I worked Doylestown Pride with a church group at the beginning of the month. I stopped at Maxwell's on the way home where the bartender told me how he and his presumptive wife do little else but work and travel. I felt a supportive jealousy imagining him flying me around the world. I celebrated the Fourth here in the boro watching the parade from the stoop then circling the park to chat up the neighbors. I went back later to pick up some trash and ran into another neighbor who told me about the time he got his dog a passport so they could travel around Central America together. He told me to renew mine and go somewhere, and that's when I started to feel boring. George Bailey wreaked havoc on my young art and left me feeling stagnant, but I figured the self critical thoughts were at least partly the lingering effects of the June depression. I still enjoy the local comforts I've found, I think I've just finally been reaching a saturation point. The other day I referenced butterflies filling their wings after emerging from the cocoon before they can fly. If who I am is marked by contiguous, distinctly identifiable states of being then depression seems the name for the space in between. The caterpillar finishing the cocoon doesn't panic that it's entering a depressive state nor does the rest of the forest fret when the caterpillar liquefies entirely. I don't have much vocabulary for the imaginal discs of human identity but it seems naive to assume that there are none. Emotional discs developed in our larval brains act as barriers for the waves of our personalities so that when we do digest ourselves what ripples out and echoes back takes a determined next shape. Then we grieve the change and fly away.

We got three inches of rain last weekend but we made it to the preserve, farm park, Parkside, and Pennypack when we could. I felt called to spontaneity on Saturday so I found a venue in Glenside and hopped the train for a concert, two jam bands in an intimate space. I meant to walk down Zacharias after the rain but wound up in Norristown. A guest speaker at church from PHS mentioned the work they do there and I think the thought was lingering. Our church group finished our ethical eating course last Sunday as well. We took a field trip to a farm for a pot luck dinner and a tour, which scratched the itch for cozy dining. I brought chickpeas and celebrated having brought them everywhere. I reasoned that the anti-racism influence in my life expanded to a pro-labor perspective that informed my thoughts on animal rights broadly until eventually I found myself challenging kingdom boundaries themselves. Being treated like property is too discomforting for me to be able to do to others, so I can't. I feel compelled to draw a line somewhere though I'd rather accept the philosophical challenge of defending the life of rocks and protozoa as well as my right to agriculture and antibiotics. If some intergalactic traveler did stop for a visit I'd wager they'd only made it here on the back of alien slavery empowered by alien racism, so why shouldn't I have the ethics and strength to admonish even them? Politely, in a way they don't realize until they're flying away that makes them cringe into the steering wheel.

I thought about feeling boring and running away from home only to move somewhere that seems immeasurably different from where I'd left. News Mart and Buzz's were replaced by Wawa and the pub, and Main Street cuts like Oakland Park. I'm coming up on a year without income occupied by the thought of having something to show for it, and everything feels different yet the same. By some luck I found this Thoreau inspired art piece in the woods because I always happen to wind up where I started. I took the train to Doylestown Saturday for dinner and music. I stopped in Lansdale for beer on the way home and made friends with friends of friends. I got so worried about the empty space in my life I rushed to fill it with food and human connection. I've eaten out more in the last couple weeks than I have in the last couple years and I've been seeking out live music again. I started writing this a week ago and am finally putting a pin in it. I have a retrospective I want to write but I needed this inflection point to discretize this last chapter before I fly off for more adventuring.

My Bloomsday became a Dallowayday this year. I hosted Strawberry Fest on Saturday and spent Friday shopping and preparing. The windows all stayed closed for the party, though fireworks did stir the shock in Dany. We listened to strawberry songs, ate strawberry shortcakes, and drank strawberry margaritas then ended the night sweeter than Clarissa's. I stopped at the market beforehand, which had no strawberries but plenty of cherries, and at friends' to harvest from their cherry tree. We might be eating cough drops and drinking Robitussin next year.

My depression fog started to clear around midsummer. I was meant to go to Doylestown over the weekend but rain induced a date change. By then I was aching to do anything and the air fortunately cleared as well that afternoon. I went for a long, humid walk with the dogs around Armentrout and Camp Woods. Lansdale was sleepy after the Beer Fest so I washed up and headed to Ambler to take myself out to dinner. I took a walk down the strip and stopped for a pint with a brewer I haven't seen for some time. I wound up getting food from a chain pita place in Dresher first and wondered about the last time I ate in a restaurant. I remembered thinking about it during Porch Fest 2021 but deciding against it at the last minute. Then I remembered meeting friends at Charlie's last Bloomsday and others for tea time this winter, and eating my otherwise unremarkable $20 pita on a street bench I thought that what I wanted was a cramped table. I slept in the next morning and streamed church from the couch. A local pagan group shared stories about different sun gods in celebration of the solstice, including the one about Icarus.

