so when i said i would spend four hours a day editing. . . it was because i felt i was being too much of a consumer. . . it’s fun to watch TV and movies and play video games and listen to podcasts and audiobooks. . . and it’s nice to be able to let go of the heavy weight of feeling some obligation i don’t know how to fulfill about adding wisdom and entertainment to the cannon of human storytelling. . . BUT. . . i’ve got work to do and i know it. . . infinite work to do. . . and there is only so much i can do with other people. . . just like there is only so much i can do with myself. . . so . . . me being a creator. . . an editor. . . i felt it when i woke up today.. i didn’t want to do storytelling in the same way. . . i wanted to work. . . and how did that manifest? my old tried & true: procrastination: i laid in bed (i wish i could spell it with a y. . . ) i layed in bed for about four hours after waking. reading through social media replies (ugh, that’s why i felt so terrible waking up yesterday! when i post on social media then i go to look at social media. . . while i was writing last night’s piece i decided to post the day’s pics on IG. . . and after they posted some guy’s post came up. i didn’t know him: he as just a hot sexy bear. he was a hot sexy bear who mostly posted pics of his naked furry body (IG limitations) . . . but this post was him at a military funeral. . . and i read about his dead husband. . . and looked back through his last few months of hell, watching the love of his life die of cancer. . . dealing with having COVID himself, on oxygen. . . occasionally posting a sexy picture of his butt rising behind his smiling face. . . it’s such an emotional landmine field. . . social media. . . people angry about stuff. . . or sad about stuff. . . baiting for thirst or emotional support or emotional vampirism. . . or just beautifully expressing to the best of their ability the experience of life. . . in all its pleasure and pain. it was beautiful to witness. . . but when i turned back to my writing piece i was noticeably in a different emotional space. . . ) so yeah, i did that again this morning. . . between twitter porn and all the other social media sink holes, harvesting the fruits of my postings and making emotional impulse buys along the way. . . feeling guilty i wasn’t with my parents down stairs. . . twice came and feeling exhausted and depressed. . . hooray! i went down stairs and finished the puzzle i had been working on for a few days. poured out a tincture i made a month ago. . . explored other tinctures from years ago that might help my mom. . . maybe got a little drunk from all the alcohol in them… ate some kitcahri and came back up stairs and napped. then sold a video to a guy who was a part of my daily practice group last year. . . then recorded a video for a client who pays me to make him time lapse fetish videos. . . so i made some money (even though there were three clients today who wanted sessions but didn’t want to pay me and a hotel but could not host) . . . then. . . THEN…. i sat down and started editing. . . all my notes’ organization got razed earlier this year. . . so i worked on that for a while. . . then started transcribing the hand written journal i kept at the 2016 retreat. . . i’ve been working on that thing for four years now. . . but in the last few days. . . if i can just finish it. . . then what? here’s a quote from it i enjoyed. :
The wisdom of the finite. . . knows something the infinite simply cannot
43.2 Turtle and Trains
i didn’t feel rested this morning
and when i woke… i didn’t want to be awake
was it yesterday i dreamt of being in alaska
sitting in hot springs with northern lights
impossibly sparking like cartoon electricity over my head?
what strange funk was i in this morning?
i didn’t want to feel like i felt
i lolled around in bed
being here with family
i often feel like taking a few hours alone to myself late at night and whenever i wake up
but the rest of the time
i feel i should be present with them
that’s what i’m here to do
to be with them
that was how it was when i came back in 2019
and though things are different now:
i was here then specifically to be with them
to experience them as they are
now i’m just… living here
now this is a place i am
and i don’t want to fall back into childhood habits of adversive self isolation and avoiding them
i feel guilty when i have massage clients or isolate to play videogames
but i’m finding a balance
anyway
when i wake up
afer a while of being awake i feel an urge to go down and be with family
and these last few days my mother has been very sick
so there is another sensation of wanting to care for her
but i gave two massages yesterday
and i’m very noticing how “drained” that makes me feel
vs when i was here last year and not giving any
so i got out of bed slowly
(oh, the internet is taking more of my time as well because i am posting… and when i’m posting i am looking at replies: all of that takes time… and in recent years i have greatly curtailed my posting… all in an effort to not be starting at social media a lot… it’s worked well… it’s amazing how much time social media can take up… but hey, for many people it’s still The Greatest Show On Earth… i’m kinda over it… but it is what it is… and it allows me to be with all of you fine people… my voice in your mind… hand in hand… )
and went down stairs and puzzled a bit
talking with mom about what we were going to do today
we got a plan
which lagged and lagged
i made a nice lunch of lambs quarters and greens
(oh, i didn’t talk about that in the video, darn)
there is this weed that grows like crazy in our garden
not our garden this year
but all over the compost heap
it’s a lovely wild spinach
sometimes called Miner’s Lettuce
i mostly call it Lambs Quarters
i tried to grow kale last year
but some bug ate it all
this wild thing: nothing eats it
it wants to be here
and i don’t need to do anything
it just grows and grows
so i eat a lot of it
(last year it was purslane.. i wonder if it will come back too? none in sight yet)
i made a great breakfast of eggs, left over beef, and lambs quarters
then i fed and watered the chickens
then took off to go into town to buy some things for the dinner i was making and some other things for my mom (coz she’s sick)
but on the way into town i saw
an elderly couple standing by a fence of a subdivision
with a shovel
and a…
what was that?
