"My efforts won't matter to the world. It's best to keep the peace."

Holy shit, is that really my world view? How did I ever come to that conclusion? What could my family have done to me (or not done to me) to make me that resigned to my lack of value to this world?

The books tell me I must have been neglected when I was young, but I don't remember feeling neglected. My mom tells me I was breastfed for a year, at which point I had almost completely self-weaned (I still wanted to nurse before bed at night), and then I was weaned the rest of the way. I may be wrong about this (and my mom will definitely let me know if I am), but I get the impression that I did not sleep in a family bed but in a crib. But I definitely have fond memories of snuggling in the family bed as a toddler and small child before going off to my own room. Could I simply have followed in my dad's footsteps, imitated his personality? Maybe he was neglected. Maybe his dad was neglected. . .



The words "enneagram" and "nine" took waaaay less time to become cliche for me than the phrase "people-pleaser", so I'm using them as little as possible these days. Honestly, I've grown tired of focusing so much attention on baring light on all the ways I am not integrated and whole. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've ended up enacting the "law of attraction" and have manifested some more bad habits by reading about what "nines" do. So, since I have no clue what the real secret is (how to succeed without positive thinking), I'm focusing on the positive.

I've found a book by Riso that provides mantras to aid in focusing in on integrating and letting the rest go:

I now affirm...

• that I am confident, strong, and independent.
• that I develop my mind and think things through.
• that I am awake and alert to the world around me.
• that I am proud of myself and my abilities.
• that I am steadfast and dependable in difficult times.
• that I look deeply into myself without fear.
• that I am excited about my future.
• that I am a powerful, healing force in my world.
• that I actively embrace all that life brings.

(text pulled from this site)

Basically, I can transform myself with right action and self-love. And both of those things lead to practical application in the form of developing a personal agenda - what my opinions, beliefs, and passions are, separate from everyone else.

So, step one: separate myself from everyone else (momentarily - after my agenda is set, I want to be able to hold onto that while still communing with others)
Step two: declare my opinions, beliefs, passions. I don't want to get into all of my opinions and beliefs and passions right now, but I'll use one as an example. I am currently very passionate about learning how to stalk, hunt, kill, and dress animals, both as a way to grow in community-sufficiency and as a spiritual practice.
Step three: set up a structure of some kind to either express or make my opinion, belief, or passion a reality. So, for hunting, I need to create a ritual for myself of waking early in the morning and going on a walk first thing with the intention of watching the animals and their behaviors and habits, starting to build a relationship with and deep knowledge of them. At the same time, I need to be reading about the technical aspects of tracking, making a kill, and dressing, or seek out an elder who can share that knowledge with me, as well as the wisdom that comes with being so intimately involved in the life and death of another animal. As I gain more knowledge, I will need to incorporate practice of more skills during those daily morning walks - how to walk, how to read tracks, how to construct, handle, and use whatever kind of weapon I learn will work.

It sounds like a great plan. If you're familiar with threes at all (that's what I integrate towards), you could see that this is looking like something a three would come up with. Unfortunately, there's no way I'm possibly going to get up tomorrow morning at or before dawn to take that walk. And there's absolutely no way that it would happen every day that way. BUT, what I will do is commit to going on that walk every day, just not necessarily at dawn. Some days I'll make it at dawn, and gradually, it will become a routine thing. And that's what I need - life-giving routines.

I do want to say that there are positive things about being *ahem* that number that I already have down. I'm great at listening to people, receiving them exactly as they are, holding them without any judgement, and really feeling what they're feeling along with them. I'm good at that. And I love doing it. That, and in the midst of lighter conversation among a group of people, when one person misunderstands what another has said, I can usually jump in and clarify what was meant more easily and quickly than the original speaker. I also probably have vast powers of intuition that I've got mostly locked up right now. I think, when I unlock them, they could express themselves in the form of telepathy, maybe even psychokinesis. Now that's cause for excitement about my future!

Since moving to New Roots, I've gotten really into the Enneagram. It was something I had heard of in the past but never really looked into. But everyone up here was referencing it, so I figured I better educate myself.

It has turned out to be a very useful tool, broadening both my understanding of myself and of the people around me (more so than any other personality type system has).

In my reading, I recognized myself in the ninth personality type, sometimes called the peacemaker. I am calm and serene; I desire for everyone and everything to be united and without conflict; I am lazy and lack self-direction, allowing myself to be guided by the people around me. I accommodate other people, giving in to their wishes without giving credence to my own needs or desires (I people-please). I invest my identity in other people. I am an introvert to the extent that I shut out outside stimuli so that my inner calm is not disturbed, which leaves me living for the most part in my own fantasy world. I avoid conflict at any cost. These characteristics make me a nine.

