Today I’m 32 years old. That seems crazy to say, I’m just a kid. I remember sitting on my parent’s front stoop grinding Ritz crackers on the concrete to make them square, and only last year I ate dirt for fun. Being in my thirties makes me an adult, how did this happen? I’ve been divorced, was in a war that no longer exists, and now I have a mortgage. I guess growing older sneaks up while you’re out playing games. I’m not the same person I was when I was younger, thank god, but I’m not even the same person I was three years ago. I love learning and building because those activities over time make for a powerful combination. Hopefully my past makes my progress down this road exponential, but learning how to learn saves a lot of time when I jump around to different hobbies. I’m sitting here asking who I am at 32, but I’m just getting started. I’ve finally been able to buy land this month. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll be “getting started” for probably the next five years, but “You’ll always over estimate how much you can do in one year and under estimate how much you can do in five.” Maybe I’ll start to think of myself as an adult and pay people to do back breaking work instead of doing it myself, that would be good growth. Who I am is someone that will keep throwing myself at a task until one of us collapses. I think everyday is an opportunity to be a better self, that the only way to grow is to learn from my mistakes and avoid them in the future. I’ll be put in situations to make mistakes again, that’s for sure. I can have all the knowledge in the world, but if I don’t use it, then I haven’t learned anything. I believe the world is a beautiful place, well the world is an indifferent place, but humans can choose how it’s perceived. I do my best to love fate.
All money is make believe
Crypto Currency has been booming lately if you weren’t aware. I guess the economy must be on the brink of collapse or some other reason, I don’t subscribe to any news. Although it’s probably harder to know what’s going on for those who do consume the news. As Mark Twain said, “If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you do, you’re misinformed.” I trust my own judgement and ability to read in-between the lines, and that’s why I got back into crypto last month when unemployment filings went over 40 million. I’m not too heavily invested, what do I even have to invest? I’m more interested in collecting data and speculating what it might mean. Every morning I write down the price of three coins, or at this point we might as well call them stocks, so I can see what’s going on and can easily look back on my notes. What happened over the last week is what I would call a mini boom, and the prices dipped last night. I suspect there will be one or two more mini rise and falls before the media is all over the price of crypto and that will send it sky rocketing. To me that looks something like Bitcoin above $15,000. Bear in mind that BTC peaked in the 20k range before so that isn’t an unheard of price. If you don’t know anything about crypto currency, do not take this news as a reason to invest. There are scams everywhere and you will lose money. I’ve been tracking that price of BTC since it was at $300 a coin, that was sometime in 2015. I’ve lost money on poorly timed purchases and have given money to scammers, that’s part of the game. Crypto is still the wild west in some sense, but it’s getting domesticated. For the average person, they don’t need to worry about all this. What they should know is that switching to a digital currency is going to happen. Most people make purchases with a credit card or smart devices already and as we deeper into the “internet of things”, we’ll need crypto. Which coin or combination will win is uncertain right now.
Let Jimmy Take Over
The start of a new week, there’s potential for anything to happen. Well it’s more like the opposite of potential, I know what needs to get done and by the end of the week I hope to have brought those tasks to null. I’ve moved on to moving over my garden. Hopefully it’s not too hard, there are only two plants that are heavy for me to pick up: a Boston fern and blue Italian cypress. That cypress will need to be strapped down, even sitting in my yard on the ground it gets tossed by the wind. Today should be the deconstruction of the old green house and probably the reconstruction too. I took a photo of mimosa tree flower yesterday, it was the first plant photo I’ve taken in the new place. There have been opportunities for beautiful shots, but I haven’t had the energy for any creative endeavors. Today is the first day in weeks that I’m doing some pleasure reading. I know I’m getting back to my normal energy levels, but it’s only Monday. I still have to take it slow and finish the week strong. My goodness, I even have Christfest on Thursday, so may Mary grant me strength. I’ll probably be moving stuff until the last minute to avoid working on my birthday and then it’ll mark the beginning of my life as a mountain man. Someday someone will ask me to help them move and my only response will be a slap. Next we’ll still have to unpack our garage filled with stuff. We weren’t even able to properly place things while moving in because the previous owners left a bunch of furniture. Our couch is currently sitting in the middle of the room to provide some normalcy and comfort during this time. Although at this time, can anyone say what normal is anymore?
