! That's like not even that long ago and we're still naming numbers.

This number and its name is a poem. I like to talk about poems and Belphegor's Prime is a poem.

it's my dad's birthday!!

happy birthday my dad!

I'm really glad that you're my dad!

today at practice we asked what fonts people would be and I said would be 'calibri' and other people thought I was wingdings and then the owner of the gym printed out my name but spelled in wingdings and took it around the gym and showed it to people

I'll own it though. Wingdings is one of a kind.

Except for Wingdings 2.

who wants to be my Wingdings 2?

it's you. it's you. it's wingdings 2. everything I do.

Today I had oatmeal and coffee for breakfast. Ate that while I did the sudoku. Then before I went to the gym to climb I made a lot of smoothie which was an entire can of pineapple chunks, a scoop of whey protein powder, some spoonfuls of whole fat vanilla Greek yogurt, a banana, and some mixed frozen berries. Then I took a scoop of creatine and went to the gym where I got on the moonboard for a little over an hour. I worked on some V5's and sent a climb I worked on last session. Figuring out movement is really fun. I drank the smoothie throughout the afternoon and after climbing I went out to camp where I checked on some things and started working on cleaning out the pool. Then I showered and drank more smoothie and ate leftovers from last night's dinner which was rice and punjabi chole and then I went to coaching. Coaching was really fun and then I came home and made a big burrito for dinner which was black beans, shredded cheese, and a frozen mix from wegman's that I like. And that's what I did and what I ate!

I feel like I haven't done much art in a bit so I'm going to work on a piece that I started a while ago and watch some Youtube and go to bed.

I hope that whoever you are and wherever you are and whenever you are that you're doing well and remembering that if there's a pond and every fish and frog in the pond is a feeling that you are the entire pond and not any one individual feeling frog.

 

Allen Ginsberg tell me something

—We’re not our skin of grime, we’re not dread bleak dusty imageless locomotives, we’re golden sunflowers inside, blessed by our own seed & hairy naked accomplishment-bodies growing into mad black formal sunflowers in the sunset, spied on by our own eyes under the shadow of the mad locomotive riverbank sunset Frisco hilly tincan evening sitdown vision.

This is from the poem Sunflower Sutra where Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac sit down by a train and get really sad because everything is gross and filthy but then they see this dead sunflower all covered in 

"The grime was no man’s grime but death and human locomotives, all that dress of dust, that veil of darkened railroad skin, that smog of cheek, that eyelid of black mis’ry, that sooty hand or phallus or protuberance of artificial worse-than-dirt—industrial—modern—all that civilization spotting your crazy golden crown—"

One time I got up at an open mic when I was in high school and read this poem and I didn't really know what it was about then but I've always liked the way that Allen Ginsberg put words together and I like sunflowers too. 

Anyway I think the point of the poem is that all this stuff that's covering everything doesn't change what it really is. There's still inspiration to be found. 

I love the colors of early spring

if you know anything about me

know that I love the colors of early spring

and if you know anything else about me

know that I love that you know something about me

and if you know anything else else about me

that's too much

I didn't need you knowing all that

a third thing?

for three is the smallest number to be a set

and now you have contained me entirely

like a bird in a cage

a knowledge cage

you scoundrel you

walt whitman said!

 If you bring the warmth of the sun to them they will open and  

 bring form, color, perfume, to you,If you become the aliment and the wet they will become flowers, 
 fruits, tall branches and trees.

so proud of my mom for running the 10 miler this morning!

 she crushed it for the third year in a row and ran a new best time by 1 second!!

the vernal equinox!

Wow. We did it everybody. We made it. More daytime than nighttime now. Can you believe it? Out of the shadows once more. Into the light.

This is unrelated but one thing I know about myself now is that I get overstimulated by a lot of noise. Probably more than most people. It seems that way anyway. But I don't really understand how people can be in a crowded space and multiple conversations are happening at once, and some people are speaking at a yelling volume and how are you not overstimulated by that? I don't know. I've never really liked crowds.

Sometimes I think I have stray cat energy. Like there was a cat named Spike that used to hang out at the track near my apartment. That's not too different from me.

Anyway today I saw a toddler put on an adult-sized hat and it was very cute.

I met all my lifting goals this month!

Back squat- 205lbs

Bench- 200lbs

Weighted Pull-Ups- +75lbs for 5 reps

Hangboard- +75lbs for 10 seconds on 20mm edge

Hooray! Also last Sunday I ran a new personal best for 50 meters in 6.17! Getting slightly closer to a sub-12 second 100 (with a flying start and a healthy tailwind)

I ran really hard this evening and the lactic acid was hitting me in waves and my friend Meghan was trying to encourage me and I kept saying, "I don't feel good. I feel really bad. I think I'm having an out-of-body experience." And then I thought about it and said, "No, I'm having an incredibly in-body experience. I'm in my body way too much right now. My body is a prison. Of my own construction."

And I think in that process I exorcised something because now I feel great!

sat in the sun and ate fruit and nuts

now that's living.

and moved my body before that!

double living!

and then thought about camp and how to make it amazing.

triple living!

I'm not saying I've got life all figured out but, uh, 

let's just say

I know a thing or two

{WINK}

there was a warm wind today

 you know what a warm wind can do to a person? do you understand the effect that warm winds can have on a human being?

make em feel good that's what.

now think about this!

there's no plants growing at the beach. seaweed doesn't count. don't even try to say seaweed. that's in the water that's different. there's no plants growing at the beach. 

but there is crabs at the beach.

and both plants and crabs are where there's water--but you never see them both at the same time. 

you see what I'm getting at here?

And neither are in the desert. Except cacti. Which are like the crabs of plants.

There's some sort of elemental interaction going on here between Crabs, Plants, Sand, and Water. The 4 elements. 

