Archive | Advice

2016 is definitely the most unproductive year this blog has ever seen.   What started in a fit of seasonal affective disorder, mutated into I am ‘saving’ my creativity for other things, yeah right.   And since I have taken up dieting again, yes again, this-time-i-really-mean-it sort of dieting, that mandates a lot of hiking and cycling, more ways to avoid sitting in front of this machine.

One of the major goals when I moved was to put more emphasis on working for myself, getting aggressive about the passive income.  But that hasn’t happened, once I settled in I became so relaxed that my ambition went into remission.   Well THAT shits gotta stop.  Over the last two years my ‘business’ has dwindled down to a laughable level, and my editing clients have dried up.  I am now addicted to living off a very tiny paycheck  from the ‘extra’ job and if that went away I’d be royally fooked.

I have a shitload of unfinished projects around the place, and a good number of those are books that I need to finish writing and get published. The biggest scariest one of those is the probably the one I need to finish the most.  I am poking and prodding it to see if it will get up off the mat and help me, but it was laying there like a dead thing.  As a jumpstart, I launched the website which was always part of the project, every book needs a website right?

LifeOnYourOwn (which was not my 1st, 2nd or 15th choice for a title, but was an available.com so don’t bitch) in its infancy right now, is just roughed out website, with few posts.    Instead of having internal arguments about the structure and exact content of the book, I am not having internal arguments about the structure of the bloody website; another good way to avoid finishing the book.

The current goal is to put out a post every Sunday, alternating a food/cooking post with a nonfood cooking post. And hopefully picking topics that will lure folks to continue reading. I am hoping to get SOME feedback and interaction from readers. Fingers crossed

This week I was able to write it ahead of time and schedule it, avoiding the whole last minute thing that I excel at.   Planning and assembling blog posts may be nothing like writing a book, but it may be helping me think about the book in a different way.  In stead of writing large scale, I am trying to narrow down the important interesting bits.   But in then end I am just writing about whatever I am involved in at the moment.

Aside from that book, I have two other original masterpieces which are basically sitting around half finished.  These books are like half finished play dough creatures that hang around nagging at my heels like something out of a William Burroughs day dream.   Most of the time I want to smash them with a hammer into tiny bits and pretend they never were, other times i want to just scream them into existence so they get out of the house and start earning a living.

Okay this is just a small rabbit hole I went down last week, another in a line of inexplicable behavior patterns. I was reading a book by a thru-hiker and she was waxing poetic about a particular Bob Marley t-shirt she was given. Thru hikers carry very little clothing on their treks, so the three shirts you are carrying take on some importance. So I stood back and examined what t-shirts with ‘stuff’ on them, concert shirts, advertising, souvenir, gift, or experience shirts MEAN in modern American society.

Over the decades I have HAD a few t-shirts with ‘stuff’ on them that I was very fond of, but by this point in my life, I had frittered them away by wearing them and washing them and wearing them out. Personally i don’t LIKE having things printed ON My tits. But I NOW see that having a t-shirt with something on it, is appropriate attire for certain occasions, usually something laborious and casual: hiking, moving boxes, cleaning attics, outdoor group activities like sports, or river cleanups etc…now i have participated in all of these things and because I choose my clothes for their utility and life expectancy, my chosen shirt has nearly always been a solid color thick t-shirt, a navy pocket free Champion – which says NOTHING about me.

Do I WANT my chest to say something? What do i want it to say? since I have avoided collecting ‘participation’ shirts, even so far as taken them when proffered and donating them on the way home.  I had nothing ‘personal’ to express. I WISH I still had t-shirts from concerts I attended back in the 80s and 90s but I am sure I wouldn’t fit in them if i did. I have steadfastly refused all brand labels on my clothes, even so much as removing them with seem rippers, I would be hardpressed to think of one I WOULD promote on my billboard sized boobs.  I would love to have the balls to wear a Hunter Thompson or Warren Zevon’s skull themed design at 28 yes, at 52 NO, that would definitely attract unwanted attention.

