Dark Clouds, Light Laughter

Veins of a leaf

Where’s my head at today? Well, I went for a run when I woke up, so that helped clear things up. There is a lingering feeling that comes with the state of emergency that has me wanting to scream in frustration. That’s why I’ve decided I need to get land. If I had my own land that I was able to live off of, I wouldn’t have to put up with any inconveniences brought about by the ineptitudes of bloated corporations and governments. I got distracted in life, wanting to enjoy the pleasures of the finer things. I don’t belong with the finer things anyway, I should be sleeping in the mud next to where I spent the day working. That’s where I have to get back to, that’s where I’ll feel at home. I took my socks off to stand in the green house the other day. I don’t know how longs it’s been since I last touched the Earth with my skin, but I believe there is a current that runs through the Earth as well as us when we’re not blocking it with rubber soles. It’s good to check in with our roots occasionally. If you’ve completely lost where you come from, then there’s no way of telling you’re still traveling in the direction you want to. I have a lot of research to do before any work can happen, but the good news is I can start planting trees without any research. I’ll have to figure out efficient means of watering them, but I can do it inefficiently for a little while too. I want to do something, but idk, I’m starting to go off the deep end a bit. At least I finished a book today. My philosophy on life can be described as, “Read and Write”.

Tormenting tourists towards two or more tournaments

Greenhouse carpet

Golly I don’t know where to start. My wacky brain wants to buy land and finally make my homestead. It’s something I’m fully equipped to do, but almost felt like it was a fantasy. Is it even possible? I don’t know, but we’re talking about the ultimate test of survivability. I don’t care about anyone’s opinions on life if I can live off the land. There’s nothing more truthful than that. I’m swelling with emotions, so I know I can’t make any decisions on anything until my brain calms down. That means lots of time for planning though and nothing should be better planned out than this, so let my lay down some thoughts. I’ve found a 5 acre plot of land I could buy at the flip of a switch, so tomorrow I could drive out to the 5 acres I own and plant a tree there. I have improved the world and increased the likelihood humans will be able to feed themselves, I am then a success.

Moving forward, I’ll have to get the land surveyed. Realistically I’d do surveying sort of work before offering to buy, but for the thought experiment. I want as much information as possible. I believe plans would be to have a farm/orchid and a house. The house probably won’t be that big, but is the most important. I’ll want to know what the best spot on the land would be for a house. No, I want to know the best two spots! I’m going to see how far I can go making a 100% off the grid house and that will be in the second best spot. Some day I hope to convince my wife that this land is so abundant that we should build a house there. The house we pay professionals to build and connect to the grid can be in the best spot. The rest will be my sandbox.

Simple Support Supplied to Survive

I’m back in the morning. I’m sitting down to eat a breakfast of yesterday’s tamales. Another day in paradise, right? My wife goes back to work tomorrow, so we’ll see the sort of storm that’s happening then. A whole world shaped by humans, and not a single person on the planet knows what’s happening. It’s hard to even write this, I don’t know what to say or what direction my thoughts should even go in. I’m supplied to survive for a couple of months, but if it comes to that there are going to be global problems that will be awhile before we recover. I think it’s natural to question if life will ever be like it was before, then again that’s probably what people do after every big event and of course things won’t be the same. I tell myself I don’t even believe I’m the same person when I wake up. I’m given a day at most to live and when I go to sleep, a new person takes over. We were born into this world with thousands of years of history coming before and we learned to make due. We’ll do the same with this. The sad thing for now is that the house is still burning and we don’t know when we’ll be able to go in and assess the damage. I want to move on with my topics, as does everyone else I’m sure, but what else can I think about? Everyone is reading story after story as new details break. I also have to ask how much worse this event has been made by people dragging their feet, expecting the media to be blowing things out of proportion like they have for the last decade. Maybe there’ll be new restrictions on who can say what on the internet. One day at a time.

Ides of March

Hey Mary, sorry I’ve been away from you all day. My wife has been wanting my attention a lot lately. We’re trying to stay busy and stocked for supplies. They say we’re on lock down for two weeks, but won’t tell us what’s going on. Something bad happened and we have to lay low, it’s too dangerous to go outside. The wind has turned against us. We’ll get through this though, I’m not worried. Soon enough this will all seem like a strange dream, then as with all dreams, we’ll begin to forget the events that happened. By now people have certainly been forgetting the sequence of events. Then a great Iliad will be revealed, the story that we can all share; Our Culture. 