The ancient Greeks would've been all over this theory. I like to imagine I would've fit in with the Ancient Greeks. The new test is 'Would someone have thrived in Ancient Greece?' That's the metric on which I assess people now. 

Do you like olive oil? Do you like wine? Do you look good in a tunic? Have you pondered the true nature of man, beasts, and society? 

Warm wind got me yearning for Pythagoras over here

ranking what other places call the shotgun seat

 American English: 'riding shotgun' Excellent. How American. A beautiful phrase.

UK English: 'bags me the front seat!' Laughable. A complete joke. Give up. You are nothing and never will not be nothing.

French: 'la place du mort' The place of death. Incredible. How French. Congrats francophones.

I reached my bench goal today!

200lbs felt good! For someone who lifts as their main sport it's not too shiny but for a climber runner guy like me I'm pretty happy with it! 

Checked that box and now I'll focus on climbing Tuesdays and Fridays. 

I really enjoy lifting and I think I'll keep doing it to some extent for a long time. Especially squats! Getting stronger is so fun.

Of the goals I set in September of last year I have now met my bench and finger strength goal and now I need to hit a one arm pull-up, a 250lb back squat, and run 100m in under 12 seconds. Those all seem really tough but I think I have a shot! We'll see.

you wanna know the etymology for steward?!

 Well too bad you're gonna get it! Strap on your learning pants!

You're probably sitting over there thinking it has something to do with STEW and ARD. Stew being a delicious hearty soup and ARD being a pejorative intensifier. Meaning something like, 'way too much nasty soup!'

No. You're wrong. Steward doesn't mean that.

It's more like STE- and -WARD. And the 'ste' comes from 'stig' which means house or hall. And the ward means ward which is related to the word 'guard'. So it's a 'house ward' somebody who runs the house, typically like a large estate where there are lots of servants and staff and such. 

I do not wish to be an adventurer or explorer or conqueror! The people who would use the world up. I wish only to be a steward. To look after what came before me and leave it for the people who will come after. 

 Vile Maxim is also the name of a 2 star V4 boulder problem in Colorado.

 I love a fragment. I love a part that suggests a whole. You know that's called? That's called SYNECDOCHE! Which is a combination of the Greek words for 'together' and 'take up' which I don't fully understand how that works but a part that suggests a whole is awesome. That's what your imagination is for. You brain can take a little bit of something and figure out what the rest of it is? Incredible. 

There's a little Kei Truck that drives around where I live and on the door it says POEM in all caps and this is a vehicle I approve of. 

"All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind." -Adam Smith

there's nothing more attractive than liking out of pocket reels

No one wants more cars. The appearance of wanting cars is propaganda. Everyone wants to be around more critters.

Muddle is my new favorite word.

If 'fried bones' were a thing and tasty I would eat them. I still wouldn't eat meat but I would consume skeletons.

I coach some kids and I look at them and I can see that they are fully aware of their surroundings. They are present. They are taking in information and processing it. Just as good as me, if not better. And then other kids are inside of what I call, 'The Noise'. And they hear maybe every other word. You can tell that all forms of communication are being filtered through The Noise first. And then other kids are in The Noise but it's funny and they somehow have enough charm to get past being in The Noise.

 every day I do my sudoku. put the numbers in their appropriate little prison cells. the digits yearn for detainment and captivity.

I love a little gag. I love a little goof. Some prop comedy

 The weather has improved my mood tremendously. And I don't mean that I was in a bad mood before. I was fine. But now I'm in the type of mood where when I'm making a smoothie to drink before coaching I'll pour the smoothie into an orange juice bottle that I finished today and I'll take some white duct tape and cover the label with it and write 'THAT JUICE' on it and then strut around the gym waving around that juice. And they key to the bit is you leave the part of the orange juice label that said 'some pulp', you leave that uncovered so when people ask you what's in THAT JUICE you point at the label and say, 'some pulp'.

Here's what I'll say about 2025. And I don't want to get ahead of myself or call anything but I can safely say that so far that at least in my neck of the woods the year has stuck to the script of how seasons are supposed to be. 

January- cold. had snow. felt like winter.

February. more cold. more snow. felt like winter but with the teeniest bits of hints of spring at the end.

March- spring time. daylight savings kicked in and it got sunny and warm.

It's like we're following the illustrations on a calendar made for a small child. These kinds of things give me a deep satisfaction that I feel is worth writing down.

youarelovedyouarelovedyouareloved

I'm so happy the sun is still up

 I'm so happy the sun is still up.

I look tired because I drank a kombucha for dinner and that kept me up and I just got off work but I'm still so happy the sun is still up. 

You can't complain about the darkness and then not celebrate the sunshine. You gotta be happy when the good thing happens.

The only other important thought in my head is that my sister shared a video of Nicki Minaj's Super Bass but most of the words are replaced with 'boom' and at one point she says,

'Yes I boom. Yes I boom. Somebody please boom who the eff I boom. I am Booki Boomaj, I boom them dudes up, boom coupes up and boom the deuce up.'

I met my hangboard goal today!

I put 50% of my bodyweight on my bodyweight and hung on a little edge for 10 seconds! hooray!

and then I climbed up this ladder of 10 16mm edges with no feet! hooray!

I thought if I reached those goals someday that I would know that I had strong enough fingers to do hard climbs so now I gotta do some hard climbs!

I'm proud of myself for sticking to a goal that I set nearly 2 years ago and I feel like I learned a lot about training and myself in the process.

You gotta be kind to yourself. That's something I'm still learning and practicing. You gotta be kind to yourself.

gonna make a smoothie and do my taxes

 wish me luck!

update: I HAD TO PAY THE IRS SO MUCH MONEY :(((((((((((

update update: I'm not against the idea of taxes. I would gladly pay more in taxes if I felt like they went towards the common good.

everybody rides the carousel

 One time I said I was going to start remembering my dreams and then I failed to do that because it's really hard but here's something that's not hard: scrolling.