So I made up some of my ‘rules’ and I started looking for a couple to add to my wardrobe. narrowing my criteria down to something an actual Mainer would wear but not a tourist. Something not too populist, but not too obscure. On ebay I found that most of  the concert shirts I once owned are now ridiculously expensive, and generally not something i could afford to wear and abuse – aside from that, there about one Jillion shirts on ebay if you have the time to browse them. And the only concert shirts you will find at thrift stores are few and far between, they must all fly out the door and onto ebay within minutes, perhaps even the backdoor.  By repeatedly checking I found out that if you see something you like buy it cause it won’t be there the next day. That’s why happened to the lobster and the blowfish t-shirts, i was undecided about them, until they were gone.

I eventually bought a handful to try on account – the ‘fit’ would also have to be taken into account.  If I didn’t like wearing it, it would just be taking up room in the drawer so I felt test driving was called for.

Right now MY shirt of choice is this stylized MAINE shirt.  One would consider it a tourist shirt, but it’s subtle and so comfortable I think i have had it on for a couple of days now. I don’t expect it to last very long if i love it to death.  So far it’s the only KEEPER in the bunch though the Moose is now a favorite design.   And who knows perhaps I will acquire some NEW ‘participation’ shirts as I go along.

By my count I am about 5 posts behind…i randomly added reminders to my calendar and there are 5 ignored reminders, go figure.  I wasn’t especially busy this week, but I just couldn’t provoke myself to sit at the computer long enough.  I have to be careful, if i sit at the computer for any length of time, then i have to actually WORK. If I avoid the computer I can do whatever I want, and hence all the MUST DO things are still sitting there waiting for me when i have the time to get to it. And a lot of little stupid projects get done while I avoid the big ones.

I had repeatedly refused to set up this fish tank from the 1st day I brought the damn-goldfish  into the house from the pond, yes that’s what I am calling them…damn-goldfish, the goldfish that will not die.  First I put them in bowls, and when i got tired of cleaning the bowls, i tried two small fish tanks, each with a filter, and i got tired of trying to keep those clean, and I admitted i had to set up the TANK.

I have HAD tanks before, and I personally find them a pain in the ass. Perhaps because I never embraced fish as a hobby, mostly just as a distraction. Once it is set up, it is becomes a commitment to keep it attractive and healthy, at practically whatever cost.

As you can see I haven’t painted the living room, not installed a new floor, and I will have to break down the bookcases and NOT be sleeping in the living room to do these things.  That probably won’t happen for a year, so delaying setting up the tank doesn’t really matter anymore.

Of course there was a list of things that had to be done before I could move the fish.    The vintage tank stand was old and rusted and in the last house it held a bookpress and I would have to spray paint it.  The Antique tank, had last held a field mouse, so it had to be scrubbed clean with rock salt.  And I had to buy rocks for the bottom, AND I had to move the dvd shelf from the spot it would all occupy.

I did all of these things a little at a time, throwing a coat of paint on the stand every time I turned the laundry and so forth.  By yesterday I was ready to move the fish, and remarkably I got it done without making a huge wet mess, killing the fish or breaking any of the three slippery glass boxes. (hint, i wore my hiking shoes while i did it.)

After spending all that damn money on tanks, filters, and filter cartridges, water treatment chemicals, other water additives, two sorts of foods, heavy duty shelf brackets, now spray paint,and rocks, these damn-goldfish are still alive.

Wouldn’t it have been easier to just LEAVE THEM THE POND ? and let them take their chances? maybe they wouldn’t have frozen to death in the 18″ deep pond, but I doubt it.  I could have just given them away, maybe they would be happier somewhere else.  Now I have this tank in my living room that like the cats, and the squirrels will demand attention. That’s not really in keeping with my new life, and my new aim to simplify things is it?  Why the hell do I always  GO the long way around the mountain?  When given a problem to solve that is usually the route I choose.  If I had just given them away this could have been avoided entirely.  I will have to remember this.

I wrote this for the reddit minimalist sub, just some oversharing, i thought i’d share.  Yes, it’s snowing again, i never did think i would find snow…oppressive, now I know how they feel in one of those never ending monsoon seasons.

When i moved last summer to what I call the smallest house in Portland Maine, I divested a good half of what I owned, and that was after a couple of years of halving everything I owned already.