I spend a lot of time trying to be alone because I believe it’s challenging to have an original idea. There will always be veins of those who influenced us in what we do and think. Think, do and say. Father, son and holy ghost? Obviously that’s not very original, but that’s the flip side of the coin, as the tree grows up towards the sky, it goes just as deep into the ground. That is, as one explores new territory, they end up going deeper into their past. Anyway, I try to minimize the sources which I let influence my thinking. I suppose that is something that makes me different than most people. I see attention as the most valuable commodity out there. I know what can be done to a person when you have their attention, it’s one of the reasons I’m a scholar of propaganda. The media we’re exposed to shapes who we are, it’s up to the individual to first know who they would like to be and then commit to consuming the message of that path.

Let’s Be Real

Day two of vacation? Who knows what is going on, we were planning to be on vacation at this time and we essentially are. Everything feels weird because on one hand we want to be enjoying the time off, but on the other feel as though we should be panicking and hoarding food like the rest of our fellow humans. A couple years ago, Mary and I were living in Houston when it flooded. Basically, we felt like our house was on the highest hill in town because we would go down the street one block and people would be driving boats around where there were previously roads. We lost electricity in the middle of a Houston Summer and we still had a fun time. There’s also that time I was in war, so I don’t perceive danger the same as other people and I’m not going to bend to a bunch of know nothings shouting on the internet. I’m going to enjoy the time I have with my wife and the only thing I need in order to do that is her. I’m going to laugh as much as possible and not feel guilty about it. It’s not like I’m not compassionate to other people’s suffering. I make myself aware of a lot of different types of suffering in the world, and while it may be trendy to hop on this virus, there are people going through worse. I’ve spent so much time thinking of what can I do for the world, what sort of difference is even possible. To one extent, the best way I can help people is to help my wife and she is seriously helpful to people. I trust my gut and my gut is saying enjoy life with your love and be ready for anything tomorrow.

Best Laid Plans

I have a crazy ex. I say crazy because she faked her suicide, bugged my phone, lied to my family saying I was having sex with prostitutes, and the list goes on. A little while back she messaged me through my website, even though I’ve made it clear I don’t want to speak to or see her again for the rest of my life. I haven’t spoken to her in close to a decade and I don’t read any of her messages when she tries to get back in my life, but it made me conscious that she could be reading this blog. If she is reading this, you should should stop. There’s nothing left between us, you should stop using my last name and live your life without me. Because I don’t know who could be reading this, I took appropriate measures to not post personal information online. Part of that was not saying when I was going on vacation because she has used information I’ve shared with people in private to run into me by “accident”. I was supposed to leave for vacation today, but obviously with everything happening in the world it had to be cancelled. I feel like my ex would see it as some sort of victory that my plans got cancelled, but that was the thing she never understood about me. She was always malicious hoping I’d lose my S and prove that I’m no better than her. I don’t lose though, I just adjust fire. I spend most of my time at home because I’ve made my house the most desirable spot for me in the world. Now I get to share my favorite place in the world with my favorite person in the world. What a wild couple of days it’s been. I know it’s not over for most people out there, but it is for me. Aside from writing to Mary I plan to be unplugged for a little bit, so I wish everybody the best of luck. Do what’s best for you and your loved ones.

More on morons

Mary helped come up with that title. Today has started as an amazing day. First off I slept like a rock and woke up a little after 7:00 AM from my dog crying to be let out. We got to sleep in because my wife usually has surgeries today, but didn’t have any scheduled. After getting coffee and doing some reading in bed, I was off to painting. I didn’t expect to get any painting done today because I did it yesterday, all I wanted was to get some done before leaving. There was some stuff I didn’t finish from yesterday that I really should have, so it was stuck on my mind and today I alleviated my muse. Once the painting was done I went on a run with the dog, so he should be tired and I continued the battle of the belly. I think all that brings me to eating breakfast and writing this. I did managed to get this photo of a mushroom growing in my garden that looked pretty cool, it made me think that there’s a mushroom called “Death Caps” or maybe there isn’t, but if anything fits the name it’s these fellas.

Yesterday I opened up the door to my green house and removed the heater. The plants are now essentially on there own and we have about a week straight of rain to look forward to, so the plants I put in the ground a couple days ago have a good environment to get started in. I’m eager to return and Spring will be on way. First order of business then will be to take down the green house, and now that I’m thinking about it I’ve got a couple of grape vine cuttings I want to put in the ground for all this rain, here’s hoping I remember to do it.