I did make it into church for our discussion group where the topic was loneliness and where I called out the reinforcements that discourage expressing a state of loneliness. An unsatisfied emotional appetite isn't really different than an unsatisfied hunger. But I'll argue that the one should be as approachable as the other then meet somebody who casts shame on hunger as well. We shroud Senators and professional athletes in hospital care and observation to tend their depressions. Constructing for humanity would work to improve treatment for everybody, not cast some unfortunate select as fuel to burn to power the shroud. I think dynasty forgot its humanity from watching the trees. They learned from the cambium that lives lean, bolstered by the remains of its ancestors and fed by the remains of the animals. Entire societies of birds and insects are commanded to war by the promise of fruit and seed. The fungus underground see the truth in the roots and try to cry out about the sugar reservoirs. Without mouths they hold in their electric pain until after the rains in June, then hug themselves and step into the still mist below the canopy to do their mushroom dance.

I finished a second temple in Tears of the Kingdom, though I still feel early in the story. I'm so preoccupied with guessing and being correct that I might be completely wrong but blind to what's been happening. Still these thoughts might spoil something! I found one of the tears and watched Rauru disintegrate a hoard of charging Moldogas. I wondered about my willingness to kill a single one for medicine in Breath of the Wild and about the shock of the decimation at scale. I helped deforest Hyrule to develop Tarrey Town, completely subdued by its siren song theme, and staffed the Levitt family business. As much as the technology in use is ancient, I think Link plays an unwitting role in its adaptation to a military industrial complex and retreats. Somehow in a hypothetical third entry, I'll go with Heart of the River, Ganon will corrupt the minds of all people, even the Koroks, until they wage war with each other. Moved by an obligation of duty to Zelda, Siddhartha Link sets aside his regrets in order to leave the cave and fight back the Will of Ganon. When the fighting is over he steps back onto the Great Plateau to see the Hyrule River flowing through the kingdom still modernized and technological but harmonious and peaceful.

I was appointed to the parks and rec board this week. I went back to Ambler that afternoon for the lunch at LUHV I had wanted Saturday. My phone plan ended this afternoon so I looked for a new one on Monday after a walk with a neighbor. We avoided rain but did cross a bridge with unsavory opinions. I settled for Metro and wound up having to drive to the store three times, none of which ended in success. I spent an hour on the phone with Mint's waiting music waiting for my account number to port out because they withhold that from their portal.

I finally managed to place an order myself online but the new SIM card won't arrive until tomorrow, so it's been an offline night tonight. I went to the library to check messages earlier like I had been doing. I took the dogs to the park at sunset. The pickle ball, tennis, and basketball courts were full, and a band was playing. We sat in the grass listening for an hour then I setup on the patio to write and eat the last of the strawberries.

On the plane ride home from California the guy next to me asked for a salad, but the flight attendant said he'd have to wait for snack service, which wound up delayed as we were rerouted around turbulent weather. By the time the cart finally made it back to steerage they'd run out of salads, and I felt a sympathy watching my seat neighbor opt for almonds instead. The K-9s were on my mind and I felt a thread of connection in our disappointments. Then I watched him move $150k in cash and check on his Tesla all from his phone, and I thought that he might not feel the same way and that I might not be in steerage. I worried the smoke had been blown up my ass but watched it blow into the sky instead. I never heard from the surgeon so I also swelled and subsided with the barometer. Antibiotics were a welcome rain that incidentally returned my uvula to a normal size in addition to tempering the primal rage that'd been tearing me apart. I've had a lingering depression triggered by a month of pain and reinforced by weed and fruity candy so I tried not to lean on the fires as an excuse to malinger. I opted for a walk at Camp Woods, where I convinced myself the forest was dense enough to block out some acceptable amount of smoke. I spotted an umbrella magnolia that a guide pointed out to us back in October and I pointed it out to Dany. I saw my old barber for a cut then went to a church reception.

Between the apocalypse and my own bodily discomfort I've been gaming more, though I still haven't finished Tears of the Kingdom. I also haven't yet finished Ulysses. I made it to the Wandering Rocks then wandered off. I'll figure out on Friday how to celebrate some other guy's adventure without sacrificing too much of my own. The sky cleared up by Saturday so we went walking around Ft. Washington before I left for the night for a cookout.

I returned to Lansdale early Sunday to catch the church stream before joining the pride walk. I write horror stories about Alex Bell then find myself living in a telecom commercial. I first went out for the walk on my own because I didn't think I knew anybody. My closest friends asked to join so I would coordinate with them by text, then I started to share an event on a community Facebook group to invite people at large. One year I met a woman who'd drive her daughter an hour both ways to participate each June, and another who would eventually organize the masquerade last month and the walk this weekend. We walked then gathered in the park where I celebrated my own personal pride. I think I've spent a majority of the freedom I've had walking and meeting neighbors and I saw that piece of myself reflected and amplified in my conceptual child. On my way out of First Friday I wished somebody a happy pride and somebody asked about the accepted pride salutation. Three of us workshopped on the spot and arrived at Joyous Pride. The theme that night was "Pride and Freedom", though it was quietly advertised and not explicit in its meaning. I wondered if it was a social experiment or an attempt to compromise, my dear old aunt etcetera having perceived the two at odds. I was two at odds, now I feel like ten pieces at evens.