I have a one wing, which I used to express a lot more when I was Catholic. Ones are idealistic and driven by a strongly defined morality. Perfectionistic. Judgmental. I've let a lot of that go, I think.

Nines integrate towards the three, which for me means that for me to become more healthy and whole as a person, I would need to develop self-direction, initiative (which I mentioned in my last post), and self-confidence. I'm not there yet, but it helps to have clearly stated what I'm moving towards.

Nines disintegrate towards the six by becoming overwhelmed with anxiety over the fear of being separated. It's this anxiety and fear that drive me to people please, so it is also this anxiety and fear I need to let go of, accepting the possibility that people may not react well to me not giving them what I think they want, but also learning to trust that they will still love the real me (although I'm still in the process of figuring out who that is).

I don't know if this also falls under the three integration, but the other big thing the enneagram has shown me I need to work on is my avoidance of conflict. This is the other big thing I am working on right now - being able to sacrifice my short-term peace of mind in order to involve myself with situations and people where conflict is likely that, in the past, I would have simply avoided.

I've felt pretty stagnant since I stopped going to school (that place that trained me to follow the authority figure's directions), but I'm starting to feel stirred up.

The enneagram has also helped me understand other people better, seeing clearly that everyone is not motivated by the same basic desire that I am. Which sure is a good thing, else the human world would be a very calm, lazy, boring place.

So, here's to self-discovery and integration!

I love watching things grow. I didn't really notice that about myself until this year. I think maybe that's why I ended up growing my hair out so long. I enjoy witnessing slow, gradual change.

Gardening requires two virtues, initiative and patience. I've got patience down pat. Initiative on the other hand . . . Regardless, for a first attempt, my garden is doing relatively well. Many of the seedlings I started indoors either didn't get watered enough and dried up or were eaten by mice; half the seeds I sowed outdoors apparently did not sprout at all, but half did. And a few of the plants I started inside did make it. It's been a learning experience to say the least. I tried square-foot gardening (or my version of it), Grow Biointensive (R) spacing, and some cobbled together wisdom of companion planting. And since it's my first year, I can't really compare all of that to anything else, but it seems to be working!

I have an annual vegetable bed in a community garden (about 15'x5') where I am growing (or have grown) radishes, peas, okra, watermelon, bok choi, arugula, swiss chard, beets, onions, leeks, carrots, basil, tomatoes, sweet peppers, and borage. I also attempted to grow broccoli, artichoke, collards, spinach, and squash but they either didn't even sprout or were nibbled to death by bunnies.

In the backyard, I've got mostly fruit (which I realize is the reverse of permaculture zones - having the annual veggies, which need more attention, farther away. oh well.): blueberry bushes, blackberry, strawberries, grapes, a peach tree, two apple trees (Cox's Orange Pippin and Ashmead's Kernel), and an almond tree. I've also got garlic, cucumbers, and cantaloupe growing in the backyard. The sunflowers I planted either didn't come up or were too tasty for someone to pass up. Oh!, but I spread shitty city compost over the whole garden area in the backyard, and I've got amazing volunteer tomatoes and lamb's quarters as a result!

That initiative thing I mentioned earlier. . . I haven't started any herbs growing yet. I've got the seeds. I just need to go out and plant 'em.

I will. Soon.

So, to update since my last post, I found a place, a community, to move into: New Roots Urban Farm. It's in north city, about a mile north of downtown, and a twenty minute bike ride from my parent's house. It's a CSA, growing all kinds of veggies. Their overall mission is food security - more specifically, providing quality food to a neighborhood who's only "supermarket" is a glorified candy store, and doing so on a sliding scale, meaning everyone pays what they can. That's all fine and good - it's not what I'm interested in doing in the long term (which is a more personal version of food security), but it's fine and good, for now. I fit very well, culturally, there, and that's the most important thing. This past month or so that I've been there has probably been the most socially stimulating month I've ever experienced. It's thrilling and exhausting at the same time. Also, as the farm acquires more land in the future, they'd like me to start up a forest garden!

I'm continuing to homeschool with my brother in some capacity. Right now, we're set up for me to be at my parent's house with the express purpose of learning with my bro two days out of the week, which has turned into a great balance for me because where ever I'm headed next is someplace I want to be.


I'll see what I can do about making posts here more regular and interesting. No promises, though.

I'm lonely, sad, and anxious enough of the time that I'm looking for a change. I'm in the process of looking for an open bed (or -- even better -- an open spot in a bed) in some communal living situation. I love my family and am very grateful to them for everything they've done for me, but I need to get away from the suck of the tv. My original impetus for thinking in this direction was realizing how much I didn't want to spend this summer living in a refrigerator (A/C).

I'll let you know how my quest turns out.

