As Of Late

Go Skate Day: Old news but good news: Go Skateboarding Day happened, and I skateboarded. It wasn’t exactly a satisfying session, as skate sessions go, but it was a premium hangout with my old-time skate buds. For me, that’s what it’s all about these days—that good stuff that happens when you do something you love with people you love. Rolling. Laughing. Falling down. We're humans. All we have is each other. So, another GSD spent with Scott and Ashley and Derek and I couldn’t ask for more.

Work train to Seattle: I rode the train up past the Puget Sound (destination: Seattle) to do a fancy ad-agency pitch for Nemo. It was a fun and adult-y thing to do. I like train travel even though it makes me a little bit car sick. Train sick? Anyway, it’s very hassle-free. A throwback from another time. Also, train stations are beautiful, and I always take time to appreciate beauty in my travels.

Holiday crowd avoidance: For the third year in a row, we went into the woods for a couple days, walking far and high, sleeping in tents, and then returned to town on July Fourth afternoon so dirty and dog tired that there was no need felt to celebrate, to light things on fire. Instead, copious food was eaten, and day beers drank at George’s house, and then home to watch TV as the mortars blasted through the evening cool. This has become my “America day” ritual, and I am not sorry.

Homesteading: Like a boss, Mark framed up a shed/living quarters AKA shedquarters in two days. I tried to help. I moved some two-by-fours from one pile to another and also tacked up plywood with the motherfuckin nail gun. It feels good to be building, building something real made from tangibles like wood and nails and windows, but also building a life—a potentiality of future days spent easily and peacefully off in the forest.