I spent the latter half of Sunday in the backyard with the dogs then took them out for separate walks yesterday afternoon after the rain. I ran into a neighbor while I was out with Dany and a woman I met at pride while at Peace Valley this afternoon. I was entranced by the lake when she said hello and by the black walnut later when I fell asleep in the hammock thinking about those doing the thing, who can't know the experience of the thing.

It's June again, the one month for which both the remainder of the calendar and the calendar itself exist in supporting roles. Day to day experience compels my own sense of identity to locate behind my eyes in my brain, all organs subservient to that one. Brain I defines myself by emotion and poetry. Then Anal Allfather shifts and what pain I thought I knew is overshadowed by the crippling torment of an irate colon. Asshole I thrashes, bleeds, makes brain cry. He is belligerent and when he's unhappy we're made to work harder with less food. We're tired and sore and when night falls we gather in the brain, most of me huddled around a fire to mourn our pitiful position and sing sorrows to the flames. Hunched over I crawl back through time to the vermiform elders and say I finally understand your struggle. The worms laugh and I realize that I'm alone even here and still attached at the hip to the parts of me I tried to escape.

I thought about my ancestral self foraging acorns without lidocaine or hot water and about the impact of simultaneous trauma at scale. I wondered if Chad-tor would call me lazy and undeserving of a share of the mammoth if I were to spend a day weeping with the willows. At some point I must have been left for dead, as the plague moved slow at first before visiting us all at once. The pain hobbled us, a collective shock so traumatizing that the twenty or so alive at the time convened and agreed to establish civilization and build factories to make topical analgesic offerings to Uranus.

I made it to the farmers' market Memorial Day weekend. I bought dog cookies and marigolds that I planted around the peach tree. The peaches are still ripening but they're the biggest I've seen them so I think the netting is working despite the gaping hole at the bottom.

I spent part of Memorial Day itself on the battlefield of the emergency room waiting area. The other casualties included a guy with a severed finger, a woman seemingly in labor, and a couple who'd been in a car accident. The triage nurse apologized for processing the fingerless guy first and I said that's triage. Then I wound up so low on the priority queue that instead of seeing a physician I was assigned to healing in the herb garden. I cried about it to the sage and thyme while extracting the medicinal from medicinal marijuana. I thought back on a documentary I watched about English herb gardens in 2020 before I planted my own. I was so drawn to the serenity that I overlooked how a history of mining, factory work, and imperialism might provide the demand for it in the first place. I found myself writhing about, cursing the assholes I blamed for all the pain to begin with, forging a connection to the ancestral, rural, and closeted whose struggle I knew at last.

I spent time last week deadheading and strewing roses in the front yard then pulling weeds at the historical society. This May was apparently the driest on record and the other plants are already showing signs of stress so we'll see what struggles rise with Sirius next month. The club that supplied the Earth Day tree sent a notice that some of the redbuds and maples were mixed up. I thought the redbud I planted had died, but I found maple leaves today.

I finally picked up Tears of the Kingdom, or My Allfather Can Beat Up Your Allfather, but I was met with a modal prompt to install a system update before I could play. The consoles have been offline for almost a year and in that time I've packed away the wireless access points so I spent an hour building a fresh one like this.

# /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf
ssid=xyzzy
wpa_passphrase=foobar1!
hw_mode=g
channel=7

# /etc/dhcpd.conf
option subnet-mask 255.255.255.0;
option routers 192.168.2.1;
subnet 192.168.2.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
  range 192.168.2.2 192.168.2.5;
}

$ sudo systemctl start hostapd

$ sudo ip addr add 192.168.2.1/24 dev wlp3s0

$ sudo systemctl start dhcpd4@wlp3s0

$ sudo iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o tun0 -j MASQUERADE

$ sudo iptables -A FORWARD -i tun0 -o wlp3s0 \
           -m state --state RELATED,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT

$ sudo iptables -A FORWARD -i wlp3s0 -o tun0 -j ACCEPT

$ echo 1 | sudo tee /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward
1

I finally clicked OK to install the update expecting it to fail so that I'd be prompted with settings to update the SSID. Then I found out that the update was either locally available or that the dialog and progress meter were all pretend, but either way I ultimately didn't need an Internet connection. The game itself reminded me at first of Return to Oz, though the Soldier Constructs killing the Chuchus felt like RoboCop. The world feels more crowded and modernized. Hyrule even has skyscrapers now! Breath of the Wild centered the wind, Tears of the Kingdom centers civilization and the pains of technology. I was drawn to the first as a virtual extension of reality, a way to continue hiking in my mind. I asked for the same game but different and I received another extension of reality, this time the social part. I finished the Wind Temple, and Tulin got excited that he gets to fight with me. I smiled a half smile and said cool in my least sarcastic voice as we forged a party. Camus left Sisyphus at the base of the hill, and Link has found himself once again playing babysitter for the aristocracies that develop and pollute the land he inhabits outside the castle.

