July 12 – Domestic duties and deep considerations

– Domestics was the theme for the day. No mater who you are, everybody needs to take care of things around the house.

With my bags packed, it’s time to pack away everything else. I really enjoy packing everything up and so I can reset when I get back. A clean sweep and a fresh start. But MAN, does it take a long time to get through it all. That is why I think hiring movers make sense: they have no emotional attachment to the things they are moving.

I am also now living out of my bags for a day or two in my house. This way I can see if I am missing anything when I can still grab it. So far: shorts for pajamas. Not having to pull on your jeans as soon as you get out of bed is luxurious!

– So, I bought a GPS, and the idea was that it would free up my phone so I could play music and audio books (downloading Game of Thrones audio book now), and keep an eye on my messages. But, what I found out? The best part of the GPS is that it keeps me from looking at my messages while I drive. No texts and email subjects flashing across, tempting me to shift my attention away from driving. Here is to single-use digital devices. (YOU HAVE ONE JOB.)

I also realize that during long straight stretches of highway I am going to want to talk on the phone, so I am going to dig out a bluetooth headset. I feel slightly embarrassed admitting that, but the speaker phone on my iPhone in my far-from-soundproof-truck isn’t going to cut it.

– So, I tried drying out sea water to make sea salt. I went to Ocean Beach with Sandwich, and as a favor for helping her move furniture in my truck, she waded out into the surf and got me 5 gallons of sea water. And, I made the salt. And, it was terrible.

When I got the water, I felt a bit like I was taking something that didn’t belong to me. That the ocean wanted the water back.

And here I was, with 4 gallons of it, and some terrible salt.

So, I followed my feelings. I drove out to Ocean Beach, and returned the water and salt back to the ocean. It felt like it was the right thing to do.

It made me think about my responsibility to nature. About how we take things from nature, but don’t really think about the path it needs to talk to return it.

– I got invited to this by a friend: http://www.appetiteobscure.org

This is my sort of party!

The friend of mine who invited me has a big struggle with depression, not unlike my own. When I have my darkest thoughts, I think about all the people I would hurt if I wasn’t around. I have a few people I think about and how drastically I would alter their worlds. How working through my issues, even if I can’t at the moment figure out how to do it for myself, how it’s important I do it for them.

So, I told that friend my story, and then in the most sincere way I could, I continued, that if anything happened to him, I would miss him dearly. He told me he’d be hurt deeply if anything would happen to me. I guess it is one of those things we take for granted. But, it was great to hear from another person, and it felt important to let someone else know.

I spoke with another friend about this. Her thoughts were it is better to change your life and take all the consequences that comes with it than to end it. Her estimates is that someone destroying themselves takes about 10 years to recover. Massive change? A lot less.

– I heard the NY Lost Horizon Night Market turned out great! It is so energizing to hear how excited people were for it. Looking forward to getting started again in Philly on August 1!

– I’ve been interviewing people as roommates and for subleters, and I’ve been directing people through the same set of the three questions. While I really like the free form conversations we have to start, seeing how people differ in how they answer the, not just their answers but their approach, tells a lot about their character. It’s interesting to have something in the process that let’s you have some parallel structure between candidates.

– I think a lot about how a lot of conflict comes from two sets of good intentions. Sometimes, when I am having a problem with someone, I try to state what I think their point of view, their facts and their good intentions. We don’t see eye to eye, but we do find out if we understand each other. Oddly, once you state things like that, and if you can really both let go of the anger and all of the other things going on, and points and facts get clarified, unity is surprising easy.

– This is the most personal of all of the blogs so far. It was hard. So hard, that I actually got Tiffany to read it first. I’m glad I’m getting more comfortable writing personal beliefs for all to see. I wonder where I’ll be in a month!

There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed. – Ernest Hemingway

Research

– If you need earphones, these are sort of a great choice MDR-7506. The choice of sound engineers across the planet.

– Even Bloomberg knows global warming is cause by greenhouse gases: http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-whats-warming-the-world/ – I doubt I am going to change any minds with this, but it is nice to see the data. Now, what do we do? How do you actively get people to actively want things that are not tied to generating more greenhouse gases. What does carbon neutral/negative aspirations look like? What science fiction of carbon neutral /negative look like?

– A portal of SF I found driving home from the beach.

2 Comments

  1. This is the first post I read. It’s so nice to hear your voice come through in the writing. I didn’t know you could make salt that way. Did it really work? What do you think made it terrible instead of good?

    1. I got about a cup of salt from a gallon of sea water. I don’t know why the flavor was bad. It was very chemically.

      This could be a function of:
      – the pots I used to boil it in
      – things that may have happened to it while I let it dry in my kitchen
      – the beach I got the water from
      – the bucket I used to collect the water

      If I was to try it again, I’d try backing it in an oven in glassware, and maybe get ocean water from further out, and maybe collecting it in something that was certified as food safe.

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