a big metal pot? a bucket? a lid? a big stone?
holyshit… a turtle? a huge turtle!
i love turtles
and i swung the car around in the next subdivision
and drove back to where they were
parked the car in their subdivision
and walked up to them and said hello
“can i be of help? is that a pet?”
no! they said… it is some big wild beast… we think it’s a snapping turtle…
it got stuck under the fence and we’re trying to help it out…
i told them it wasn’t a snapping turtle
i assured them (i thought it wasn’t)
and suggested i come around the inside and pick up the turtle and get it away from the road
the woman suggested the turtle was trying to get to the pond…
that seemed like a good idea to me
so when i went to grab the turtle
they were very worried for me
because it was aggressively attacking the shovel
i assured them i would be fine:
turtles are a known quantity, you know? they are a shell and legs and a head
and if you hold the back of their shell, they cannot bite you
(i’m only now remembering that it can hurt them if you hold them by only the upper part of their shell… because their innards are heavy and put a lot of strain on the lower part of their body… they just aren’t meant to be held like that)
it took a while for me to pick him up
he had a huge tail
and huge claws!
such a huge turtle!
(more pics on my instagram)
he was digging himself into the ground
holding himself firm
and trying to destroy me with him mouth
oddly, i had no fear
i held his shell firmly
and eventually fond the leverage to pull him out from under the fence and up into the air
i carried him about twenty feet before he figured he could get his back claw to scratch my fingers
… he didn’t have a good angle or speed, so he wasn’t really hurting me
but he had the potential to now that he had figured out how to do it
he was smart and would figure out how to hurt me soon
so i put him down and took a step back
he was pissed off
aggro-turtle
and i understand
he was scared and confused
and was just stuck under a fence
i thought he was a box turtle or something
(spoiler alert: he was a snapping turtle)
i was really impressed that he kept his eyes on me
and kept turning to face me whenever i changed direction
he was not actively trying to chase me or anything
but he was letting me know he was watching me
i mentioned to the two people that i might have a box in the car…
the Woman said she would go get a box
while she was gone
i decided to take off my sandals and wrap them around the shell in such a way to protect me from his claws
i looked at him and he suddenly seemed calm and let me walk behind him and pick him up again
so i could carry him to the pond
this was a subdivision
the houses were close
the pond was three houses away
i was walking barefoot through the manicured lawns…
the woman called out to me
not to put him in the water
she wanted a picture of him
she was running at me
albeit
slowly
i kept walking to the water so i could put him down
he was holding his mouth open
i could imagine he was hissing at me
and i realized he probably didn’t like being held vertically
so i held him horizontally
and told him a story about how he was a flying turtle
you know, like Gamara
he could just enjoy flying through the air to the pond
he got the message and relaxed into enjoying the ride…
i put him down a few feet from the water
and he responded similarly to how he did the first time
and the older fellow walked up
still carrying the shovel
and the turtle really didn’t like the shovel
as it had just been trying to push him through the fence
so he bit at it again
but then calmed down a bit
the woman took a picture of the two of us
the turtle relaxed
turned around
and walked into the water and swam away
the man asked how heavy i thought that turtle was
“20 pounds”?
