Finally I can unhinge my bones. Taking the day off on Sundays is rejuvenating. I also had to take Saturday off from the podcast because the house we’re currently in isn’t big enough to do audio only entertainment while people are home. That’s fine, I usually need to take more time to rest than I give myself. There’s not much going on this week, so I should have plenty of time for rest and exercise. I can feel my belly has gotten to a new level of girth and have to be vigilant about exercise. I need to stay away from sweets too. It’s been tough because on one hand I’m trying to conserve my energy for the move as well as dealing with the stress of home buying. Because the buying process is so stretched out, it’s been too much resting. Combine that with the state of the world for the last couple months, and I need to start regular cardio activity. I’m going for a run as soon as I finish this and I was going to take the dog, but I’m staring at him now while he sleeps. It’s better for me to go on my own because waiting or struggling with a sleepy pup is another hurdle to entry that might keep me down the path I’m on. There’s a book by Steven Pressfield, author of The Legend of Bagger Vance, called The War on Art where he says it will seem like as soon as you start to get your act together, people around you will conspire to keep you where you were. It’s an idea I’ve often thought about and one I had to talk to Mary about this weekend. I don’t think it’s an intentional act of evil, but that feeling stems from things being less stable when you’re trying something new, so an act that might have gone unnoticed before will now feel like a personal attack. The other element is the people around your aren’t used to you doing this new thing, so they don’t know how to act. You may think they’re trying to pull you to your old way, but they are treating you the old way because a new precedent hasn’t been set yet. Intentions and boundaries should be made clear whether with human, child or pet.
All hail troll toenail
I believe all the house stuff was solved yesterday, though we are still waiting to set a date to close. I mentioned before, why does the date matter, if the paper work is ready then send it over and we’ll sign it right now. This is the 21st century and we have to drive across town to sit in a specific room, have a notary look at our I.D.’s, all so we can sign a piece of paper. There’s no need to ever leave your house again from a physical stand point, the pandemic has proven that. DocuSign has boomed from all the work they’ve gotten in the past couple months. Notary is a dying job too. Right now we have online notaries, a notary will look at you holding up your I.D. through a webcam. Now let’s say that notary wasn’t a human, but a face recognition program. My phone already has that technology in it, so given that a person can’t open a program without it first authenticating my face and I can sign a document with my phone, that should be legal grounds to enter into a contract. Also, you can never tell me my signature isn’t valid, I’m the one who decides which of my signatures are valid. In fact no signature is valid, it symbolizes a “man’s agreement” that I will be true to my word. If a party member decides not to be true to their word, it’s the judge that decides what was valid and who is owed what. The judge is given that power by the people through election and subsequently the civilian muscled officers. A contract that isn’t brought in front of judge means nothing and a plaintiff who is never brought to court won’t be charged. That’s only the first 300 words that come to my mind when they mention moving the closing date.
Galactic scholastic, except it tanked
It’s bright and early, so I’m off to the race. Actually, I’m writing this early enough that it isn’t bright outside yet. I’m sure the sun will pop out eventually, what are the odds Mr. Sun decides to take a day off? How would we even measure the day? Anyway, I got some stuff sorted out with mortgage people. I don’t know if I’ve been locked away from the public so long that I forgot what people are like, but it felt like no one had a clue what they were doing. There’s been an issue for days that we were given a report for the house and submitted that to the bank. The bank representative kept saying they more, so I got fed up and called the bank to find out what they need. After two hours of being passed around on the phone someone was finally able to tell me the form number the bank wanted. Yay, I got the information, so I pass it to our agent and he called the company that issued the report. They claim the report we handed in days ago is in fact the same form number. This is why I can’t live in the normal world, for me it’s all do or die.
Speaking of not living in the normal world, I wanted to take a moment to announce my intention to be taking Sundays off from posting anything online. It gives me time to recharge and catch up on anything if I need to, but more importantly I’ll have a day where all my thoughts are kept to myself. The more of my consciousness I put online, the more I worry about a program trying to simulate me. I’m still going strong with the podcast, Being Chris Cooper, and if you like this content, you should really give that a follow. When speaking I can provide way more information for the machines learning me.