My sister and her husband watch a lot of reels on Instagram and they like a lot of them and I see them and I like to imagine that reels are like a collective unconscious, kind of like a dream state but definitely with more problematic implications, and when they both like a short video of a little plastic figurine sitting in a pot of boiling orange liquid and the camera pans up to a night sky when the sun has just sunk below the horizon and a voiceover says, "Kurapika is now drowning in an indescribable emptiness"--is that not like sharing a dream? Like a little nugget of sight and sound with meaning that words alone could never do justice?

I don't know. I'm here for it anyway. I'm all in!

I've started unofficially coaching my friends at the gym?

It's mostly that we are friends and working out together but then they say, "thanks for coaching me" and that is fun. 

right now my apartment neighbor is blasting house music while he showers and it sounds like he's into it. nice.

No but coaching lifting is fun. Coaching is great because you are present with someone while they work to make a better version of themselves and what's better than that?

look how cute!

 look it!

dramatic plant

she rises. this was a lil spider plant that had been sitting on the vine for too long so I put it in some dirt and it's coming to life. hooray

this crow outside my window is drinking out of a roof puddle while it's fully raining. right on brother

a thing I've been doing is after saying nothing for a long time I'll just say ALRIGHT but in my best attempt at a thick Scottish accent so it's something like, H'OLRHYTE! and that's been a great time

William Blake wrote

Ah! Sun-flower! weary of time, 

Who countest the steps of the Sun:

seeking after that sweet gold clime

Where the travellers journey is done.

Sunflowers, like many plants in the asteraceae family, exhibit heliotropism- which is where they follow the sun's path across the sky. And so you imagine these poet types like William Blake sitting around, waiting, doing nish off in a field somewhere and they watch this flower follow the sun and think, "Aw man sucks to suck, brother." Cuz the sun is always going to go below the horizon. The sunflower will never reach the sun. But, I don't know, is that a bad thing? Like if the sunflower reached the sun it would be vaporized into hydrogen and such. The sunflower gets the light from the sun that it needs by following it so I don't know why it has to be weary. It's a good deal! And some people would argue that this is too simplistic a reading and that Blake is obviously being sarcastic or whatever. I think William Blake is a cool guy for thinking about sunflowers and the sun and maybe we should all think about flowers more or the suns that we might be following OR you could think about moths and how they use the moonlight for navigation and how cool that is. Are you a sunflower-sun kind of person or a moonlight-moth kind of person and what does that even mean? William Blake would probably know. As best I can tell the most famous thing William Blake ever wrote about moths was, and I'm paraphrasing here, "don't ever kill  a moth for the day of retribution is near." Very cool, Mr. Blake. Very cool.

made a new chalkboard drawing at the gym

 I don't have a picture of it so you're just going to have to trust me on that.

I like making stuff when I'm under no obligation to do it because then it means that I did it because I wanted to and for no other reason and that's the best feeling. I also like showing off. And attention. I'm pretty shameless about showing off. Do I think it's a bad trait? No because I do cool stuff that I know people want to see anyway. Duh

This blog is like 20 years old now. I think I probably started it around 2005 or so. And it's never had more than a handful of readers. I think that's fun. It's like an easter egg. Like ' oh yeah if you know where to look that guy has made little scribbles and writings for like most of his life and he posts them on a dinky little website that no one has thought about since Obama was president." Is any of it good? Maybe a little. 

But knowing the kind of person I am if I found a blog like this by someone I knew I'd probably read the whole thing. Or a lot of it anyway. I'd probably skim some stuff.

people out here manifesting the future they want for themselves

 love that

and now it's time for my little sunday evening wegman's grocery run. I love my little sunday evening wegman's grocery run. 

happy march

 you know what they say about March,

"You gotta march through one more month before you get to the first actual good month of the year, April. The month of Andy's birthday."

people say that all the time

esoteric soccer practice

 right now I'm picking kale out of my teeth

I benched 195 today! hooray for me! Now I'm a person who has done that. 

Tomorrow I'm going to coach at a climbing competition in Lynchburg. My goal for the team is that our climbers get good experience at climbing on ropes in a competition. John Cleese said, "you can't be creative if you're worried about making mistakes." Or something like that. Just do stuff. People who are comfortable with things. Why are they comfortable? Cuz they've just done a lot of stuff. 

I'm most proud of times when I put myself out there and took chances. And I have a lot of respect and admiration for people who do the same thing. It's hard! It's not something I feel like I do very often. 

And now, here's something I wrote in 2018 from this day

February 2018 was when I was in my phase of making ads for Charlottesville and I made this

I made like 30 of these things. Should I make more?

you can't put your clear coat on too thick

 I've been painting something for a friend at the gym and I finished today and all I had to do was put on a layer of clear coat and as the title of this post suggests I unknowingly put on way too thick of a layer and that causes CRINKLING

a bunch of little crinkly wrinkles all over my beautiful work. dang. dang dang dang.

So I sanded it down as best as I could and managed to salvage it somewhat without having to start over. 

I love being open to making mistakes but I HATE making mistakes. It's just the worst.

Energy levels were lower today after doing so much yesterday. Also at like 4 or 5 in the morning I woke up to this distant beeping, like it sounded like a big truck back-up beep and it went on for so long but I was kinda half-asleep half-awake so I kept getting confused about what it was.

Because of today I'm the kind of person who now knows what happens when you put clear coat on too thick. It's not every day that you become a whole new kind of person. But maybe it could be. Maybe I'll see how many days in a row I can go where I become a whole new person.

Today I became a clear coat guy. Super expert. Clinical mastery.

Tomorrow? Maybe tomorrow I'll say sorry to someone for something I've never apologized for. The possibilities are endless.

