Been chugging along here in my new environs (Northern California). I have both a lot to say and absolutely nothing to say at the same time. It’s an interesting place to find yourself in - or to not find your self in, as the case may be.

The case for me is I am working a new job four days a week, which is the most I’ve worked in a while. (Because I am a lazy lazy jerk.) It’s going well and I’m learning some new tricks on the computer which I’d like to figure out how to apply here over the long haul.

I am learning all kinds of new tricks in general actually: beer brewing from my girlfriend (we might start a second smaller batch tonight), and some juggling as well. I’m going to buy myself a set of clubs sometime soon after I get paid and once I can actually make them stay in the air. Juggling is weird because - I don’t know how to describe it: it integrates the hemispheres of your brain or something. Sort of stitches them together into these patterns which you can then manipulate and reverse and do all kinds of crazy stuff that looks and feels really cool. Probably a lot more to be said about all that stuff, but I’ll have to take it as it comes.

Seems like that’s where I’m at in general lately: integrating things. Pulling together the gains (and losses) I have made over the past several months. Calling in the intelligent analytic agents my mind spawned through the course of whatever has been happening to me and reviewing their data as it applies to “real life.”

I feel very much like I have stripped my life down to an even more barebones version of what it was before. My focus has been realigned. My priorities have been lovingly zapped from both above and below and from the sides. I’m tempted to say that it’s a whole new me, but it’s really not. It’s more of a decision about which me I want to be and sticking to it, but also staying eminently flexible and not trying to force anything. Or not trying to force everything, anyway…

Arcata I think is a good place to go through what I am going through. Everything is so simple here. There are only so many blocks you can walk down, only so many restaurants you can eat at or stores to shop from or types of beers to drink (unless you make your own of course). It really throws you back onto yourself to figure out what’s what and have a good time.

Since coming down here the outside world has basically vanished for me. I don’t see any mainstream media. I don’t read newspapers that aren’t local (and the local ones are totally absurd). I don’t surf the web endlessly for tantalizing and terrifying headlines. I don’t know what movies are coming out. I don’t know what television shows are popular. I don’t know who’s winning on American Idol and frankly I don’t miss a single tiny bit of it. It’s like John Lennon used to talk about before they brought the fight to his front doorstep: War Is Over If You Want It.

Takes a lot of dedication though. Nevermind a pure heart and mind.

I probably won’t be posting as regularly until I figure out my new rhythm here with work and everything. Gonna try to blast out some writing this weekend, but I’m not really sure where it will go, what I will focus on, what will be the issues I feel are worth communicating about anymore. Everything’s in flux. Everything’s alive. We have beer brewing in the closet. It is wrapped in a blanket. The yeast are going crazy on it.

PS. If you haven’t already seen it, Jeremy Puma’s Fantastic Planet is back online with a new name and URL (just so you know!)