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March 30, 2019
March 30, 2019 059 Beacon, NY
March 30, 2019 044 Beacon, NY - Panorama
March 30, 2019 007 Beacon, NY - Panorama
9:13 AM - Bigmouth Coffee Roasters
Weight: 222.4 lbs
Made a simple but delicious dinner last night. Parmesan crusted chicken, collard greens, macaroni and cheese... this morning I walked the Freedom Trail, Stonykill farms, I noticed it driving around the day before, forest bathing, a lot of trees uprooted by the wind, it will be difficult going when everything leafs out later... I am sitting here hoping something clever will come to mind to write, nothing but this stream of consciousness, keep writing, something meaningful will come from it... baby vocalizing, I am annoyed, nonsensical noises at high volume, there are a lot of people here, everyone seems to know someone and is chatting with them, white noise cacophony above which rises the singularly noticeable vocal stylings of the baby, why should baby noise be so dominant, because we are programmed to hear it, and baby is programmed to make noise we won't ignore, tens of thousands of years of evolutionary programming... a facebook post about Christian preachers claiming they need private jets and first class accommodations because they can't hear god in coach, I am dumbfounded, one claimed god told him to buy a private jet, one complained riding in coach was like getting in a long tube with a bunch of demons... woman with round face, short dark hair, white complexion, blue jean jacket, black and white vertical stripped skirt swirling around her ankles, this is what catches my attention... back to snake oil salesmen, being a good person has nothing to do with being a religious person, the two may coincide, but the later does not create the former, the entire world is sacred or it's not, a good person believes it is...
March 29, 2019
March 29, 2019 016 Beacon, NY
March 29, 2019 012 Beacon, NY
8:36 AM Ella’s Bellas
Weight: 221.2 lbs
Weight: 221.2 lbs
Almost back to where I was two, or was it three, weeks ago. The weekend challenge will be to drink moderately. Two glasses of wine with dinner tops... Because rain was possible, a photo drive instead of a photo walk. It seemed to go better than the drives often do… As I was heading to EB’s, S walking down the road. I stopped and asked if she wanted a ride. Yes, she says. She is going to Ella’s Bellas. So am I. We spent time talking before she went on her way. Her step father is dying. She has mixed emotions. I am glad I ran into her... I am happy today. I stayed up to watch Virginia play Oregon. Virginia won. I no longer seem to curse them when I watch… I am feeling good about “the work.” This project, what I will have to show at open studios. It is adding up to something... I ordered a sample pack of handmade Japanese papers, treated for inkjet printing. I believe one of the papers will be good for the booklets I want to make. I am imagining using traditional Japanese book forms and bindings. I feel like it suits the spiritual side of my work... A small boy across the way nibbles at a huge cookie and watches me. I look away... Snow in the forecast for next week. Tuesday/Wednesday. I wonder if it will be cold on Friday, my birthday... S told me about watching Fox News growing up. It wasn’t like it is now. Her Stepfather moved from moderate conservative to something further right, fed on a steady diet of increasingly virulent conservative thinking. The work of Roger Ales. How easy it is for vile people to have profound effects.
March 28, 2019
March 28, 2019 040 Beacon, NY
March 28, 2019 029 Beacon, NY
7:53 AM - Bigmouth Coffee Roasters
Weight: 221.6 lbs
Weight: 221.6 lbs
I expected my weight to be down. Lots of peeing yesterday. I purge periodically. I don’t know why. Hoping the 220 lb line is in sight... The barista asks if its my usual. No, I say, Sencha tea this morning. Game changer! she says. I tell her coffee has been getting to me. She tells me about her hypertension issues, that it runs in her family, that she is drinking half caf half decaf, that she is running at half speed and half awareness... bang, bang, I shot her down song lyrics catch my attention. I comment on the misogyny of it. The barista tells me Nancy Sinatra does her favorite version of it. A male customer tells us there is a girl band that did a song about the trope of shooting women dead in songs. There are a lot of them it seems... More thoughts about capitalism and what might replace it. I am frustrated thinking about it. I realize it’s because there is nothing I can do to change the system. It is the system we have. The question is how to engage with it and be happy. I can’t save the country or the planet. Reacting locally is my only option. Reacting to promote my happiness and the happiness of those around me. Keep it local and actionable.
March 27, 2019
March 27, 2019 015 Beacon, NY
March 27, 2019 045 Beacon, NY
March 27, 2019 079 Beacon, NY
8:35 AM - Ella’s Bellas
Weight: 223.4 lbs
Weight: 223.4 lbs
Cold, bright, March. March is an unfortunate month. Not yet spring. Not still winter. Something between. Dreary or cold or dreary and cold. Warm weather can’t come soon enough, but it’s still a ways off. Yes, the flowers raise their noses above ground, but most of them haven’t bloomed. Some snow drops, some crocuses… The barista asked me where I was when she opened. She said you always come at opening! I told her I like to mix it up once in a while. The truth is I got out the door a little late and I lingered on this morning’s walk. I tried to sink into the reverie of it. I tried to see, really see… A woman is sitting across from me furiously hunt and peck typing on her computer. I am grateful that I can touch type… A text from H. I want to kill myself, ACK! From this I surmise that her day will be busy and annoying which is what I text to her. Both! she says… slightly annoying music on the sound system. Frenetic, just short of yelling. At least the volume isn’t turned up as it sometimes is… I lectured H about unplugging from the news this morning, not having it on all the time, focusing on things that are close at hand that give her joy or can be improved. She tells me, as she has before, it’s just background noise. I tell her she should find some healthier background noise… A call from the vet. I don’t answer it because I know what it is. Augie’s ashes have come back. We are trying to figure out what to do with all the ashes of our animal children. Three dogs now, and a cat. We don’t want to disperse them on property we may not have access to one day… I am drinking the Kyoto Sencha tea for the second day in a row.