i don’t know, i said, if you were a man… that might be correct
you know, the way we like to exaggerate things
the woman thought it might only be 6 pounds
it was not overly heavy
but i’m not a good judge of things
i figured he was at least as heavy as a gallon of water
i kept saying
“it could be a box turtle… though they usually have a higher domed shell… but i’ve never seen one this old before”
they said, “yeah, he’s been here longer than us…”
and proceeded to just relax into being human with me
tragedy averted
our stories came out
they moved here three years ago from the Ozarks to be nearer their daughter
they had lived in Chicago
they had lived around
they went to Rome a few years ago
didn’t go anywhere else in Italy
no, Not Florence, Not Venice: they just wanted to see Rome
i’m glad people live their dreams
they asked me where my favorite place in the world was
… i don’t like playing favorites
but i decided not to take that tact
i told them about Thailand
how i got to study
and have wonderful adventures
see ancient histories
and also just relax in the ocean
i told them how the ocean was almost body temperature
(he response was how bad that would be for breeding bacteria…)
i mentioned how i could float in the sea without having to fight the waves or even move to stay warm… could float and bob around in the setting sun… the vermillion lavender gorgeous sky reflecting all around me
for hours every night
i loved it
and the massage was good too
and the food…
the man didn’t ask me what i did for a living
he asked what my Skill was
i loved that
we talked a bit as we walked back towards their house
i realized i had parked the car directly in front of their house
i told them i was on an errand for my mother
and they said i should call her and tell her what happened
her reply was
“Wow! What a nice act of kindness!”
and i hadn’t thought of it like that
but it was
the woman invited me into her house
to show me… something upstairs
i liked the mystery of it
and thought how odd it was
she admitted to me she was 80
but she wasn’t afraid
was it because of my haircut?
or just my general aura?
or that she wasn’t from Indiana?
Hoosiers seem to be so paranoid
or at least my family is…
but she invited me into her house
i washed the turtle off my hands
then went up stairs with her:
she had a huge train set
filling a whole room
bigger than all i’d seen downstairs
they had cards printed up
they invited families to bring their kids up to see the trains
she had three different tracks with different cars
and even another one made out of LEGO that she controlled with an app on her phone
the joys of life
right?
what a nice surprise
she offered me water
but i declined
and headed out on my way
… shopping… home…
we went and ran errands
found a new farmer’s market
and bought some delicious honey soap
and just felt good talking with the woman who ran the apiary…
it felt nice
i was just appreciating the day
and when we got home
we rested a bit
then i made Kitchari: an indian curry i was introduced to as part of a yoga cleansing diet
when it was in the pressure cooker
i headed out side
mainly to give my mom a break from the dog
which wimpers at the door obsessively
and drives her crazy
we went out
and i got passionate about gardening
planting the watermelons we bought today
planting a delicate squash my mom bought last week
planting sprouted mung and adzuki beans that i hadn’t put in tonight’s dinner
planting sunflowers, passionsflowers and some squash along the rows of corn
weeding for a while
til the sun had set and the light was almost gone
watered the garden
and came in
to shower
one of the great things of shaving my head
is being able to shower my whole body
face and scalp
without worrying about having wet hair for hours
it’s a great feeling
then i went to watch some TV with my parents
and eat the delicious Kitchari i had made…
and it had a new effect on me:
it made me feel like i had to do yoga
it’s never done that to me before
it’s certainly a food that is meant to be a medicine
to bring things into balance
it often makes me feel “high”
and i have always said that when i get high i just want to do yoga
but i had never felt Kitchari make me feel like doing yoga
and doing yoga at 11pm just after eating
isn’t such a great idea
but i watched TV with my parents
and did yoga for about a half hour
a bunch of standing poses
then some more while sitting in the chair
i felt so grateful for the day
for helping my mom
being with the chickens
petting the dog
so happy to have some attention paid to him
so happy to have helped free the turtle
so happy to have met those nice people and shared stories and joys with them
so happy to have done yoga!
eaten delicious food
watched the sunset
how beautiful life can be sometimes…
last night
i wrote about an occurrence that happened a few weeks ago
tonight i wrote about today
i’ll post this now
you can see it
the video of me telling the story is uploading right now
it will take a few more hours
(the internet is slow here)
i will embed it in this page before noon
i have always been curious how a tale is told
and what differences writing or telling it (in videos) can make
last night i wrote the story first
then told it
tonight i told it first
then wrote it
very different details in each
that’s enough
i’m tired
i love you
thank you
sleep well
have a great day.
i wrote this out as well as recorded a video telling the story. . . in the video i do a better job of explaining why i’m telling this story and why i’m telling it twice. . .