I've continued to buy useful tools. I feel rather shameless about it now, as they are useful, enduring things- many of which, I expect, will come in handy during the magnificently great(er) depression that I feel brewing just around the corner. I'll list some of them for you:

• a (blemished) country living grain mill,
  
• food grade buckets with gamma seal lids,
  
• a nightstar flashlight,
  
• a petzl tikka headlamp,
  
• a hori hori,
  
• a rain barrel,
  
• whetstones,
  
• a global sun oven,
  
• canning jars,
  
• a REI sub kilo long down sleeping bag (and thermarest pad),
  
• a minimalist bivy sack,
  
• a granfors bruks small forest axe,
  
• a 32 oz thermos (for passive cooking),
  
• a compost fork,
  
• a push reel mower (my parents actually bought that for me, since they're the one's that want the grass cut and all)
• encyclopedia of country living (I know, I'm in the city, but did you see the green space around me?!)
• 4 replacement Berkey black filter elements (which supposedly covers my filtration needs until january of '10)

And so the wishlist evolves.

I've also been buying garden materials. I've already listed some tools above, but even more interesting are the living things. I've been scouring books and the internet for good local fruit tree and shrub nurseries and have had little luck. Right now, my best bet looks to be Stark Brothers, which is probably about an hour away by car. The next best selection in the midwest that I've found is in Michigan- Southmeadow. I'd love to find one with a really good selection in or just outside St. Louis city. I'll keep looking. In the mean time, I've gotten a little impatient and have already gotten some fruit bushes and vines from Lowe's. Specifically, a blackberry bush, blueberry bush, red raspberry, black raspberry, green grape, concord grape, and strawberries. So far I've held off on getting any trees from them. I'm also planning to grow some annual veggies and perennial herbs. In fact, I've just joined that community garden that's on the corner of my block, Fox Park Farm, and have a 5 by 16 foot raised bed to plant with whatever I want. I've picked up a lot of free seeds from Gateway Greening. Rotating seedstarting trays in my bedroom windows has now become a daily ritual. I can't wait to plant them out (april 15th is the area's last average frost date, but I don't know if I'll wait that long). Tomatos, sweet peppers, carrots, onions, spinach, broccoli, chard, beets, cabbage,collards, arugula, artichokes, peas, cucumbers, borage, corn, sunflowers, squash, melons . . . I won't have room for it all! Not in that one bed at least.

I've mail-ordered 2 pounds of red wriggler worms to unleash upon the garden and compost piles, as I'm planning to do no-till gardening. And with a combination of square foot gardening, companion interplanting, and mulching, I'm hoping to do no-weedpulling gardening. After studying up what I can find, my companion groupings, or guilds (to use a permaculture term for annual veggies), are

1. tomato, pepper, carrot, basil, onion, borage
2. cabbage, beets, spinach, chard, broccoli, onion (?- I've gotten mixed reports on whether to plant cabbage and alliums together), borage
3. corn, sunflower, squash, melon, peas, cucumber, borage (borage is everything's and everyone's best friend)

I'm still mapping out my perennial herb and fruit garden. Not knowing what trees I'm going to get is partially holding that process up. I want to get two apples, and then an almond tree. And then peaches and plums and pears. And hazels and chestnuts and (black) walnuts. As long as I'm dreaming of a forest, I might as well add some paw paws, tart cherries, apricots, and nectarines. If there's a temperate fruit tree out there, it's on my wish list.

Also, I've recently joined a local food co-op, so now I can order bulk organic food and pick it up a couple blocks away instead of driving out to the county. They also supply local "clean" meat (uncertified but organic-ish, grass-fed) for cheap. I pay cost+15%, and then just work a 4 hour shift each month. It's a pretty sweet deal. My primary impetus to join was to find a cost effective way to buy a 50 pound bag of wheat berries, for grinding flour. I didn't want to do it over the internet because the shipping charges were nearly doubling the price. But now that I'm in, I'm excited about more fully utilizing this resource.


In the fermentation department, I'm experimenting with making ginger beer. I've started a batch of dandelion mead that'll be ready to drink by the end of the summer. And I just got the raw materials today to try to make my first batch of saurkraut (practice running for harvest time later in the year) and to pickle cucumbers. Once I get the hang of it, I'd like to move on to making kim chee. I'm staying away from the soy ferments for now, though. While I'm in love with yeast at this point, and I'm warming up to fungi, the idea of eating mold still freaks me out.


One final bit of random news before I end this nonsense. My computer is over four years old now and is kind of slowly dying. But I'm trying to breath new life into it by stripping down my uses of it (namely, no longer using it as my stationary ipod - putting that music on cds). And I'm playing around with linux puppy. Now, I thought that I needed an external modem to be able to get on the internet, but it turns out that after a bit of setup, my wireless works fine! So this post is being written while running puppy. And it's running veeerry quickly. If running your entire OS on your RAM sounds appealing to you, I suggest you give it a looksee.