I ran today! and some facts about cheese

 Met with my friend Meghan who was feeling sick but we ran about 3 miles going downtown and back. It was nice!

I also went on a nice walk with my other friend to get Bodo's and coffee and be in the sunshine! It was great.

Did you know I love the sun?

Did you know I love when it's warm?

Did you know?! Were you AWARE?! Has this parcel of information found purchase in your consciousness that I prefer the seasons where the temperature is higher over the seasons of a colder temperature?

Something I learned today is this: MUENSTER cheese. With an 'e' is an American-made cheese from the 1800's that is based on the French MUNSTER cheese (no 'e'). 

Munster cheese, cheese from a town in the Alsace region of France called Munster traces back to 1371. 

And that town, Munster, is different than the German city of Münster (with an umlaut over the u).

And so if you absorb all this information you can be really insufferable whenever anyone talks about Muenster cheese.

Also this part of the history of German city Münster and I really enjoyed it

In 1534, an apocalyptic Anabaptist sect, led by John of Leiden, took power in the Münster rebellion and founded a democratic proto-socialistic state. They claimed all property, burned all books except the Bible, and called it the "New Jerusalem". John of Leiden believed he would lead the elect from Münster to capture the entire world and purify it of evil with the sword in preparation for the Second Coming of Christ and the beginning of the Millennium. They went so far as to require all citizens to be naked as preparation for the Second Coming. However, the town was recaptured in 1535; the Anabaptists were tortured to death and their corpses were exhibited in metal baskets, which can still be seen hanging from the tower of St. Lambert's Church.

People were just DOING STUFF back then.

I like humans doing human things

today I finished coaching and then I clocked out and then I sat behind the front desk and people came in and out of the gym and different groups would form and have little conversations and then leave and it was so great.

A little space for people to gather and discuss. Incredible.

everybody says they love good rapport

everybody says they hate small talk and prefer to have deep conversations or be able to riff with someone or pick on someone or have inside jokes, right? Everybody says that. Because those things suggest trust and understanding and intimacy and that's like a basic social need.

It's like saying, 'oh I prefer food that tastes good and is my preference instead of food that is bad and I'm allergic to." 

But my rapport is better, okay? I remember details. You will not have to tell me the same story twice. I'll bring up relevant information if it comes up again. Also, if you share an interesting story I won't just automatically share a story of my own that it reminds me of. I'll ask questions. I'll use active listening. I'm not just waiting for my turn to speak. 

I'm an easy laugh. Some might say too easy. I don't care. Laughter is a beautiful thing. It's like salt or eggs. There's no limits. More is more is better.

What else? Bits? Jokes? Listen, I am a professional. I have built my livelihood on jokes and bits. Am I a comedian? No. But I did do stand-up in college and I was decent. When you work with kids and especially at a camp if you don't have jokes and bits you are dead in the water. If my jokes stop hitting I'm gonna end up on the streets and I wouldn't have it any other way. 

Finally, I have a liberal arts degree. And that taught me how to make something out of nothing. Do you want to sound smart and interesting and cool? I will use textual evidence (aka things you said) and connect them to all sorts of ideas and movements and a bunch of other nonsense that I spent the first 22 years of my life learning about. 

You say, "Isn't it crazy how food reminds you of your childhood?"

I say, "Oh that's just like Marcel Proust eating the madeleine in In Search of Lost Time."

You think 'Wow I am so French and sophisticated and refined, no?"

This is all very pick-me, right now. But ha! Look at that. I'm self aware too!

I don't know. Originally I wanted to write about my strengths and things I think I'm good at and then it turned into this but oh well. 

emotional intelligence. I have worked in a therapeutic setting. just sayin

training update

 a few years ago I got a bunch of yellow notepads from Maw Maw and I've been using those to record my workouts and training and every page is about a month's worth so I've started writing goals on the top of that page that I want to finish by the time I run out of lines. This month/page was really good and I'm feeling really optimistic about where my fitness is at. Here are the goals and how I felt about it

Finger Strength Goal- hang +75 lbs on a 20mm edge for 10s

Today was the last day of the page and I hung for 7 seconds which is a new best. I can tell that I'm very close to getting it and it's just about feeling good on the right day. I had a lot of good hangboard workouts and played around with repeaters and pulling with the tension block so that's been great. My big goal for the year has been to hang +50% bodyweight for 10 seconds which is about 75lbs and once I do that I can start climbing! I did a little bit of climbing on the moon board today as a treat! Technique and learning all the holds will have to improve but I felt really strong and good!

Squat Goal- 185lbs barbell back squat for 1

I crushed this goal! On February 12th I hit 185 for 1 and then exactly a week later I hit 195! I'm really happy with that. Also during that week I started taking creatine and I felt a pretty drastic effect. It was kind of like when I first started drinking coffee for the first time. It was probably a mix of placebo effect and you're supposed to drink a lot of water with it and I felt really hydrated for the first time in a long time so I bet that was the biggest difference maker. The day I hit 195 I was building up to hit and every weight felt about 20lbs lighter than it normally did so that was really exciting.

Bench- 190lbs for 1

Similar to squats! I had a great week last week where after a bunch of consistent workouts I felt great and everything was moving better than it ever had. 190 moved pretty smoothly so that was awesome. I think 195 will come soon and then it's just 5 more pounds to hit my big goal.

Pull-Ups. 

Pull-Ups are weird. Compared to every other lift I've progressed way farther in pull-ups. A lot of these I've only really started progressing in the last year or two but I've been doing pull-ups on and off basically since high school. All that to say the progress has not been as linear but I will say this! They feel better than they ever have. Like I'm activating more muscles and more in control of the movement than I've ever been. So, there's that. 