Expensive Thrills
As closing for the house approaches, once again all these people who buy and sell houses for a living are running around like chickens with their heads cut off having no idea what to do. They move dates around like what day a piece of paper gets signed matters or because they need so many days for paperwork to sit on someone’s desk. That’s not the age we live in, there’s no reason that everything for buying a house couldn’t be done in one day, or one click. Large sums of money can be moved instantly, paperwork can be sent all over the world to get multiple signatures in seconds, so when I hear we have to move the date because there’s no way we could get the paperwork together in a couple days, I know the company is full of it, but whatever they’re calling the shots. I’ve got nothing to lose though, so I’m not getting caught up in their mess. I might file a complaint about this loan officer though, it felt like she’d been avoiding us until two days before claiming she needs all this documentation. They had a month to ask for this stuff and now its all rushing around? No thanks, I’ve been through this before and got caught up in it then, now I’m not going to let a bunch of paper get my emotions. This morning was nice, I went walking through the garden to take more pictures. It’s been awhile since I’ve gone out in the morning, possibly because it’s been so rainy. Usually I water the crops in the morning and walk down the line to make sure water is flowing and pull for weeds. I’ve been worrying less about weeds because soon they won’t be my problem. Soon none of these stupid people will be my problem, I’ll be resting on my own land.
Rake to the Face
Today is a beautiful day. The sun is mildly out, enough to give light without sweat and the humidity is comfortable. There’s not much on today’s agenda for me. What pre-packing can be done has been and now we’re playing the waiting game. I’d rather play hungry hippos. That’s a The Simpsons reference, I’ve been noticing lately that I do a lot of those which is funny because I haven’t watched the show in probably over a decade. There were still very good jokes in prime Simpsons as well as social/political commentary, I have no idea what it’s like now. In order to write a show for over 20 seasons, it must be a zombified state of its former self. The trouble of a sitcom or perhaps any story where the characters can’t change is that doesn’t allow for arcs and development. For example Homer is a flawed guy, that’s his charm. If we care about Homer, we’d probably want him to get his life together, stop spending so much time at the bar, perhaps do some studying and go for a promotion at the nuclear power plant. After Homer betters himself, people will congratulate him on the hard work and that he accomplished his goals, but he would no longer be the same flawed guy audiences fell in love with. People will eventually stop watching his new non-zany adventures. Homer now knows how to avoid his previous pitfalls. To compliment this with another Simpsons reference, there is a gag where Sideshow Bob steps on a rake and the handle swings up into his face. Bob is surrounded by rakes, so everywhere he turns he gets another rake to the face and every time he has the same exact reaction. Crowds want to see predictable conflict with predictable outcomes, that’s entertainment.
Reality Reigns
This morning is a wet one. I find rain most often happens while I’m asleep, but today was a good pattern. The rain started shortly after I woke up, this isn’t the best pattern mind you because I struggle to get work done during the rain. Ideally the rain would start around noon and last all day, stopping after I fall asleep of course. Right now, pup and I are listening to the water fall. My dog seems to be doing better with his injury if you’re wondering. While he was hurt we got some pet stairs for him to walk up to our bed because he would wince whenever he jumped. It’s been very cute teaching him how to walk up those tiny stairs. He’s actually spent most of his life on the first floor and there was a time when he was scared of all stairs because he had gone his whole life without encountering a full staircase. The packing yesterday went well, I bought a couple of these big plastic totes, it ends up working out to where the loose items in each room will fill up a single tote. Yesterday I filled two totes in a couple hours and cleared off all the walls. To me, having the walls bare makes the house feel way more empty than it did the day before. I was planning on packing up my art room this morning, but I’ve had a blocky headache since I woke up. I’m going to finish writing this and then maybe lay down. Hopefully I’ll feel better and continue packing, but if I can’t today then I don’t mind. The packing that I have done made me feel a lot better about the whole event and that I am correct in thinking I could have everything moved in a couple of days. For most of my life, the standard was not to own more than I can put in my Honda Fit. After moving with that car, everything else is easy.
Doc tore me dissing
I’m about to start packing, this is it, the beginning of a new age. My mind is racing, screaming and scheming. This has to go into that, but make sure to wrap it with those. Pick up thing, put it down elsewhere, it’s no more complicated than that. I’m going to try and get as much disassembled, to where there’s nothing to do at home except wait. The pup’s hip also seems to be bothering him lately. I think the cause was getting him a bunch of new FetchIt balls, he went from just walking, to adding about 40 full force jumps a day. The little guy has so much excitement that he doesn’t know when his body is tired. Even now when he’s resting, if we get up for a drink in the kitchen, he’ll spring into action and give a little wince. Poor pup, we’ll take care of him though. I decided to start taking Sunday’s off from everything work related, so I have a built in rest day. Monday’s become harder when the weekend breaks the rhythm I have all week long. That’s probably what everyone goes through and it’s not as though I can work everyday for the rest of my life without taking a break, so I’ll have to get used to it. Over the weekend I was playing with the podcast stuff some more and even recorded a commercial, I don’t think I’m going to use it. At least for now, there’s no reason to use commercials for anything I create. Would I want commercials in my diary? At the same time, I really like recording ads, and maybe I’ll make up products to have fake ads in my episodes. Now that is an idea I can get behind. It’ll be some tougher improvising, but I’m up to the challenge. Time to pack.