After 1 and 3/4 years of not cutting my hair, I gave myself a haircut. I'm doing this haircut in stages. It had gotten past shoulder length in the back, so first thing I did was trim the back to just above the shoulder, and kept it at that point for about a week, warming up to the scissors. Then, this past tuesday, I took the plunge and cut off the majority of the length of my hair on the front and sides . . . leaving a mullet. I kept that amusing look for barely a full day and then proceeded to cut the length off the back as well. I'm pausing for probably another week at this point (somewhere between a bowl cut and a crew cut- except "styled" with body oils. . . if I bathed, it would just lay flat, and I'd probably continue to cut it sooner), after which I plan to give myself a sidewinding mohawk, nabbing the idea from jay brannan (whom I saw sporting it in the "making of" documentary for shortbus). I am happy to no longer have long hair. I just hope I end up with a hairstyle that is as maintenanceless as possible but still is aesthetically pleasing. Anyway, I'm having fun with it for now. If you want, I'll post pictures later.

100 things about me, the sequel

I first did this meme just about a year ago. Some of it is outdated now, but I'd rather preserve that one in its entirety and attempt to start all over. And hopefully I'll cover some new ground. I haven't read over last year's recently, so I'm only going by memory as far as what I've already said (so there will most probably be some overlap). With that said, let's see how this turns out.