This weekend I went to First Friday where the Pride and Freedom theme had noticeably less engagement than last month's That 70's Night, then on Saturday to Lansdale Day where the Strawberry Fest theme had even less engagement. The challenge is how to ask why bother having a theme if it won't be promoted in such a way as to encourage promotion rather than discourage having a theme at all, and so far the only gentle and effective phrasing I've found is to lean into the theme myself. After Lansdale Day we kicked off summer here in the boro, and I spent the evening in the park with neighbors I first met at last year's kickoff. I finally saw a doctor yesterday, who referred me for surgery on Thursday. On her way out of the examination room the nurse taking my history handed me a paper gown that was so small it barely covered my chest. I wasn't sure if I was wearing it properly or if I was supposed to be naked underneath, hanging freely with my delts and traps modestly covered. Ever confrontational I wore it over my shirt, which really pulled the look together.

I went to a masquerade gala two weeks ago with a friend who helped sponsor the event. I glued paper flowers to a mask I had and ordered a wristlet and boutonniere for my date and I. The florist asked which high school, and I clarified it wasn't for a prom though I did dance like I was at one and introduce myself by a different name. I made it to the farmers' market opening the next morning. I bought coffee, dog cookies, soap, and a bundle of mountain mint that I used to make tea after a bath after church on Sunday. I put the folk show on the radio and considered how in casting off Christian theology and politics I overlooked how much Christian culture shapes my life. I thought Gay Man and Florida Man were my main influences but while masking Friday's excess with Saturday's temperance I saw my relation to Christian the Christian. Maybe my denomination is identified not by answers to questions of the Eucharist, confession, or baptism, but by its polytheist, anti-monarchist, materialist quaint-core, which the ecumenical patriarchs can sort out. Excommunicate me, daddy.

Meanwhile the catmint and roses donned their own flowers. I lost most of the rosemary during the Christmas freeze, but some bounced back and is looking happy. I targeted native, drought tolerant herbs when I first planted, many of which wound up being members of the mint family with a reputation for spreading. Grass gets a pass in this regard so that we have something to mow. The lemon balm has been the first to travel, now pulling weeds is a citrus affair.

Last week while walking around the boro a dog I could have mistaken for Teemo's little brother slipped out his front door and sauntered up to us followed by a Laestrygonian calling out to Moose to return. The decoy treats were wrapped up tight in the cookie bag so I stood awkwardly against a bush instead of throwing them. I prayed to the old gods for a steadier hand when I packed them. I had in mind Dale Gribble and Napoleon Dynamite forgetting that the old, old gods are violent, sex-crazed alcoholics who'd send a friendly chihuahua to terrorize an entire neurotic island into laboring in their name. The rhododendrons are doing well at least and their signal was a call to arms against the ivy, which launched a sneaky return.

I flew to California for a wedding this weekend. TSA had their own hounds terrorizing the security line. We queued up to walk in pairs by the dogs because the whole ordeal wasn't depressing enough to begin with and we'd heard Little Red had been snatched on her own. Just beyond the checkpoint was an advertisement for pre-check suggesting I could pay money not to be tortured and a billboard encouraging me to grin and bear the abuse for family. If we have to spend all the time and money then we could at least refactor the experience to be more like a Double Dare physical challenge or replace the dogs with shots of tequila or morphine. Over our continental breakfast Sunday morning we talked about holding discount economy flights to the same standard as private jets, which I thought was an expectation set back when air travel was perceived as so desirable as not to require mantras to remember why we fly, when fear was still outsourced to the Red Russian scare but not yet to Islamism. Now the fear has been moved in house and we control the stream of tantrums and violence that justifies the blame that excuses social mitosis in support of isolated insular individualism. Sometimes I agree splitting up is the right thing to do. Sometimes I think the urge manifests when resistance to the grueling divisiveness of capitalism yields to the flood waters released at the bursting of the repressive denial of its heartbreaking pain.

I was hungry and bitter when I landed and my attention was focused on asphalt, chain link fences, and the spirit of Levittown haunting the neighborhoods carved into the sides of the mountains. I arrived early and walked to and through a strip mall that felt like a Scooby-Doo set, an endless background of shops apparently thriving while the Montgomery and Plymouth Meeting malls struggle to breathe. I thought a little more about a return to work and how the language of having to work more than one job to survive is difficult because of the fluid definition of what one job is. I think we could all work one small fraction of what's currently considered a job and still produce enough to support all the life that currently is plus a little extra to support what will be so that we might all be paid and insured and secure and happy simply for showing up and tending the gardens we've already planted.