So for the next page we're just gonna add 5 pounds to every goal I met and it's looking like the weather might improve so I'll be outside a little more! I was able to sneak out and do some running between the snow a few times and those felt good. I do missing running but the strength and stability I feel now in my hips knees and ankles tell me this was time well spent. I'd like to get outside more and do some regular plyometrics--skips and jumps and all that and aim for about 2 workouts a week. 

Shoutout creatine. Shoutout breaking through plateaus. 

Do you breakthrough a plateau? Surpassing it? Moving on from plateaus? 

Blormp blermp. if you read this far you're a real one and I love you

 

went to a sauna today

 I love saunas. One of mankind's greatest inventions. 

That's it. That's the post.

this is something I'll never forget

 one time in 5th grade we were learning about when to use 'a' and when to use 'an' and our teacher Ms. Frye was explaining that you use 'a' before a word that starts with a consonant and 'an' before a word that starts with a vowel. and then she said there were exceptions to this rule and she asked if anyone could think of any and the girl I had a crush on immediately said in the most clear and lucid and serious voice

'honor'

And her saying 'honor' with the conviction of like a proud veteran is burned into my head forever. Why did she say it like that? Why was she so quick on the draw???

Anyway, for me the true definition of honor is tied to a tiny 5th grade girl.

this summer at camp I'm just going to give out quests

 long ago, the four nations of camp lived in peace. The youngers, the younger middles, the older middles, and the olders. Each took turns getting up for lunch and being dismissed for pick up. Until one day a older middle by the name of Bocephus assembled a faction that sought to rule the pool and make it so that you could only play Bad Movie Game and Bad Categories. And what that was was that in Bad Movie Game if you were the cooler you'd just say 'A' and then wait for your friends to go and no matter what they say you just say that was it, even if it doesn't even start with A. That's how bad it was. 

Ancient camp law says that if one group wins every game of Gagaball, every game of tetherball, every game of Elijahball, the Wednesday rotations, AND the Friday games AND you have the most Pokemon cards with the most legendaries and holo-rares you get to rewrite the schedule for the rest of the summer. And so Bocephus and his wicked crew of gremlins, rats, and rascals set about rigging all the games. Which mostly what that looked like was they found a sharp stick and popped all the balls so that no one could play any of the games and then they printed out a bunch of fake cards at home and traded them for all the good cards at camp. One camp named Anti-Bocephus, who funnily enough was not related to Bocephus, realized Bocephus's plan on Friday morning and mounted a desperate attempt to stop him from winning the Friday games but it was too late and a lot of the kids who Anti-Bocephus had hoped would show up on Friday morning didn't because they were too tired from losing everything on Thursday. Anyway, Bocephus was triumphant and that meant that the next week would be spent playing Bad Movie Game and Bad Categories--bad categories is where the category is lame like 'Say something cool' and then if your friend goes then you say whatever they said was cool--even if it's not cool. That's how bad it is. 

6 weeks went by of nothing but Bad Movie Game and Bad Categories. It was shaping up to be the worst summer in history. But then, a group of campers and counselors who were so bored out of their minds that they decided to read discovered an even more ancient set of camp laws that said if someone could assemble a piece of the original gaga pit, a scrap of the original Elijahball, the original tether of the original tetherball, a big bucket of fire ants, a shell from the creek, and 5 boxes of popsicles, then they would be able to throw the bucket of fire ants on the bad guys and then eat the popsicles and the day would be saved. Your mission is to assemble the camp artifacts of lore and end the reign of lameness. 

I love Speedy West. I love steel guitar. I hate imperialism.

 Have you wondered where the steel guitar comes from and why hearing it is like someone rubbing your back in a way that nothing else can? Well I can answer one of those questions.

Before Hawaii was a state it was a kingdom with a king and stuff and they hired Spaniards and such to do work and those Spaniards and had guitars and one day a Hawaaian guy named Joseph Kekuku figured out a much cooler way to play guitar by changing the tuning and using a metal object to slide on the strings for chord changes. This was in 1889 and in 1916 recordings of indigenous Hawaiian music outsold all other music genres in the US. 

Did you know in 1993 the US government formally apologized for its role in overthrowing the Hawaiian government a hundred year prior?

John Prine sang,

Then the coal company came with the world's largest shovel

And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land

Well, they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken

Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man.

funky february

 I'm really looking forward to spring weather. I'm really really looking forward to summer weather.

Felt a little lackluster this morning looking out my window and seeing another grey 40 degree day. But then I had a good workout and a good meal before coaching. Coaching went well. 

I had fun. I helped others. I made myself a tiny bit better. I ate good food. I made a tiny drawing.

That's pretty good. Where I come from that's pretty good.

I am now accepting applications to be part of my merry band.

I sometimes read a running forum that's trash but I can't help it and today I read a thread titled

 "Will the runners between 2005 and 2015 be forgotten?"

The context here is that in the past 10 years a bunch of advancements in shoe technology have caused a lot of old world records to fall really fast. So this time frame was full of runners who were good but never got to see the benefits of the technology.

But I just think it's a cute question because it's like, "aw babygirl are you having your first existential thoughts????? Are you realizing that you and everyone you've ever known and everyone you will know will one day be forgotten??? Don't despair, sweet prince, that's exactly what gives life meaning and makes it beautiful!"

"I fear this puppy bowl of oafs is nothing but mere ornamentation."

 a quote by me in the heat of the moment

Also (reacting to Vincent Price and Jack White being 6'4" and 6'2" respectively)

"It's my personal theory that tall people shouldn't be able to have this much personality and be this expressive. This is a privilege reserved for the short AKA god's consolation prize. Anyone over 6' 3" should be sedated and lumbering. Look at Tim Curry. He's 5' 9". The perfect height for Tim Curry to be."

clicking & ticking!

everything is coming up Millhouse!

fingers were STRONG

sun is SHINING

I ran FAST

my truck STARTED

green lights were HIT

feelings AFFIRMED

I'm on a hot streak baby

also a tree branch broke off in the wind and smashed the back window of the car that parks on the other side of the street from my truck so I'm not letting my guard down!!!

a little bit of telepathy must be real

 right?

a list of really basic songs I like for Valentine's day

 mitski's my love mine all mine

father john misty I love you honeybear

beck favorite nerve

beck mattress

Florence and the machine kiss with a fist

the Walters I love you so

the beatles something

That's probably enough. 