1. I love food. Eating (and the activities surrounding it- cooking, baking, shopping, dumpstering, and shortly, growing, hunting, and gathering) is a central focus in my days right now (and, I imagine, for the rest of my life).
2. I was a picky eater throughout my childhood. That abruptly changed when I became vegetarian, nearly three years ago. But really, that was just a different form of pickiness. And now, as an omnivore, I'm still picky. It's just now I don't like to eat things like hydrogenated oils or refined sugars whereas during my childhood it was veggies and anything unfamiliar.
3. I'm planting the beginnings of a permacultural garden in my backyard this spring. And I will be exploring the urban landscape to see what wild edibles I can gather - dandelions, lamb's quarters, acorns in the fall - and what animals I can stalk - pigeons, rabbits, opossums.
4. This focus on food is part of a larger focus on moving ever more deeply into my body, into the physical world, and out of my head and intellect. As I continually shed those mental chains that tie me down in this civilized society, I am also acting to free my body from the cultural chains of malnutrition, sedentariness, and the corresponding lack of physical, emotional, and mental health inherent in such a society.
5. While my family still pays for health insurance for me, I consider the investment in high quality, nutrient-dense, whole foods as my primary health insurance.
6. To use Sandor Elix Katz's phrase, I am quickly becoming a fermentation fetishist. While, as yet, I have only fermented wheat flour and various juices (with delicious results almost every time), I expect to explore the wonders of vegetable and dairy ferments soon. I'm still trying to develop a taste for pickles in the mean time, but then again, I've probably never even seen a fermented pickle! It's most probably just that I don't like such a strong vinegar flavor (however, homemade raw apple cider vinegar is quite refreshing as a tonic, I've found).
7. I'll admit that this focus on my own personal health has been a relatively individualistic affair. As I withdrew myself from the obligations of a religion, of school, and of our culture in general, part of what I retracted was my sense of duty to be of service to others, to humanity in general.
8. Now, as I am rebuilding my sense of belonging - to a community of people and to a place - my desire to help other people is again slowly expanding. But this is on a much more limited scope - I desire to be of service to my family, to my friends, and to the land I live on. I imagine my past sweeping aspirations to be of service to all of humanity are gone for good, along with my former liberalism.
9. As I've already hinted at, my second main, and growing, focus has been on building community. It's taken a while to fully reintegrate myself in my family after returning from my 9 month long excursion into dorm "life" (a pivotal period of growth for me that probably wouldn't have been possible without the physical separation from my parents, for which I am grateful). But I again feel very much at home here, which has in turn provided me the security to go out and build deeper connections with people, the potential beginnings of a tribe - just a twinkle in my eye at this point.
10. I have a lot of intellectual motivation towards jumpstarting this permaculture experiment in my family's backyard because it brings my two biggest priorities together - 1) providing food, 2) for not only myself, but for my family and friends as well. Also, 2b) this project combines my more personal anthropic interests with my desire to rebuild and nourish the wider ecological community that I am a part of. I expect the emotional motivation to kick in as spring grows closer. And, of course, this is all a nod in acknowledgment to times to come when I expect supermarket shelves to be much less burdened.
11. I retook the Jung/Myers-Briggs personality type test, and I'm still right there between ISFP and INFP.
12. Just from reading the descriptions of the types (or all the introvert ones anyway), I think I was more TJ when I was in school.
13. I also retook the Political Compass test, but I found that when I took it the first time, when I didn't have an answer to a proposition readily available in my mind, I fell back on my former liberal paradigm to answer them more quickly. So I decided to retake the test several times, playing with how I answered the propositions until I felt that I was answering all of them as true as possible to my current view of the world. It was rather hard, as some propositions just simply don't fit in at all (such as the proposition, "Controlling inflation is more important than controlling unemployment" - since I would like to see both money and work abolished). With that said, my final score this time around was economic: -.88, libertarian/authoritarian: -7.54.
14. I'm perplexed as to how I have a more moderate score on the latter "axis" this year as opposed to last year, when I scored a -8.41 (yes, I did go back to check on that). I don't know what I could be answering more moderately in that regard. Oh well.
15. On the Kinsey scale, I am about a 1.5. (that quiz I just linked to there is actually for the Klein scale, which is shifted one number up, meaning when I took it, I scored 2.5 overall. I don't know what Klein was thinking, making it so confusing.)
16. That said, the Kinsey scale is based on binary gender (only addressing the problem of the binary view of sexuality), and so that 1.5 does not take into account the possibility of sexual attraction to someone who is trans, intersex, and/or genderqueer.
17. I, myself, identify as genderqueer. So whereas in the past, I would have said that I was bi-curious, I would now use the term pansexual or omnisexual. Or simply sexual.
18. These are probably a lot of new terms for some people, but I've got yet another one for you while we're at it. I am also polyamorous. I have yet to actually be with more than one partner at the same time, but I am open to the possibility.
19. Actually, even with the one person I considered a partner in my history, it has always primarily been a friendship in my eyes. I prefer not to stratify different relationships into distinct levels of intimacy (with labels like partner). As with everything, it is a continuum, and polyamory is simply there as an explanation of why I would not artificially limit or cut off love where it is blooming simply because I'm already loving another person at a similar level of intimacy. Jealousy is for insecure people.
20. I haven't talked about this stuff here yet because abnormal sexual behaviors and preferences are rather taboo in the culture of my extended (Roman Catholic) family, and many people within my extended family read this blog. It still takes me a while, on occasion, to work up the courage to ruffle feathers and rock boats.
21. Also because of my Roman Catholic upbringing, I did not masturbate until I was a senior in high school (shortly after the time that I stopped considering myself Roman Catholic). I was socialized as a child to view sex and pleasure as negative and shameful. I grieve that that form of play was entirely absent from the whole of my childhood.
22. I am strongly resentful towards the industrial education I was subjected to and eventually subjected myself to which taught me to fear breaking from what is normal or expected of me. I have been so for some time now and am still figuring out how to move towards resolving some of the damage done. I consider this right here, this baring of my soul indiscriminately to family and strangers alike, as therapy towards that very end. It's the conversations that occur in real life as a result of this blog that actually do the healing. Every time I say something here that I fear my family will reject me over, and they keep on loving and accepting me for who I am, I heal a little more.