For fear of fowl I fight the howl
I have the most beautiful view from where my desk is now. All my life I’ve never had a pretty view from where I work. I suppose that’s why I focus on beautiful things so much now. I learned a long time ago that any argument can go back and forth forever, so if I was to dive deeper into any subject it should be the sublime. I suppose that’s how we see human beings, as a divining rod for free thought. How deep does the well of the spirit go? It’s unknown, probably unknowable because like Gilgamesh trying to win the secret to immortality, we too are limited by our humanity. I hear the trees telling me a storm is coming, I’m going to want a front row seat. Maybe my pond will even flood, but I don’t think I’ll want to walk down there today. I’m in rest mode until Monday. Even the dog wants to watch the rain, he’s begging to go out. It’s a pleasant past time of our’s to watch the rain together. This is going to be a good one too, the most perfect part is I can watch the rain while typing now. What more could I ask for than a recording of my thoughts during the most beautiful moments of my life. My brain is soothed, there’s the rub. Mixing beautiful words together is work that requires focus and living in the moment is getting lost in the senses; returning to animal hood. Perhaps we journey back and forth getting information and documenting it; as the pendulum swings. The rain has really set in and I need to go watch it so I’ll focus for a couple minutes and wrap things up. Everyday bring me closer to my birthday which I treat very ceremonial, I’m really into numbers.
News Flash Brews Cash
Tomorrow was the originally scheduled date for Christfest. I don’t think I’ve talked about it here, but it’s my made up holiday that coincides with my birthday, so we can have a big Summer party. There’s Christmas in December and Christfest in July. Obviously I’m not having it this year, but it’s crazy how it snuck up on me this year. I only noticed because it was written in my calendar at the beginning of the year, usually I’m preparing for the party about three months out. I like there to be a build up of teasers to get people interested and make it feel like this isn’t a normal party. There’s also a rule for people not to have their phones out because I don’t want photos or videos recorded. People will relax more and worry less about how they’re acting if they don’t have to worry about it being brought up again. We can all say, “People were drinking, who knows what happened.” My crazy antics aid in the night seeming like a fever dream. I like to wear red, white and blue outfits. I had a red, white and blue singlet and wrestled someone one year. There was also a wedding where the entire bridal party wore these crazy masks I own. I’m thinking that I might return my podcast on my birthday with a Christfest episode because that’s at the end of the month and I would be able to celebrate Christfest IV this year anyway. I was a little worried with it being the fourth year that I don’t want to go too big since I have to top it the next year, but also wanted it to be valuable on it’s own. It will certainly be interesting. Well I suppose you should look forward to the return of my podcast Being Chris Cooper on July 30th, with Christfest IV.
Weed wackers will wander
My legs feel like they’ve been doing a bunch of squats. I’ve got to make sure to stretch my hamstrings before I get started today. Hopefully walking up and down the hill is a pretty good workout as well. I think this place is going to be even more enjoyable when fall comes. Right now it’s stinking hot, so we can only be outside during the day for a couple minutes at a time. I mean I could stay out longer, but it saps my energy to stand in the shade. My brain has been so scattered, I almost completely forgot to feed the dog yesterday. I only remembered at the end of the night when he was acting weird, he should have told me his bowl was empty. That actually has me thinking that I might teach him when his bowl is empty to sit and bark, then I fill it up. That’s just another project though, I don’t have time for new projects right now. I can see the finish line of the move at this point and if I ever move again, I must be certifiably insane. I was thinking about my first real move, the first time that I realized how much I hated moving and how people accumulate stuff unbeknownst to themselves. I was moving to college with the help of my brother and friend. Basically I moved everything important out, like this time, but then the house was still so full. It was like a mystery, every time I loaded up the truck, more junk appeared in my house. Eventually I got sick of it all and kept saying, “Leave it, we’re done.” The beauty about being on your own in life is nothing is lost by walking away, but life is better with mild restrictions.
Too sober for a red clover
I met another neighbor, these were the neighbors the last guy I met warned me about. They seem nice enough and it sounded like the previous owners gave them a pretty hard time. I don’t like to judge someone based on their worst behavior, even when I see videos of a person shouting racial slurs at minimum wage employees I feel bad for everyone involved. It is a very rare case that that person says those things normally, now they have to deal with their mental break being shared all over the internet. People dumb, they make mistakes and often the court of public opinion thinks everyone always does the right thing, even though the judges are equally flawed. All that said, the neighbors were telling me the previous owners had dozens of animals on this two acre lot. They’d come home to see another dead animal in the yard and judging by what I see inside the house, I’m not surprised. My take is the previous owners had very ambitious ideas, but weren’t patient enough to have them done right. I can understand that. It’s taken 30 years of bashing my head against a wall to realize gently rubbing my head against the wall is less painful, still I do the occasional bashing to feel alive inside. Things are looking up, I’ve got a sleepy pup in my lap and have voice controlled music. I hear his relaxing groan and know everything is gonna be alright. I’m sure all the neighbors will be pleasant because I’m going to follow the rules or change the rules through the proper channels because I’m just a suitor of the land. I’d like to make things beautiful and prefer the work I do is able to stick around for as long as possible with little to no maintenance.