I filled up on hummus and took a nap and felt less antisocial for the ceremony itself, which fully revived me. The family hosting lived in a house backed up to a vineyard, the beer was home brewed, I caught up with family I haven't seen since 2019, and I connected with the now extended family. The couple arranged a party bus to shuttle us back to the hotel, with about 15 of us on the last trip of the night. Nobody could find an AUX cord to play music, but we did listen to pulses of radio static as somebody scanned for a hit of Contemporary Hits. There was space for a pole but without a pole or music there was only space for dancing. I thought about us dancing in a circle around the bride and groom, transient membrane around a budding eukaryote, and about the ways my philosophy and politics formed a barrier across my connection to family. I wondered how much of this we might excise and conserve in a more egalitarian world, and Gay Man worried who on the bus might blame me for having willed the world to change. I accused a distant aunt's boyfriend of masking projection with blame and thought I'd fallen for the same, that the challenging part of seeing family isn't seeing them but my reflection in them.

I spent some of my recovery time scrolling through Tinder. I had run out of people to match but more have manifested. I wondered how many might be generated by a computer measuring my heart by swipes like an optometrist measuring my eyes by ones and twos. Eventually you fail to notice and fall in love with the prescription. Everyday for a week you call each other after dinner and talk for hours. You think about the future. Early one Saturday her smile is the first thing you see when you text her good morning. She replies ":)" and after ten loud heart beats continues, "The pig go. Go is to the fountain. The pig put foot. Grunt. Foot in what? ketchup." Suddenly you're at Wendy's picking up $25 worth of food with no recollection of leaving bed. Your phone dings to inform you Amazon has delivered five gallons of root beer syrup, a spiralizer, and one packet of dried bread yeast to your door. When you go to tell her what a strange day you're having she's gone and so are all your cryptocoins. Your phone rings. It's Monday already and you didn't show up for work.

I spent most of my time before traveling soaking up home. I walked with the dogs and we napped around the backyard then I went to a local bar Friday night to drink local beers and listen to a local duo sing. I haven't yet bought the new Breath of the Wild, but I did finish a play through of God of War. Last night I was playing and thought that the spiky death wheels sounded like koroks, the tatzelwurms like lizalfos, the Niflheim background theme Hylian, and that my 143 Day wish would be to let the lotus eaters stay and be happy. The flight home itself was uneventful but the parking garage exit only had five of about 25 kiosks open. I argued with the closed signs that these are self-service machines. I thought about when I moved to Pennsylvania and the first attempt to transfer my license failed. The clerk called me back later and explained that Florida shutdown their backend when their offices were closed so I still had to abide their physical working hours. The kiosk I picked wasn't working and a backlog of headlights built up behind me until some guy came out to man the station. Today we walked around Ft. Washington and washed it all down the Wissahickon.

I made it to the first First Friday of the season last week. I biked in early and found a truck selling an oyster mushroom satay. I had been thinking that morning about removing mushrooms from my diet as a next level veganism and forgot while chowing down. The local high school won rights to produce Frozen the Musical, which I also attended last weekend. The production itself was great, but I forgot how boring the story is until sitting through it. Twenty scenes and however many billions of dollars and calories spent on advertising and rendering and defense of intellectual property all in support of one single song, in true monarchical fashion.

I stopped at the crystal shop with a neighbor on the way home then went out walking with the dogs. An off-leash puppy came running up to us and we barked and ran in circles. His dad finally gained control and so did I, then we parted. I thought about dogs I read about recently shot in the city for all the same excuses to spread violence. As we were leaving the crystal shop we drew from a deck of healing cards and my prompt was about letting go of resentment, and I thought about the aggregated impact of en masse childhood trauma echoing over time and what gods emerge from those waves. I packed a small bag of kibble to carry in the cookie bag for the next walk and prayed to the old gods that I might toss decoy treats like pocket sand if we meet Cerberus again.

The birds picked all the peaches last year. This year's are getting bigger so I draped the mosquito net over the entire tree. The bottom isn't closed and by that evening there was already a bumblebee trapped inside. I thought about a very buggy story I wrote in elementary school and wondered if I'd written the future on a page I forgot and if the only way to recall now is an old fashioned analog replay. An exterminator knocked at the door and we barked and ran in circles. He asked if it was a bad time and I said it was. He asked if I have an insect problem and I said I didn't. He pointed to a spider and I said we're good.

The hummingbirds have returned. The trumpet vines are flowering but I've only seen them at the feeder so far. The anise hyssop are about ready to flower, too. They and the lemon balm are starting to spread around the yard. I read that the more sugar they produce the more they attract, and I thought that for some butterfly or bee the flower and perfume must seem a formal veneer to obfuscate a carnal lust for the concentrated nectar. I thought that without good and evil there can't be knowledge of either but there can be an awareness of the moralizing eye of Sauron, which is just as compelling a reason to flee the garden.

The king stropharia under the roses returned, too. The slugs took nibbles and I left the caps in the hope that the next generation will colonize the same space. I formally joined the church this week. I took a walk around the garden after and found bones in the grass. I thought that trying to interpret them might be like looking for meaning in a single letter, but I peeked anyway.