23. I've been in a relaxed, mostly pleasant, state of anomie since I left school (about 9 months now).
24. But I've recently begun to get more focused, developing my self-discipline, becoming more proactive. It feels good to not have someone telling me what to do, but also to start to have a clue as to what I want to do.
25. I'm a pretty spiritually focused person, but it has taken a long while to untie myself from all the bindings with which the religion of my childhood held me down. I miss the sense of community and the meaning of shared rituals, but when I've revisited such community and rituals (as an observer, a tag-along), it felt stale and almost tacky. Part of my renewed focus has been directed towards recreating rituals for myself and rebuilding community with whom to share them.
26. I am not a theist, at least not in the personal, big guy with a white beard, sky-father sense. I revere life and have faith in the universe that it will provide for me until it is time for "me" to compost and metamorph into hundreds of new living beings, just as so many formerly living beings live on through me (see #1).
27. I sense no inherent meaning or purpose in this life, in this universe, other than to play.
28. I don't use shampoo or soap ever when I bathe, and I bathe about every 10 days. Occasionally I use baking soda and/or apple cider vinegar on my hair.
29. I don't use deodorant. I hate the smell of deodorants and perfumes. Pheromones are a huge turn on for me.
30. . . . as is body hair. I don't shave, I trim. And the only thing I trim is what has come in so far of my beard (mostly a goatee at this point). My hair is blonde, but my beard has a sweet reddish twinge to it.
31. I still haven't cut my hair (it's been over a year and a half now), so it's getting a little longer than shoulder length in the back. I imagine I'll start cutting it again sometime this spring or summer, in stages, playing with it along the way. Or I might wait until I have more of a beard.
32. I am tall and very skinny. I have little hope of gaining weight, since both my dad and grandpa were lean until they became more sedentary, and I don't foresee becoming sedentary, even just considering all the biking to come.
33. Before I broke my left thumb in kindergarten, I was ambidextrous. Ever since, I've been right dominant. I want to recultivate my ambidexterity.
34. I have a small third nipple below my right one. As a kid, my mom told me/thought it was a birth mark, but it is the same color as my other nipples, and it has an indentation in the center, indicating an opening to a milk duct in my opinion.
35. I've heard of instances of male lactation. That possibility is exciting to me.
36. I wish I still had my foreskin. I feel overexposed and am definitely desensitized without it.
37. I only wear clothing for warmth and to not make other people uncomfortable. I do not have any body shame. I've been naked in regular social situations (i.e. with or in front of lots of people, and not just in the locker room) and have been completely comfortable.
38. I wear the same items of clothing day after day, only switching out individual articles when they actually become dirty.
39. I enjoy being very extroverted with my physical appearance- funny hats, dorky outfits, skirts, stick on tattoos .
40. It's counterintuitive, since I'm introverted in so many other ways, and this practice of wearing unusual clothing (or nothing at all in some cases) obviously draws attention to myself. But it kind of makes sense if I view it as a kind of prop I carry around to have something to talk about. Like readymade small talk.
41. I'm thinking about getting a real tattoo soon.
42. I am usually barefoot during the warmer half of the year. I'm still working on thickening up my soles. The other half of the year, my feet get too cold, even inside.
43. I've been told I am a good dancer. It takes a while for me to warm up on the dance floor though.
44. I like the taste of alcohol but not being drunk.
45. I do not drink coffee. I avoid most forms of caffeine most of the time. I don't like feeling jittery.
46. I have never smoked anything, and I have little desire to do so.
47. There's a fine line for me between outlets I use to numb and distract myself with and outlets I use to learn, expand, and be inspired. I refer mostly to the internet and movies.
48. I avoid televisions. The high pitched whistle they produce in the background (which you can really hear when the thing is first turned on) drives me crazy.
49. My favorite movie at the moment is shortbus.
50. I dropped out of college after freshman year because it was boring and expensive.
51. I view college as a kind of professional dominatrix that people go to because they are either habituated into submitting or they actually enjoy it. I wasn't enjoying the intellectual BDSM, and I certainly didn't want to pay for it, so I broke the habit.
52. However, I am not in debt as a result of that year, thankfully. And that is entirely due to the generosity of my family, both extended and immediate. Without their help, I would have almost no chance of making my way out of this prison.
53. My brother and I are unschooling each other. We read, we play, we construct things, we deconstruct things. We're exploring. And we're healing. Yes, there's lots of time for healing.
54. I am most awake towards the end of my day, and I get the most accomplished when other people are either not around or are asleep, so I usually consider myself a night person.
55. But I love sunlight! And early mornings are always so awesome when I see them (i.e. when I stay up all night). I'm attempting to wake up earlier these days, before my mom and brother get up, so that it's light out and people are still asleep. I've been enjoying that time, but it doesn't last long enough for me to be awake enough to accomplish anything. I'll keep experimenting, waking up earlier. The most important realization I had when I first started doing this is that I don't have to set a bedtime, only a wake up time, and then go to bed when I'm tired.
56. None of my physical senses are particularly acute or supernormal, but they aren't lacking either. I'd love to focus some attention on increasing how much I can perceive with them.
57. My intuition, what I would call a sixth sense, is off and on, but I expect I would notice it being much more accurate if I consciously put more faith in it.
58. I love being around nonhuman animals, but the idea of having pets seems silly to me. Pets either serve as surrogates to receive the excess affection and grooming energy that would, in a healthy culture, go into strengthening social ties with other humans, or they serve simply as commiserators in our cages of domestication. Or both.
59. That said, my family has two dogs, whom I love almost as much as the rest of my family.
60. I hate clocks, especially ticking ones. I never wear a watch. If I have to look at a clock, I find analog secondhandless clocks to be least offensive.
61. I also do not like mirrors at all. They usually serve only to spur on either one's narcissism or self-hatred, usually alternating back and forth between the two. I think the faces of my friends and family serve as reflection enough.
62. I really like other kinds of tools, though, like bicycles and the internet. And language and fire.