March 26, 2019
March 26, 2019 038 Beacon, NY
March 26, 2019 019 Beacon, NY
8:20 AM - Bigmouth Coffee Roasters
Weight: 223.0 lbs
Weight: 223.0 lbs
H is depressed. Augie and the Muller report. I suspect the last is the bigger depression. I am disappointed too. I keep reminding myself that Washington is not about good or bad, right or wrong, truth and falsehood. It is about power and who gets to wield it. For now, the angry white men are prevailing. A day will come when they won’t… H rages against the Trump family willingness to skirt the boundaries of lawfulness. They are despicable for that she thinks. In truth, they have and continue to play the game well. Grudging respect even if I deplore everything they stand for. I am hoping that women and minorities will rise up and claim the upper hand…The barista is discussing her high blood pressure with an older gentleman patron who is here every morning. It doesn’t sound to me like she is taking the BP issue seriously enough… I suggested to H that we have breakfast at BBC this morning. I think it would cheer her up to get out and see some people… I think about what a rational and constructive response to the current disturbing national situation might be. I remind myself that we still, for the time being, live in a stable society and that taking care of things at home might be the best kind of response. I resolve to put my energy into tending H, my photography, my writing, my house, my garden, my self.
March 25, 2019
March 25, 2019 011 Beacon, NY
March 25, 2019 014 Beacon, NY
8:09 AM - Ella’s Bellas
Weight 224.0 lbs
Weight 224.0 lbs
I have the sense from the Lojong slogans that one tries to rid themselves of pain and suffering. But perhaps this is not the case. Perhaps we are only trying to be present to the pain and suffering. We want to avoid increasing it by just being present to it. But then, don’t we want to increase Joy? Or do we want to avoid exaggerating it by merely being present to it as well?...the news from the Muller report has been disappointing. There seemed to be so many smoking guns. At this point there is no case for impeachment. We will have to get rid of him by voting him out of office...Schoolmarm-librarian-woman is up front ordering her beverage. I see her almost every day now. Is she stalking me? The barista brings her beverage to her. From this I learn she is not a coffee drinker. Tea I suspect... I am drinking Kyoto Sencha green tea. From this I remember that I intend to enter the Hariban competition this year. First prize is a trip to Kyoto Japan for two weeks to work with calotype printing masters. I missed the deadline last year. I will submit well before it this year... It is dull, gray, chilly March outside. I made some pictures on my walk, but not many. I was not feeling inspired... Our next door neighbor came to dinner last night. I made Beef Wellington. It wasn’t perfect but it tasted pretty good. We learned some things about J. This happens when people come to dinner...a young man and woman bend low to inspect the baked goods in the display cabinet. They are asking lots of questions... R, my sudo mentor, is dying of cancer... I like the Kyoto Sencha tea. I am wondering if I should switch to tea. H will only drink coffee in the morning and I am the early riser and therefor coffee maker in the morning. I have tried to switch before, but then the morning coffee making routine makes no sense... A walks in. I think about the time we listened to her vocalize her orgasm in an apartment above us. This fueled my erotic fantasy life for quite a while.
March 24, 2019
March 24, 2019 008 Beacon, NY
March 24, 2019 021 Beacon, NY
March 24, 2019 089 Beacon, NY
8:24 AM - Bigmouth Coffee Roasters
Weight 222.6 lbs
Weight 222.6 lbs
We cleaned up the garden yesterday. 21 lawn and leaf bags filled and dragged to the curb for pickup...I will be making a Beef Wellington today. I have never done that before. I wanted the challenge...H was up early this morning. Before I left. She has been doing that a lot lately...No word on what’s in the Muller report yet. There is a lot of spinning going on...This week’s Lojong Slogan: Rest in the nature of Alaya, the essence - There is a resting place, a starting place that you can always bring your mind back home and rest right here, right now, in present, unbiased awareness. - this seems a kind of nihilism. The mind is an active agent. It lives in the past, present and future. Two of its salient features are memory and future projection. Without memory and projection, there is no mind. Being present is a state of no mind...climate change, is it hopeless? We need a radically different economy to stop the freight train. It doesn’t seem possible to bring that about quickly enough...H posts a WAPO article suggesting Trump is fomenting violence, overthrow of the people’s government. We need to get rid of DT...In the universal scheme of things, none of this is important or anything other than as it should be...a man and a woman making out a few tables over. I am reminded of the older man I saw driving a pickup truck earlier during my walk. A large dog was seated next to him. He had his arm around the dog as if it were his girlfriend.