On the drive home I felt a crawling on my arm and saw a tick had hitched a ride and was making a beeline for my shoulder. I intercepted it and tossed it from the window and when I got back found a honey bee in the house banging on the window to get out. I helped her and returned to more, five dead and five living in total. I found they had swarmed on the roof so I called the beekeepers around town to see if anybody was interested in collecting them. Nobody was, except one couple who are also licensed contractors and offered to do a cut out if and after the bees infiltrate a wall. They dispersed the next day, and I haven't seen anymore signs of them except the scouts who returned after everybody else had already left without so much as leaving a note, in true monarchical fashion. I sprayed the area and they finally understood.

I meal prepped after my grocery run this week in an experiment to put away food instead of ingredients. I made soup, curry, pasta salad, oatmeal, and bread. This morning I made syrup for the hummingbirds then mowed and put on the radio and fed the birds and watered the plants and prayed to the myrmidons.

Time intervals sound short by name then seem long when measured in retrospect. Even two weeks feels like a lifetime, which is probably generations for some of the insects moving into the tree I planted on Earth Day. A neighbor stopped by for coffee that morning and some friends came by for lunch after my gardening. I planted sunflower and corn seeds, trellised the hops, and moved around the phlox, roses, and trumpet vines out front. It's been raining most days since, which has been a good excuse to take a break inside, but now the grass is reaching up to Teemo's chest.

The historical society hosted a tea time that day. I didn't attend but I did stop by the day before to help setup. I had Free at Noon playing while we added plates to tiered stands and tied ribbons on vases. I made it back to Lansdale that evening and finished a chapter of Ulysses then walked over to the crystal shop to stock up on incense and catch up with the owner. I met some friends for a beer and the blues then moved to a quieter bar for a cocktail. I brought up the lotus eaters and thought about the ways Joyce, Proust, and the Food Network raised me and shaped me into the Yankee Doodle Dandy I became.

I was socially drained by then and skipped church that weekend opting instead for a walk around the boro. The weather was clear and sunny, and I could smell grills and fires on almost every block. All the dogs were out, too, and everybody seemed to have their windows open. I overheard a couple fighting, friends singing a shanty together, somebody practicing piano, and a radio broadcast. I laid in the hammock listening to blues and folk on my radio thinking about how to react to news of the end of my winter romance and how the erosion of love might be obfuscated in the folds between the beats of my sampling frequency.

I grieved the change then let it go. It rained heavily last week, which provided its own plausibly deniable cover for stagnation, but I made a point of keeping active. I made cosmic crackers and melted my brain watching Cocaine Bear with friends. I've been out of touch with the news but did see the debt ceiling debate is still dragging on. I thought that from a monist perspective cash looks like a higher level abstraction energy store beyond helium and carbohydrates. The latter seem easier to measure with agreement, inasmuch as nobody seems interested in debating how many calories are available in the sun or the trees. Measuring a cash supply is trickier because the potential energy there is driven by a labor force that can actually metabolize those dollars both presently and in the future. I think a similarly objective valuation of cash might be one determined by a weighted measure of the working population that accounts for current metabolic capacity and potential reproductive ability so that roughly as people are born and find happiness in fair weather the supply goes up and as people die and fall to heartbreak and disease it goes down. This at least pushes the politics of augury to those estimates where we can argue about them in more concrete terms of capability rather than pretending that the federal government is subject to the same constraints and conventions as personal finance.

I wound up sick myself this week and despite my claimed insistence on not stopping I had to slow down. My uvula was comically large so I went to urgent care. They ruled out strep, flu, and COVID then told me it was some other virus and to go to emergency care if I was worried about suffocating. They didn't prescribe an anti-virus, which is ill-timed because I just canceled my Norton subscription along with Netflix. So for my palliative care I had steroids, benzocaine drops, phenol spray, spicy lentils, and video games. I played a little Breath of the Wild then started and finished Uncharted 4 in about three days. For all of Avery's ideation of a penitent thief I thought he failed to realize his claimed ideals by misestimating Libertalia's cash supply. With all that wealth he could have built hospitals, waste management, and lead free water supply lines, all of which would have kept the cash flowing. Instead he froze his assets in paintings and statues that nobody could metabolize. Still the treasure havers inspired the treasure hunters, and both Evelyn and Nathan wound up with homes filled with hoarded wonders that their survivors can pick through, which must be included in the assessment of our cash supply and considered while setting the debt ceiling.

My ailment finally seems to be lifting today. Of all the medicine I consumed the lentils last night seemed to be the most effective. I think they were so spicy that they numbed the pain better than the benzocaine. This morning a friend told me to kick out the disease as it's not welcome anymore. I like the imagery of a sword and shield in the house, but I'd never use either so their presence would only give me Avery anxiety. I thought about hanging a broom and pot lid over the mantle instead and imagined myself armed with both chasing the virus out the door. I listened to Bailen on today's Free at Noon while writing this and feel ready to act. The peach tree is fruiting and needs protection from the sparrows, the grass needs a trim, and I need to begin the next lifetime.