Toejam to juice tobacco
Today is a bright and shinny morning, a little too bright actually. The first thing I had to do was close some shades because I was bumping into objects while in a well lite room. Yesterday I did my first recording of a podcast. I guess I’ll share the link if anyone really wants to check it out. I’m not trying to push stuff on people, and who knows if I’ll be able to commit to it long term. I find the idea very fascinating though and there’s something exciting about being live on a microphone that gets my blood pumping. I’d like to keep doing it, but I’d also like to be making paintings everyday, it’s more a matter of finding what I can do consistently. Also I’ve been building my day from the ground up, having a daily routine makes activities easier to do. If the podcast fits into my routine without being something I feel forced to do, I’m sure it’ll work out. What’s also very exciting is the speech aspect. In the first episode I did some Eminem that starts with “but saying I no longer got it”, that message is what fuels me, and the flow of that section matches the feeling. The feeling is I can out talk anyone. Typing here is a completely different beast than talking. I was once on a cruise and I was having a rough night when these kids walked in and decided to make a bunch of nonsense and my immediate reaction was to shout, “shut up.” Their group came over me because teenage boys aren’t going to be told what to do. Obviously I could have hurt them physically, but I’m not a monster. The kid I told to shut up possessed the argument to me, “You don’t have to listen.” That gave me an idea, kids have a short attention span, so I began to talk. I kept talking and talking because I knew eventually they’d forget the words I was saying in the beginning and be lost in the conversation. It worked, they told me to watch my back and left. I could have went all night.
Brick and mortars are being bricked and mortared
We heard from the appraiser for the new place yesterday. Everything is looking good and we’re pretty much done, only need a few more signatures. First, owning a place is huge to me, even if I only owned a patch of dirt. I would be happy if I was only buying the dried up pond on the property. I was going to describe this view as American because a lot of the poignant wordings that effected me came from someone like Henry David Thoreau. I’m also thinking about the movie Jeremiah Johnson and the idea of “Going West” in America. The idea that a person can go out where no one has flattened the grass yet and make their own way. Once I own this land, I can do things my way. Of course I don’t mean things that break the laws of the country or even local building codes, but up till now I’ve been renting. Renting means either I have to keep coming up with money to pay for this place the rest of my life or I won’t stay there. Knowing something is temporary makes it hard to put down roots. I put down some trees in the backyard of the house I’m currently in and I’m not looking forward to digging up tree roots. Who am I kidding, I am looking forward to digging, but not undoing work I’ve done. Owning a place and believing I will be there for life allows me to move forward with any project I want, it doesn’t matter if the project takes a decade to complete or if the rest of the world finds it ugly. I’m doing this for me. When you have a place to call your own, you’re living for yourself. In Of Mice and Men when they’re talking about their plan, George says, “If we don’t like a fella, then they can leave.”
Flip flop drip drop
Chappelle had a special recently called 8:46 and one of the things he noted in it was 8:46 was the time of his birth. There were a couple other instances he mentions of patterns he sees with numbers and places. When I was rediscover Christianity and trying to make sense of the Bible, a friend let me know that not everything has to be a pattern. The Bible is full of patterns and is self referential, make no mistake about that. What I want to talk about is these people that are constantly forming patterns. I’ve always said the brain is a pattern recognizing machine, but maybe that only applies to my type of brain. There’s a quote by Freud that I think is incredible for its simplicity, but also saying it all. “Everything is related to everything.” I’ve always been a believer in the theory that if we could know where every atom in the world is and how it reacts to every other atom, some sort of super computer could calculate every event that will happen for all eternity. That’s not going to happen because atoms aren’t the most base material. We will never know what the foundation of reality is because, “If our brains were simple enough to understand, we’d be too simple to understand them.” My stomach cells will never know that I ate bad fish last night because that’s not what they were made for, they have specific receptors that cue specific actions. Of course now you’re wondering, what are we made for? Welcome to existentialism, but you’re better off asking “What am I made for?” There’s only one way to find out, go exploring. Exploring is dangerous though, someone might get the idea their head was made for crushing aluminum cans. If people are applauding as they do it, that’s confirmation.
Chris' Morning Pages 