When I was in high school I had an iPod that kind of broke and could only hold like one album's worth of music on it. I forget what happened exactly but I remember it still kind of worked but it hardly had any memory left and the one album I put on it was Beck's 1994 album One Foot in the Grave and I listened to that album A LOT!

It's a bunch of short songs about Beck being a sad little art boy and I really liked lyrics like in Favorite Nerve:

Come for a visit

Come for a stay

I won't annoy you

I won't complain

You can be crazy

Tear up all my things

Cut up the kitchens

Wear all my rings

It's definitely not the healthiest but I find it really endearing that there's sad ol' Beck who's really smitten with someone and telling them they can be flawed and he'll put up with it because he wants to be around them. Explaining it makes it sound even worse but part of me really likes the sentiment.

I definitely didn't have a bad high school experience but I definitely felt 'low' in a lot of ways. Like I was short and looked really young and didn't have a ton of confidence and the thing I loved about Beck was that he was low also but he kind of reveled in it and made it this kind of cool fun weird thing to be. He owned it in a way that felt really authentic.

My favorite part of Mattress is

Take me out to dinner

I'm a loser, I'm a winner

I'm a sucker, I'm a sinner

Won't you take me out to dinner?

Your love

Your kindness

Your body on the mattress

My views have changed but at the time I really liked the idea of this low self-esteem goofy white boy who still ends up with someone and it's not glamorous but like, nothing in my life was glamorous. It's sad little dirtbag nerd love. In a way it's it's own kind of fantasy but it's a low-stakes fantasy.

I don't know if that attitude makes you a very good partner but songs don't have to do that.  

anyway there you go

the world is too much with us and blue world

 william wordsworth said once,

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

A sordid boon! An awful good thing. A dirty blessing. A nasty prize. 

Oh William Wordsworth you would've HATED Instagram and TikTok. Oh you would've LOST IT. But also he totally would've been all over those apps. The boy loved to talk!

He's talking about the same kind of stuff as Walt Whitman. All anyone cares about is this made up stuff and we're alienated from Nature which is the thing we are and makes us whole. 

Except Wordsworth uses the much cooler phrase, "we lay waste our powers"

You have powers. We all have powers. And we can't waste them! But we do. What powers you ask? 

Love mostly. If you act from love, dang near unstoppable force.

Mac Miller once said,

Well, it's a mad world, it made me crazy

Might just turn around, do 180

I ain't politicking, I ain't kissing no babies

The devil on my doorstep bein' so shady

Mm, don't trip, we don't gotta let him in

Don't trip

Hey, yeah

I let it go but I never go with it

Well, if you could see me now

Love me then hold me down

My mind, it goes, it goes

It goes, it goes, it goes

It's the same stuff. I think the biggest difference is that Mac Miller doesn't offer an answer or an alternative like Nature or the miracle of everything. He's in it and there's no way out of it. But there is love and companionship and that offers a break from the world and the devil. The ability to say 'no'. Mac says, 'Maybe it'll work out. Maybe I'll turn things around. I'll try my best.' It's the difference between escaping a problem and managing it.

I just think it's really cool that there are sensitive people who exist who put this stuff down in words for other people to see and experience and talk about their life and how they see the world and THAT'S PRETTY NEAT!

I think the right person is out there for me

 Walt Whitman said in "Come Closer to Me"

There is something that comes home to one now and perpetually,

It is not what is printed or preached or discussed . . . . it eludes discussion and  

 print,

It is not to be put in a book . . . . it is not in this book,

It is for you whoever you are . . . . it is no farther from you than your hearing and  

 sight are from you,

It is hinted by nearest and commonest and readiest . . . . it is not them, though it is  

 endlessly provoked by them . . . . What is there ready and near you now?

You may read in many languages and read nothing about it;

You may read the President's message and read nothing about it there,

Nothing in the reports from the state department or treasury department . . . . or in  

 the daily papers, or the weekly papers,

Or in the census returns or assessors' returns or prices current or any accounts of  

 stock.

The sun and stars that float in the open air . . . . the apple shaped earth and we upon  

 it . . . . surely the drift of them is something grand;

I do not know what it is except that it is grand, and that it is happiness,

And that the enclosing purport of us here is not a speculation, or bon-mot or  

 reconnoissance,

And that it is not something which by luck may turn out well for us, and without  

 luck must be a failure for us,

And not something which may yet be retracted in a certain contingency.

The light and shade—the curious sense of body and identity—the greed that  

 with perfect complaisance devours all things—the endless pride and out- 

 stretching of man—unspeakable joys and sorrows,

The wonder every one sees in every one else he sees . . . . and the wonders that fill  

 each minute of time forever and each acre of surface and space forever,

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It's just SO GOOD. 

My attempt to summarize this is that one of the baseline assumptions that everyone has about themselves and everyone else is that we are incomplete. We're missing something. Or we have to get to somewhere or we have to keep going so we don't fall into destitution or whatever. There's always more to be had. And so everything we read and learn about and everything we've created as a society is meant to feed that cycle. It presents a thing you have to acquire so you can go on acquiring more things forever and ever.

And this thing that Walt Whitman is talking about that you won't find in all these places is a thing that you have all the time no matter what. You'll never find it in that endless cycle because the thing is outside of the cycle--it's "the wonders that fill each minute of time forever and each acre of surface and space forever". It's realizing the miracle of every moment as it is. That the universe is whole and perfect and that you are part of the universe--not separate from it.