63. I've recently gotten really into yoga, and I've been going to classes. I hope to get to a point where I practice daily on my own.
64. I've been journaling more regularly in a paper journal, but I don't go very deep yet.
65. I started knitting a scarf last winter. At this point, it's still little longer than a foot long. It's my first knitting project.
66. Sometimes, when I'm in a good mood, I spontaneously sing songs or hum tunes or just make sounds.
67. I also relish in groaning while in pain or moaning while in pleasure.
68. When walking, I'll also spontaneously do a little dance or jig along the way sometimes.
69. There's a subtle change I've noticed within myself as I've grown older, which I don't like, that I tend to eliminate certain actions I've judged to be not energy efficient enough. Mostly, I think this has developed as a survival mechanism to have enough energy to put into schooling, and it's overall effect has been a reduction in my creative, spontaneous energy. Perhaps I can recultivate this lost energy by purposefully doing more spontaneous, seemingly frivolous (to my current, wounded paradigm) things, like playing outside in the dirt, or going on long walks with no intended destination (ooh, barefoot, too!). I think this could work!
70. I enjoy musical artists who use regular instruments in very unusual ways (like Sigur Ros) and others who use very irregular instruments in their usual ways (like Neutral Milk Hotel).
71. I squat when I poop.
72. I usually only know about current events (i.e. events going on at a level beyond my monkeysphere) through word of mouth or whatever filters through to the tiny portion of the blogosphere that I read.
73. My favorite general category of foods to eat, based on taste and how it makes me feel, is fats, especially saturated fats. Bacon, coconuts, butter, mmmm. I'm shameless about this fact.
74. I have no handle on the specifics of what I'll be doing two years from now, and while that fact leaves me feeling a little unsettled, I also find it very exciting.
75. I either want to die in a very exciting and dramatic fashion or in my home, conscious, surrounded by the people I love. I don't want to be a vegetable. I don't want to be a machine. I don't want to have a cabinet full of little orange bottles to keep my body from falling apart.
76. When I do die, I either want to be buried in a simple wooden box, or even better, just straight in the ground, by or underneath a garden, tree, or compost pile. And no dressing me up in a suit. I'd rather be naked, to be honest, but anything would be better than a suit. Make-up and formaldehyde are out of the question.
77. Death and destruction don't bother me nearly as much as they used to (like, say, when I was a pacifist vegetarian). I understand death and destruction to be integral to life and creation. Upon a little contemplation, I can easily reach a place of acceptance and courage about "my" inevitable end.
78. I like watching the compost pile shrink.
79. And, to quote Maude, I like watching things grow.
80. I've already grown a lot as a person, but I can't wait to see how much I change in the future.
81. When I was really young, I remember a friend and me eating ants. Even then, I had tendencies towards hunting and gathering.
82. I remember when I was about 8 or 9, a friend and I were play fighting with little swiss army knives. I got a cut on my hand. I think that might be the most dangerous, risky, "no-no" thing I did as a kid. Well, as a conscientious kid. My mom says that when I was an exploring toddler, I was climbing on an open window and might have fallen out if she hadn't sensed that I was in danger from a different room and came running. Anyway, the point was that other than these things, I had a very safe, bland childhood.
83. When I got legos, I would construct the models, roleplay a little bit with the characters, and then just put them on a shelf to look at and collect dust.
84. I got good at the school game sometime during first grade. That's when I first learned to feign enthusiasm. By third grade, I forgot I was feigning it.
85. I got good at the religion game around seventh grade. My service project before confirmation was probably where I first got addicted to the praise I received for doing such "service" activities. Anything to get in good with the masters.
86. I never cussed in grade school. One time, probably in eighth grade, I accidentally said "shit" instead of "spit", and I was so appalled that that slipped out of my mouth that I developed a sore throat. No joke. Another time, when I was alone in my bedroom, I whispered the word "fuck" to myself in the mirror to see what would happen. Nothing happened, but I was still a little scared. Another time, sometime after I learned that there was one unforgivable sin, I ended up accidentally thinking the thought of what I considered to be blaspheming the holy spirit, and I neurotically couldn't stop thinking that terrifying thought over and over again. Terrifying because I thought that it might mean that I was going to hell.
87. I don't let words have any undue power over me anymore. Fuck that shit.
88. At the point, or shortly after the point that I was at the peak of my religious purity kick, I actually felt like I had reached a peak in my spiritual journey, that there wasn't anything new to do or discover. I felt like I was sentenced to repeat the same exact experiences, cycles, and rituals for the rest of my life. Naturally, I found this prospect rather boring, and so began my descent from the formerly sisyphean hill of religion and the pursuit of purity.
89. I can't tell if I'm still descending or if I've started up another hill, or if this metaphor no longer holds any meaning or relevance to my life as I now live it. All I know is that I relish in being dirty, impure, fuzzy around the edges, contradictory, undefined, obscure, unlimited . . .
90. To quote the eight rather you didn'ts of the flying spaghetti monster, purity is for drinking water, not people.
91. Lately, I've become rather attached to thinking of St. Louis as my home. Apparently, if you touch the arch, you're doomed to stay here or come back here, so I've heard.
92. I have very little desire at the moment to live in the wilderness (and no desire to live in it alone). Instead I want to bring the wilderness back into this city, beginning with my heart. And then my yard. Then the neighborhood. Guerrilla gardening ninjas, woo!
93. Shortly after I started descending from the religion peak, I questioned whether I was already at the peak of my radicalism (although I didn't think about it in these terms, nor did I connect the two trains of thought). I thought to myself, what part of my life have I not radically changed my ideas about?
94. I saw the beginning of that transformation as my switch to a veg diet. Then I got more liberal and pro-rights.
95. Then, mid senior year, almost at the same time, both my politics and how I viewed my body had a major shift, into anarchism and nudism, respectively.
96. By the end of senior year, I dropped the RC church and unhealthy celibacy in favor of finally allowing myself to have a girlfriend.
97. Over that summer, I became anti-work, and at the beginning of college, anti-school and anti-civ.
98. By november of that year, I was no longer a theist. I've dropped the -isms as much as possible, and now I'm moving towards a focus on being pro- things.
99. And to complete the circle, I'm eating meat again, but with so much more consciousness and deliberateness about it.
100. I leave the question that spawned all this open, because without ideology, there's no possible end goal! Only the continued exploration and expansion of play and love.