I harvested dandelions a few days ago. I roasted the roots to make a cup of coffee while procrastinating writing earlier tonight. I was watching the birds while procrastinating pulling weeds. A male cardinal was perched on the lilac cheeping at me indignantly. I looked up and saw a sparrow visiting the feeder. A female cardinal swooped down and chased away the sparrow before having a bite for herself. She flew to the other side of the yard, and the male took her place at the feeder. A blue jay descended squawking and scared away the cardinal. The jay had two seeds before the female flew back over chasing him away. He back talked her and they flapped and yelled at each other while the male cardinal watched and shouted from a distance. The jay left and the cardinal finally had his meal.

I made it to church Sunday morning then again Tuesday afternoon for a discussion group. This month we picked "Democracy and Freedom" to align with Tax Day. I dropped off my taxes at the post office on the way and thought a more free world would be one where I could buy and redeem treasuries at the counter like money orders. I stopped for groceries after then walked with the dogs. Besides a cold snap the other night we've been able to spend most of our afternoons outside, and it's been so sunny I already have a tan.

Today I locked the rampions in the tower and went out for a bike and hike. I rode down the creek to Pennlyn Woods then walked to Ambler. I found a spot to sit and write by the water before turning around. I started the fifth chapter of Ulysses yesterday, the first I didn't finish in one sitting. I thought about how familiar the story feels and how a change of names can abstract conflict enough to be palatable or relatable. Thoreau complained in Walden about gossipy newspapers, which I thought I understood better while researching for my presentation last month. Albertus Shelley's mother's suicide was reported in detail, meanwhile the identities and actions of local leaders were disguised behind epithets and euphemisms.

I thought that whatever exists exists and nothing that doesn't does. If I could remove myself from the fabric of everything to run it through my hands I'd be pressed to find stitching that distinguishes one thing from another. Even with a very strong glass I don't think I could find cuts between particles. Yet the discretization of things is how I reason, language asserts identity. From such a perspective I think I'd see the fabric rippling about and wherever waves collide they crest and pucker, then ebb outwards reflective of all the forms they had before their interaction. The politics of augury is arguing how many waves there were to begin with and how many are there after, whether they are new waves or the same ones changed.

I think maybe there are two kinds of identity. If I could inscribe a circle on the fabric with a supernatural compass I think I could watch that same segment sloshing about forever. With no inherent separation of segments, I think the second kind emerges from the self-organization of the fabric into shapes with memory. Out of the chaos of collisions of little wrinkles crystallize predictable puckers, seemingly synchronized. What appear to be edges manifest from the uniform lapping of waves. Between their peaks are liminal valleys where lines could be drawn to argue a distinction of larger forms.

I stopped at the preserve for a rest on my ride home. I was in jeans and getting tired by then so I had to walk my bike up some of the hills. I found a small grove and cooled off in the shade. I thought that memory was a side effect of existence and that will is an illusion, a misuse of language, a circle crossing a line. The photons between my atoms ripple up to occupy the space and down again to leave it, carrying with them some information about what they saw. The trees and I took a piece of each other, and our collective experience cultivates gods and archetypes. Though recognizable, those emergent patterns can't be more willful than any other. The stars are unraveling slack that pools in black holes until the end of the leash is reached and the fabric springs back while we watch in slow motion.

I was out for about three hours and baked a loaf of bread I had rising when I got back. The dogs laid in the sun with me, and I watched the cardinals at the feeder again. One sang in the walnut tree over the hammock. I filled up on hummus and leftover rice and beans then smudged the herb garden. I napped then smudged the kitchen. I thought about purpose and the question of why, and wondered what all the thinking was for anyway if the conclusion is determinism. And I thought that it's not for nothing as much as it is for anything, that reflection is a fundamental characteristic of all that exists, and that by looking at my own mirror I could find communion with all the birds and trees and stars.

I started Ulysses the week before last. I read some in the hammock and walked up to a brewery for the third chapter. On the way there I thought about a Very Online Personality distressed by prattling personal narrative introductions to recipes on food blogs. I reconnected with a bartender I haven't seen since the Before Times and made it through the chapter, which has been notably easier in the days of Internet. We talked about grief and Colleen Hoover, and I thought about my own monism, my religious and artistic reckonings, and the ways Joyce influenced my life. I met a friend at a different bar in the city this last Friday for pool. He won both games and we bought each other a round deep diving on our pasts and influences. I went bowling the next day for another friend's birthday then sat around a fire as a chill rolled in.

I thought I'd cook after the party but saved it for Sunday morning. I made a chickpea curry and jasmine rice that finished just in time to bring to the neighbor's for Easter dinner. It was warm out despite the overnight freeze so I walked with the dogs and gave them a scoop of the rice with their dinner.

We've been up and down the Wissahickon again and spent an afternoon at the Farm Park. We went on a Tuesday and so did everybody else. The lot was full of cars and the trails were full of people and dogs.

We hiked out and back and stopped for Dany to roll in a mud puddle. We perched on top of a hill when we got there then sat in the grass at the base of it resting and snacking. We found bugs, graffiti, and a Dumble door that I sent to a friend who likes Harry Potter.