Two meals to mediate today’s movement

Back to my old classic, eggs and writing. I’m trying something a bit different today to try and stay on top of my diet, I’m cooking rice for lunch while I cook and eat my breakfast. In the past I’ve done meal prep where I cook a week’s worth of rice and pasta for lunch and dinner. I’ll work to get back to meal prep, but for now I have to get back in the habit of eating these foods. When I spend time away from my diet foods, I end up thinking they’re boring and I eat something more exciting, which tends to mean foods higher in refined sugar. I weighed myself in the afternoon yesterday and did not like what I saw. I usually weigh myself in the morning, so I did that today and the number was easier to swallow, but I will have to be vigilant. Making it through Winter without a new rubber tire is a success though and I’m not going to start an extreme diet on vacation. Still I am conscious that I need to do something and the sooner I start, the less drastic the maneuvers will have to be. As for today I’ve got a couple more errands to run before we leave. It’ll be good to get out of the house because today is supposed to have some warmth. I can’t get enough of that Sun baby. Well I say that now and in three months I’ll be hiding in the darkness, but that’s just life. I woke up feeling good today, maybe I’m on the upswing from all this socializing I’ve been doing lately. I keep wanting to make changes to my life, but right now is not the time. It’s hard to grasp that sometimes a person has to make changes and even though the changes have to be made, making them now instead of waiting would have a worse effect. It’s like I told my Army buddy Johnston, he’s going through a tough time, I told him he just has to stay out of trouble and put up with it, in time it will go away and he’ll breath easy again.

Signs of Life

How much longer can we expect to hold out? Why do we even put up a fight? Maybe we don’t and I’m just making mountains out of mole hills, but riddle me this. What does a 4th dimensional being look like? And I don’t care about its appearance, I don’t care what its rules are, I want to know what it means. What’s this all about, and there’s only one question we’re all asking, what’s on the other side. Perhaps we spend our lives strengthening ourselves so that someday we’ll be able to look. Some people venture off before they’re prepared and get carried off. Is a human being raised by wolves our natural state? Pets help us stay grounded, we’re animals and can learn good lessons from them. A cat doesn’t know anything about how to behave at a cocktail party though. You’d need a master of ceremonies to teach a cat the Macarena.

Not much else is going on these days, just counting down the days till vacation, OH! I booked my flight to Philly and I’m going to be renting a convertible while I’m there. I’m hoping to have a fun day with my sister and nephew and I think a convertible is the perfect touch. Plus I don’t think I’ve ever driven one, if that’s true it’s gonna be an awesome trip. I’ll spend the whole time on the highway with the wind in my hair. Too bad it’s all gone, but I’m hoping to dye it blonde before then so there will be some fun images. As I was saying, waiting to board the plane. There’s a possibility we’ll have the plane to ourselves apparently. I also wrote my second painting letter today. I do paintings on a sheet of canvas and then write a letter on the back. The guy I’m sending it to is doing a couples vacation with us this year, so I’m sending him some other stuff for that. He was the one who asked if I was worried about that disease with traveling. It does make me think there will be an annoying level of costumes coming back, I’m sure they’ll ask some medical questions. Hopefully Mary’s background as a healer will get us through.

Buoyant Air

Boyish Heir

Sorry I left you hanging there morning pages. I told you I was going to see my Army bois and there was just no telling what could have happened. First I have some house cleaning to do. I like writing this as if I’m speaking to a person so I said morning pages, that’s awkward so I think to say MP, at that point I say I should just pick a name, so Mary Poppins. Mary will be my morning pages, my wife, my spirituality. I hereby dedicate these writings to Mary. 

Moving backward to move on: my bois. Man I don’t even know where to begin, it’s honestly one of the craziest experiences I’ve ever had. It was a dream, that’s the only way I could explain it. I hope they’re doing ok. I think they think they’re doing ok and that’s all that matters. It was sort of a theme, saying, “You alright bro?” and responding, “Yeah, this is how I do, that cool?” and everyone was cool. It was great to talk to them about war, and Johnston has deployed since our time in Iraq, so he had a comparison. There is no way I could have understood the situation I was in when I was in Iraq, I still work to process it, but now that we have some distance and to be able to ask what they thought about a situation in Iraq was some of the best medicine I could have thought up. That’s the situation with everyone on Earth though, you gotta be honest with yourself and those you interact with, if they don’t want you around, don’t take it personal because trying to make them like you will only be worse. Great weekend, great guys, I wish them all the best and hope they reach out to me whenever they want for the rest of our lives.