Once I moved in, and I realized I wouldn’t have the second floor attic ‘bedroom’ finished until next year. Right now it’s all insulation and rafters, So I blocked it up for the winter. There are no actual closets in the house, I brought a smallish old cedar closet with me, about 5 foot tall and 3 feet wide. The only chest of drawers I brought has 4 drawers and 32 inches wide. So nearly ALL the clothes I own HAS to fit inside these things. I say nearly: the bathrobe hangs in the bathroom, right now winter outerwear hang on the back of the door in the kitchen. I have a rotating amount of semi clean clothes on a chair, you know the clothes you put on when you take off your work clothes. I also have two plastic bins on top of the cedar closet.

I didn’t consciously ‘build’ a wardrobe, when I packed I just started eliminating things I didn’t wear, things that didn’t fit, things that I didn’t like how they fit. Anything I didn’t want to be caught dead in, cept for some painting/work clothes that are basically disposable. Since I moved in September, all the shorts, lightweight pants went into one plastic bin and the short sleeve shirts went in the other. I haven’t completely culled that clothing yet, but there’s probably only about 5 or 6 in each, and that’s including ‘fat day and skinny day’ jeans. In spring I will made further decisions when I put them INTO the cedar closet and take out the long sleeve shirts and winter wear and put them into the bins. The drawers in the chest, have socks/underwear, t-shirts, sweatpants and sleepwear, and the bottom drawer has bed linen. Whenever I can’t get a drawer closed, I go through it and send something to the donation bag.

I won’t say I have one of the minimalist-rotate-the-same-15-pieces-of-clothing-wardrobes, that is JUST not practical attire for living in a place with 5 seasons, (yes MUD is a real season up here in New England), or a middle aged woman who does a lot of messy repairs or house fixing, or gardening or biking, rowing, hiking AND has to retain grownup interview and funeral ready clothing along side things with elastic waistbands. But I CAN comfortably say I have the fewest pieces of clothing I have had since I got my 1st charge card.

Most of my clothes comes second hand, I LOVE finding high end clothes for pennies. I do buy my jeans, underwear and socks new. But everything else has been basically curated. I am partial to classic (read boring) LL Bean-ish style clothing, I own a lot of Bean, mostly for the guarantee, as I am rough on clothes, but if you stick with a certain color pallet and simple lines, You can basically consider them Garanimals for adults. If I stick my hand in the cedar closet, most of the shirts and pants and sweaters will all match each other. I’m also pretty redundant, if I put a hole in the front of a navy blue polo, I will keep an eye out for another navy blue polo. (lately I have been just buying specific things off ebay, i can just type used short sleeve henley t-shirt in my size and find exactly what I want.)

A few minutes ago, after coming in from raking snow off the roof, where I was wearing my one thick long sleeve oatmeal Henley (surprisingly not from LLBean) and my navy fleece zippered vest, jeans and LL bean boots. I pulled ON my thick sweats pants, a pair of thermal socks and my Champion hoodie. And I realized, they were all basically the ONLY one of each item I owned. (not the socks!) I didn’t have to figure out which hoodie, or whether it was clean or not. It’s MY hoodie and when it finally dies, I will replace it with exactly the same thing. It’s either cleanish hanging on a hook or in the laundry cycle.

I own about 4 pairs of business casual pants for work, (black, navy, khaki and dark green) in the bin there are some capri length for summer and I rotate them with a couple of solid polos, or striped long sleeve oxford shirts. I have two cotton sweaters, one heavier and one summer weight. I have a pair of leather hiking boots, I have been wearing for this winter, and someplace I have some leather driving mocs, and some canvas grasshopper shoes (1 pair blue, 1 pair khaki) I will wear in better weather, when I am NOT wearing my New Balance sneakers. (1 pair for mud season and sports/1 pair that are newer and cleaner – same model) My long navy wool coat didn’t make the move intact..don’t ask (i am on the lookout for a replacement), so my ‘winter’ coat is a big man’s EMS unlined hooded jacket, which comes down over my butt like a parka, but gives me plenty of room to layer up on the inside. and once I stop double layering I switch back to my LLBean Canvas field coat, (also bought in a thrift store NEW with tags!) which takes me through the rest of the year. Though I have find a blue woman’s barn coat for this summer.

No, I am not the most stylish person, unless you call ‘frumpy’ a style, but by keeping my choices limited, things that don’t fit, just don’t stay. Everything goes with everything else, and there’s really no room for something I don’t wear. I certainly save a lot of time deciding what to wear, and definitely a lot of time doing laundry.