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.