Life’s little leaks
The move is looking better today. When it comes to moving I only sweat the small stuff and at this point it’s all small stuff. Millions of little trinkets and do-dads that I don’t know why I ever bought them, I think of myself as a minimalist and maybe why I don’t like having stuff because of how much I hate having to move it. If everything thing I own could fit on my back, I’d be A OK with that. As the move winds down at the old place, I’m able to wind things up at the new one. When I let the dog out today, I spent some time picking weeds around the house. I want to eventually dig up all the plants around the house anyway, but in the meantime I can keep it pretty. My thinking is I don’t want an energetic tree to punch a root through my foundation. Pulling weeds also keeps me in that habit, I have to pull weeds everywhere I go on the property all the time because weeds never stop until they’ve been snuffed out. I suppose I can dig them up, but that’s just more sophisticated weed pulling. It’s a fun task though because there’s a sense of accomplishment at the end and when I look back, the area looks prettier than when I started. The time will come for trees though, I almost stopped at the plant nursery today to see if they still had this one willow tree on clearance. I probably will buy it online because I can get an older tree for cheaper, delivered straight to my house. A willow tree will be the focal point of the pond one day. I also met my first neighbor, well he lives four mailboxes down so I can’t even see the property, but he wanted to help in bringing the pond back to life.
24 Little Hours
What a day today has been. I woke up to make breakfast and decided to do some cleaning around the house because usually after a weekend of us relaxing there’s more than a few dishes laying around the house. I loaded the dish washer and when I hit “Start” nothing happens, I keep hitting start. Then I hit “Select Mode” and some lights turn on, so I know the machine is on. This was one more thing to the endless list of to do’s I have right now and my back was broken. I cried over a broken dishwasher, I only want you to do the thing you were designed for. Why is this dishwasher here and speaking to me if it’s going to refuse washing my dishes. Needless to go on, I had a bit of a break down this morning and needed to lighten my load. The big thing is my podcast, I’m not going to do it until I’m done moving out of the old house. I like to get into the mood to record, so the project itself is fun, but that requires a lot of energy and perfect timing. Right now I need my primary focus to be moving and cleaning that house before the end of the month. Mary told me I’m not a failure for resting, of course I’m not, why is my brain able to simultaneously believe something and deny it? Today ended up being a good day though, it was all about self care. I mostly laid my back on the heating pad and played Zelda. We’ve been enjoying our games and figuring out what this new home life is while playing games that live out fantasy version of what we’re doing. Mine is traveling through the world fighting monsters, her’s is designing and growing a deserted island. I made my first trip to the mail box today, that’s like going to the edge of the Shire.
Tea for Two
Last night felt like our first real night at the new house, we’re finally getting some time to slow down and enjoy what we have. Mary and I sat at home to play video games, it was probably the first time we ever did and I loved it. I’ll still be going back to the old place to get what’s left and to clean up until the end of the month. If there was an accidental fire that burned the whole place down, I wouldn’t need to clean it, the fire cleans all. Ah, but all my plants are still there, I want to make a trip to bring over a truck load of plants, but I’m dog tired and don’t know what the odds of that happening are. Today is also my pups birthday, he’s six years old though he’s got the energy of a six month old. Yesterday was when he found out there are deer in his front yard, we’ll see how that goes. There was a lot of staring and afterwards he wanted to go outside to “play”, but there wasn’t any barking, which is my main concern. He’s all grown up though, soon he’ll be dragging in venison and putting food on the table. I would give him his own room, but I think the closer he sleeps to me, the happier he is. I don’t know what we’ll do for the pups birthday, my wife wants to get him some presents from the pet store, so I’m sure he’ll be properly pampered. He pampers us too, so he deserves it. He’s gotten really comfortable on his back to where my wife and I can be laying down and I’ll pull him up to lay in between us. It’s all belly scratching and ear rubs from then on and he loves it.
Chris' Morning Pages 