Do I really feel that right now? No. Not really. But I'm pretty sure I have. And I know I've been in situations where I've felt completely cut off from that and entirely within the cycle. And so my optimism is based in this thing and, "I do not know what it is except that it is grand, and that it is happiness"

listening to music while watching snow fall is PEAK and a blessing on my houseplants

 the other thing I'll say is that a lot of people talk about putting curses on others

"I curse you for this. I curse you for that. Curse your mule and curse your crops and curse curse curse."

But I think a lot of people forget about the inverse curse--aka a blessing.

And recently I bestowed a blessing upon my dear sweet precious plant babies. And by that I mean I bought plant food from Lowe's. And so now all that stuff plants crave like nitrogen and...urea(?) will be absorbed into their bloodstream and give them big huge hulking flower muscles. Or something.

The craziest thing about plant food is that you put a teaspoon of the stuff into a gallon of water--I don't have many things in my apartment that can hold a measurable gallon of water so I had to go use the 'neath-the-sink bucket.

Anyway here is my blessing to my plants:

To all my green children, you are the greatest and most powerful plants to ever exist. You are exotic and wild and free and untameable. You are like bird whispers. You are like the dreams of a horse. You are entangled in many elaborate intrigues and plots and from all of them you will emerge victorious and your enemies squashed, tarnished, and depleted. Not a single star in the whole night sky shines as brightly as any of you, and within each of you lies entire universes that contain even better versions of Shakespeare and Lucille Ball. Arrivederci and ciao Bella per sempre per sempre per sempre

 you know how sometimes little kids will get so excited that they'll just like thrash about--like they're feeling so much visceral emotion that their body can't contain it. 

that's how I imagine the city of philadelphia feels when they win the super bowl and tear down a light pole and parade it around the streets. like they're so overcome with pride and joy for their community that they destroy some of it and wallow in its destruction. 

you just don't see that kind of communal ritualistic behavior anymore and I think on some level that's a shame. 

here's my favorite thing

this is my actual actual favorite thing. actual favorite.

when things break in very specific ways and you discover very specific solutions.

my little Chromebook has been doing a lot of overtime since I got rid of my smartphone and for some reason, sometimes, if I go from a reel to someone's profile on Instagram while also a YouTube video is paused, the screen will freak out and go black and all I can do is restart the computer. BUT very recently I discovered that if I furiously move the mouse as soon as the screen goes black until the profile is loaded, it won't freeze up. 

I'm like Bill Murray in groundhog's day. I understand the loop now.

update on the dream

 I tell you what them dreams is slippery

But I did remember a dream I had the night I said I was going to remember a dream and learn something from it and the key nugget of the dream that I remember is that I looked down at my fingernail and I had a fungal infection on it. And I was like dang. Because I did have a fungal infection on my thumbnail in college but I went to the health center and they gave me something that made it go away. 

What did I learn from this dream? I am anxious about the health of my nails. Which isn't really new information. It's some of the oldest information I have. 

I'm aware this doesn't bolster my point. How about some art I've made recently instead!

sorry it's out of focus I don't know how to make it focus

I've been having a lot of dreams lately

 almost every night

I couldn't tell you a single thing about them but I know I'm having them.

They aren't stress dreams--they're just like normal dream-having dreams.

I think--I think, easily, that if you really knew your dreams and knew what was going on with all of that--you'd basically have super powers. You'd know like ten to one hundred times more about the world and your self. Gotta be. That can't just be nothing. 

There's a line from a Weezer song that I think about whenever I think about dreams. It's not a particularly good song but it goes:

And I will learn by studying the lessons in my dreams

So turn off the TV, 'cause that's what others see

And movies are as bad as eating chocolate ice cream

It's the song Troublemaker off their Red Album. 

My goal for tonight is to remember a part of my dream and learn something from it. Stay tuned.

everything comes together in the end in the middle and was always together since the beginning as well

 2013! I'm living in Williamsburg Virginia and driving home from the grocery store listening to the college radio station and this weird song is on with this guy kind of talk singing about an ice cream man and it sounds sort of off but in a fun and catchy way. Get home and look up the name of the guy and listen to the song a couple times and proceed to forget about it entirely!

TWELVE YEARS LATER

2025 I'm in the climbing gym on Monday and a weird bouncy song is playing and it's some guys going 'dum de dum de dum doo la day ooooo New England" kind of thing over and over again. It's the kind of song that's hard to find again because the only words are 'new england' and the rest is just kind of noises. It's a fun song and I don't really bother to look it up.

Wednesday of the same week AKA today! Seemingly unrelated I remember the weird ice cream man song from twelve years ago and look up 'ice cream man lyrics college radio'. I don't know why I added college radio I just thought it might help and it kind of did because I found the song and the guy and his name is Jonathan Richman AND!!! AND!! HE'S ALSO THE GUY WHO DID THE NEW ENGLAND SONG!

I haven't thought of this guy in over a decade and then I hear a song that I don't know is by him and then two days later I look him up again. 

Something I love about music is that you retain and are aware of so much more than you're consciously paying attention to. 

It's that stew of consciousness. What's in there swirling around and bubbling up? You gotta investigate the stew. You gotta let it simmer.

I mean, just look at this guy: he's a sweet boy Singing his little song with his floppy hair and his striped shirt.

things I will never do

 here's a fun exercise. sit down and make a list of things you will confidently never do. where do you draw the line? it doesn't have to be super high stakes. like you don't have to put I will never murder someone. And just because you don't put something doesn't mean you're going to do that or actively want to. like if I don't put, 'never siphon gasoline out of someone else's car with a rubber hose and my mouth' that doesn't mean I secretly really want to. It's more about trying to think of some things that you think you will never do on principle. Not because they would necessarily ruin your life if you did them.