Almost everything I was given for christmas was either cooking-related or money. A cast-iron skillet was the most notable and useful thing received, as it is something I use everyday, throughout the day, in the preparation of most of my meals. I've been investing the money in a veritable plethora (as my high school latin teacher would say) of other useful items -

• The Berkey Light water filter, as recommended by deconsumption. It doesn't filter out fluoride, but it filters out just about everything else to below detectable levels, so I intend to use it primarily in conjunction with caught rainwater as much as possible.
• Montrail Torre GTX hiking boots, on sale and fitted at REI (size 14, btw).
• a Corona corn mill, for unspecified but potentially wide-ranging grinding purposes (perhaps even to grind corn! I bought seed for blue corn recently, which I plan to grow this year)

This past fall, I also picked up a Leatherman "wave" multi-tool and a two person, 3 season tent, made by Eureka.

My bike (an old Univega 10-speed, with 27" wheels) is in the shop right now, getting repairs done that I couldn't do with the tools I have available to me. I'll be glad to finally retrieve that later on today. Besides that, I intend to upgrade to more puncture-resistant tires and set myself up with front and back panniers, looking ahead to future road trips.

And if you haven't looked through that wiki of mine, you wouldn't know that I have a wishlist of material desires left unfulfilled. But I'm intending to go ahead and buy a sleeping bag (and all its accompaniment) sooner rather than later.


It feels rather strange to be spending so much money on things. I've been buying books (ones I can't find at the library) a lot too, but I can pass that off as being a fraction of the cost of what I would be paying for books if I were in college still. It feels strange because of my aversion to commercialism. But this isn't commercialism. This is materialism. I love the bike I use. When I saw that I had received that cast iron skillet, I think I yelped with glee. I have attachments to material objects, not to brands, and not to the shopping/spending itself. I'm looking around me and asking myself what would be good to gather around me to enable me to live more deliberately. To live with more freedom. It may feel strange to be spending so much money, especially as a freeter, but it certainly makes a lot more sense than holding onto abstract numbers on a server somewhere. Those numbers are simply potential useful things, but that potential could disappear so easily. When the dollar collapses, I hope I won't still be dependent on that potential.

Technology is certainly not neutral (scroll to lie #4), but there are some tools I really love.

I've been in a funk lately. Part of it is winter. Part, I'm sure, is that I've been eating more crappy food than usual lately. Another big part is that there is a lot of opportunities this time of year to reconnect with friends, and I've been missing a lot of those connections. Also, as a side note, I immediately fell back into my laptop addiction, ironically, beginning with my post about becoming free of it.

So I'm getting back out into the real world again. I took a jog/walk late last night exploring streets I've never been on in my neighborhood, which was really good. I'll be doing more of that.

I kind of feel fragile. And listless. Like I don't have the capacity to get deeply engrossed in anything right now. I'm going to play with centering myself, engaging myself completely in whatever feels most appealing in each moment.


I came up with a metaphor, which I think is an original thought (a rare event, as far as I am aware), earlier today to explain my lack of motivation right now. I am a boat. And throughout my childhood, I had a motor strapped on my back, pushing me forward at a very fast pace (heading where?), and that motor, for the most part, was being guided by someone else. Now I've unstrapped myself from that motor and lofted some sails. Now I am at the helm and am learning how to discern my own course. So there's a learning curve there. And I think I'm in some doldrums right now. I have a lot of intent, but little wind in my sails. It may take several weeks or a month or more, but I'll wander into some trade winds eventually.