The boy who stole my laptop
43.1 the boy who stole my laptop
My brother told me years ago about a friend of his who keeps his tech new by buying last year’s tech every few years, selling what he’s got, never paying full price, but always staying current. like paying a fee to upgrade regularly. . .
so i bought this laptop
last year‘s model of the one i’ve been using since 2018 (which i had bought as a last year’s model. . . after using, for eight years, a friend’s broken laptop i had rehabbed)
it was a good upgrade. still under apple-care warranty, and the same price i paid for the one i previously bought.
i was happy to buy it
sad to discover it had a european spanish keyboard
but i figured some way to re-map the keys so it was basically what i’m familiar with
to complete the program i just had to sell my 2017 laptop
no problem
i was going to use Facebook Marketplace
and try OfferUp
and, last resort, i would use eBay
… i checked and there were the same models selling for $800-900
i wanted a thousand
i’d see if i could get it
i quickly found two things:
everyone wants a deal
so i raised the price to $1100
so i could give people a discount and still get what i wanted
and. . . almost everyone contacting me was a scammer
i had watched some youtube videos about tech-nerds and geniuses hunting down the scammers who call and email and text us spam
so i did some research and quickly came to understand what these scams were trying to do with me selling my laptop
i thought i’d be able to sell it direct cash trade in NYC
but i got about 50 scam replies
which took me a while to sort through
and made me suspicious of everyone else writing me
mostly they were writing from profiles of old white people
but their english was bad
so
those who had initiated direct facebook messages instead of going through market place
i would occasionally hit the video call button to see if they would pick up
a few did
though i only saw faces twice
some would cover their camera and hang up quickly
two black guys sitting at a table in a tropical poverty-style bungalow
looking surprised and laughing and commenting on how cool my beard was
i’m not sure where in the world they were
but i knew i was a rich man compared to them and felt bad about the whole situation
but wasn’t interested in being scammed
it’s hard for me to fall for scams
so i didn’t sell the laptop in NYC
i took it back to indiana with me
and tried there
mostly more of the same
but more humans
though they mostly were trying to convince me to sell it for $500
which i had no intention of doing
one guy started the thread with “I’ll take it”
and we chatted a bit
it all seemed pretty straight forward
his profile said he was a teenager and showed a football player running
how could this be a scam?
the address he gave me was a public park
only 10 minutes from the house
the only thing i could imagine would be that he would have a group of people jump me and steal my laptop
but i’m not that paranoid
so i didn’t let the thought linger
we set date and time and i drove over to meet him the next day
he was a young guy
weedy, thin… frail looking, i would say
he reminded me of me when i was a teenager
uncomfortable in my own body
but he was probably 16 or so
and i was like that when i was 11
still
i remember wearing a wrist brace my last year of living in indiana
and he had one on
i felt an affinity with him
and spent about an hour talking with him about how a Mac works
as he had only ever really worked with a PC
he asked a lot of questions
and i was happy to answer them
but eventually he started acting strangely
and shifty
and said he hadn’t brought the money with him
he needed to walk back to his house to get it
i assumed i wouldn’t see him again
he walked across the field
through a breaker of trees
to the subdivision over there
and was gone a few minutes
but reappeared
and after all that
he said he felt terrible
but just didn’t feel like he could afford it
he asked how much i wanted
“$1100, right?”
and though that was the price i had it listed at
it was struck through
i had lowered it to $900
and guess he hadn’t noticed that
i said he could pay me $1100 if he could afford it
but i would accept less
still
he “hemmed and hawed” as they say
and decided he just couldn’t bring himself to pay it
what could i do?
i said Ok…
he walked off
i got back in the car and drove home
…
i looked through the houses
i got an idea of where he went
people in Indiana are paranoid
at least that’s what i think about them
scared of everything…
whatever
that felt bad
over the next few days
i had a few people say they wanted to buy it
only to say
the next day
that they decided not to
and then more low-ball offers
i had a friend visit for a few days
so had other things to think of
but shortly after my friend left
this kid wrote me again
and decided he wanted the laptop
“for real this time”
and no other offer had materialized
and it was a short drive
so i agreed to meet him the next day
same place
same time as before
but i was working in the garden that afternoon
and totally forgot about our meeting
when i came back in i saw a message from him asking him if i would be meeting him
and i responded that i was sorry i had missed our meeting
but would be happy to drive over now
as it is so close
he said he might be able to sneak out and grab it
after his parents went to sleep
or at least went upstairs
…
ok
so he was buying this without them knowing
i guess
that’s more to be worried about
right?