I will never own a self-driving car. 

I'm pretty sure I'll never knowingly eat meat again. At this point I've gone about a third of my life without eating meat so I think I'll keep that going. 

You know what. Turns out, this is not that fun. 

Here's what I think is fun. Instagram has a thing now where it shows you nothing but reels that have been like by people who you mutually follow and that is fun. That is fun in a way that like a Jane Austen novel is fun because it's at like the near absolute limit of any sort of communication happening. It's like I happened to notice a thing that I know you noticed and you might know if I noticed it but you don't know for sure and it's like the tiniest breadcrumb and I think something in the brain likes that.  Just a trace. Just a tiny bit.

And what I really mean is that today I saw that my sister and her husband both liked a video that just said 'Will you be my gleepenstine?" and it was in space and had a picture of an alien cat and I sent it to them and said, 'you both are gross'

But the fun was in finding it.

I do love my truck

 

I do I do I do

this is how I know I am good person

I move to new area and get job working with children. My boss is awful man who is bad at his job. His bosses get mad at him for being bad at his job. He, in turn, treats me like garbage and tries to get me fired.

I am forced to leave and accept new job at school for chronically miserable boys. One day, miserable boy says to me, "I hate most everyone I meet but I do not hate you."

This is feather in my cap that I wear for rest of my days. 8 years later I still have drawing he did on my refrigerator of a demonic king sitting on a throne while a lowly underling writhes beneath him.

big cat AAAAHHHHHHHHH

 

what makes a good rock?

A lot of people spend time looking for good rocks to keep. they might even have a collection of their very best rocks. Or you might also find a single rock for your journey and say, "I will keep it for my touching." and then at the end of your journey deposit it for someone else to find and use as their touching.

But maybe you've never considered what qualities make for a good rock. Maybe you've wasted every moment until now. Well, I'm going to give you a handy mnemonic device for how to spot a good rock.

Remember, CURSE.

C- Color. A good rock should have a unique color. Maybe it's a nice blue or has a reddish tint. Maybe it has little metallic bits in it. Maybe it's a grey but there's something about the grey that's a little more grey than regular grey. Grey.

U- Unique. The thing to remember about rocks is that they are a product of their environment. They come from a certain place. Who knows how long they've been there. Maybe thousands of years. But your special rock should stand out from the crowd a little. You don't have to compare your rock to every rock you've ever seen. Much like in life and in love, you just have to beat out whoever happens to be around at the time.

R- Round. GOOD ROCKS MUST BE ROUND! THIS IS NON-NEGOTIABLE! SHARP AND JAGGED ROCKS ARE UNACCEPTABLE

S- Small. A good rock should fit comfortably in the palm. Like eyeball sized. A good rock should be eyeball sized. Maybe a little smaller or a little bigger, like 15% either way

E- Excited. Listen, the most important part of the rock is how you feel about it. Because if you aren't excited about your dumb little find then no one will be. So bring some joy and enthusiasm and whimsy to the situation. It's like, if you're going for a hike--you bring water. If you're searching for a special rock--you better be jazzed about it.

And that's CURSE. 

Oh wait no I forgot what S was supposed to be and just remembered just now. I'm not gonna go back and edit it. 

S is for SHINY. A good rock should have some shine to it. Please your ancient crow brain.

Ok so now it's CURSES! 

Well, that's all the time I have for today. I hope you've enjoyed this post and I'll see you in the next one. Be sure to leave a comment telling me about your favorite rock you've ever found or stolen. Also write me a letter if you know where I live. Also send me a picture of your face super-imposed over a cloud. k bye

go down to rocky top and say hi to belt sander. the critter of the month for february

 

the banana peel from my morning walk

 I walking on the sidewalk and in the dead center of the sidewalk was this banana peel

and it was such a golden combination of silly and cartoonish and sad and withered

I feel like society is ready to move past conspicuous consumption

 I think we're so ready to tip over that edge. 

"Oh yeah buy this stuff so you can look like you're rich without being rich."

But I'm not rich and I hate the rich. Don't sell me the idea of wealth to exploit me and prey on my insecurities. I yearn for the certainty of mud.

The Lamb by William Blake

 Here's the cool thing about The Lamb by William Blake, published in 1789. In the poem he's talking to a lamb and asking the lamb if it knows who made it.

And you're thinking, 'That's so cool that he could talk to lambs I didn't know people used to be able to do that.' And yes, he could. William Blake could talk to lambs and they could understand him. 

What else does William Blake tell the lamb? He spends most of the poem calling the lamb a good sweet boy. Saying, 'aw you're so nice. you're a nice lil guy.'

And then there's a big surprise where he tells the lamb at the end who made it and TA-DA! It's God. And God is a lil' lamb too.

I don't know all the background there is to know on the connection between Christ and lambs but I know it's a thing. And I think it's a cool and also absolutely wild idea to be like God the all-powerful and almighty is actually meek and mild. Seeing a little lamb frolicking in a field and being like, "yep. there's God. That's him right there."

Why is that cool and wild?

Alan Watts has a talk about how churches and religious doctrine are set up in a way to make God seem like a king. And the goal of that is to legitimize a monarch. The point of talking about God is to instill the idea that at any level, a man should be in charge. Among other things. 

Which is lame and dumb obviously. 

God/The Universe is not an administrative thing. It's not a separate other that exists to be in charge of stuff. The whole point of the Universe/God is to be generative. It's to be creative and playful. 

A lamb is in a constant state of becoming and exploring. It's not in charge of anything. That's living. That's being godly. 

I think that's what William Blake is saying. And I think that's really cool.

pics from sick walk '025

 

some really ugly snow that I like the texture of a lot

weird pipe thing sticking out the ground and just passed this was a beautiful magnolia tree but you don't get to see that you get the weird pipe

it was so quiet downtown

really cool flowers