The bugs have been waking up at home, too. The peach blossoms also seem fine. I recently read that wetting them before freezes in the winter can help insulate them so I gave them a spritz before the weekend cold. I don't know how much it helped but the petals are still on and the bees have been happy, though some of them kept falling out of the tree over the hammock the one day. I watched an aphid crawling up Dany's leg, which I agreed looked a bit like a tree.

I've been whittling down hobbies, or contouring them. Homesteading as a hobby is a convenient abstraction because it subsumes all the crafts so I don't have to choose. I'm letting the wild flowers grow a little longer while the insects wake up and revitalize, and between St. Patrick's Day and Easter I've been feasting myself and focusing on kitchen crafts. I tried making THC cubes, but they need improvement. I used glycerin as a solvent, which I diluted then froze in molds, but the freezing point lowered so much that they came out slushy. Still they were solid enough to slide into a hot cup of tea. The Easter curry was a little disjointed but I wanted a mix of colors so I added parsley, tomatoes, carrots, and a green bell pepper. I brought a baked hummus with maitake to the bowling alley, with parsley for a little color. I had the parsley to begin with because earlier in the week I saw a bag of some seven or so mixed dried beans labeled for soup. I wanted soup right then so I bought cans of kidney, cannellini, and butter beans. I sauteed onion, garlic, celery, and carrots and seasoned with smoked paprika and parsley. I added the liquid from the can of butter beans to the broth and simmered until the carrots softened, then served with more fresh parsley and personal reflection.

We rang in the new year again last week, counting the one by revolutions of the earth and the other by revolutions of the moon. In the spirit of change I got my hair cut, stopped by boro hall to say a farewell to a guy moving to a different town, dropped a box at the thrift shop, and paid a visit to a closing Bed Bath. I bought a throw blanket and pillows, which I had come looking for, and found a mug storage case, an unfortunate gift from the Magi because I had just donated the mugs.

Our church discussion group happened to meet at the start of spring this month, and the topic was change. We talked about accepting and grappling with change and about the ways we stay the same. I went out with the dogs after for a long walk down the Wissahickon and thought about molting, metamorphosis, grief, forgiveness, and the feeling of waking up after a hibernation. I made nectar for the hummingbird feeder, filled the other feeder with sunflower seeds, and put out a bowl of corn for the squirrels. I lit a small fire on the patio kindled with dried out stalks of anise hyssop ignited by a scrap of paper I anointed with a drop of blood I drew from my finger. I sang a good morning to Huitzilopochtli, welcomed Ra back from his cruise, and thought about the fine print I'd pencil into the covenant I was making with the garden.

I felt mostly the same the next day, though my perspective keeps changing over time. I still feel adrift at sea, but the rocking of the waves promotes a sort of focus. Almanacking has been especially helpful for homing in on hobbies, through which my easily distracted brain moves so fluidly that their exploration itself seems a hobby. I've continued resisting pursuing new in favor of valuing what already is, which results in either a decluttering purge or a renewed commitment and interest, both outcomes producing what feels like a more refined, decisive identity. I've been revisiting tabletop games after what feels like a lifetime. I played backgammon with a guy who makes me want to sing songs, and Telestrations and Speak Out with him and a group of friends I connected with at the start of these unpaid times.

Particularly well timed was St. Patrick's Day, falling close to the equinox yet far enough from 1 January I'd never made the seasonal connection. We started the celebration Friday night at a local brewpub that felt crowded in a cozy way. A friend and I remarked it felt like everybody knew everybody, and those we didn't know were friendly enough that we spoke to them as if we did. A band played and the singer smoked me out before a stargazing bike ride home. We picked up the party the next day with a pub crawl through Lansdale. We stopped at a distillery, a tavern, a brewery, and a restaurant that used to be an Irish tavern, with a detour to the crystal shop to visit with the owner. We made it back to the house of a couple who'd been out with us, and I ate all the fruits and vegetables they served while chatting with their dog. We sat in the backyard talking and listening to the Cranberries, reflecting on heritage and nationalism, all of which went into the fire. I filled up with water and edibles the next morning and spent the day in the liminal space.

And then we walked some more. Characteristically spring, the weather has been half rainy and half warm and sunny so half our time has been spent preparing to walk and the other half walking. I joined the church stream this weekend instead of going in person, and in our discussion after the service somebody asked about my hobbies and interests. I fumbled for a moment because that's what I do and in a flash wondered if it were possible to condense these reflections on that very topic into some clear, concise answer. The first thing that came out was walking, which is so obvious I forget it sometimes.

I also mentioned gardening, which I'm still contouring for this year. There are projects attracting me, and that voice of focus calling them distractions. I do want to add more to the herb garden and I'm increasingly interested in growing corn and sunflowers but I'm also looking forward to tending what's already there. I was worried the peach tree may have died in the cold blast we had back in December or that transplanting may have shocked it too much, but the opening of the buds stirred in me a sort of temperance to rein in my wandering mind and avail myself to upholding those promises of love and attention I'd just made a whole to do about over the cauldron.