i just told him to let me know if he wanted me to come out tonight or tomorrow
and went about my evening
i later got a message from him saying around 11:15 would be good
so when 11 came around
i packed up and got in the car and sent him a message telling him i was on my way
we met in the dark
in this unlit park
empty sports fields
weedy little kid and me
after i shaved my beard off
… he didn’t comment on noticing the difference
again, though, he asked tons of questions
and i was happy to answer them
but after about 45 minutes
midnight
i said “ok, now’s the time, you’ve got buy it… you said you would… you can ask me any questions you want through the net… or google them, but it’s getting on … “
and he started acting shifty again
breathing quickly
like an asthmatic
and he started pacing
he said “oh man, i don’t want to do this to you again.. oh man, i’m sorry, i can’t do this to you again… i feel… ok, give me a minute, i just have to walk a moment”
and he walked off into the darkness
of course
right
so i wouldn’t see him again
but he came back
and stood next to me
i was sitting on some risers looking out over the soccer field
he stood there
shuffled his feet
and grabbed the computer and dashed
saying “sorry man”
my mind had no thoughts
i just leapt to my feet and gave chase
now
i was wearing my sandals
not looped around my ankles
so they fell off after the first few steps
i kept running
and i’m not much of a runner
i was always winded easily when i was younger
in these running sports
though i had to play all of them
and a few months ago
i hurt my left ankle badly
and could hardly walk for a month
it took two months before i no longer felt the pain
and that was only a month behind me now
and being here in indiana
something had happened to my right ankle in 2019
often hurting
so i’ve been thinking of my ankles as Weak in recent years
but not tonight
no thinking
i was just running
i did notice the sensation of the pavement under my feet
and noticed i did not step on anything sharp
and i noticed the sensation of running
the clear drive of purpose
… i wasn’t gonna let that kid get away with $1000
some weedy suburban kid
it just wasn’t going to happen
i could feel the muscles in my legs and back
could feel the heat and strength driving me through the night
could see his body
quite a ways away
he had got a good head start on me
he ran out of the parking lot
along the sidewalk
and i was gaining on him very quickly
i wasn’t shouting at him
he knew i was there
and as the sidewalk was coming to an end
(because sidewalks in suburban no-wheres go nowhere)
he squealed and yelped
and said “oh, i’m sorry man, i’m sorry i’m sorry, here’s your laptop”
and gently set it down in the grass by the side of the pavement
where i stopped
and did not even follow his trajectory with my eyes
i just picked up the laptop and turned around and walked back to the car
feeling the warmth of the blacktop under my bare feet
feeling my heart and breath pumping in my body
this feeling of Life
what a gift
to know
even in my weakness
injured
recovered
and because of it
15 pounds heavier than i’ve ever been
i could run down a teenager
a nerd, yes
but at 42… nearly 43… this body could run him down
i’ve done an ok job taking care of this body
even when it feels like it’s sliding…
what a gift
yet the adrenalin also drove me to swiftly pick up my sandals
get in the car
roll up the windows
lock the doors
and drive out of there as quickly as i could
and even before i got to the first intersection
i went to our messenger conversation and left it
then blocked him there and at facebook
i didn’t want to hear anything he had to say after that
… when i told friends about this experience
they all said they would have left the laptop and caught him and left some bruises or broken his nose or ribs or something
but i know that kid
i know what an insecure mess he is
how tortured he is
in himself
i didn’t need to hurt him
he hurt himself enough
showing himself that he was a thief
and a bad one at that
that’s enough
i wouldn’t want to live knowing that i hurt him
having to hurt him
using my strength to hurt someone weaker than i
chasing him down was conquest enough for me
and the actuality of the experience was punishment enough for him
is this maturity?
this is all what it’s like to Age
consciousness folding and flowing through time
creases and shapes…
I shot this video over the last few days with family. . . woke up this morning with a groggy morning voice and did a voice over for the edit i did last night . . . here’s the full length (half hour) video of me getting my hair shaved off. . . and me telling some story as to why i did it.
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