next adventure chioces

1) restart the Appalachian Trail
2) start the Continental Divide Trail
3) start a working farm on my parents land in Kentucky


I'd love to continue slacking. It has been great. I feel like so many of you folks out there that haven't picked up the hoe. Fuckers.

On the other hand, living on the farm would mean being pretty secluded socially from the types of people I click with on a regular basis.

On the third hand, rejoining any hiking trial will put me closer to debt, though fulfilling the need to be closer to nature, and possibly meeting people in the same situation.

What the hell am I doing? Giving up the sailing vessel in any case, but still can't work out the next step. Are these changes so hard for others?

Think in words?

I just realized I have started not thinking in words very much. Over this last year of roaming around I spend a lot of time alone in my head. The folks I meet and talk to don't usually get into very deep conversations.

Talking to someone tonight about some deeper concepts I realized I was not able to bring ideas out into words very easy at all. Normally when I have a conversation, I hear thoughts in my head as I process ideas into speech or text or process other peoples words into thoughts. I hear words when I read. When thinking of something to say, I hear words in my head before they leave my mouth.

I used to think in the same way even when not communicating with other people. Thinking of my to-do list, I'd hear words. In the grocery I'd be hearing things like, "what's next... anything in this aisle? Nope, got mustard."

Tonight we were having a deeper conversation and I realized I wasn't thinking in words, and couldn't put my ideas into words. I spent a lot of time thinking, but just kind of spinning my wheels. I don't recall experiencing this before taking this year to do some self analysis. I think all this thinking about my life with out trying to communicate it to people has changed the way my brain is working.

Very strange.

Will the circle be unbroken?

Will the circle be unbroken? Not if I can help it. Of all the circles that I haven't been able to break, there hasn't been a single, smug circle that I couldn't bend into a ridiculous oval. Some folks take up needle point, but I derive much slack from ending the constraint of smarmy circles.

On pretend brick-covered-with-plaster walls

Oh thank Bob for the wall treatment. Nothing makes me feel more like I could have been in a trendy place than sheet rock covered with plaster with fake bricks painted on the plaster in a pattern indicating that the plaster has been chipped away revealing fake bricks. Brick walls are cozy. Plaster walls are upper crust. Brick walls covered with plaster say, "I value expensive things more than coziness." Chipping through plaster to reveal bricks in some spots says, "I like knocking holes in the wall, and am just slobby enough not to worry about ever repairing them." Making a wall treatment with painted on bricks and plaster says, "I enjoy having a good time. Or at least can fake it."

Ear shredder with axe to grind

Well, it isn't pretty. I finally broke down and recorded some little ditties. I outgrew the contentment I feel when bombarding my marina with butchered, blazing banjo tunes. I must now spread this evil sound across the world. Prepare to rock out to the banjo equivalent of blindfolded finger painting. I mean, if that drummer from Def Leppard played banjo, this stuff would have more sound than that!

Not a starfish

Worries about my appropriateness for the gene pool sparked experimental experiments into reproductivity.

I am clearly not going to do this via the old starfish fragmentation route. The appendage I have cut off is just lying there in its own pool of blood, not growing. That may be ok, though as it doesn't really improve the overall genetic diversity. After I get painkillers and a mop, I'll look into spores.

Mutant?

Darwin may be pushing me out. I've just realized that I'm not reproducing and that may mean that I'm just not good fodder for the evolutionary machine.